My Thoughts

Have you ever been buttheaded by an immovable object; someone or something that brooks no dissent, allows no disagreement, permits no contravening of established opinion, no argument supporting reason or orthodoxy?

What I am asking can perhaps be illustrated with a simple analogy. Two people see a cat. One, upon seeing the cat, jumps back because he sees a black cat and being superstitious believes allowing it to cross his path would bring bad luck. The other reaches out and pets what he perceives as a dark gray cat, even goes so far as to pick it up. The first one is absolutely horrified at this and immediately notifies animal control, demanding that they euthanize the black cat in order to allay his irrational fears and to then impose a severe penalty on the one who dared pick it up. No amount of pleading, argument, evidence, proof or reason can persuade or dissuade or disabuse the one who has deemed it to be a black cat. Case closed, end of discussion—notwithstanding that there never was any discussion at all.

Here then is where this gets personal. As they used to say on one of the old police shows in the early days of television: “The following is real, it really happened. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” And in this case, the guilty as well. Recently, someone decided that an offense was being committed, whereas the spirit of the law was being observed, while the precise letter of the law was left open for some interpretation. It does not matter what the offense or the law was, only that the law was loosely observed to better serve the entire of the community. One member of the community found himself unhappy, disagreeing quite stridently with the lax execution of the law, so much so that he notified the authorities of the transgression in writing, casting unfounded, ill-considered accusations against the leaders of the community in question. No argument was permitted or would be considered. What the leaders had done was wrong, unequivocally wrong, absolutely wrong. He had said it, he was right, they were wrong. End of debate.

How then should one proceed? Can there be any movement or is it all push and shove with no push back permitted? Should not the pushed be allowed some quarter, permitted to defend or explain their position? Since when did we forget the old saw, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” and hand the grease to the squeaky wheel to silence us? Such quandary is not unusual these days, in fact, it is all too common an occurrence. Argument is no longer permissible. Questions are not allowed. Debate is nondebatable. Shut up and obey or else you will be cancelled, silenced, or locked away in solitary confinement.

Perhaps it is time, far past time for deplorables to get up, open our doors and windows, and shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Wake up America.

Just my thoughts for a Thursday for what it is worth.

Check me out on Parler @ChuckLanham #dadeacon #wakeupamerica

About the author: Deacon Chuck

Deacon Chuck was ordained into the permanent diaconate on September 17, 2011, in the ministry of service to the Diocese of Reno and assigned to St. Albert the Great Catholic Community. He currently serves as the parish bulletin editor and website administrator. Deacon Chuck continues to serve the parish of Saint Albert the Great Catholic Community of the Diocese of Reno, Nevada. He is the Director of Adult Faith Formation and Homebound Ministries for the parish, conducts frequent adult faith formation workshops, and is a regular homilist. He currently serves as the bulletin editor for the parish bulletin. He writes a weekly column intended to encompass a broad landscape of thoughts and ideas on matters of theology, faith, morals, teachings of the magisterium and the Catholic Church; they are meant to illuminate, illustrate, and catechize the readers and now number more than 230 articles. His latest endeavor is "Colloqui: A journal for restless minds", a weekly journal of about 8 pages similar in content to bulletin reflections. All his reflections, homilies, commentaries, and Colloqui are posted and can be found on his website: http://deaconscorner.org. Comments are always welcome and appreciated. He is the author of two books: "The Voices of God: hearing God in the silence" which offers the reader insights into how to hear God’s voice through all of the noise that surrounds us; and "Echoes of Love: Effervescent Memories" which through a combination of prose and verse provides the reader with a wonderful journey on the way to discovering forever love. He regularly speaks to groups of all ages and size and would welcome the opportunity to speak to your group.

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