Our community lost one of its charter supporters and friends to begin Lent. Anne Baker passed away at 101 in the assisted living facility where she had been in Florida for the past couple of years on the morning of Ash Wednesday. Anne was the mother of our dear friend and chief science consultant, Steve Baker.
A long-time resident of Hyannisport, Massachusetts, Anne was the quintessential Yankee woman: shrewd, sharp, wryly funny, lively, and a superb conversationalist. She was the four-time women’s champion at Hyannisport Country Club – and played golf well into her 90’s. She taught me how to eat a whole lobster – and taught me that the “c” in “Quincy” (both the Massachusetts city and the sixth president, is properly pronounced with a “z” sound, not an “s” sound.
Their home looked right out over Nantucket Sound and was barely a block from the late President John Kennedy’s home. When I was there, I usually set up by a bay window looking out on the sound. The pier where President Kennedy held court with the locals (and where he was often photographed) was just to the right in my view. It was my favorite makeshift “office” in the country.
Anne’s son, our Steve BC, was with her and supervised her care full time these last few years. He is assessing now what projects he will emphasize going forward. He was an important contributor during my terrible bout of Covid a few years back and was one of the people I consulted with most closely in developing the protocol that knocked back the aggressive prostate cancer I discovered I had last June. Though he does not have a medical degree, he comes up with therapeutic approaches that work. I trust his judgment on medical matters more than any but one very prominent doctor I knew in the Midwest.
Steve saw and felt the presence of God profoundly in his mother’s final days. Anne and I took such delight in each other and our banter, that Steve touchingly told me that, “we had lost our mother.” I know this much: we have a passionate new advocate in the next life – and the level of conversation in that life has recently been nicely elevated.
*********
The big news from the weekend is the attack on Iran after it ignored the deadline President Trump set for foreswearing nuclear weapons. Of course the left (and the Vichy Republicans) are screaming to high heaven that we are taking out yet another murderous dictator. They talk about starting another “forever” war. Man, these guys are slow on the uptake. Trump does not do forever wars…but he has been mighty good at decisively ending forever wars that others started and allowed to fester for years or decades.
I was 23 years old when the late Jimmy Carter helped push the Shah of Iran aside to make way for the Islamic takeover of Iran. Forty-seven years of fecklessness later, we finally have a president who decided to put the premier sponsor of anti-American terrorism out of business. Makes me proud to be an American, pure and simple.
I am a fan of a lot of things Harry Truman did as president, but I think his worst mistake was developing the concept of “limited” war for Korea. It is, I believe, the primary cause of all the “forever” wars that have been mounted since. I do not believe in limited war. I believe we should use diplomatic means as much as we can. When they fail and war is necessary to protect American interests, then I believe it should be with overwhelming force that insists on unconditional surrender as the only acceptable outcome. I do not believe in proportional responses. Avoid war assiduously…and when it cannot be avoided, strike with decisive, overwhelming force. If a war is decided quickly, that saves a lot more lives than letting it drone on for years and years for fear of acting decisively, lest it be considered mean.
I am happy to see, in the last chapters of my life, a hideous offense that erupted in the first chapters being put to rest – but not near as happy as all the Iranians who can finally see liberation after a long, national nightmare.
*********
Pope Leo has called for peace in the Middle East – for Israel and the US to back down. He did not offer any serious suggestions on how to effectively stop the violent oppression, torture, murder and international terrorism of the Islamic regime in Iran except to suggest more of what has failed for 47 years: more diplomacy. (Read the first two paragraphs in the “After the Angelus” section).
I am wearied and embarrassed by the Catholic hierarchy’s feckless and truly immoral approach to these serious issues of war and peace. Effectively, they would empower murderous tyrants. They define “peace” as allowing those tyrants to oppress, torture, and murder with impunity while good people do nothing effective. How is that peace?
Peace, in the Christian sense, is NOT just the absence of open conflict, anymore than love is just the absence of enmity. Peace, like love, is a positive, active virtue that nurtures and gives hope, warmth, freedom, and room for growth. This business of never disturbing a murderous tyrant on his rounds except to plead uselessly for negotiation is not a call for peace. It is pathetic and embarrassing. And I am sick to death of hearing ignorant virtue signalers proclaim that, “violence never solved anything.” The heck it didn’t! The violent resolve of good people stopped the Nazis and, in fact, about four-fifths of every murderous tyrant who has ever been stopped. So, naturally, the hierarchy, which pretends to moral enlightenment, condemns subjects and opponents of these murderous tyrants to unending brutality – and call it peace. It is absolutely immoral. It disgusts me. Unless these hierarchs repent, they are going to face a bitter accounting when they stand before God.
Of course, the hierarchy has NO authority on matters of political policy, economics, or science. They have authority over matters of faith and morals. So, naturally, they speak in thundering tones on matters they have no authority over and even less knowledge about – and are ambiguous and timid about the things they are actually responsible to God and man for. It seems the modern hierarchy aspires to be the left-wing, globalist, ideology at prayer. For their efforts, the actual left-wing globalists still hold them in deep contempt and they forfeit the respect of people like me, who desperately wish to be able to respect them.
The actual Magisterium of the Catholic Church is noble and inspiring. Modern hierarchs’ pronouncements are largely efforts to distract from it and undermine its clear language. I am an absolutely committed Catholic because of that Magisterium (which includes the Holy Bible), not because I am impressed by the feckless clowns who run the Church these days. If you use refined, Scholastic language to prop up an idiocy, you are not refined. You have just slapped lipstick on your ignorant, piggish, buffoonery.
I do NOT believe my Christian conscience requires me to sit on the sidelines and impotently wring my hands while my neighbors are being brutalized with impunity. And no Bishop or Pope will ever persuade me otherwise.
How long, O Lord?
*********
I turned 70 last week. It doesn’t feel any different than 69 did. But it feels a LOT different than 25 or 40 did.
I was very touched by the outpouring of good wishes from old high school friends, CORAC members, political friends and so many others. I have known people who were desperately lonely as they reached 70. I am often desperately tired, but thanks be to God, loneliness is not a problem for me.
What was most touching is the open, deep and earnest regard and affection my children and grandchildren showed me on the occasion. Family dynamics are an epic saga. There are more than a few rough patches along the way. But boy, it sure is good to enter into the evening years of my life and feel that affection radiating from those I raised – people who have seen me both at my best and my worst. I am profoundly thankful. My son joked that, when he is 70, he hopes to be able to call and wish me a happy 100th birthday, I laughed and said that I hoped to be lucid enough to understand what he is saying then. My daughter did a Facebook collection of photos and videos, including my son’s kids singing Happy Birthday to me.
I know some of you have been worried that I have been sick, it has been so long since I last posted. Healthwise, all is normal. But I have been in the last few weeks of managing a very hard-fought closely contested campaign. Today, thank goodness, is primary election day in Texas. So I will rapidly get back to normal and balance all things well, God willing.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on X at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
0 Comments