Hooray for Federalism!

Alexis de Tocqueville

Amidst the political and media hysterics, it's helpful to remember that the government is not really shut down at all, even at the federal level--many of its functions remain intact. Move importantly, thanks to the genius of our federal system, the impact to the daily life of most Americans has not been particularly noticeable. To see just how little has changed outside of the Beltway, here's a partial listing of public services that will continue to function in the rest of the nation:

Sanitation and Environment:

Clean water will still flow to your house. Trash and recycling will still be collected. The streets and sidewalks will still be kept clean. Sewage will still be treated. State and local emission controls will still remain in effect. State and local laws will still protect streams and rivers from dumping and runoff. Natural resources will be protected.

Health and Safety:

Criminal laws will be enforced. Police, fire, and EMS will still respond to 911. State and local health departments will still offer immunizations and free clinics for the poor. Inspectors will still ensure proper food preparation. Hospitals will still admit patients in the emergency room. Fire marshals will still inspect public buildings.

Education:

Public and private universities will still have classes. Elementary and secondary schools will remain open. School busses will run. Libraries will let you check out a book or browse the internet for free. State, local, and privately-funded museums, zoos, aquariums, and bird sanctuaries will remain open to the public.

Transportation:

Traffic lights will still function. Street lamps will still light. State and local police will still enforce traffic laws. Road signs and markings will be maintained. Construction of roads and bridges will continue. Highway and bridge tolls will be collected. Public transit will still run. Driver's licenses will still be issued. Traffic cameras will still monitor for backups--and red-light runners.

Commerce:

Sales taxes will still be collected. Fuel pumps will still be inspected. Telecommunications will still be regulated. Electricity will still be delivered. Liquor licenses will still be issued. Barbers and cosmetologists will still be certified. Zoning and building permits will still be issued. Minimum wage will still be enforced. Contracts, deeds, titles, articles of incorporation, and other public records will remain accessible and in full force.

Quality of Life:

State and local parks, forests, and game lands will remain open. Hunting and fishing licenses will still be issued. State and local first responders will still provide security at sporting and entertainment events. Tourism and neighborhood committees will still work to attract visitors and residents.

And there's so much more. Tocqueville would be proud! As he wrote:

In great centralized nations the legislator is obliged to give a character of uniformity to the laws, which does not always suit the diversity of customs and of districts; as he takes no cognizance of special cases, he can only proceed upon general principles; and the population are obliged to conform to the requirements of the laws, since legislation cannot adapt itself to the exigencies and the customs of the population, which is a great cause of trouble and misery. This disadvantage does not exist in confederations; Congress regulates the principal measures of the national government, and all the details of the administration are reserved to the provincial legislatures. One can hardly imagine how much this division of sovereignty contributes to the well-being of each of the states that compose the Union. In these small communities, which are never agitated by the desire of aggrandizement or the care of self-defense, all public authority and private energy are turned towards internal improvements. The central government of each state, which is in immediate relationship with the citizens, is daily apprised of the wants that arise in society; and new projects are proposed every year, which are discussed at town meetings or by the legislature, and which are transmitted by the press to stimulate the zeal and to excite the interest of the citizens. This spirit of improvement is constantly alive in the American republics, without compromising their tranquillity; the ambition of power yields to the less refined and less dangerous desire for well- being. It is generally believed in America that the existence and the permanence of the republican form of government in the New World depend upon the existence and the duration of the federal system; and it is not unusual to attribute a large share of the misfortunes that have befallen the new states of South America to the injudicious erection of great republics instead of a divided and confederate sovereignty.

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The President's Masterpiece

Or "The Affordable Care Act"
With Apologies to Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Original Inspiration

HAVE you heard of the wonderful Affordable Care Act,
That was written with such logical tact
It lasted three years to the day,
And then of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,
I’ll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the media into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,--
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Two-thousand plus five and five.

Robert Byrd was then alive,--
Snuffy old drone from the mountain hive.
That was the year when Dallas-town
Saw the sky open and snow fall down,
And McChrystal’s report was done so brown,
Left without a star to his crown.
It was on that night with Texas snow packed
That the President finished his Affordable Care Act.

Now in writing of laws, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,--
In loophole, kickback, flaw, or omission,
In oversight, fine print, clause, or provision,
In title, chapter, subsection,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere, you must and will,--
Above or below, or within, or without,--
And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
A law breaks down, but doesn’t wear out.

But the President swore he would persevere,
With a "Yes we can," and a "Let me be clear,"
He would build ObamaCare to beat the town
and the county and all the country round;
It should be so built that it couldn’t break down;
--"For," said the President, "’Tis mighty plain
That the weakest clause must stand the strain;
And the way to fix it, is I maintain
        At the last minute
To pass the bill to find out what’s in it."

So the President inquired of the Congressional staffers
Where he could find the longest chapters,
That couldn’t be read nor written nor spoke,--
That was to provide a veil of smoke;
He sent for lobbyists to whip up the vote;
The amendments were many, with strenuous pleas;
The votes were postponed, so no one could flee,
But stayed in the Capitol for things like these;
The law would dispense with the ancient vellum--
Liberty destroyed,--they kept trying to tell ‘em,
Never had the Constitution been so at grips,
And the arguments flew from between their lips,
Their deaf ears frizzled like celery-tips;
Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker kickbacks,
Pork-barrel needles in regulatory haystacks,
All the Democrats lined up, Yellow Dogs turned blue;
Deem and pass, free abortion a linchpin too;
Stupak’s amendment, Nantucket sleigh-ride,
Found in the hopper when old lion Ted died.
That was the way he "put her through."--
"There!" said the President, "now she’ll do!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Coverage for all, no premiums to pay,
But the Democrats’ majority dropped away,
Free birth control and abortions,--where are they?
But there stood the stout old Affordable Care Act
As fresh as the day the President signed it in fact!

ONE HUNDRED days;--it came and found
The President’s masterpiece strong and sound.
Two hundred days again;--
ObamaCare, they called it then.
Seven-hundred thirty came;--
Running as usual; much the same.
One thousand days at last arrive,
And then came one thousand and NINETY FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its third full year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)

TWENTY-FIRST OF MARCH,--the emergency rooms are packed.--
There are traces of age in the Affordable Care Act,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local as one may say.
There couldn’t be,--for the President’s art
Had made it so like in every part
That there was not a chance for one to start.
For the employer mandate was just as strong as the insurance exchanges,
And the individual mandate was just as strong as the original pages,
And the Medicaid expansion still gave free pills to the poor,
And the guaranteed coverage was neither less nor more,
And the premium support as strong as before,
And waivers and loopholes, encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past doubt
In another few months it will be worn out!

Twenty-first of March, Twenty-thirteen!
This morning the HHS Secretary can’t be seen.
Now, civil servants, hide from the media, get back!
Here comes the wonderful Affordable Care Act,
Regulatory uncertainty growing by the day.
"No Lung Transplants!" said the HHS Secretary.--Off went they.
The HHS Secretary was working on her fundraising text,--
Had got to the NFL, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Fluke--was coming next.
All at once the presses stood still,
Waiting for word from Capitol Hill.
--First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the Treasury Secretary was getting ready to fly,
At the end of the day before the fourth of July,--
Just the hour to hide from any media reply!
--What do you think the Treasury Secretary found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old law in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,--
All at once, and nothing first,--
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful Affordable Care Act.
Logic is logic, and that’s a fact.

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Fire in the Sky--A War Story

Philippines, Summer 1945:

The great nations of the world have waged terrible war for more than five years, but my grandfather is still a young man, eager and fresh-eyed, ready for anything. He tried to join the Army the day after Pearl Harbor, but the Lieutenant at the New Haven recruiting station told him to wait--the war would still be raging when he graduated from college. The Lieutenant would eventually be proven wrong. Classes at Yale were cancelled in 1944.

Now, he is halfway around the globe, 15,000 feet above Manila Bay. The sleek silver lines of his C-47 slice through the tropical breeze while the twin turbocharged 14-cylinder engines split the air with a deafening roar. A platoon of soldiers is in the back, passing time on the first leg of a long journey home. Some of the men are sleeping; others listen to Tokyo Rose on a shortwave radio and play cards.

They are bound for Leyte, where transport ships are waiting to rotate out the victorious beachstormers for a little R&R back in the states. Even as they fly over the remaining pockets of Japanese-held territory, thoughts of war and slaughter are already receding into memory, rarely to be spoken of in the presence of those who were never there. One of the men is re-reading a letter from his girlfriend for the 100th time--she has accepted his marriage proposal.

My grandfather is looking out the side window at a fishing junk trawling the gentle turquoise-green waters when suddenly the pilot shouts out, "FIRE! Engine One!" Thoughts racing, he remembers the technical briefing he had taken only two days earlier as he lunges up from his seat and into the main compartment. Counter to every instinct, he screams above the roar of the engines and frantically pulls the crew chief's hands away from the bright red handle with the neatly stenciled letters "CO2 EXTINGUISHER."

Although words only come out in blurts and sputters, the message is received loud and clear. The crew chief backs down. My grandfather would later explain that the extinguisher is not designed to put out an engine fire; it only has 15 seconds worth of carbon dioxide, not nearly enough to smother such a large blaze. Instead, the situation now slightly calmer, my grandfather returns to the cockpit to assist the pilot with the still burning engine.

They must first cut out the burning engine to stop the supply of gasoline. My grandfather takes the controls, struggling to keep the plane level on only one engine. Meanwhile, the pilot is busy watching fuel and temperatures gauges--the magic number is 495 degrees Fahrenheit, the ignition point. Unless the engine cools below this temperature, it will catch fire when the fuel starts flowing again. Everybody on board holds his breath, hoping the fuel will stop leaking--nobody wants to crash-land behind enemy lines on the trip home.

Agonizingly tense minutes pass by, the intensity mounting and magnified by the stifling equatorial sun. Each man privately wonders if the remaining engine will sputter out, sending them all violently earthward. The shortwave radio is no longer playing. The soldiers in the main compartment are staring holes through the cockpit bulkhead as if they can see the pilot, perhaps to discern by some imperceptible sign a change in his expression that will signal their deliverance. The roar of the engine is the only sound. It is the sound of life.

Suddenly, the plane shudders as my grandfather wrestles with the controls. The second engine is spinning up as the pilot gently eases the throttle all the way forward. The men erupt in cheers, not knowing that the plane is still in danger. If they keep flying, the joint in the engine will heat back up and start leaking again. Partly to avoid attracting unwanted attention from the Japanese and partly to avoid frightening the soldiers, my grandfather does not signal mayday.

As the pilot scans the area looking for a safe place to land, a slash of white in the jungle catches his eye. My grandfather is now busy with maps of the area, but this airstrip is not marked. His maps are a few weeks old. He fixes their general position based on the features of the nearby shoreline and a nearby town. The airstrip is in newly captured territory. The Seabees have finished their work just in time.

Maintaining radio silence, they begin to circle around for landing. The pilot attempts to lower the landing gear, but only one wheel comes down. The fire has damaged the starboard wing more than they first realized. The electrical wiring and hydraulics are completely out of commission. My grandfather signals to the pilot to circle back around for another attempt. This time the crew chief will have to manually lower the jammed landing gear.

The silver fuselage sparkles in the sun as the plane banks in a great sweeping arc in the sky. To an observer on the ground, it must look like some futuristic, metallic bird of prey, circling for the kill. Inside the bird's aluminum belly, the crew chief is frantically cranking away with a small wrench, but the landing gear doesn't budge an inch. To make matters worse, the port landing gear will not retract either. It will be a rough landing.

The crew chief commands all aboard to brace themselves as the pilot circles around one last time, they will only get one chance now, they've lost too much altitude. As they level off, my grandfather sees construction equipment sitting on the side of the runway. The plane buffets as the pilot narrowly misses a row of telephone wires and then they come smoothly down until the plane is just above the runway. "This is it! Brace for landing!"

In the next instant, there is a sound of crunching and grating metal. Just as the lone wheel rips into the concrete, the left wing hurtles sideways towards the ground and starts to drag. Both my grandfather and the pilot muster every last bit of strength to keep the plane from spinning out of control into the line of bulldozers. Without hydraulics, they only just manage to keep on a more or less straight path down the runway. The smell of gasoline and burning rubber fills the air.

When the plane finally comes to rest, every man runs like hell to get away from the mangled wreckage. With hundreds of gallons of gasoline everywhere, the slightest spark would spell the end of anybody unfortunate enough to be within fifty yards of the ensuing explosion. My grandfather is one of the last to jump clear of the wrecked plane. The plane is tilted crazily and the cockpit door is 15 feet above the ground, but he manages to roll into the ground and run to safety.

My grandfather finally stops to catch his breath and before he can even turn to survey the damage to his plane, he sees a Jeep driving up from the small encampment on the edge of the jungle clearing. He quickly realizes this is a Colonel with his driver, and jerks his body to attention only to be painfully reminded how badly he is bruised from the crash. The Colonel dismounts and storms up to my grandfather asking, "are you the pilot?!" My grandfather politely responds in the negative.

"You should have ditched in the bay! We just finished construction here, the General is on his way for an inspection, and you just put a big old scratch on my runway!" In reply, my grandfather would like to inform the Colonel on the exact probability of success of a water landing with this particular model of airplane, which is to say, zero. Instead, he manages an obviously strained, "yes, sir." Despite my grandfather's having just saved the lives of the flight crew and a whole platoon, the Colonel mutters a few oaths under his breath and then storms off to his Jeep and speeds away.

Epilogue:

It will be a long wait until another plane can come to transport my grandfather and his passengers to Leyte and even longer until my grandfather will see the shores of California again. Despite the Colonel's poor assessment of his flying skills, my grandfather will soon be promoted to a special detail, flying the top Army brass back and forth between forward bases, always flying over enemy territory.

Meanwhile, the whole might of the American military prepares for the last invasion: Japan itself. My grandfather even trains to lead the first wing of paratroopers on X-Day, as it's called, but after the atomic bomb brings the war to an early end, he will instead spend two years with the occupation force before he finally returns home to complete his studies at Yale.

Nearly 70 years after these exploits, William James Gardner passed away on a Sunday evening in April. This story was only one of many, most of which we will never know. In the last years of his life, my grandmother placed a framed box of his war medals next to his bed, but like most of his generation, he spoke little of those days when the "whole world went crazy" as my grandmother once put it. He goes now to be reunited with so many brothers in arms who were called home all those years ago, every one of them covered with glory defending the nation that they loved so dearly.

My grandfather on his 90th birthday.

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Tiny Pieces of History

Century-old glass shards

To follow up from the previous entry in these pages, the Prolix Patriot and family are settling into their new home and have experienced firsthand the joys of living in a historic urban neighborhood. Every yard is full of archaeological evidence (i.e., dead people's trash). In our case, there are countless little shards of colored glass all around the yard right on the surface. With the arrival of warmer weather and more extensive landscaping projects, there’s no telling what other discoveries we will make.

A search of property records reveals that the glazier who left behind these tiny pieces of history was a certain Ludwig Von Gerichten who was born in 1873 in Hesse in the newly-formed German Empire. It's unclear when he emigrated to the United States, but sometime in the 1890's, Ludwig and his brother Theodore had settled in Columbus, Ohio and founded the Von Gerichten Art Glass Company.

More than 850 churches in the United States have windows that were made by hand at the Von Gerichten glassworks. One such example is the old Trinity Lutheran Church and another example is the now-defunct St. Leo Parish, where Ludwig himself was probably a parishioner. According to one source, the brothers parted ways and the company was dissolved in 1931. Their factory--which was a work of art in its own right--was eventually demolished in the 1960's to make way for the Interstate Highway System.

The end of the Von Gerichten Art Glass Company was not the only tragedy in Ludwig’s life. Some years before that, his wife Katherine died and records indicate that he sold his house and traveled between his glass studios in Europe and the United States. Today, they are both buried in Greenlawn Cemetery, reunited more than 30 years after Katherine passed away much too young.

However, the legacy of the Von Gerichten brothers lives on. The Franklin Art Glass Company was co-founded in 1924 by the son of the shop foreman of the Von Gerichten glassworks, Henry Helf, and is located just a few blocks from where the old Von Gerichten factory once stood. The Franklin Art Glass Company still makes and repairs stained glass windows in the Old World tradition to this very day.

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We Bought a House in the City

Downtown Columbus, Ohio

The Prolix Patriot believes that the future of conservatism will depend on restoring and rebuilding our cities after decades of liberal decay and neglect, so he and the Missus purchased a house in the city to put his money where his mouth is, as it were. For the first time in the history of the world, more people live in cities than do not. If conservatism is to remain a vital force in our civilization, we must bring our values back to the cities and our core institutions.

There are many obstacles to this project of course. In a map of precinct-level election returns, cities are the deepest of deep blue islands even in states that as a whole lean solidly to the right. Municipal elections are settled in Democratic primaries and the November elections might as well be like the Soviet Union where the only answer is "Yes." This is an unlikely place to look for conservative values. Living in the city is a decidedly counter-cultural proposition for us, especially when trying to have a large family.

However, because of this, conservatives in cities know the value of community perhaps more acutely than their liberal neighbors. Whereas for liberals the many boards and committees of municipal government provide numerous opportunities for civic involvement, for conservatives the first unit of organization (after the family of course) is the parish, and unsurprisingly, the most vibrant and conservative parish in Columbus is in the heart of the city, not at its periphery.

Fortified by communities of faith and family, conservatives are better prepared to engage with people of differing opinions instead of succumbing to the liberal tendency towards oikophobia. As conservatives, we can highlight the things that we do have in common with liberals without completely surrendering to radicalism. That said, instead of seeking to find common cause where none exists, we must use every opportunity to encourage our liberal neighbors to rethink their attitudes about conservatism—and perhaps even join our cause.

As one example, conservatives can demonstrate that conservation of nature (as opposed to radical environmentalism) is best achieved by making cities a desirable place to live instead of punishing people for the economically rational decision to live in the outer suburbs. As another example, horrible schools deter families from living in the city. Groups like Southside STAY in Columbus recognize this problem. Conservatives should emphasize our commitment to school choice and teacher accountability as the means to restore urban schools and make it easier for large families to thrive.

Many years ago, the Prolix Patriot wrote a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal defending the importance of cities even in an age where technology makes it easier to communicate across vast distances and sprawling infrastructure provides relatively quick access from the countryside to the urban core and vice-versa. These advances are wonderful in some ways but they also have their drawbacks, and they can never replace the value of proximity that nurtures and sustains communities and our society as a whole.

Conservatives recognize that human nature does not change. Instead of the Bloombergian nanny-state which tries to force people to live according to the latest fad, we recognize that the way to change behavior is by setting a good example ourselves and by providing incentives for others to do the right thing. It will take much time and effort to repair the damage (both physical and spiritual) that liberalism has inflicted on our cities over the past 50 years, but if we do not commit ourselves to the task, we cannot complain about the decaying and degraded society that our children will inherit.

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The Raven and the Jumping Frog

Quoth the Raven, "We're the Underdogs"

Sports writers have spilled more than enough ink writing about the strange coincidence that regardless of which team wins Super Bowl XLVII this weekend, it will be coached by a man named Harbaugh. Instead of dwelling on this piece of sports trivia, we will instead turn our attention to some other strange similarities between the two cities that the competing teams call home.

Both Baltimore and San Francisco are historic seaports due to their prime locations on a natural harbor. Baltimore is just upriver from the Chesapeake Bay in the East while San Francisco is forms one side of the mouth of the eponymous San Francisco Bay. As a result of their proximity to the two largest estuaries in the country, both cities have excellent seafood. The specialty in Baltimore is of course the crab cake while San Francisco is known as the birthplace of cioppino which was created by the large numbers of Italian fishermen who settled in San Francisco during the 19th Century. Speaking of Italians, it is also notable that former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi was born in Baltimore where her father was Mayor but now represents San Francisco in Congress and is the first woman and the first Italian-American to serve as Speaker of the House.

Depending on where you're from, the term "Bay Bridge" may have a different meaning. In California, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is infamous for having partially collapsed during game three of the 1989 World Series and is in the process of being replaced to avoid a repeat performance. In the Mid-Atlantic region, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is equally infamous as a constant source of traffic delays, numerous fatal accidents, and persistent structural problems. Both are suspension bridges and prior to 1964, both bridges carried U.S. Route 50 from sea to shining sea, although today Route 50's western terminus is now in Sacramento. The wise should avoid both bridges during the big game, just to be safe.

In addition to these geographic similarities, the cities are associated two of America's greatest men of letters. Edgar Allan Poe, who has been called the father of detective fiction and the master of the macabre, died in 1849 at the age of 40 under strange circumstances in Baltimore. The Balitmore Ravens are of course named after Poe's most famous poem. In keeping with the pervasive succession of tragedies in Poe's short life, he was paid only $9 for its publication. The year of Poe's death was also the height of the gold rush that gives the "Forty-niners" their name and some 15 years later, a young journalist and jack-of-all-trades named Samuel Clemens moved to San Francisco after having failed as a gold prospector. It was during this time that Clemens wrote a short story titled, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" under his pen name, "Mark Twain." This was his first major success and marked the start of a very long and brilliant career.

Despite these many similarities, "The City by the Bay" has always been more appealing in the public imagination than the so-called "Charm City." San Francisco conjures up images of flower-clad hippies, quaint cable cars, and the yeasty aroma of fresh-baked sourdough bread. Meanwhile, the biggest claims to fame for the city of Baltimore are a crime melodrama called "The Wire" and a show about cakes that don't look like cake. Even though it has been nicknamed "Fog City," most outsiders think of San Francisco as a sunny and cheerful place--which is most certainly is not. As Mark Twain famously never said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." On the other hand, Baltimore's reputation as a gritty post-industrial wasteland is thoroughly well-deserved.

Perhaps this explains the map above. A survey of Facebook users' personal preferences shows that the San Francisco Forty-niners are the clear fan favorite this weekend while the Ravens enjoy only slim support along the Eastern Seaboard. Indeed, the only states which are solidly rooting for the Ravens are Maryland and Delaware. Every other state has at least one county rooting for the 'Niners and in all but a handful, San Francisco fans are in the majority, although most are admittedly of the fair-weather variety. Fortunately the Super Bowl is being held at an indoor stadium this year.

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The Road to Damascus

The Conversion of St. Paul, 1767 by Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie

Saint Paul is no ordinary saint. Unlike much of the New Testament which was passed on through oral tradition by the apostles before being written down, we know with complete certainty that Paul's epistles were written during his life by his own hand--the same hand which had formerly whipped and shackled Christians. Aside from the divine figures of the Holy Family, Paul is arguably the most important figure in all of Christianity. As a convert, the Prolix Patriot has a special fondness for Paul's story because he shows us that it is never too late and no sin is too great when we come to that place on the road to Damascus in our own lives.

It is fitting then that in addition to the Feat of the Conversion of Saint Paul, today is also the March for Life in Washington, D.C. and many of the Prolix Patriot's dear friends will be there braving the bitter cold as witnesses to Jesus' triumph over death. The most heartbreaking and yet awe-inspiring point in the March for Life is always the women who have had abortions, but have since then come to regret that "choice" as it is so often euphemized. Like Paul, they have been stopped dead in their tracks and blinded by God's awesome love. Like Paul, these women have realized that even they can find forgiveness and hope. Their courage to speak out against abortion from personal experience is a testament to the eternal power of life over death and the victory of love over sin--and this testament must also stop us dead in our tracks as well.

Relatedly, in our national discourse we are called to consider the essence of womanhood by the Obama Administration's recent decision to allow women to serve in combat duty. Women have been endowed with the incredible power to participate in the creation of life. Just as we pray for conversion of those who have had abortions or are contemplating one, we also must pray that women can always be protectors of life--and perhaps even in the heat of in battle as medics or corpsmen--but should never be destroyers of life. It is bad enough when mothers must bury their sons as casualties of war, but a son should never have to bury his mother because of the enemy's bullet.

We live in times of persecution for people of faith, but Paul reminds us that even the persecutors themselves are nevertheless called by God's infinite love to righteousness just as the most devout believers are called to continuing conversion of heart to more fully emulate Jesus and to spread the Gospel. We must remember that Jesus in all of his dreadful power was born of a woman just like the rest of us. As a consequence, a proper respect for the protective and live-giving qualities of womanhood is essential if we seek to know the heart of Jesus.

As Goethe wrote and Mahler so powerfully set to music describing the epic final scene of Faust's redemption and ascent to Heaven:

Alles Vergängliche Ist nur ein Gleichnis; Das Unzulängliche, Hier wird’s Ereignis; Das Unbeschreibliche. Hier ist's getan; Das Ewig Weibliche Zieht uns hinan.

All that is transitory Is but an image; The inadequacy of earth Here finds fulfillment; The ineffable Here is accomplished; The eternal feminine leads us upwards.

Even though Dr. Faust is a fictional character, we know from the example of Saint Paul that even a man who sold his soul to the Devil would still be able to repent and seek God's eternal mercy. Like Saint Paul, we are all living in blindness, but no matter how great our small our sins, we are all on the road to Damascus and Jesus is calling us.

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