Monday, November 06, 2006

Politics as seen from the Intensive Care Unit

For those anxiously awaiting my profound words of wisdom on matters political (I jest of course), let me not disappoint. My political suggestion is to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. I hope that helps.

While Liz is in intensive care, there's little time for these posts. By way of notes for future reflections, it might be worthwhile, when time permits, to try to sort out two sets of issues.

First: what might be the meaning of freedom in relationship to obedience (in the biblical sense) and submission (in the Islamic sense) and arbitrary self-will (in the postmodern secular sense)?

Second: what is the difference between fun, happiness, and joy? Preliminary surmise: the first might be an escape from suffering that has the effect of compounding it; the second a respite from suffering; the third the fruit of suffering, its indispensable correlative.

Thanks for keeping Liz in your prayers.

3 comments:

Teach said...

The trial and sentence of S. Hussein offers the opportunity for some insight into comparisons and contrasts of the religions noted.

Jonathan Larson said...

If I can put my bid in for what I think would be an interesting topic. I would like to hear what you have to say on fun happiness and Joy. they are things I have thought about quite a bit in relation to my life.

Athos said...

Saddam Hussein's trial, and subsequent sentencing, may cause understandable queasy feelings among those who experience distress at the thought of capital punishment in the form of hanging. Who wouldn't experience this dis-ease, given its long, sad history and associations with lynchings of Blacks and town gatherings replete with picnics and fireworks for duly sanctioned criminals?

However, what also is on trial is western justice vs. forms of Muslim law, and which in our turbulent world, is gaining an upper hand.

In the newly minted government of Iraq, democracy, born in the west, has a toe hold. The centuries old Islamic jurisprudence of fiqh sees democracy as a human device at loggerheads with the divinely given shari'a, a human idolatry of unbelief (kufr) and ignorance (jahiliyya).

The tipping point of the known world is happening in this trial, as melodramatic as it sounds. Perhaps, just perhaps, qualms about capital punishment notwithstand, the remembrance of the greatness of Christendom is happening while elections take place under our noses in the USA.