The Anchoress

“Stompin’ at the Savoy” - Oscar Peterson on Piano, John Dankworth on Sax

She’s the stuff.

All the pro-life rhetoric in the world pales in comparison to seeing real people choose life, love, family and hope for the future. Nobody is missing from the family pictures. Everyone is there. Congrats and God Bless to David & Missy and their little strawberry-blonde daughter, and to their loving parents.

For Pentecost - musings on the Trinity.

COME, Holy Ghost,
send down those beams,
which sweetly flow in silent streams
from Thy bright throne above
O come, Thou Father of the poor;
O come, Thou source of all our store,
come, fill our hearts with love.

Full text here

Another version, slightly different and with wonderful harmonies:

Don’t dress your black cat up in a pink tutu.

Not even metaphorically.

Sure, it’s just a goofy, clumsy mispeak that could happen to anyone. The sort of thing I ordinarily wouldn’t even write about because we all misspeak. It happens.

But…I dunno…I’m not a spiteful sort but it seems like there just needs to be some balance, doesn’t it? If Bush had talked about visiting “57 states” we’d see it run on every channel, in an endless loop, for days on end. We’d be hearing “moron, moron, moron,” etc.

I don’t think Obama is a moron and I would never call him that. But hey, the guy talked about 57 states. Undoubtedly, the press will not be running an endless loop, so I might as well at least link to this custom made-57-state lapel flag.

If Obama supporters had a sense of humor, they’d actually make these things and wear them. If Bush had made the gaffe, I’d do it!

Meanwhile, Baldilocks notes that Obama don’t know much about history, either.

But I would never call him a moron. Only GOP mistakes and misspeaks count, though, it seems.

Beth has questions for Obama.

And…someone is cackling.

It is, of course, as I have written elsewhere, the 150th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearances to Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto at Lourdes.

Fr. James Martin, who writes beautifully about his experiences at Lourdes in his book, My Life With the Saints, has taken another trip there, to help out with the pilgrims and the masses and the baths, and here is what he says this time:

The best part of the trip? That’s easy: being with the generous Knights and Dames, the tireless volunteers and companions, and especially the hopeful malades. Each of the malades comes to Lourdes for different reasons and were at different places with their illnesses. (This year I heard anger for the first time, which struck me as bracingly honest and real). But all were hoping for some sort of healing—physical, emotional or spiritual. With all the good humor and faith of the malades, it’s sometimes easy for me to forget the deep emotions that lay just underneath the surface, but conversations can quickly turn serious over breakfast, lunch or dinner, or while you’re waiting in line for a bath. Tears come quickly at Lourdes and flow as fast as the Gave River, which runs silently past the Grotto.

Spiritual healings come frequently at Lourdes, but after I returne people always ask me about the physical ones. So: any miracles? Yes, though maybe not as dramatic as the 66 authenticated ones. For example: One man in our group had suffered from the injuries that occurred during the first Gulf War, and, as a guest of the Order of Malta, had come to Lourdes seeking healing. His eyesight, never good, had deteriorated since being injured. As he told me while we were waiting in line for the baths, as soon as he landed in Lourdes his eyesight somehow seemed to get even worse. Someone suggested he take off his eyeglasses to let his eyes rest. A few minutes later, he told me, he could see perfectly well. “Look,” he said, “I can read your nametag from here.” And he did, from a few feet away. “I haven’t been able to see that well for 25 years!”

What do you make of that? Well, as one character says in “The Song of Bernadette,” for those without faith no explanation is possible; for those with faith no explanation is necessary.

I suspect that the whole piece may be “entirely too Catholic” for some of my readers, and I apologize for that; but I found it a fascinating and entertaining read. I had hoped either my son or my husband would make it to Lourdes this year, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Ah, well. In God’s own time.

I started doing this back in April, and for some reason people like this Q&A format and keep asking for more, and more, so…here’s more.

Q: Anchoress, you wrote a frivolous piece about your soul and coffee; does that mean you’re feeling better?

A: Praise God, yes, I am finally emerging from my exhausted fog and my numbers this morning were markedly better. Thanks for your kind notes and prayers (which always leave me touched and humbled.) If this is the worst thing going on in my life, my life ain’t bad at all, and I know it.

Q: Is that why you changed the end of this piece, which originally had a snarky line about how Jenna Bush was not working for a hedge fund?

A: Oh, you caught that, did you? I took the line out because it was a cheap, easy shot at Chelsea Clinton, who seems like a very nice young woman; I try not to do the “cheap, easy” thing here, and I didn’t like myself writing it. That said, I will say the snark was precipitated by reading several obnoxious press accounts of Jenna Bush’s upcoming wedding and thinking about how - were she the daughter of a Democrat - her choice to teach inner-city school children would accompany every sentence written about her, and every article about her would not include the obligatory revelation that while she was in college, she acted like most college students. I just get damn tired of the needlessly spiteful way the press writes about anyone connected to a president with an R after his name, while anyone connected to a president with a D after his name is a paragon of virtue, intelligence and unselfishness. I say that as someone with an I after her name.

I mean, God-forbid a little balance? Can you imagine, fer instance, the press actually noting which party has members saying things like “I have the votes of hard-working white Americans?” and referring to “white n-words?” How come the press will sneer (and cry about “church-and-state”) when Christians gather to pray for peace (and for our troops) but they don’t have the same conniption when Code Pink takes their charms, spells and boas to the street?

Why no balance, that’s all I’m asking. And I ask it even as I admit, I have an affection of sorts for those amusing Code Pink Performance Artists.

Q: Well, but the Republicans are all privileged people; it’s the party of the rich, so the press would naturally be harder on them, than on the middle-class loving, blue-collar-respecting Democrats, right?

A: Hmmm, that’s a good question. Betsy Newmark wonders which is the party of the rich:

It’s funny. The Democratic politicians like to portray the Republican party as the party for the rich. Yet the rich are going with the Democrats this year. The Democrats don’t seem to think it’s as odd that those wealthy donors are voting against their supposed economic interests as they do when Kansans vote for Republican candidates.

As near as I can tell, the Democrats are heavily supported by the rather wealthy folk who own the coastal enclaves you and I can’t afford, but if you google rich republicans and wealthy democrats you see that the press has a one-way narrative. That is possibly because, hanging out at Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, Malibu, Southampton or Myrtle Beach, with their kids in the same private schools the children of politicians attend, the folks in the press are simply so out of touch they think they are not wealthy democrats…or something.

This is another reason I momentarily succumbed to a temptation to the ignoble snark referenced above, which I quickly regretted. A lot of people like to say “Jenna Bush should be in the army fighting her father’s war,” but they never say Chelsea should be in Bosnia or Rwanda working with the Peace Corp to restore those areas. They don’t suggest that since Hillary enthusiastically supported and voted for the war and Bill Clinton (in 1998) initiated the policy of Regime Change in Iraq, Chelsea should be doing her part over there. It’s just damned tiresome. Chelsea Clinton is not a bad person for choosing to work in hedge funds, but there is an irony there, that shouldn’t be ignored.

Q: Ironies supporting Bushes or GOPers or Conservatives are always ignored; find one people will listen to.

A: Umm, people are all plugged into their iPods or their echo chambers, so they don’t listen to anyone, and certainly not to me, but another important irony might be that those “gun-free cities” that are supposed to be havens of safety? The police want assault rifles to function within them. Not getting much coverage.

Q: You don’t like the press much, do you?

A: Hush you, I love the free press - it is the hardy spine of liberty:

“…Liberty lives only when the press is free and unencumbered - when it is detached from events instead of entwined in them. That Liberty lives when people refuse to be intimidated into silence or acquiescence, whether in the workplace or within the community.

Journalists were my first heroes. I simply deplore the fact that our free press seems to be no longer free, and that they have not been overtaken…they’ve simply handed their freedom over to their own agendas. For heaven’s sake, this worries me so much, that I even fret about it when I am over-medicated:

I personally think every American should be concerned with her press - the great and remarkable treasure of her free press - which is being subsumed by advocates and partisans who do not seriously question anyone whom they do not hate, and who therefore betray the public trust (and themselves) and leave the whole nation wide open for something which by the prickling of my thumbs something wicked this way comes.

Some days, now, I’d rather read the Onion.

Q: Well, thank God, you’re at least off the Bush/Clinton rant. What WILL you write about in 2009? It does feel, though, like we’re never going to get out from under these two families, doesn’t it?

A: No, they’re never going to go away. Eventually you’ll see Chelsea running against George Prescott Bush. I have officially declared that we should have no more Bushes or Clintons in the White House because it renders the country mad-beyond-saving, but no one will listen because I am not an influential conservative - which makes sense, since I’m a classical liberal, and we have no home. I do think Ed Morrissey should have been on that list, though.

Also, apropos of nothing, except that someone sent me the video clip - I have always admired the class, intelligence and dignified mien of Dem operative Donna Brazile, even though I hardly ever agree with her! She’s a bright, cool customer, and if I were anyone important, I’d want her on my side. Don’t you watch that clip and wish she could just reach through her screen smack that watery smile off of Paul Begala’s face?

Q: Hmm, you don’t like Paul Begala, and you sound like you have a girl-crush on Donna Brazile.

A: Well…Brazile is gorgeous. And I love her hair. But I love her manner, more - I wish I could be that collected. I completely believe that she’s had more beers with those “working class whites” than any of her white counterparts. And I must say, as a little aside, I winced to hear Begala call the GOP “monochromatic” but that is still largely true, and if you notice, he just casually subsumed the Latino vote into the Democrat side, which is probably wrong…but the GOP has not done anything to ingratiate itself with the largest-growing voting bloc in the nation.

Q: But which ones are smarter? Republicans or Democrats?

A: I won’t say Democrats are smart; they do too many oddball things like scrapping trade with our allies in Colombia while helping the thug Chavez. But…having said that, the GOP really is stupid-beyond-saving. Gateway Pundit here spells out an enormously winning tactic for them for ‘08, and they are either too stupid, too spineless or too beholden to lobbyists to follow the lead. And count on it, they won’t have the testicular fortitude to call Al Gore on his opportunistic attempt to hijack a human tragedy for his own agenda. Like there were never tornados, typhoons, tsunamis or catastrophic floods before manbearpig made its appearance. Going green may kill people but it sure is profitable, so it is credible, right? Hoo-hah.

Q: Okay, so, who are worse, far-left folks who want to stomp on free speech and silence any opposition to their beliefs, or far-right folks who freak out when a teacher performs a magic trick and have him fired for wizardry?

A: They deserve each other, and our nation can and should do better than either of them. They both embody and re-inforce the worst stereotypes on both sides. But perhaps we need them, if only to shine a light on the fact that zealots always - ultimately - weaken their “own side.”

Q: So, this miserable ranter of a post…this is what you’re like when you’re feeling better?

A: I’m not wholly well, yet. A little grouchy. Sorry. I’ll be better soon. As Queen Victoria said when she was an eleven-year old Princess confronted with her future: “I will be good.” Here, I’ll even end on a generous happy note and tell you that Laura Ingraham has adopted a baby girl! Congrats to Ms. Ingraham.

Q: I thought she called you a termagant, once?

A: Well, that’s what I was told, but I don’t know it, and anyway, she wouldn’t have been the first. I wish her all good things and many blessings on her daughter, Maria Caroline. Lovely name.

Is it me, or does it seem like reporters aren’t even trying to make sense anymore?

Tricia Nixon was risque in a sleeveless gown at her Rose Garden wedding.

Oh please. In 1971, this might have been fashion forward, very lovely and “different” (neither hippy-granny dress, nor blowsy meringue) but it was hardly “risque,” especially for a wedding held in a garden instead of a church.

Blah, blah, blah, Jenna is not having a White House wedding because blah, blah, George Bush isn’t running for election and he’s unpopular, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure if Jenna Bush wanted a White House wedding, she’d have had one. It seems to me President Bush is not intimidated by his low approval ratings, and he’s also not interested in pandering for that approval by dancing to “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” for the cameras. What is much more likely (and believable) is that the Bushes prefer to keep their family celebrations to themselves and not reduce their special occasions to fodder for the very press that hates them all.

What blather. Congrats to Jenna Bush and her intended. She’ll be teaching in Baltimore after the wedding.

After four days in the house, sleeping nearly continuously thanks to my oxygen-deprived and bleary state, I desperately needed to get out of the house today, and also I needed to buy a card/gift for the Mother-in-Law (who deserves much more than either card or gift), so I ventured out and basically drove a circuit: card shop, gas station (back tire needed air), post-office, church (getting on to the Vespers hour, so why not) and then - feeling totally beat - a reward of coffee to get me home. All went well until the coffee stop, which precipitated a spiritual crisis of sorts.

At Vespers the reading was from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:

You must know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within - the Spirit you have received from God. You are not your own. You have been purchased, and at a price. So, glorify God in your body.

My meditation had been one of prayerful regret, running along the lines of “I’ve never treated my body like anything but the Temple of Doom.” I recalled all the times where, considering my body, my prayer had been, “can’t I have a do-over? From puberty on, do-over? And maybe no congenital blood or enzyme issues? No clotting issues? Less boobs and bootie? Can I be built more along the lines of Andie McDowell, then Rosie O’ Donnell, please? (Even Rosie is taller, I’m sure) I’d like longer legs and shorter arms; an overall less-simian sort of stature.”

A shameful prayer, yes, completely unrealistic, ungrateful and un-edifying. I’m well-aware of the fact that I should be daily offering up a prayer of praise that I can simply bring a cup of coffee to my lips, unassisted.

This is why I pray a lot; not because I’m holy, but because I am pathetic. And yes, I also prayed for all the people who ask me to, or who mention things in the comments section, but now that you see what surrounds my prayer, you’ll understand why you should also offer up your own orisons, and don’t put too much stock on anything coming from over here.

Anyway, Vespers was done, I was craving coffee, and since the good monks at Mystic Monk Coffee have not yet figured out how to create a chain of drive-through monasteries at which I may satisfy my daily longing for their incredible, smooth, rich java (truly the best coffee I’ve ever had, see right sidebar), I went to a different drive-through chain for an inferior but fast and hot blend.

Aside: I love the idea of a drive-through monastery/coffee house. At the intercom you hear a chant: “Benedicite...Caaaan weeee heeeelp youuu?”

Me: “Monks! Gimmee coffee! The Dark Roast! The incredible Hazelnut! GIMMEE IRISH CREME COFFEE! And a Novena! And put it in a Saint-of-the-Day cup!”

Monk: “Deo Gratias…Wouuuulllld youuuu like a bleeeeeeeesssssinnnngg with that jaaavaaaa?”

Me: “Yes! Bless me till your blesser is broke and throw in a Pater Noster!”

Monk: “Alleluia Alleluia! Driiiiive thrrroooouugh toooo the seecond winnndoowww In nomine patrie…”

I would love that. But I digress…

So I pull into the drive-through and ask for the large coffee, milk, a packet of sweetener. I am not tempted to any of the other goodies offered because, you know…I’ve just been meditating on how my body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, albeit one that requires massive amounts of iron to keep it standing, and copious flows of caffeine to keep the doors open.

The woman at the window gives me the coffee with the packet of sweetener ON the coffee lid instead of IN the coffee.

Now, a nice person would probably not waste a thought on it. I, sadly, am not very nice and my brain began whirring another path to purgatory, which I suppose showed on my face, as I looked at the cup and then at the woman with what I hope was merely a quizzical, and not evil, expression.

She said, “I didn’t know if you wanted it in the coffee…”

“Ohhh,” I said, thinking, “you absurd woman, I’m driving a car, what do you think I’d want, to alternately drink the coffee and then stick my tongue into the sweetener envelope as I’m driving? Where is your head?” But before I could say anything cutting the woman said, “it’s my first day…and I’m like, so confused…”

Given my own history of public-stupidity, and since I also did not want to give reign to my always-rouse-able Irish beast, I said, “well, soon it will be second nature to you, and you’ll feel like you can do the job in your sleep! Good luck!” But of course, in my heart, I know I had harbored evil, uncharitable thoughts, and those counted. Dammit.

I drove away understanding that once more, I had failed in love and patience, but my contrition was typically short-lived, as I wondered…”now, how the hell do I drink this? What do I stir it with? I have no pen, no pencil, no straw…my greasy tire gauge? Ewww, no!”

There was a McDonalds just ahead, so I pulled in there figuring, “great, I’ll get a stirrer.” A little devil voice said, “you can’t just drive up and ask for a stirrer; better get a hot fudge sundae, then you can use the spoon to stir your coffee.”

“No, no,” I said, “I just read Vespers and my body is the Temple of the Lord, and I’ve abused my body terribly, and must stop that! No ice cream!”

“Can I help you,” came the voice over the intercom.

“One hot fudge sundae, please!” I called out.

Freaking devil.

“Our machine is broke, we have no ice cream - you want cookies?” Hmmm…was this an angel of the Lord preventing me from sullying the Temple or was it yet another devil, an oatmeal-raisin devil with chewy insides? Aha! I find I can resist the cookie devil because he does not come with a spoon to stir my coffee!

“No cookies,” I called, proudly, “can I just have a coffee stirrer?”

The voice told me I was in luck; all I had to do was ask the kid at the second window. When I did he gave me an odd look, “just a coffee stirrer? No cookies? No coffee?”

My chubby, stretch-marked-flabby doughy-skin-cancered body is the Temple of the Lord! I came away with a stirrer, and a stirrer only.

But that seemed like an awful lot of spiritual angst for a cup of coffee…

I need the monks to build a drivethru, and I need it now!

UPDATE - Jennifer at Et-tu has a much better story with an actual lesson in it. (H/T Julie who links to a much more meaningful, and heart-wrenching, bit of introspection than I have managed.)

UPDATE: When I wrote this I had not heard Hillary’s “hard-working white Americans” blurb. Very stupid. I said earlier that her persistence might mean she was a psychopath - that was meant as a throwaway joke - but, well, as Peggy Noonan points out, this whole thing has become psychodrama. I am pulling back my “bravo.” “hard-working white Americans” is either very stupid or deliberately divisive. It cannot be cheered. ::: END UPDATE :::

I rarely read something that I really, really wish I’d written, but this is one of those times.

I just told my husband last night, “I would never, ever in a million years vote for her…but I must say I’m beginning to actually respect Hillary; she’s a tough little boat, and she’s not going to stand down or be controlled by anyone. It might be because she’s a psychopath, of course, but it might also just be because she’s a woman who believes she knows what she knows and will not ’stand down’ simply because it’s getting rough. You have to respect that. Dare I say, in that sense, she is reminding me a little of George W. Bush; he and Tony Blair had the entire world telling them to stand down, shut up and get off the stage. They plunged forward, at the risk of their political capital, because they believed in their mission - to depose Saddam, liberate Iraq and form an Arab democracy in the Middle East. Hillary’s mission is very different, of course - the acquisition of power (and a place in history) she believes is her due - but, she’s not letting the press, the pundits or the mood-warriors stop her. And you know, she actually looks like she’s loving the battle.”

My husband said, “of course she’s loving the battle. She’s a woman.”

Bingo. There was my lede, but I was too tired to write it.

Turns out, I didn’t have to, because Kyle-Anne Shiver (who also will never vote for Hillary) has written a piece that - almost word-for-word - expresses how I’m feeling about Hillary Clinton today. It is an appreciation of Hillary Clinton’s testicular ovarian fortitude.

Writes Shiver:

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton in November, no matter what.

Unlike Ann Coulter, I deem the makeup of the Supreme Court for the next 30 years of the utmost importance, and I know a little about what the “Progressives” want to do with the Constitution through the Court. I have (with my husband) raised children, unlike Ann, and I don’t play around with their futures.

All of those disclaimers are out of the way now.

And I’m so proud of Hillary Clinton right now that I could burst. Seriously.

If there is a single shred of grown-up quality left in the Democrat Party, it is only evidenced by Hillary Clinton’s refusal to let the Party blindly nominate a thoroughly wet-behind-the-ears, know-nothing candidate, who has gotten to this political height on the strength of a cowering, blind media elite (as Bill Clinton said earlier in this campaign), a bunch of hormonally driven college students, and the color of his own skin.
[…]
She started out feeling entitled and above our questions and has become now the candidate who is actually interviewing for the job. Fighting for it.

And she is actually demonstrating the kind of mettle needed in a President and Commander In Chief, while he, on the other hand throws inconvenient folks under his arrogant male bus. She has made it abundantly clear that Iran will be annihilated if it attacks Israel.

Bravo, Kyle-Anne, and yeah, bravo (little-b) Hillary, too! You’ll want to read the whole thing. H/T Larwyn