Do see a friend in Alaska's thoughts on the "Woman Who Would Be King" if anything ever happened to the Son of (that's the meaning of "Mc")Cain after he becomes president of USAmerica. See Voice in the Wilderness.

Stewardship. I hate the word in the context of the Christian life. It has gone the way of "ministry," sharing, love, justice and even "mass." We have redefined these concepts to work in the Humpty-Dumpty looking-glass world-- "a word means what I say that it means, nothing more, nothing less."

According to The Episcopal Church the "Working Definition" of Christian Stewardship is
the "grateful and responsible use of God's gifts in the light of God's purpose as revealed in Jesus Christ....This definition comes from the Standing Rules of the Ecumenical Stewardship Center.

An ancestor of mine was Theobald FitzWalter, who accompanied Henry II into Ireland,and was created hereditary Chief Butler of Ireland 1177, He took his family took their surname from this office, it was the Butler who, in large medieval households, was the person in charge of the wine. Centuries later, James Butler Ormond succeeded as 12th earl in 1633. After being defeated by Cromwell in 1649, Butler fled abroad to join Charles II. On the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, he was made Lord High Steward of the Household and regained his stewardship of Ireland.

The Steward of the Household was in charge of the affairs of runnning the household of the sovereign. The "stuff" was NOT his to use as he pleased, but use in the Name of the Sovereign. The movie Vatel is a wonderfilled true story of the steward of Prince de Conde of France.



"May God help us not to spoil His work" (Bl. Mother Theresa)

And he is writing of me...

Holy indignation is a proof that we should do the same thing ourselves, and easy tears are a certain sign of a hard heart.

Coventry Patmore: The Rod, the Root, and the Flower

Please go over to Jesus Manifesto and read Go As Poor Among the Poor! Please.

I think that perhaps there is hope.

Quite by accident, reading the blog of my spouse and reading the blog of one of those who left a comment on that blog and reading the list of those blogs that that writer reads, I discovered Voice in the Wilderness. Please check out her blog. I also quite accidentally found the blog of a 23 year old who is something else. He should be listened to! His page is at YouTube: Theoretical Bullshit. I think he's great.

[W]e listen to all the new political speeches and new political options given the electorate and we know nothing will really change. Yet we participate in it anyway, because in essence subconsciously this is what we really want: we wish to protect our own specific pieces of the economic social pie yet feel good about doing it (there’s the classic Freudian split in the subjective consciousness). Zizek suggests that political ideology serves a cynical function now, giving us a Big Other to believe in, making us feel better about ourselves (morally), all the while we hope for keeping the status quo in place protecting our own personal pieces of the pie.

Please read Zizek, and the danger of Obama for the American church by David Fitch at a new favorite of mine: the church and postmodern culture: conversation "contemporary philosophy...for the church...in the vernacular, "conversations hosted by Baker

I found that I am not alone in my choice not to vote. See Mark Van Steenwyk's Ten Reasons for Not Voting at Jesus Manifesto and "Not Voting" as an Act of Christian Discernment : Calling the Emerging Church Into a Different Kind of Faithfulness. The first and last time that I tried to vote was in the election of John Kennedy to the presidency of the USAmerica. It was in the election hall of Greenpoint, Brooklyn which just happened to be the parish hall of the parish church at which I was stationed as a Franciscan Brother.

I was not allowed to vote because I could not prove that I was a citizen. My family first arrived at Jamestown in what was then known as Ajacan or Axacan by the native born of the region on the thirteenth of May 1607. The family of the man running for president was the son of an immigrant, and the people that denied me my "right" to vote were Polish born. And I was the only person there who had to prove that I was a citizen.

Perhaps that was the beginning of my seeing that I was not a part of the system in which I was a pilgrim, when I realized that I am an expatriate here in Ajacan.

I do not vote because I am baptized; I pledged my allegiance, my life, my treasure, my future and my hope to my liege Lord, Jesus Christ, then, there, in this life and the life to come. I could never again share that life with any other Power in the universe, especially any Power that held control over not only my life but limb, in that the final proof the that Power's authority over its subjects is the judgment of whether or not one lives or dies.

And as a sign of that allegience, of that citizenship, I do not vote in any election of any nation in which I might be living at the time.

Jesus is Lord; God reigns. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.