random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

• The Good Samaritan
  
  
  When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan it must have been stunning to His listeners. The Samaritans were a despised people.  They were descended from the country folk who were left behind during the Babylonian captivity and because they had intermarried with pagans the Jews considered them to be apostates and worse. The Samaritans for their part, thought that their Jewish cousins had ingested too many Babylonian religious ways and weren't true Israelites anymore. The Jewish temple was in Jerusalem and the oft attacked Samaritan temple was on Mt.  Gerizim. 
  
  The road to Jericho was very dangerous. Robbery and murder was common and people didn't travel it alone. The priest and the Levite, the tribe from which priests came and who were charged with special temple duties passed the robbery victim by but a disgusting Samaritan   stopped, provided aid and spent a large sum of money to take care of him. Traditionally the Church teaches that the victim is mankind, foolishly going our own way and falling into sin which brutalizes our souls. The priest and Levite are the Old Law. The Good Samaritan is Our Lord and great cost of the rescue is Our Lord's Passion and Death. 
  
  
  
  
  
•  “Our Country won’t go on forever if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!” – Chesty Puller

After WWII, German mystic, Therese Neuman was visited by many American soldiers. There is a story, and I'm not sure if it's true or not-- that one man asked her if America would ever be conquered  by an invading force. She responded for the sake of the kindness of the American people, this would never happen but America's fall would come from inside decay. Frankly, the decay has gotten so bad in certain places that millions of the very people who are cheering for it might be secretly relieved and would turn on a dime if  Puller's prediction were to come to pass. 

 God help us. 

• Americans have been taught for two hundred years to revere college professors and to see college graduates as superior--the best and  the brightest. That conditioning turned out to be disastrous. Some time around WWII, the universities were conquered. Academic rigor has been falling for decades and even the standards of the last fortress, STEM is falling. Now, every time some whack job with a PHD spouts off the media reports his or her comments with respect. For as long as I can remember, most folks seem to laugh and say that what goes on at the campuses has no bearing on real life but it does, like arsenic in the well water we all drink.
  
  Why do politicians and activists go to campuses to speak? Why do we simultaneously treat college students like kindergarteners while encouraging  them to enjoy four years of hedonism as long as they don't have any permanent damage? I've known parents who worked two jobs, mortgaged their homes, never went on vacation or bought a new vehicle until the old one couldn't be repaired anymore because they believed that Water Color Fine Arts degree was going to be their kid's golden ticket. Of course they made those sacrifices for love but have we all been sold a bill of doubtful quality goods? It's probably too late to reform higher education especially Catholic higher education which is hollowed out of any Faith and is just as faddish as secular schools but there are tiny spots of hope here and there. A few people are realizing that the student loan/obscene tuition game is rigged.
  
  
  
  
  
• Have you noticed that except for the Vegas man, mass shooters all seem to be disturbing to look at? The eyes are wrong somehow as if they're victims of fetal alcohol syndrome or terrible early childhood trauma. The expression either seems dead or final stage rabid. The bodies seem to be skinny to the point of emaciation. They are weirdly dressed in photos as if they desperately want to be gawked at or they appear to have slept in a dumpster. All of them seem to be displaying a warning in their appearance like poison frogs that they're dangerous and you'd best leave them alone. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Truth is beautiful. Even if it's hard to face.