The Little Red Blog

On the Other Hand

"Let God be true and every man a liar." (Paul, Romans 3:4)

As a non-combatant, I try not to take sides in the War on Christmas; I just want everyone to stop fighting before someone gets hurt, or worse, before any of my presents get broken. 

However, the War continues, with no sign of abating; and while my December posts have so far honored the Christmas season and the Christmas spirit, I feel the need to preserve my neutrality by striking a balance: let those who oppose Christmas also have their say!

For instance:

Christmas is Spiritual Adultery

Taking an evergreen tree, putting it in your house, decorating it with lights, sitting in the dark, and adoring it to Christmas carols is spiritual adultery. You profess to love Jesus, but you do so with the mementos and techniques of other lovers – the world and pagan religion. You are not content with Christ’s pure gospel – for it has no Mass of Christ. You have added the world’s seductions to keep you happy in your marriage to Christ. He is highly offended at your whorish ways. ¹

For the cause of God and truth,

Brother Crosby and
the Church of Greenville ²

I will say this for Brother Crosby and for the two hundred souls which constitute his flock: Flannery O'Connor at her best could not have improved on their brand of Christianity. 

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Let God Be True! (Some very unkind people have noted that the biblical phrase “Let God Be True” yields the acronym LGBT, which goes to show that either Saint Paul, God, or Satan has a sense of humor.)

¹ Remarkably, the same God who despises Christmas willingly embraces the internet: “Greetings in the glorious name of Jesus,” says the homepage at www.letgodbetrue.com. “Thank you for visiting our website. It is our sincere pleasure to meet and serve you by way of the internet.” Has no Christian ever been led astray by the internet or exposed by it to the world’s “seductions” and “whorish ways”?

² Brother Crosby and his church are found in Greenville, South Carolina, which happens to be home to Furman University and to its football team (the Furman Paladins), which pushed the Montana Grizzlies into overtime in Friday night’s thriller. The Paladins’ defense against the run was the best I have ever seen. The only other thing I know about Furman is that it once featured an All-American basketball player named Frank Selvy who, in 1954, scored 100 points in a single game, a Division I record that stands to this day. Selvy went on to be a star in the 1950’s NBA, which bore no resemblance whatsoever to today’s NBA.

 

 

Deck the Halls

As we continue to bask in the glow of the Montana Grizzlies' latest victory, let us return to our holiday theme. Here is a lovely performance of a Christmas classic by a band with one of the best names ever; nor am I embarrassed to admit that the first time I heard of the Lumineers was when Paul Krugman, the world-famous economist, mentioned them in his syndicated column. Doesn't everyone get their music tips from economists?

(114) The Lumineers - Deck The Halls - YouTube

Check out the website: The Lumineers

Saturday Celebration!

We interrupt our holiday-related posting with this breaking news:

Griz Win!

EELS for Christmas?

Full disclosure: I have no idea who these guys are. They’ve apparently been around a while (since 1996!), but they have somehow escaped my radar.

(114) EELS - Christmas, Why You Gotta Do Me Like This (Official Lyric Video) - YouTube

If you care to learn more about EELS:

Eels (band) - Wikipedia

EELS : Official Website (eelstheband.com)

From the classic "EELS on the Run"

 

The Story of Babushka

{Russian Christmas tales are not all about Ded Moroz and his granddaughter Snegurochka. Here, for instance, is a story about a peasant woman named Babushka who decides it would be too much bother to accompany the three kings to worship the newborn Jesus. A contemporary analogy would be turning down free tickets to a Taylor Swift concert, saying you had to stay home and wash your hair.}  

Once in a small Russian town, there lived a women called Babushka. Babushka always had work to do sweeping, polishing, dusting, and cleaning. Her house was the best kept, most tidy house in the whole village. Her garden was beautiful, and her cooking was wonderful. One evening she was busy dusting and cleaning, so busy that she didn't hear all the villagers outside in the village square talking about and looking at the new star in sky.

She had heard about the new star but thought, "All this fuss about a star! I don't even have the time to look because I'm so behind with my work. I must work all night!" So, she missed the star as it shone brightly, high overhead. She also missed the little line of twinkling lights coming down towards the village at dawn. She missed the sounds of the pipes and drums. She missed the voices and whispers of the villagers wondering whether the lights were an army or a procession of some sort. She missed the sudden quiet of the villagers and even the footsteps coming up the path to her door. But the one thing that she couldn't miss was the loud knocking on her front door!

"Now what is that?" she wondered, opening the door. Babushka gaped in amazement. There were three kings at her door with one of their servants! "My masters need a place to rest," the servant said, "and yours is the best house in the village." "You want to stay here?" asked Babushka. "Yes, it would only be until night falls and the star appears again." the servant replied. Babushka gulped. "Come in, then." she said.

The kings were very pleased when they saw all the of the home-baked bread, pies and cakes. She dashed about, serving them, asking lots of questions. "Have you come a long way?" "A very long way." sighed Caspar. "Where are you going?" "We're following the new star." said Melchior. "But where?" The kings didn't know, but they believed that it would lead the to a new-born king, a King of Earth and Heaven. "Why don't you come with us?" asked Balthasar. "You could bring him a gift like we do. I bring gold, and my colleagues bring spices and perfumes." "Oh, I'm not sure that he would welcome me," said Babushka, "and what could I bring for a gift? Toys! I know I could bring a toy. I've got a cupboard full of toys." she said sadly. "My baby son, died when he was small." Balthasar stopped her as she went to tidy the kitchen up. "This new king could be your king too. Come with us when the star appears tonight." he said. "I'll think about it." sighed Babushka.

As the kings slept, Babushka tidied up as quietly as she could. "What a lot of extra work there was!" she thought, "and this new king, what a funny idea, to go off with the kings to find him."

Babushka shook herself. There was no time for dreaming, all this washing-up and putting away had to be done. "Anyway," she thought, "how long would she be away? What would she wear? What about the gift?" She sighed. "There is so much to do. The house will have to be cleaned when they've gone. I couldn't just leave it." Suddenly it was night-time again and the star was in the sky. "Are you ready, Babushka?" asked Balthasar. "I'll come tomorrow," Babushka called, "I must just tidy here first and find a gift."

The kings went away sadly. Babushka ran back into her house, keen to get on with her work.

Finally, she went to the small cupboard, opened the door, and gazed at all the toys. But they were very dusty. They weren't fit for a baby king. They would all need to be cleaned. She cleaned all the toys until each one shined. Babushka looked through the window. It was morning! The star had come and gone. The kings would have found somewhere else to rest by now. She could easily catch them up, but she felt so tired. She had to sleep. The next thing she knew, she was awake, and it was dark outside. She had slept all day! She quickly pulled on her cloak, packed the toys in a basket and ran down the path the kings had taken.

Everywhere she asked, "Have you seen the kings?" "Oh yes," everyone told her, "We saw them. They went that way." For a day Babushka followed the trail of the kings and the villages got bigger and became towns. But Babushka never stopped. Then she came to a city. "The palace," she thought. "That's where the royal baby would be born." "No, there is no royal baby here," said the palace guard when she asked him. "What about three kings?" asked Babushka. "Oh yes, they came here, but they didn't stay long. They were soon on their journey." "But where to?" asked Babushka. "Bethlehem, that was the place. I can't imagine why. It's a very poor place. But that's where they went." replied the guard. She set off towards Bethlehem. It was evening when Babushka arrived at Bethlehem, and she had been traveling for a long time. She went into the local inn and asked about the kings. "Oh yes," said the landlord, "the kings were here two days ago. They were very excited, but they didn't even stay the night." "And what about a baby?" Babushka cried. "Yes, there was," said the landlord. "The kings asked about a baby, too." When he saw the disappointment in Babushka's eyes, he stopped. "If you'd like to see where the baby was," he said quickly, "it was across the yard there. I couldn't offer the couple anything better at the time. My inn was really full, so they had to go in the stable."

Babushka followed him across the yard. "Here's the stable." he said. He left her in the stable. "Babushka?" Someone was calling her from the doorway. He looked kindly at her. She wondered if he knew where the family had gone. She knew now that the baby king was the most important thing in the world to her. "They have gone to Egypt, and safety," he told Babushka. "And the kings have returned to their countries. But one of them told me about you. I am sorry but you are too late. It was Jesus that they found, the world's Savior."

Babushka was very sad that she had missed Jesus; it is said that she is still looking for him.

Christmas in Russia - WhyChristmas.com

"Three kings?" cried Babushka. "You're out of luck. I have a full house."

 

"Christmas Is Magic"

{This short from the Fifties, simultaneously heartwarming and profoundly disturbing, helps explain Baby Boomers’ traumatized psyches: widowed mom and her cloying, annoying young son pick up amnesiac drifter on Christmas eve, bring him home, and then…}

(113) Christmas Is Magic (1953) | Robert Hutton - YouTube

                                                      "The horror! The horror!"

 

"A Long December"

I was skeptical that anyone could do justice to the Counting Crows’ “A Long December,” but this version isn’t bad at all. Little did I know, until I checked out her website, that Amanda Stewart is from Bozeman, Montana…

Amanda Stewart: (112) A Long December - YouTube

https://amandastewartmusic.com/

"Christmas Time's A-Comin'"

To be perfectly honest, at this point The Little Red Blog is tired of hearing itself talk; and while the philosophical musings of Pascal the existential Russian blue cat will never fail to fascinate, Pascal and I have agreed to take a break for the holiday season.

That said, postings will continue; they will just be limited to links to seasonally appropriate music, stories, movies, or shows. Starting with this:

(112) Christmas Time's a-Comin' (2004 Remaster) - YouTube

Who better than Emmylou Harris to get our holidays started? This is from her classic Christmas album, “Light of the Stable,” originally released in 1979 (!).

As a bonus, here’s a song that was not on the original album but was added to a re-release:

(112) There's a Light - YouTube

 

Sunday Sermon: "Beware of Darkness"

Beware of Darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night                                                                                                                              Beware of sadness

It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness

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Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: George Harrison

Beware of Darkness lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

George Harrison original: (112) Beware of Darkness (2014 Remaster) - YouTube

Leon Russell version: (112) Beware Of Darkness - YouTube

Sheryl Crow version: (112) Sheryl Crow - Beware Of Darkness (Live At Newport Folk Festival) ft. Brandi Carlile - YouTube

Saturday Lecture: The Primacy of the Spiritual

{As we descend into the rabbit hole that is Traditionalism, one of the important figures we meet along the way is Julius Evola who, more than anyone, connected the esoteric spirituality of Traditionalism with a political program redolent with fascist sympathies. So, let’s read about him!}

"The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian cogito, 'I think, therefore I am.' Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind,' puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization." (Julius Evola)

Thomas Sheehan, from “Myth and Violence” (1980):

Julius Evola (1898-1974) was perhaps the most original and creative - and, intellectually, the most nonconformist - of the Italian Fascist philosophers. His most important works on idealist philosophy, spiritualism, orientalism, and racism were written between 1925 and 1943, but his deep and continuing impact on the ideology of the extreme right is evidenced by the energetic republication of his works in recent years. Although he never joined the Fascist Party, he was an ardent supporter of Mussolini and enjoyed the dubious privilege of having Il Duce endorse his book, Synthesis of the Doctrine of Race (1941), as the official statement of Fascism's "spiritualist" racism as against Nazism's merely biological racism. When Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, Evola and other Fascist intellectuals visited Hitler to discuss the formation of the “Fascist Republic of Salo”.

Evola's philosophy, which he entitled Traditionalism, is a curious but finally coherent synthesis of metaphysical idealism, primitive mythologies, and what he called a "metaphysics of history." In fact, however, his metaphysics of history is a long diatribe against history in the name of the ultimate primacy of the eternal, stable, supra-historical realm of the spiritual and ontological, "the Being of origins." This unmitigated affirmation of the spiritual, which in very different ways was characteristic of reactionary intellectuals between the wars, forms the foundation of Evola's philosophical fascism and the basis of his repudiation of nihilism, bourgeois materialism (especially in its American form), and, of course, Marxism. One does well to remember that charges of "irrationality," "nihilism," and "romanticism" entirely miss the core of Evola's thought. If anything, his philosophy is one of the suprarational rather than the irrational, of Being rather than of nihilism, of Olympian classicism rather than romanticism. For him, history, evolution, and the world of becoming are the realm of nihilism and irrationalism.

The primacy of the spiritual in Evola's thought constitutes the destruction of the world of discourse, of logos, and ultimately of history. According to Evola:

“The truths that allow us to understand the world of Tradition are not those that can be ‘learned’ or ‘discussed.’ They either are or are not. We can only remember them, and that happens when we are freed from the obstacles represented by various human constructions (chief among these the results and methods of authorized ‘researchers’) and have awakened the capacity to see from the nonhuman viewpoint, which is the same as the Traditional viewpoint. Traditional truths have always been held to be essentially non-human.”

What we find in Evola is no advocacy of the irrational, but, quite the contrary, the reassertion of a perennial theme in Western philosophy: the primacy of ‘nous’ over ‘episteme,’ of ‘intellectus’ over ‘ratio,’ of intellectual intuition over discursive knowledge. Quoting Evola again, “Every reality is a symbol and every action a rite.” The world is “a stable and animated organism, constantly oriented toward the supernatural, sanctified in potential and in act according to its hierarchical gradations in all domains of thought, feeling, action, and struggle.”

Modernity, for Evola, means mass man, democracy, and ‘the spirit of the herd.’ This most decadent of ages, characterized by ‘the flight of the gods’ and ‘deprived of the dimension of transcendence,’ is the darkest age of nihilism and the prelude to a catastrophe that will issue in a new Golden Age. 

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Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist on JSTOR

Julius Evola - Wikipedia