Thursday, October 15, 2015

“I JUST WANT TO CHANGE (GOD’S) MIND”

10/15/15

Each Wednesday night, Chicago/Hammond TV station WJYS, which is primarily devoted to religious broadcasting, airs a Wednesday night bible study from Salem Baptist Church, the church founded by Reverend James Meeks. Sadly, the Reverend Meeks is known by most people more for his politics than for his spiritual endeavors, including his preaching and the miracle he has worked, or at least fostered, in founding and building up Salem Baptist Church.   A better preacher or a closer follower of the Lord than Reverend Meeks would be hard to find.   So I enjoy the Wednesday night bible study even though I am not normally a follower of religious media; indeed, the Salem Baptist Wednesday night show is the only show I watch on WJYS.   Two of the latest talks (We’d call them homilies, I suppose, in the Catholic Church.), though, have been, for me at least, almost as troubling as they were enlightening.

Last night, the theme of Reverend Meeks’ lesson was that prayer is capable of changing the mind of God.   He cited passages from the Book of Exodus
(I think the 33rd chapter.) in which Moses persuaded God not to exterminate the “stiff-necked” (a quote from Exodus) Israelites and from the First Book of Samuel, in which Hannah pleaded with God to allow her to have a child and promised to dedicate that male child to God.   As it turned out, God did not exterminate the Israelites and Hannah did indeed have a child, Samuel, who turned out to be one of the great judges of Israel.   On a side note, the Reverend was careful to point out that, as 1 Samuel tells us, after praying for a child and leaving the prayer session with a “happy countenance,” confident that God would answer her prayer, Hannah went home and her husband “knew” her, which, of course, is Old Testament speak for having sex.   Not only, Reverend Meeks pointed out, did Hannah leave her problem with God and not take it back;, she went on to do her part to help God fulfill the promise, i.e., she had sex with her husband.   The point was larger than sex, of course:  we should pray that God do His part but we must do our part to fulfill a request.  However, Hannah’s having sex with her husband, which Reverend Meeks used to make that point, was something we don’t hear much about in the Catholic Church.   Talk about sex in a positive light?   In the Catholic Church?  The horror!  But I digress.

A few weeks ago, the Wednesday night Salem Baptist bible study featured a guest preacher, the Reverend Terri Owens, who is pastor of the First Christian Church of Downers Grove, a Disciples of Christ church.   To say that the Reverend Owens is impressive is an understatement, and this particular homily was spellbinding; I, for one, couldn’t stop listening.   Her main point is that we must pray without ceasing and to be specific in our prayers.   One of the examples she used was especially pertinent and illustrative yet humorous at the same time.   She advised any woman in the audience who was looking for a man not to just ask God to send her a man but, rather, to be specific.  Ask for a man who is a good man, a responsible man, an honest man, and a man who can at least support himself.  If you just ask for a man, she advised the women, you don’t know what you’ll get.   Everyone laughed, but everyone got the point as well.

We Catholics take a similar, though in some ways radically different, approach to petitioning God.   We, too, think it’s okay, even good, to ask God for things for ourselves and for others.   But we seem to think it is also, perhaps particularly, efficacious for us to enlist the aid of the saints in this endeavor.   We petition the saints to petition God.  So we will ask (Some even say “pray to,” which, according to not all that strict a definition of prayer, is nearly heretical in yours truly’s opinion), say, St. Mark to ask God for something for us or for someone we love or for someone we might not even know or like.   A particular favorite in this practice is Mary, the Mother of Jesus.   The Church endorses many rituals and prayers, like the Memorare, in which we ask Mary to ask her Son to grant us favors of some kind.   After all, He can’t say “No, Ma,” can He?   Another favorite saint to enlist in our cause is St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.  St. Jude has been a particular favorite of yours truly of late, but I digress.  In what looks like another digression but most decidedly is not, let me emphasize something that was only implied in the first sentence of this paragraph:  neither Reverend Meeks nor Reverend Owens, being Protestants, would endorse petitioning of the saints; that is an approach to God that is peculiar to the Catholic Church.

I have problems with all of these sometimes complementary approaches.

First, why would we want to change God’s mind?   Do we know better than He does what He should do?   Do we have better ideas than He does?   One might cite the Reverend Meeks’ examples: of course destroying the Israelites and leaving Hannah “barren” were bad ideas.   So didn’t both Moses and Hannah have better ideas than God?   One could easily answer that question with another question:   Did God really intend to “exterminate” the Israelites or to deprive them, once spared that fate, of Samuel, or was something else at work here?   But, in any case, those are arcane and not altogether relevant examples.   In life, spiritual, material, or otherwise, what business do we have trying to change God’s mind?   Are we smarter than He is?   Of course not.

Second, why should we be asking God for anything specific?   Doesn’t He already know what we need and thereby stands ready to give it to us?   Does He have to be talked into giving us good things?   Of course not.  He is a loving Father who knows what we need and is ready, and eager, to give it to us.   What He wants to give us may not be what we want, but it is, indeed, what we need.   Often what we want is not what we need and in fact would be deleterious to our happiness or even our existence…or to the happiness or existence of others.   Should we be insisting on what we want when God wants to give us what we need?  Again, do we know better than He, Whom we profess to be omniscient, what is good for us?   To ask the question is nearly to answer it.   God knows what we need and is striving to give it to us.   We often don’t get it because we, in our efforts to get what we want, or think we need, get in God’s way.   He is indeed omniscient but He is not omnipotent; He has to work through stiff necked people, like us, who often say “No.”  

To put it succinctly, God is indeed a loving Father; He is not a short order cook.

Third, even if we believe that we should try to change God’s mind in order to get things we specifically ask for, why do we need the saints, even Mary, the Queen of All Saints, to intercede for us?   Can’t we just ask God directly?   Do we Catholics, who seem to want to petition saints most of the time for things we deem beneficial for ourselves or others, assume that God is some kind of cosmic grouch who doesn’t want to be bothered by those pesky humans and therefore has to be mollified by those He loves more?   Do we believe that Jesus can somehow say “No” to us but, as a nice Jewish boy, simply can’t say “No” to His mom?   I can see why non-Catholics might have this view of us.  I can also see why some accuse us of being idolaters, but that’s another issue.  

To hear some Catholics talk, God is just a mean old ogre who would just as soon blow us all off, but if we ask His Mother nicely enough, maybe she can talk Him out of it and actually get Him to give us a break here and there…but only because His mom, not we, asked.   I didn’t say ALL Catholics; I said SOME Catholics.   And if you think I’m exaggerating, just sit down and listen to some people who share my devotion to, but not my attitude toward, the Blessed Virgin.   She’s our loving Mother, not a way to get on God’s good side…because WE ALREADY ARE ON GOD’S GOOD SIDE.   And I strongly suspect nobody agrees with me on this more strongly than Mary does, but I nearly digress on this point.

I’m not saying that I know that the Reverends Meeks or Owens is wrong on changing God’s minds or asking for specific things.   They are much more learned in these matters than I am.  Further, I hedge my bets on having the saints, or anyone, pray for me; when the litany of the saints (“St. Anthony, pray for us….St. Patrick, pray for us…St. Stanislaus, pray for us….”), starts, I am never silent.  And I never hesitate to pray for others or ask them to pray for me. (See my 1/21/13 piece, DO YOU REALLY NEED ME TO PRAY FOR YOU?) In fact, I sort of hope Reverends Meeks and Owens are right on changing God’s minds and praying for specific things, and, partially, the Catholics who petition God through the saints, are right; there are many things, e.g.,

·         health for sick friends,
·         peace for friends and family struggling with the deteriorating health of a parent,
·         a financial break or two for myself and some friends,
·         one or both of my books to sell in meaningful numbers
·         for me to be able to make a living writing and/or speaking,
·         for some resolution to the problems in the Middle East,
·         that this once great country get off the path to hell in a hand basket,
·         etc.

for which I’d like to ask God.   But I don’t think I know better than God what is good for me or others.   And I don’t think I have to talk Him into giving us what we need; He is already trying to give it to us.   If I were to pray for anything specific, it is simply that I, and all of us, abandon our resistance to Him that is born of an idea that we know what we need.   I simply pray for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power, AND THE WILLINGNESS, to carry that out.   That is what is good for me, and for us, because God has decided that is good for me, and for us.   And He knows a lot better than I do what I, or anybody, needs.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

KEEP CHRIST OUT OF “CHRISTMAS”—2014 EDITION

12/16/14

I haven’t written much lately for a variety of what I increasingly see as very good reasons.  But I have been in the habit of writing something at Christmas, usually a somewhat light-hearted attack on the way our silly society celebrates the birthday of our Savior.  In order to continue that tradition while not wasting time on things few people read, here are some excerpts from a letter I enclose along with my contribution to one of my favorite charities, which shall remain nameless.   There’s nothing light-hearted about this one, but the message is essentially the same as it has always been at Christmas time.

God bless you all at Christmas time and always.

Christmas is upon us.  We are supposed to be joyous and happy at this time, as if on demand we could make ourselves joyful and happy.   But for me, and those like me, Christmas gets more depressing every year.   We continue to insist on celebrating the birth of our Savior with a continuous wanton display of hedonism, materialism, anxiety, and debauchery.  We teach our kids to be greedy and try to imbue in them the idea that happiness is measured by the volume and value of the things that one has “acquired.” In short, we celebrate Jesus’s birthday by doing everything He, as a loving God and Brother, advised us not to do.   It is as if we take the occasion of our Savior’s birthday to repeatedly strike Him in the face, much like His torturers did just before the crucified Him.  Are we crucifying Jesus by the way we celebrate His birthday?

So I find it difficult to be jolly during the Christmas season and I fervently wish that we would stop calling it Christmas if we insist on doing such un-Christlike things during the “Christmas” season.   Call it the “holiday season,” whatever that means, or call it what society wants; just don’t call it Christmas because to do so is beyond sacrilegious.

Tough stuff?  You bet.   But that’s the way I feel.  

Yes, at this time of year, people like you and I try to celebrate both Jesus’s historical arrival to save us and, more importantly, to prepare for His coming into our hearts.   But shouldn’t we be doing the latter all the time?   Shouldn’t Christmas be always, not just around December 25?  Our Savior loves us…all the time.  He came to die for our sins, to enlighten the world, and to impart His Father’s message.  We should thank Him, and live that message all the time.


Friday, July 11, 2014

QUINN ON EMANUEL, WRIGLEY, THE OBAMA LIBRARY…AND GOD’S CAPACITY FOR LOVE

7/11/14

This week I reverted back to Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money for two posts, one a true masterpiece, the other merely great, on Chicago politics in general and Rahm Emanuel in particular:

RAHM EMANUEL IS NOT GOING TO BE THE MAYOR WHO “LOST THE CUBS.”
This is the aforementioned “merely great” post and the title says it all, or most of it.  My readers were not at all surprised by the outcome of the Cubs saga, by the way.

THOSE HORRIBLE SOUTH WORKS AND RAHM EMANUEL’S CORE CONSTITUENCY
This post, on the placement of the Obama Library at the old South Works site, is the aforementioned masterpiece not only because it continues my usual practice of skewering our poseur (An earlier mayor, from the Chicago’s days of greatness, may have said “faker.”) mayor but also because it addresses so many issues that are vital to our crumbling society.


I also put up a post at Rant Lifestyle on a very different topic…

HOW MUCH DOES GOD LOVE US?

in which I discourse briefly on something that came to me while praying.   This is the type of post I was putting on Insightful Pontificator before all my musings migrated to Rant Lifestyle.  Yes, I understand the irony, or worse, of such a post appearing on a site like Rant Lifestyle, which is one of the reasons I may, and only may, be going back to my own blogs from Rant.  I will, of course, keep you posted.




See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 


Friday, June 27, 2014

QUINN ON EMANUEL’S PHONE TAX, U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA AND IRAQ, EXPORTING CRUDE OIL, AND TRADING BASICS

6/27/14

Summer is finally getting to be some fun, and writing these screeds is a major element of said fun.  This week, I feature posts on basic trading and economics, Iraq and Syria (of course)…and a masterpiece, if I can say so myself, on the phone tax increase that illuminates much of Rahm Emanuel’s thinking.

CHICAGO’S PROPOSED PHONE TAX INCREASE:  RAHM EMANUEL’S IDEA OF “CONSTITUENT SERVICE”
You think the property tax can be regressive?  Try this phone tax.  Do you think Rahm Emanuel gives a rat’s hindquarters?   He’s just serving his natural constituency.

MORE ENLIGHTENED THINKING FROM WASHINGTON:  LET’S FIGHT IN BOTH IRAQ AND SYRIA!
There is no limit to the world’s battlefields and potential battlefields, which Washington sees as more opportunities to keep the “defense” contractors happy…and writing checks.

KEEP ALL CRUDE OIL AT HOME?   “LAST NIGHT I HAD A WONDERFUL DREAM…”
I suppose we’d all like to be swimming in cheap domestic crude, but the world doesn’t work that way.   It looks like somebody in Washington understand this, but it’s not who you’d think.

BAD ECONOMIC NEWS = A HEALTHY STOCK MARKET?  BUT OF COURSE!
Pretty basic stuff for many of my readers, not so basic for others.  However, in trading and investing, as in so many other fields of human endeavor, ignoring the basics is the source of much misery.   One of those basic points is that you don’t have to like a particular policy or approach to act on, and profit from, that policy or approach.  Ideology and investing, and certainly trading, don’t mix.

Have a great weekend, everybody.  While I don’t pretend to understand this World Cup stuff (For example, why is losing such a good thing?), it’s sort of fun.



For more on Chicago’s politics, see my books:
The Chairman:
The Chairman’s Challenge:

Friday, June 20, 2014

QUINN ON IRAQ, SHAKMAN...AND THINGS FAR WORSE THAN PATRONAGE HIRING

6/20/14

Yes, I am a bit consumed with Iraq of late, but this story deserves plenty of attention; rarely do we find ourselves on the brink of catastrophic (at least) regionwide conflict in which at least some of the major players are clueless, fanatical, or both.  

Despite the time spent on Iraq, I did mention to commit some apostasy on Chicago politics, still one of my favorite topics, in my first (and thus the last in this reverse chronological list)  post this week.

This week’s paragons of insight included


“ADVISERS” TO IRAQ:   DOES OBAMA REMEMBER VIETNAM?
Our clueless commander-in-chief apparently can’t remember the major foreign policy debacle of his youth.   This post not only afforded me the opportunity to rant in a Cassandric fashion but also gave me an excuse to relate a few stories from the St. Walter School of my youth.  Such stories are bound to be included in my upcoming third book, still in its formative stages.

JOHN KERRY TO IRAQIS TRYING TO STAY ALIVE:   (WESTERN DEMOCRACY) IS WHAT YOU NEED 
Mr. Kerry failed to propose mandatory nightly renderings of Kumbayah.  One wonders why he committed such an oversight.


PARTITION IRAQ?   ANOTHER LOUSY IDEA FROM WASHINGTON
Modern day Metternichs pore over the map of the Middle East.  Oh, yeah, they’re qualified to redraw the world…just like the guys at Versailles in 1919.

PATRONAGE, THE SHAKMAN DECREE, THE CITY THAT ONCE WORKED…AND DAVID COPPERFIELD
http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/06/16/patronage-the-shakman-decree-the-city-that-once-worked-and-david-copperfield/
Yes, Mr. Shakman, et. al., there are worse things than patronage hiring.

For more on Chicago’s politics, see my books:
The Chairman:
The Chairman’s Challenge:

Friday, June 13, 2014

QUINN ON IRAQ, SYRIA, ERIC CANTOR…AND $5,000 SUITS

6/13/14

Somehow I was under the mistaken notion that things would slow down with the summer and the consequent lightening of my teaching load, but that has not been the case.  Still, I’ve managed to comment on what I consider the big story of perhaps the year, or maybe even the decade, the goings on in Iraq, and a few other items for good measure:

SYRIA AND IRAQ:  THE BUSH/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PUTS US ON BOTH SIDES OF A RELIGIOUS WAR
..and we continue to elect these Bozos from both parties who are apparently completely ill-equipped to deal with a dangerous world…or any world in which they are not completely insulated from reality, for that matter.


IRAQ ON THE VERGE OF BECOMING A TERRORIST PETRI DISH:   THANK THE BUSH/OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
Yes, I will blame Bush…and Obama and Hillary Clinton.  They are all guilty of making the Middle East a fiasco…but none is more guilty than George W. Bush, an utter and complete disaster of a president.


WALL STREET DRESSES DOWN TO SEAL A DEAL
The smart money guys wear $5,000 suits?  O tempora, o mores!


ERIC CANTOR AND THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT GO DOWN HARD IN VIRGINIA
Few elections have ever made yours truly happier.


THE BIGGEST FAILURE OF HILLARY CLINTON AT STATE
Benghazi is only a symptom of a much larger policy failure.

Have a great weekend and a great Father’s Day.  I will.




See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

Friday, June 6, 2014

QUINN ON WRIGLEY AND FORMER ALDERMAN SMITH, CAR SALES AND FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND AN HISTORIC ANALOGY FOR TODAY’S CHINA

6/6/14

Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  Last summer, we were in France (See my seminal travelogue, CLARK GRISWOLD, MR. PEABODY, AND ME, http://mightyquinnpolitics.blogspot.com/2013/08/clark-griswold-mr-peabody-and-me.html) and visited the beaches and the American cemetery in Normandy.  At the expense of sounding sacrilegious, if I don’t ever see Paris again, it won’t break my heart.  But Normandy is another story; if you can, please try to get there.   You’ll learn a lot, hopefully pray a lot, and maybe cry a little.  And you will appreciate what those guys gave us.  At the expense of sounding comparatively trite, the countryside and the villages of Normandy are also stunningly beautiful; I told our tour guide the farm boys from Iowa who landed at Normandy probably felt right at home.   I don’t think she appreciated the sentiment.

I thought I’d be able to write a lot more this week, but things got busy, though I’m not quite sure with what.  I did manage to write three posts on widely varying topics, however…

WRIGLEY AND THE CUBS:  A FORMER ALDERMAN ENLIGHTENS THE BENIGHTED RICKETTS FAMILY
The politicians know everything, don’t you see?


HUGE MAY CAR SALES:  “I SAW A CADILLAC SIGN SAYIN’ ‘NO MONEY DOWN’…”
The seemingly prescient Chuck Berry, the father of rock’n’roll, saw today’s car financing situation way back in 1956.


A "COERCIVE AND PROVOCATIVE” CHINA?   LESSONS FROM HISTORY
To quote a guy who was okay but who couldn’t carry the aforementioned Mr. Berry’s guitar case, I’m lookin’ at the man in the mirror when I read about China.


Have a great weekend, everybody, and say a prayer for the boys of Normandy.


See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.