Chanting the Oratio Dominica

谢熊猫

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.——Matthew 5:45

Our Father, who art in heaven.

Henry Owens was an ordinary African American man living in Alabama. He was born only one generation past the Emancipation Proclamation. In the year 1913, her wife, Emma Owens, an ordinary African American woman, gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Little would they know that in twenty-three years, this baby boy would grow up into one of the most famous black man ever lived. When the boy, Jesse Owens, travelled to Berlin in 1936, he was already the loving father of a beautiful girl. He then, in his silent and most eloquent statement of four gold medals, voiced against Hitler’s Aryan Supremacy. There are moments in history, in fact the vast majority of history during which the omnipresent God was absent. Maybe He was simply tired of humanity’s savage nature. He closed His eyes when Hitler started butchering His people and that was also when Jesse Owens shouted back, like Philoctetes pulled the string of the bow of Heracles. When the divine fails to act, the great mortals have to take justice into their own hands.

God resides in heaven, so He could oversee the world. Yet the worldliness is not of His interest, and His throne is pretty comfortable as a retreat. Throughout history people cried out for justice and mercy to their Father in heaven, knowing that the Temple of Jerusalem has collapsed for long and praying to the Wailing Wall is really only praying to a wall. It would be cruel to make fun of miserable people, but when God does not answer a prayer or chooses not to listen at the first place, He has done His part in telling you “nice try but sorry, not this time”.

Not that I want to doubt the power of God thy Lord, sacrilegiously or otherwise, just that for one who lives through eternity, nothing is significant enough to bother him. To put in the pantheistic way, Hitler murdered millions, but the universe did not even notice. For one who lives independent of time and space, the way God perceives time must be really different from us. Several decades into the past, the murdered were still living and breathing, and in a future distant enough, all the living will be dead, let alone the existence of the species. Not to mention the absence of difference a living body and a deceased one would appears in the eyes of Him, that is, if He does not close His eyes for the time being.

I am no fan of vigilantism, that is not to say I in anyway oppose any action of a vigilante though. But for the matter of justice, whether you orate your way in deontological or utilitarian perspectives, or even by the application of Aristolean virtue ethics, be prepared to take justice into your own hands. God sent His son to die for you to prove a point that as the highest judging authority, He does not allow any crime unpunished, but He also refused to send His son again in the past two millenniums because He did not mean He will take actions against the venom of the world personally. So before the Rapture, be prepared and hope that thy Father in heaven is on your side.

Hallowed be thy Name

Centuries after the Jew from Nazareth proclaimed that “I am the way and the truth and the life”, Arius confronted Alexander of Alexandria, saying that the King of All Jews does not co-exist with Jehovah, that while God is eternal, Logos is not. In all likelihood Arius might be right and more accurate in terms of historical Christology. In fact if Arius won the debate during the First Council of Nicaea, the history of the Christendom will be entirely different, and as chaos theory goes, the modern world we live in will be different. Though I would like to see a different world where Republicans can actually read, Chuck Norris gay-married John Travolta, and all Mormons and Scientologists were killed during the conflict of Joseph Smith against L. Ron Hubbard, history cares less about my assumptions than Robert Mugabe cares about monetary policies. So history went that the honorable man, Athanasius, stood up and took the subject of truth as a matter of great importance even in the face of two times of banishment from Alexandria. Despite a violent life of exile, he was venerated as one of the greatest church fathers and his opponent Arius and his disciples were doomed to heresy by the Church. All is fine except both Arius and Athanasius were speaking their true minds, but the winner takes it all.

VERITAS remains the one cliché people refer to when they fight for their ideas. With all due respect to their sincerities, I would like to point out that it is just absurd. There are noble people who with great courage and determination fought for the ideas they believe in and there will be more coming. Rosa Parks sat down on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, thus starting a revolution which pushed the long-awaited completion of “We the people” in its literal meaning. Thirty-four years later, a young man whose name is still unknown today, stood in front of a row of killing machines in Beijing, thus ending the dream of an utopia by peeling of the last layer of mask of the Big Red Brother. These are the great people I dare not to lay any insult upon for they risked their lives for what they believe for the common betterment of other people. Yet Arius was doing the exact same thing, so as to glorify his God. The same is true for anyone argues with compassion in his heart, regardless of ideology or whatsoever. The disciples of Arius carries on and still lives to preach now, although very unlikely but Arius may one day be vindicated and Athanasius would be consequently deemed to unorthodoxy. Does that really makes a difference then? All this long I was taught and I taught others that in religiosity sincerity does not matter. Now I look back at this, it is plainly cruel. It is said that the sole purpose of man is to glorify God, but when I think about the well-intentioned losers, it makes me uneasy. This could be true in a wide range of areas other than theology, among which politics being the most prominent. May God have mercy on the losers.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

One night not long into the past, I was unable to fall asleep. The bad thing about insomnia is you never know whether you are truly awake. The last time this happened to me dated back to my adolescent years, I was in love then, and as it always happens to young boys, the girl was not really impressed, by that time. Then I literally kissed those years goodbye, by kissing that girl, and turned into the current me, yours truly. It was a good kiss by the way in a really romantic place where we both wished to revisit sometime in the future. Insomnia became obsolete when I grew older into the early 20s. I certainly did grew older, whether I have grown UP is not necessarily true but I hope so.

When you are not in a state of sobriety, your thinking goes interesting. I felt I was like Karl Rossmann in the Hotel Occidental, trying to work up the hierarchy with determination and greater industry only to be struck down by the absurd and intangible systems and institutions. Even when he tried to escape, the Head Porter was there to assault him in the dark. Karl Rossmann could walk through the corridors of Hotel Occidental feeling and admiring the miracles of luxury and capitalism, but nothing belonged to him and he was ultimately chased out in disgrace. I was not in a bad fortune, no, I was not even let down by  a certain girl I showed interest in. However I still felt emotionally in sympathy with Karl Rossmann and even to some extent even with K while trying desperately to enter the Castle. I could not explain that, and that made it slightly more difficult for me to sleep.

So I went to the twenty-four hour supermarket, and bought some fish and I cooked fish soup. Cooking alleviated my weird thoughts because when one is handling food, he did so with great focus. Consumption of the product is even more enjoyable. After the fish soup, I could sleep, which is good. End of story.

Well, not really.

Weird thoughts went away, but weirdness did not. Imagine the ghost of the last antediluvian suddenly appears in front of you and talk to you about the genome project and its similarity to the construction of the Ark. It somewhat makes sense, but it is weird nevertheless. Well that was what happened to me. The searching of the purpose of life has being a troubling and unsolved case throughout history. Explaining it in terms of God’s master plan soothes my mind, but it is no different from smoking marijuana— it feels good each time and it is not that harmful, but all the hard drug addicts started by smoking soft drugs like this. The will of thy Lord does not make the pursuit of the meaning of life any easier, in fact a little bit more complicated since you have no control. Let His will be done, but let us hope it is sensible.

Give us this day our daily bread

The slothful sloth says, what will happen will happen.; and Douglas Adams states that anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again. By this account hard determinism is close to slothfulness in a certain perspective. Thus are the couch dwellers, who watch television with remote controls in their hands, enjoying cable news, MTV, and other unfruitful junk of popular culture. So are the passer-bys, who watch the world from a self-righteous distance, believing a miracle will just happen and things will get better, or, God forbid, worse. So the pathetic and the apathetic goes on, living their lives regarding the right to purchase the ultimate source of joy and spiritual satisfaction, thus turning the slothfulness into a deadlier sin— covetousness. It is this covetousness that reminds me of the collapse of Soviet communism. Both Soviet communism and modern consumerism banish the sin of covetousness, only one making it impossible, the other making it glorious instead of sinful. Consumption has really become the institution to satiate one’s spiritual needs rather than material greed. People walk into temples named Christian Dior and Versace to obtain their pass to grace and happiness. It may be difficult for a camel to pass through the hole of a needle, they say, but the Bible does not say anything about spending my hard-earned credits.

This is, I am sorry to say, not unlike paying the Catholic Church for plenary indulgence— by trying to buy forgiveness, more mortal sin is created. Once you fall into the trap, you join the real life reenactment of the Vanity Fair. By diverging from the road of pilgrimage, you have made money the Alpha and the Omega, and Giorgio Armani the Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu. The moment you give up the virtue of temperance, you transform yourself into an austere personage, a Prince Florimund, leaping across the stage of James Robinson’s Circus in a series of grand jetes. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

The designers have long learnt that it is not the product that sells, it is the advertisement, it is the celebrity endorsement, it is adultery, that sells. When one worships Mammon, he neglects the suffering of others; when one brands his individualism with voracious appetite, he lost his true identity; and when one can buy 10 pairs of socks for $1.99 in Wal-Mart that are made in China, they lost their voice decrying human rights abuses. Sins sell luxurious fashion and cosmetics, but sins also beget destruction. Be afraid, for one day Martin Luther will nail your sins to the gate of the Schlosskirche. Rest assured, Bernard Arnault is not the head of the real estate branch of Heaven on earth.

Fundamentalists will tell you that you will go to hell, but I think you are already there.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us

Long ago and once upon a time, by which I mean more than a year ago, an earthquake struck Sichuan. Almost instantly, anybody who is anybody is talking about it. They brag about their donations, they spread the word to people to raise awareness. People donate money, blood, clothes, or whatever they have to give a helping hand. It even became a bit deviated that a small minority even tried to equate the contribution to charity to patriotism, if you do not donate, you are an amoral son of bitch. Yet in general, things went quite well. The entire nation was talking about it, and it was good. One year later, it seems anybody who is anybody, is trying to refrain himself from talking about it, not unlike the hotly debated issue of nuclear war suddenly fell out of the public eye after the election of Richard Nixon into the White House.

We have done our part, they say, we have given money and attention. Indeed they have. They even mourn for the loss of a giant panda. Panda is an endangered species they say. Yes, panda is an endangered species, but you know what else is an endangered species? Smart, sensible people who actually care about the loss of human lives, the pointless death of thousands students being buried under the debris of the poorly constructed school buildings; people who do not only care about their own inner feeling and self-righteousness; people who take the task of revealing the truth of this human tragedy as their own responsibility; people who do not only talk the fight but fight the fight; and people who are jailed and sentenced for being so.

It feels good to do charity, and to arrange candles into a heart shape so anyone watching will be impressed by their ‘loving’ hearts. But true love and courage can only be found in those who risk themselves being detained and beaten by the authorities, the very authorities who are meant to protect people from harm, trying to make the death of thousands not mere statistics but a warning to the society. If not for these courageous people who are so unjustly treated, little interest will be shown to the departed and even less the cause of their death.

When questioned, people confess their helplessness against the government and the institutions, and they do so, with a seemingly mature and profound despair, as if they want to show off their appreciation of 21st Century post-modern governance, when in fact they are only like Tom Cruise trying to gain publicity for Scientology or Steve Seagal unfolding the mystery of Tibetan Buddhism. They are helpless because they are not helping.

It always confuses me that while the incompetent CEOs of big corporations earn millions in bonuses, thousands of hard-working labors have to be laid off. Some think something is wrong with the system and are determined to change it while some trying desperately to become the CEOs. To the former may you have luck, Geronimo may be dead, but his spirit has not yet perished. To the latter, keep masturbating to your Malibu Stacy and my suggestion to you is to watch your steps while climbing up the ladder so you will not one day fall like Louis Ferdinand Celine.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

To my extreme sadness, anchorman Walter Cronkite departed two months ago, at the age of 92. This gentleman informed the world about the JFK assassination and the Iran hostage crisis, he reported the war in Vietnam, and he introduced the Beatles to America. First left Edward Murrow, now Walter Cronkite, the age of true journalism took a ride on the Pacific Railway and never returned, leaving the world not enough time to even deliver a decent farewell speech. Although if you think about it, with the media, the once Knight in Shining Armor dead, what decent thing can the we expected to be uttered? Walter Cronkite’s death does not mark the death of the once decent media. It was dead for long, it was murdered in the year 1982 when CNN opened the Pandora’s Box of 24 hour cable news. The corpse was mutilated in the year 1997 with the passage of the Telecommunication Act. Up till today, both the liberal media and conservative media are still cannibalizing on it, the same way they cannibalize the body of Lady Di— sucking out every drop of valuable blood out of the remains and carving out the meat from the bones in a ritualistic style.

I was sad about Mr. Cronkite, just like I was sad when George Carlin left us, may they rest in peace. And I see myself in a few years to come will be crying for Helen Thomas, may she live long and prosper. We are losing honest people who pointed us to the right side of the pathway. With more and more such people lost, we are slowly entering a purgatory of lies and disgust.  One good man lost to Pluto is one too many in a world with ill-intentioned idiots like Rush Limbaugh as the Pontifex Maximus. Since the Clinton era, the people known as the public intellectuals have being discussing about the decadent media. Yet they make so much emphasis on the “public” part of the term, they care about the “intellectual” part as much as Rupert Murdoch cares about free speech. Having celebrities to voice out or take nude photos does not really make a sensible call about stopping animal cruelty, and Bono does not convince me anything even he can back his argument with an electric guitar.

The departure of Walter Cronkite created for me a vague melancholy like one echoed by a blues song played by B.B. King. Lord giveth and Lord taketh away, may Mr. Cronkite enjoy his life up there.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever

The world was constantly changing, faster than any great men and women can adapt to, into something not necessarily good. In the 17th Century, with the Peace of Westphalia yet to be signed and the thirty years of bloodbath still going on, priests and the clergymen are the leading forces in a society where the scientific method of Baconian inheritance still in its infancy. The 18th Century, with the advent of the Enlightenment, politicians begin to exert their power in the social order, and we knew great men like Napoleon Bonaparte, Edmund Burke, and Thomas Jefferson from that era. The 19th Century with the industrial revolutions going on, saw the prominent figures of science and engineering, and novelists who found things to write about in a fast changing world. The 20th Century is pretty much a mixture of the earlier mentioned, an ugly mixture. It started good, and we all know what happened later.

Living as an ordinary person is different, too. Back in the old days, a man without nationality was not usually having a joyful life. Now with giant companies employing people the size comparable to the population of a typical medieval city-state, man without a company is like a man without nationality in the old days. The problem of living under a capitalist system is the pitiless logic of profit maximizing will always overrule the moral objections expressed by the Gregorian chant. Animals have it easier than human beings. There is no moral obligation for a dog or a pig to share its food with another of its kind. Human society functions differently, different types of altruism present themselves in different circumstances, be it the Christian way of “love thy neighbor” or the socialist way of “each according to his need”. To be generally considered humane, one has to take on a stance of altruism. So the moral objectivists come out and tell the world it is fine to be selfish and by doing so the society will be better off. Although I would really like to see Mother Teresa fighting hand to hand with Ayn Rand on this issue of selfishness. It takes little to undermine one’s belief in such a inhumane idea as not living for the sake of another man like John Galt from Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. The invisible hand did push the economy forward, but it failed to stop the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York,  1964, neither did Ms. Genovese’s thirty-eight neighbors who watched the entire process without any form of intervention. I personally deploy the principle of reciprocity in addition to my utilitarian approach, not that I know I can make the perfect moral judgment, but in a imperfect world unlike the kingdom of heaven, anyone is obliged to make at least some attempt to fly to the sun like Icarus. If one is bound to fail, fail gloriously. That is what makes the world a better place.

Amen

A few years ago I met a Korean Christian. Like many young Christians he was from a modern and huge Charismatic church. I did not really spoke any Korean and he spoke even less Mandarin. As far as I know Koreans speak terrible English but lucky for me, this friend, back then in his early thirties, used to be an English teacher. So we managed to communicate without any trouble. He told me that to walk through the Christian nations, one needs not to speak many languages because there are two words in the Bible that are universally understood, one being Hallelujah, the other being Amen.

The reason is simple, different translations of the Bible keep the original  pronunciations of the two words as much as possible so even though there are small variations, these two words are universally understood among all the Christians. It also happens that Hallelujah is often used to start a prayer and Amen always used to end one, they are quite literally the Alpha and the Omega. In fact with Hallelujah meaning praise to the Lord, and Amen meaning solemn ratification, two people can use only the two worlds to make a short conversation.

I never meet that Korean gentleman again after that. May he live well and prosper, may God guide my way, and may He have mercy on us.

Amen.

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