The Reindeer on State Street

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through The Loop

the reindeer were shopping for Santa's new suit.

A last-minute short in a Lionel train

had burned the elf's coat - turned it black in the flame.

So now they were desperate and dashed all around

in hopes that a fitting replacement be found.

On Dancer! On Dasher! On Prancer and Vixen!

On Comet and Cupid! On Donder and Blitzen!

They split up on State Street where some went to Field's

and others to Nordstrom's for late season deals.

Alas! All the storefronts were locked for the night.

The windows were dark. Not a tailor in sight.

It wasn't until on the Miracle Mile

that a man with a bottle, a beard, and a smile

saw them shiver. He offered his coat and he said,

"It's from the Good Will. You don't mind that it's red?"

Elated, the reindeer said, "Thanks! You have saved

us!" And they flew away while the man waved

"Bye!" Not til later did they understand

the reason for seeing the hole in his hand.

(c) John J. Desjarlais. This poem previously appeared in The Rockford Review.

Happy Holy Days

One might have thought that the secular-sophist culture's concerted effort to marginalize "Christmas" in favor of the vapid and politically-correct "Holidays" was insulting enough (it's being done in the name of "tolerance," of course). Are there several holidays in the season? Of course. And in a pluralistic society, let's respect them all. What I take issue with, though, is this unknown "Holiday" that merchants want me to buy for. "This Holiday, buy her a-" "Have a Happy Holiday." This started with good intentions, to be inclusive. And generally, I think we all know which particular "holiday" is usually meant, though it is rapidly becoming a merchants' "holiday" characterized by snowflakes, snow figures, elves, bells, reindeer, penguins and polar bears - anything winter, but never anything Christmas. The White Witch of Narnia has cast the land into a freeze where "it is always winter but never Christmas."

There is little comfort in knowing that "holidays" is a short form of "Holy Days," which these days of Advent truly are. In a small act of concession, the television channels are beginning to present programs on the Christian faith just in time for the season. The problem is this: some programs are determined to discredit Christianity. The History Channel ran a piece last year largely meant to dismiss the idea of Christ's physical resurrection (yes, that's Easter, but why miss a chance to bash Christians and disabuse them of their un-scientific superstitions?). Expert after expert on the program argued that Jesus did not physically arise from the Tomb but he "appeared to" devout (and disillusioned, distraught, disturbed) followers in "visions" and dreams so real that they thought he was physically returned. As they reported their dreams, people took it the wrong way, the stories were repeated until Presto! A myth of the resurrection resulted.

OK, let me tease this out: Were the first disciples, both men and women, disillusioned, distraught, and disturbed? Of course - they believed Jesus was who He claimed to be, the Anointed King promised in the Scriptures, except they were expecting the promised Davidic King who would restore a political kingdom, not the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 whose "kingdom is not of this world." Despite His telling them three times clearly about His coming rejection, death, and rising, His betrayal and crucifixion sent them into fearful hiding.

But what's this bit about wishful dreams and hopeful visions? The "experts" believe the followers were overwhelmed by what-might-have-been fantasies. This can sound plausible to the uninformed. The funny thing is, these experts appeal to I Corinthians 15 (this letter of Paul is one of the oldest and certainly one of the undisputably authentic historical records of the Early Church). They assert that the words "appeared to" or "was seen by" is a way of referring to visions and dreams, "a common middle Eastern phenomenon." Granted, it was common. But that can't be what happened here. Why not? Read the text yourself: were such visions experienced by a dozen (or probably more) people all at once (as in I Cor 15:5) or by a large crowd of 500 ALL AT ONCE (as reported in the next line, I Cor 15:6)? Hardly. And this also excludes the extraordinary passages where the risen Jesus tells His followers to touch His wounds and prepare Him a meal which he eats (Luke 24) or where He prepares a beach barbeque in the presence of people who did not expect Him (John 21).

Look - the reason these so-called experts cannot read the historical record plainly is that they don't want to. It is an issue of the will, not the intellect. The resurrection of Christ is an historically verifiable event. How about the Birth of Christ, which we celebrate this season? There are, admittedly, a few more gaps and difficulties in the details of the historical record about it. But there is no doubt about what was involved, as John says: "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory."

Golden Compass points in wrong direction

I was in Target the other day and noticed the Christmas push is on. The cashier areas featured DVDs for sale and among them was "The Golden Compass," the so-called children's film released last Christmas in theaters. The irony is this: Christmas is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel - God with us. Mr. Pullman's book, however, is virulently anti-Christian. To disguise this, the film's producers stopped three chapters shy of the book's end, where there is a tedious and twisted discourse about the Fall of Man in Genesis and the effects of the Fall that foreshadows the more openly anti-Christian material in the next two books, where Pullman plainly writes, "Christianity is a powerful and convincing mistake, that's all."

Since people might be drawn to the DVD or the books, here's a plot summary for all three books that, I believe, speaks for itself. Read these and decide if the books aren't visciously anti-Christian and especially anti-Catholic:

Book 1. We meet 12-year-old Lyra who lives in an alternative Oxford that is dominated by a group called "The Magisterium" (Catholics recognize this term as referring to the teaching authority of the Church). It has brutal monks, sadistic nuns, power-hungry priests, bishops, and cardinals but no pope since Pope John Calvin moved the Vatican to Geneva (can you sense the venom already?). The Magisterium's goal is to rule absolutely and crush all 'heresy' and opposition. There is no Christ in its teachings. Just as well, I guess. I'd like to believe that Mr. Pullman is trying to say "This is what any institutionalized church would be without Christ, so it is important to be focused on Christ and not power-driven bureaucracy," - but this really isn't his point. His 'alternative world' church is what he believes the real one to be like. Back to the plot: Like all humans, Lyra has a personal daemon, a personal spirit-self that lives outside her body in animal form that changes for children but is stable for adults. Humans separated from their 'daemons' lose their imagination and will. As you might guess, the religious figures in the film have snakes, lizards, and frogs for their 'daemons.' Lyra uses a magic compass to find her way to the Arctic to rescue her friend Roger and other kids who have been kidnapped by the evil Mrs Coulter and The Magisterium to perform experiments on in order to find out why 'dust' - original sin - doesn't affect kids as much as adults. She is helped by a witch-queen and a talking polar bear among others. The movie ends here but the book continues with Lyra's evil father sacrificing Roger in order to blast open a portal to parallel worlds as part of his own revolt against God, and Lyra follows him through the hole.

Book II: A young boy named Will (no accident) finds his way into the parallel world where Lyra is hiding. There are only children in this world because there are spirits that roam it eating the souls of adults. Will obtains a knife called 'the god-destroyer' that can rip through anything, even the universe itself. Back in Oxford, Lyra finds a friend in a physicist named Mary who is an ex-nun and has dumped her faith (the choice of "Mary" can't be an accident, either). In the meantime, the wicked Mrs Coulter learns that Lyra is, according to a prophecy, the New Eve (this term will be familiar to Catholics, who regard Mary as The New Eve). Mrs Coulter kidnaps Lyra. Cliffhanger end of Book II.

Book III: Assisted by two homosexual angels (I'm not kidding), Will escapes Mrs Coulter and rescues Lyra. The Magisterium tries to destroy Lyra while her father prepares to attack God-The-Authority, now seen as a senile fraud. Using Will's magic knife, Lyra enters the land of the dead, a dismal prison where the spirits of all intelligent beings are tortured. Lyra and Will release the spirits to a blissful oblivion. In the final Armageddon battle, Lyra and Will kill God (The Authority) while her parents kill the Regent of Heaven (hmm- wonder who he means by THAT) and themselves to boot. Lyra joins her physicist friend Mary in another world's paradise where she plays the serpent to their Adam and Eve. The children discover erotic love and the universe is saved. Survivors return to their own worlds to begin building a society that is god-free.

One can see plainly here the agenda of one who believes that religion, especially Christianity, is the problem and must be destroyed. The way Pullman does this is by turning the Christian faith inside-out by saying the rebel angels and Satan were right to oppose the "tyrannical" Deity, and after their defeat, did a noble thing by signing up the first humans to join their campaign of 'self-awareness' and freedom. But this is actually moving away from a true awareness of who we were meant to be - gloriously created in the image and likeness of God with a high destiny - not to be gods, nor to act as though we were, for that is idolatry and only dims what is wonderful in us. It is also moving away from real freedom - the freedom to do what is right in love, not merely to do what feels good to me now. That's being a slave to one's own passion and conceit.

Pullman will fool many people with his erudite Gnosticism by suggesting that God is an oppressor, the real Deity is not knowable, the serpent in Eden enlightened the first human pair with wisdom, and matter and spirit are really the same so we should enjoy sexual pleasure wherever we find it and at death be content to dissolve into oblivion. It sounds a lot like what the serpent said in the tree.

"The Golden Compass" is the first movie adapted from a trilogy by Phillip Pullman called "His Dark Materials."This title comes from John Milton's "Paradise Lost," the epic poem about Satan's expulsion from heaven and the fall of humanity in Eden. "I am of the Devil's party and I know it," Pullman once said in an interview, and elsewhere has said "My books are about killing God."

So he is joining the party begun by other celebrity atheist authors whose work has been popularized lately. But this time, the target is kids. I hear that New Line Cinema has cleaned up the worst of the anti-Catholic propaganda from the book but this is still a perverse attack on people of faith in the way it satirizes sin, mocks the sacraments, and turns the love of God into something oppresive and hateful. The director of the film, Chris Weitz, is a lapsed Catholic who is into pop-culture New Age 'spirituality.' Go fig.

So here we have militant atheism's answer the "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Lord of the Rings," fantasy stories that Pullman says he loathes precisely because they embody a Christian worldview and Christian virtues. Let no one be fooled into thinking this is harmless entertainment. Pullman has a virulent agenda to impose upon impressionable children and, perhaps, their poorly-catechized parents. At least the silly "Da Vinci Code" was open to investigation by grown-ups who, if alert, would sense something was smelly about the film's false premise. But children won't be able to recognize spiritual pornography when they see it. Let's hope the adults will.

Ghosts, part 3

Journalist GK Chesterton once said that when people stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing, but they'll believe in anything. This is often the case when it comes to ghosts. Having forgotten or discarded or simply not knowing what has been clearly revealed in the Scriptures, people turn to all sorts of notions that suit their personal tastes, or they turn to any person who affirms their notions. This is one reason why people turn to mediums to communicate with the dead.

It is natural, I realize, for a person to want the comfort of knowing a departed loved one is somehow all right, and most people are curious about death and life-after-death. Many people with a superficial upbringing in a church (too often a superficial Catholic upbringing) are easily led to believe that God is somehow working through these mediums - as they themselves claim - to contact the dead. What does the Bible really say about all this?

You may not accept the authority of the Scriptures, but at least you should know what they say - and the Bible clearly and consistently says consulting mediums and spiritists is dangerous.

The danger described in the Older Testament is that people will turn away from God Himself into all manners of superstition and idolatry (since such practices were done for the purpose of divination and seeking the advice of pagan deities), thereby forfeiting their place in the Covenant community. It is a violation of the first commandment to have no other gods.

The danger in the New Testament is similar, but instead of saying what people are turning away from, the description is about what people involved in such practices are turning toward - the great Deceiver and Father of Lies who easily counterfeits spiritual experience and appears as "an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14) and his fellow fallen angels and demons. Celebrity mediums usually talk about encountering such a 'being of light'. So trying to contact the dead usually turns into contacting a real spiritual entity, but not the dead.

No wonder this activity - called necromancy - is so strongly rejected in places like Leviticus 19:31, 20:6, 27; Deuteronomy 18:10-11; I Chronicles 10:13-14 and Isaiah 8:19-20, for example. It is - nearly literally - playing with fire.

Moreover, Jesus' parable of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 suggests that the dead cannot contact the living. If anyone can contact the dead, it is Jesus himself, who calls the other Lazarus out of the tomb in John 11 and who says that, one day, "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear shall come to life" (John 5:25).

What, then, are we to make of the Medium of Endor, whom King Saul of Israel consulted, according to I Samuel 28:3-23? Saul had properly banned mediums, but feeling desperate in his war against the Philistines, he visited a medium and asked her to call up the prophet Samuel's spirit to give him God's advice for the war. Samuel appears, and tells him that because Saul had disobeyed God by not destroying the nasty Amelekites in an earlier battle, Israel would lose the next battle and Saul and his sons would die in it. There is disagreement over whether or not the spirit the medium called up was actually Samuel or a demonic impersonator. The Bible says Samuel appeared, and his truthful prediction indicates that it is really him, as Deuteronomy 18:22 says that only a real prophet will be 100 percent accurate in pronouncements. And the fact that the medium herself is shocked to see Samuel suggests that God brought up Samuel for this special and specific purpose of rebuking Saul. This appearance of a departed saint of God is no problem for Christians, really, since Moses and Elijah appear in the earthly plane on the mount of Transfiguration to consult with Jesus as he faces the cross (Mark 9). Still, this passage in I Samuel cannot be taken to endorse communication with the dead, since I Chronicles 10:13 declares, "So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the Lord, because he did not keep the word of the Lord and because he consulted a medium for guidance."

There is a difference between this and the Catholic practice of requesting the prayer support of the saints, which is, in fact, a healthy corrective to occult practices. Mediums like John Edward and Sylvia Browne may claim to be faithful Catholics, but their views of humans as "divine sparks" who are part of God and whose destiny is to become perfected through many re-incarnated lives or by passing through ever-higher astral levels is not Christian in the least, but a tempting blend of the Gnostic and neo-pagan.

Finally, what are we to make of their often-correct predictions/pronouncements? Some of it is good generalized guessing, a skilled reading of people's responses to questions, and the eagerness of seekers who interpret readings in the ways they want to. But, as mentioned above, the Deceiver and his minions can disguise themselves as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) and thereby act as a "spirit guide" to relay information that is correct and therefore convincing to the hearers.

Enough about people turning to mediums here. The one we ought to turn to is Christ himself, who says, "I was dead, and behold I am alive forever, and I hold the keys of Death and Hades." So, for those who depart this earthly life in His friendship, there is a glorious future, and for those left behind, Paul says: "We grieve, but not as those who have no hope".

Ghosts, part 2

Not all ghosts are dead who haunt the living after a tragic or violent death. Most are not whispy, white vapors, nor disfigured, but look like normal people, fully dressed, who walk around furniture, not through it. And no one is quite sure what to make of the many reports – even if they claim to know for sure. Some ghosts are of the living, seen in one place though you know the person is elsewhere. A few people have seen themselves (in literature, it is called “the fetch” or the “doppelganger,” a living person’s spirit that leaves the body and appears to the person as an omen of their impending death).

What are we to make of all this?

First things first. There are some Biblical premises about human personhood I’m starting with and accept, so you might as well know them.

The first thing is that humans are fully integrated beings of body, mind, and spirit created in the image of God, a theological expression meaning that we share the Creator’s attributes of intelligence, creativity, will, and the capacity for love and relationships. Every human, sharing these qualities, has inherent worth and dignity. Moreover, every mortal is – well, immortal, with a God-given potential to attain glory in a relationship with Christ – or not. As CS Lewis once wrote, “It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours” (from “The Weight of Glory”). The Son of God became the Son of Man that we all might become the sons and daughters of God through Him. So he tells the crucified thief who believes in Him, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” and Paul exults, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” and John tells us, “What we shall be has not yet been disclosed, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him.” Thus, Christians affirm the survival of a person after death and furthermore in the resurrection of the body, and the eventual re-uniting of the spirit with the body, raised incorruptible – a scandalous thought to the Greeks, who considered the body to be a filthy nuisance and best discarded so that the “soul” could ascend to higher planes. This is not a biblical view. The resurrection of the body is plainly anticipated in I Corinthians 15, Revelation 20 and elsewhere. Christ himself was raised physically, though in a body glorified and changed. His frightened and astonished followers thought they saw a ghost – but he assured them he was not, and asked for a meal which he ate in front of them all to demonstrate he was for real (see Luke 24:36ff).

OK, the reason for this “Introduction to Eschatology (Last Things)” lesson is so say that Christians believe firmly in an afterlife filled with inexpressible wonder – and anything regarding “ghosts” is to be understood in this perspective. Biblical theology doesn’t exclude ghost phenomena – but any explanation for ghost phenomena that excludes the affirmation of biblical basics regarding the afterlife is suspect.

Researchers say there are 6 kinds of ghosts: 1. the dead, seen repeatedly; 2. the dead, seen once or twice then gone; 3. spirits of the dying but not yet dead; 4. spirits of the dead who talk to the living; 5. spirits of the living; 6. poltergeists. Ghosthunters look for 1, 2, and 6. The others find you, according to some. Most people, when they think of ghosts, think of 1 and 2. These are (allegedly) the departed who have some unfinished business who will disappear once their mission is fulfilled. #3, the ghost of the dying, is a ghost that appears at the time a person dies, and the ones who see it learn later the person has died. #4 often needs help to finish a mission, and so is like #1 or #2. Mediums like John Edward and Sylvia Browne claim to act as intermediaries for such messages – ie, as “mediums,” telling clients in effect, “I hear dead people.” More on mediums next time (and the medium of Endor who called the 'ghost' of Samuel to appear before King Saul). Ghost #5 is a kind of bi-location, sometimes as an indication that the person will die soon, as I described above. And #6, poltergeists, are not ghosts at all but the excess energy of a teenager’s angst and anger that causes objects to move and there is nothing “supernatural” about it. It's just a bit creepy and noisy, that's all, and that's what "poltergeist" means: "noisy ghost" - though, as I've said, it's not a ghost at all.

Furthermore, there are two general categories of explanation for #1, 2, and 4: The “Natural” explanation group and the “Spiritists.”

The Natural group holds to a kind of “tape-recording theory” of ghosts, whereby the departed leave a kind of psychic “fingerprint” in a place of strong emotions, a holographic imprint of sorts left over in a space (they call it a “vortex”) that is picked up later by people who are sensitive to such force fields. It is a kind of “energy residue” which can be seen and heard, which is why it is likened to a tape recording that is played over and over in a place, though it sometimes fades out quickly (this, as you can tell, has implications for my mystery novel).

Spiritists, on the other hand, who clearly deny any biblical description of the afterlife, believe ghosts are the spirits of the dead coming back to communicate with the living or to complete an unfinished mission so they can “let go” of the Earth in peace and move on to a higher plane of existence – AND that ALL departed spirits do so, regardless of their behavior on Earth. This is where they differ from Christians, of course, who insist that our earthly choices have eternal consequences (thereby affirming human dignity, free will and justice). As it turns out, the full explanation may involve a little of both views, and neither are completely right. I’ll explain in my next posting.

Ghosts, part 1

Do you believe in ghosts? A mystery novel I'm working on has a ghost element in it, and my amateur sleuth works alongside a “Ghost Detective” (sometimes called a “ghosthunter”) to solve a murder and missing person mystery. As with my first two mystery novels, I’m interested in dealing with “mysteries” on a number of levels.

And since my college is sponsoring an event featuring real 'ghost hunters' later this month to coincide with Halloween, this is a good time to opine. Another good reason to offer a comment is that I've observed so many Catholics who do not know what the Scriptures really say about this subject and the afterlife in general, but seem to drift - like their secular peers - into talk-show superstitions about the unseen.

It should be noted from the get-go that we are right to be healthily uncertain one way or the other on this matter, as there are mysteries we cannot fully know this side of heaven. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” we hear in Hamlet – a famous ghost story. Christians in particular are right to exercise caution, reason and skepticism here, since so many people wander easily into occult practices and psychic hooey on this matter and it is easy to be deceived by what we know are unseen, malevolent personalities out there who are intent on fooling whoever they can in order to lure them away from the truth.

It’s quite understandable, isn’t it, that everyone would like to be assured that there is something else after death - especially for lost loved ones. This explains the popularity of certain TV Shows where mediums claim they can speak to the departed who survive in a spirit form on “the other side.” Moreover, popular films have shaped public perception about the subject, especially “The Sixth Sense” and its TV-spinoff, “The Ghost Whisperer.” But we need not be afraid to seek the truth of the matter, either, as there may be a natural explanation (that is, it is a phenomenon that is part of nature, part of Creation).

For example, poltergeist phenomena, in which objects are thrown around the house, are understood mainly as a kind of electrical disturbance peculiar to households where there are teenagers experiencing anger, angst, or trauma. I've observed this firsthand. It's weird, but not technically "supernatural."

As for "ghosts," there are 6 different categories which I will discuss another day. Suffice it to say in this brief introduction that while most uninformed people suppose them to be surviving spirits who cannot leave the earthly plane quite yet due to some unfinished business, and many Christians are too quick to think they are demons in disguise, the most common occurrences have a more "natural" explanation. My story will revolve around this sort of mystery while at the same time remaining Biblical in its understanding of the afterlife, which contains far more hope and wonder than any popularized idea about “ghosts” and a netherworldly “other side.”

Tim Russert's passing

The journalism world today is mourning the passing of an outstanding colleague, Tim Russert of NBC News. Russert, 58, was the managing editor of their Washington DC Bureau and was best known as the tenacious, tough-but-fair host of NBC's Sunday morning political talk program "Meet the Press." Remarkably, NBC Nightly News last evening was devoted entirely to remembering this smart and decent man. Russert was up-front (but never in anyone's face) about being a practicing cradle Catholic of working-class Irish roots. It was good to see how his co-workers knew this about him and appreciated how it informed his journalism: with high integrity, a passion for the truth and a commitment to hold those in power accountable -- exactly what journalism should be doing in a democracy. They acknowledged his love for his family and faith, and thought it somehow fitting that he had just returned from a trip with his wife and son to Italy where he had the privilege of meeting Pope Benedict.


There is a great deal of talk in newsrooms about the need for 'diversity' but the discussion is nearly always in terms of gender and racial diversity, rarely in terms of religious representation. It is journalism's big blind spot. The news business needs more people like Russert to hold journalism itself to a high standard of decency and act as its conscience.