The Apocalypse is Now!

“When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and lowering.' You know then how to discern the face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?”Matthew 16:2-4

Today I read yet another story about the grim news of climate change. I am not waiting for an Apocalypse because there can be little doubt now that the Apocalypse of Selfishness of which I have written is the Apocalypse of Now. The changes in climate that herald a drastic change in the Earth's climate that has welcomed humanity are now accelerating at an unprecedented rate and severity.

In Scripture Christ mocked those who could not see the signs of what was happening. Are the Climate Change Deniers guilty of the same shortsightedness and is the result going to be an ever acerbating destruction of humanities' habitat?

When I read and hear the rhetoric of the Republican candidates for President (all of them) I am reminding what Jefferson wrote:

"I tremble for my county, when I reflect that God is just." Make that tremble for the world. Of course the irony is that slaveholder Jefferson never acted personally to alleviate the evil that brought the greatest destruction in his country's history.

Yet, in three months we will be celebrating another holiday: Easter. It is the hope of Resurrection that fueled the growth of Christianity but Pope Francis has recognized that God's mercy and forgiveness is not just for those baptized Christians. It is for all humanity. There is always hope for survival, if not for the entirety of humanity, at least for each and every of humanities' members. Let us pray Francis is right.

Read and weep: "Climate Change Across the Map" NY Times 12/31/2015  p. 1
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This is not a promo for my book "Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html

Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013: Christ, Kennedy and Lincoln

For the past two years we have been celebrating day by day the 150th anniversary of events in the Civil War. This year is  huge. There is the horrific Union loss at Chancellorsville followed by the turning point victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July, followed by the Gettysburg address at which Lincoln  redefined our  Nation, turning us toward the fundamental values of the Declaration of Independence.

This is also the fiftieth anniversary of two events of the JFK presidency. The first was the June speech at American University in DC where he first publicly proposed a ban on the atmospheric testing of Atomic weapons. Both he and Khrushchev had looked into the abyss the previous year during the Cuban Missile Crisis and knew the desperate path the World was trodding toward nuclear annihilation.

Kennedy's speech is best remembered by this phrase about the need for US-Soviet cooperation:

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy lost the White House on November 22, 1963. There is substantial evidence that he did plan to pull of Vietnam after the 1964 election and already had drafted an order to pull back our commitment. All that ended in Dallas, His successor gave the military-industrial complex the war it wanted.

Lincoln finally won his war in 1865. He visited vanquished Richmond but a week later he too was assassinated.

I have come to believe the enduring truth of the Christian faith (or myth, if that suits you) is not the resurrection but its transfiguring of all human experience into the divine. Lincoln and Kennedy both enjoyed great triumphs before their assassins struck. The cheers in Dallas were still ringing in JFK’s ears when all went black.

Today is Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of an donkey. Cheers were ringing also in his ears. Then came the crucifixion and three days of black for his disciples. And then came Easter morning and the witness of Mary Magdalene that some thing  marvelous had happened.

Today is Palm Sunday and we can not forget even as we celebrate that Good Friday lies only five days in the future. But then two days more and it is Easter.

I close with a quotation from Elaine Pagels, author of the Gnostic Gospels:

“In its portrait of Christ’s life and his passion, orthodox teaching offered a means of interpreting fundamental elements of human experience. Rejecting the gnostic view that Jesus was a spiritual being, the orthodox insisted that he, like the rest of humanity, was born, lived in a family, became hungry and tired, ate and drank wine, suffered and died. They even went so far as to insist that he rose bodily from the dead. Here again, as we have seen, orthodox tradition implicitly affirms bodily experience as the central fact of human life. What one does physically—one eats and drinks, engages in sexual life or avoids it, saves one’s life or gives it up—all are vital elements in one’s religious development. But those gnostics who regarded the essential part of every person as the “inner spirit” dismissed such physical experience, pleasurable or painful, as a distraction from spiritual reality—indeed, as an illusion. No wonder, then, that far more people identified with the orthodox portrait than with the “bodiless spirit” of gnostic tradition. Not only the martyrs, but all Christians who have suffered for 2,000 years, who have feared and faced death, have found their experience validated in the story of the human Jesus.”[i]

We in this generation are blessed with a new revelation. His Shroud which not only registers the fact of His crucifixion, but whispers the hope of his Resurrection, and ours.

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[i] Pagels, Elaine (2004-06-29). The Gnostic Gospels (p. 99). Random House. Kindle Edition.

Clumsy me and the Shroud of Turin

Once, while reporting a debate I  participated in some years ago, the New York Law Journal referred to me as the “most avuncular” of the participants. I was a little upset because it looked like a reference to my weight, which wasn’t that bad until I looked the word up. Avuncular means “uncle like, a tendency to make points by telling stories”(or perhaps to bore relatives to death). I took satisfaction in that because in history, two of the most avuncular personalities were Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. To make their points, Christ told parables and Lincoln told jokes – some of which, if you saw the recent movie or read any of his biographies, were a bit uncouth. I was in good company.

Right now in the course of drafting my manuscript, I am struggling a bit to capture the flavor of the scientific miracle that was the 120 hours of scientific analysis by STURP in Turin. I am particularly taken by the tale of aragonite limestone being found. But first let me tell MY story.

As some may know, my wife Rene and I have a particular empathetic but rambunctious Yellow Labrador Retriever  named Bogart. One morning a week or so ago I was walking “Bogie” and  he had a confrontation with another dog (unusual for him), He jerked the leash hard and I fell forward,  landing flat on the sidewalk. I suffered as a result an abrasion on my right knee and  a slight one on the tip of my nose.  Neither was a big deal.

Later, when I was reviewing the 120 hours, I came across one of the most significant finds (I now believe) of the research in that time period. I smiled a bit in recognition of what I was reading.

The Gilberts were running spectrographic analysis of the Shroud. They came across some anomalies and found that they were on the soles of the feet, one knee and the tip of the nose of  the Man in the Shroud. Sam Pellicori who was the chief microscope person on the STURP team was called in to check and see if he could find what the problem was. He found it quickly. There was dirt on the soles of the feet, one knee and the nose. The dirt on the soles of the feet indicated that he was barefoot on his way to his crucifixion. The nose and the knee were likely from a fall, as tradition has held, he did.

Most importantly, perhaps, scientific analysis of the dirt, which was picked-up by chemist Ray Rogers from the points on the Shroud, indicated that it was a specific, rare form of aragonite limestone, found only so far in the area of Jerusalem.

Obviously, my minor discomfort is nothing compared to the agony He suffered on the way of the Cross. But I can attest from personal experience, if you fall flat on your face, your knee and your nose are likely to be bruised. The evidence of just such injuries on the Shroud, while small and petty compared to the gross suffering inflicted on him, is one more item of the myriad of circumstances attesting to the authenticity of the Shroud.

The Shroud a product of forgery? As we say in New York, forget-about-it. You can’t make this stuff up. (I hope He has a sense of humor, Lincoln did.)

The Party of Lincoln

Once there was a time when there was a Republican Party that called itself "The Party of Lincoln." They sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at national conventions. Now, no more Lincoln.

Lincoln and his genius are the great enigma's of history. As Gary Wills as written, he literally redefined America at Gettysburg, re-establishing the egalitarian and populist ideals of the Declaration of Independence as the defining document of our the Republic. In one alternative history book, the Union loses Gettysburg, the South wins the war and Lincoln re-emerges as the founder of the American Socialist Party.

But even though he made his mark as a lawyer for the railroads, Lincoln was a populist. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he argued for the rights of the individual over the rights of property. And, he advocated the right of people to revolt, if government ever trampled on their liberties.

Unlike Lincoln, Obama won his Senatorial campaign in Illinois. His is also a studied intelligence. He has been gifted with an education at the finest educational institutions in America, among the very best in the world. He was a fatherless child, Lincoln a motherless one who, according to legend, whittled the feet for his mother’s casket.

The contrast between McCain and Obama personally, could not be greater.

On can not presume to call Obama a new Lincoln, Roosevelt or Kennedy. But more than any Presidential candidate since Kennedy, he embodies the very best of what we have to offer ourselves, and the world.

He is a risk, a risk of enormous disappointment if he fails. But, he has the intellect and the savvy that could lead us out of our current multiple crises.

The issue in this campaign will be whether America has the courage to follow the candidate of the real “Party of Lincoln.”

Obama and Patriotism

Once I heard someone say that the truly great democratic leader is one who dreams a great dream for us. As one whose first presidential vote was for Jack Kennedy, and whose last presidential vote maybe for Barack Obama, I have been gratified, at times stunned, by Obama’s eloquence. Is he a perfect vessel for social justice? Was Lincoln?

One of the incidents involving Lincoln's nomination in 1860 was his message to his supporters at the Republican convention that they not trade promises for convention votes and that he would not be bound by their promises. They ignored his message. After he was nominated and elected, he somehow kept every deal they had made. He was a lawyer for the railroads who was an authentic populist, who mocked those who believed the property rights were equal to human rights.

As Obama does a gandy dance* around some of the difficult issues that have been used by the right to push back the clock, not beyond the two Roosevelts, but beyond Lincoln, we might just cut him some slack. A littler obfuscation on gun control, for example, may be painful to some of us, but it might be appropriate, although the NRA, apparently, hasn't been fooled. A little distancing from Wes Clark’s blunt, but accurate, assessment of John McCain's service career, isn't the same as drinking cool aid.

Ironically, during the 1960 campaign, my eldest brother, an Air Force officer, complained about Kennedy's war record. "The only thing he did is get his PT Boat run over by a Jap destroyer." **

This is not the first time in this campaign that Obama has shown amazing insight and grace with his analysis of a complex problem. His first speech on race, when he tried to explain Rev. Wright's anger is, and will be, a classic. Rev. Wright repaid him by a self-absorbed display of petulance that nearly destroyed Obama's campaign.

I expect that some of the response to Obama’s message on patriotism will reflect the same destructive anger that marks Rev. Wright and so much of the Vietnam protest. Those protestors who burned the American flag may have actually prolonged the war and insured the birth of the Nixon-Reagan-Bush era.

Obama chooses not to burn the flag, but to wave it. God bless America, the beautiful.

*Gandy dancer refers to the footwork of railroad workers placing and resetting ties on the rail road.

** See http:/www.johnklotz.com/billy.htm for more about my family and WWII.

Obama's rendezvous with history

[The following post is derived from a comment posted on Salon.com that was designated as an "Editor's Choice]"

This has been the most pre-convention fun since 1960 and I think the result will be as good. I hope everybody relaxes and enjoys the ride.

If Obama should lose, I will have no trouble voting for Hillary, although with a slightly heavy heart. But after the results today, I don't think that is a likely possibility.

In the lead-up to this week-end (February 9-10), Maine was pictured as a toss-up and HRC's best chance for a victory. In the end, Obama did about as well as any place else this weekend. On Tuesday (February 12), barring a major misalignment of the stars, he will in fact win all three primaries in which he is favored by as much as he was favored anyplace this weekend. By the tine we get to March 4 and the two big enchiladas he will have had a virtual month of crushing victories.

I believe he and his campaign have demonstrated the talent and have the money to roll through those two and the best HRC will get is an inconclusive stand-off, a virtual draw.

The recent shake-up of the Hillary campaign is a reflection of all the things the Obama campaign has done right. No campaign is a one man band but this campaign reflects the genius and talent of a truly remarkable human being who has been its candidate and leader (or "decider" as Shrub might say). Maine clinched the deal for me.

I hope at some point, HRC understands that she is facing someone who could become very special in the history of our country. She is Douglas to his Lincoln, Adams to his Jefferson, Al Smith to his Roosevelt.

Hillary is a brilliant woman and would make an able President. But Obama is gifted beyond extraordinary. The long dark night of the American soul may really be over this time. I only hope that HRC and company, get the point soon enough. As John Edwards said: there comes a time when you have to get out of the way of History.

The most likely scenario I see is the simplest: that Obama is breaking free and running into clear field. If he enters March with nothing but victories in February after Super Tuesday, then it will be over, one way or another. I think Donna Brazile’s strong statements this weekend about the role of Super Delegates will carry the day. She is no dewy-eyed reformer but a Party insider (IMVHO). The wind is blowing and you don’t have to be a weatherman etc.

Obviously his campaign will have to perform extraordinarily well in Texas and Ohio, but based upon its performance thus far, it will.