We have just finished a barn-burner evangelical event at, of all places, our staid Catholic church, fronted by Deacon Ralph Poyo.  It was both enjoyable and earth-shattering, in the best Elmer Gantry tradition.  It has worked to increase our faith, which is the main purpose, but it has also brought to me several insights, some new and one an enhancement of a former idea.
One ‘new’ would concern only those invested in Christianity and/or the Catholic Mass, which ties the Jewish Passover to not only the Last Supper (and Communion), but also directly to the Crucifixion and, most interestingly, to the institute of marriage.  And while this might seem arcane to some, the issue of marriage does work into the above-mentioned “enhancement” of a former idea.
 
            As one might expect from a revivalist, the left-wing attack on traditional marriage and gender identification was declared to be the work of the devil, for if marriage is linked to Christ and redemption, what better institution to obfuscate or destroy?  But the Deacon alluded to something more than that, something that led to something else he might not even have intended.  It started with his description of our internal ‘black box.’
 
            The black box is the Deacon’s metaphor for our most hidden hurts and sins.  It is from these that we learn to hide our true selves, not only from others, but from God.  He told his most personal discovery of his own black box: a time when he was eight years old when a (male) relative had some sort of sexual encounter with him.  He blamed himself, as we know that kids always do, and from then on, kept self-loathing and distrust in his heart.  Opening up that “black box” would be one of his greatest pains and his greatest healing – and his way back to being open with God.
 
                I easily found my own black box, which also came from childhood.  It was not linked to sex but to physical harm, but that is of no importance here.  Rather, through the discovery of the black box and the pain and shame hidden there, I came to understand the fanatical approach of those with off-beat sexual practices to make us all accept their bizarre obsessions.  Not just to make their practices legal, understand, but to make us accept them.  Their fanaticism, it became clear, comes from the core of their black boxes.  Parents, teachers, peers and religions have told them that some of what they strongly desire is morally repugnant, be that homosexual sex or sex with dogs or sex with children.  They hate themselves for it, but society has taken such a turn of late that they believe that they have been granted a “get out of jail free” card. This card is played by making themselves the victims, and society the evil tormentor.  In this they believe that they can become both the saved and the saviors.  Thus their passion: to change their sin, and their damnation, into virtue and salvation.  Pretty heady stuff.  Who wouldn’t fight hard for that?
 
            It is a no-brainer to me that this stunning reversal of age-old morality should be strongly reconsidered.  But there is another insight, a brand new one, which I gained from the talks.  And it concerns the vantage point of my own professional area, the social sciences.
 
            Some fifteen years ago, I happened upon a book by a former nun, Karen Armstrong, titled The Spiral Staircase.  I thought it would be a faith-affirming book, but instead, it was about her long journey towards rejecting the Catholic Church.  A few years later, I found a large book she had recently written about the Great Religions.  Thinking that she, a former nun, might have special insight into them, I checked out the book from the library.
 
            It was a bitter disappointment.  Back in my graduate days in Michigan, most of the faculty never denigrated religion.  Rather, they would say something like, “This study is not on the validity of these beliefs, but rather on their sociological aspects,” or something to that affect.  Not so with Ms. Armstrong.  The rise of Confucius or Buddha or Christ or Mohammed was due, in her strongly-held opinion, only to socio-historical circumstances. The Jews, for instance, created a phantom messiah to give them hope in the midst of oppression.  All that Mosses –on- the- Mountain and miracle stuff was due to archaic, irrational thought and pathetic wish-fulfillment.
 
            This is nothing new in modern, unapologetic social sciences, which has taken off the yoke of objective balance to dance freely in the fields of blind certainty.  But somewhere during the lectures it occurred to me that this modern approach could be reflective of an understanding of reality that is entirely upside-down.  For, instead of socio-cultural history being entirely human-driven, it is just as probable, and in my view more probable, that God has had a hand in our social and historical circumstances.  This involvement might be of such caliber that our histories might actually have been manipulated to accommodate his prophets, instead of the other way around. 
 
            This premise has its complications, particularly concerning free will, but we have examples that help explain that in the Bible.  Prophets such as Isaiah would tell the kings or anyone who would listen that doom was coming their way because they had, for instance, fallen into idolatry.  The warning was there for people to change, but God knew his people.  God also knew his design.  He knew that Israel would fall because of those “who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!” (Isaiah, 5:20).  God also knew that “…a child is born to us…They name him…Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:5)  This we read from 700-plus BC, well before the birth of Christ.  Free will was there, but, in the paradox of creation, God also understood how most humans would (and will) behave, just as we know that certain children will steal from the cookie jar.  And, as many believe, he also had a solution for which he was preparing us.
 
            The point being, that we are so permeated with materialism that we base our logical premises without forethought on material speculation, something that is called by the philosophers “tautological reasoning.” Thus our conclusions seem to be the only logical answer because of our original assumptions.  But most understand that something REALLY BIG created the universe and all its laws and permutations. If that is so, it would seem more logical, and without unfounded presumption, that this really BIG entity or whatever, would be capable of envisioning and directing the course of cultural history as well.  And in this, the Entity could then insert the saviors/prophets that would be, are, and will be necessary for whatever design Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. BIG has for us and all of creation.  
 
            Heady stuff for me, both ideas refined or born from the impassioned preaching of a Catholic deacon revivalist.  He has seen many a miracle of far greater scale, he claims, as well as demons and works of evil, and I cannot say that he lies.  There truly is so much more in this incomprehensible vastness than what we ordinarily think, and much of that “more” is just a prayer or act of contrition or gift of grace away from us.  Sublime revelation is before us, but is blocked by an initial premise – a black box - instilled in all of us that is so wrong that it has made the whole world go wrong for all of history.  A world, if we go by the odds, that will be made right again by the same power of the Word that has made everything, and made everything have any meaning at all. 
 
           
 

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            Ah, the winter doldrums!  We have been exceptionally warm here these past few weeks, and, aside from peering over our shoulders for flooding waves rushing off the Greenland glaciers, I suppose we are happy about it.  Not so the snowmobilers and skiers and those absolute kooks, ice fisherpersons, but for this writer at least, sidelined as I am with a leg injury, it has most certainly been a plus.  But winter is still no picnic.  The days have been almost all gray when there is any sunlight at all, and it seems an eternity of boredom and depression has descended upon us. 
           
            That’s why, in His infinite mercy, we have been given Netflix, et al.  Saints be praised.
 
            But we can watch only so many Tom Cruise action films and Golden Globe winners promoting glitzy post-cultural drivel that will make us want to dye our hair green.  So we turn to documentaries, as we did a few days ago.  With some of these, and certainly with the one we watched, we sometimes get more than the producers intended.
 
            The hook of this particular one is in the name, “The Axe-wielding Hitchhiker,” which brings up creepy images of Freddy Krueger and ski masks and chainsaws.  But that is not what we are left with.  Rather, by the end we find a sad emotional basket-case of a young man and a media machine that drove him to murder.
 
            We begin with a bizarre scene of violence captured on people’s cell phones, of a car pinning a public-works man to the back of his truck.  A large middle-aged white man emerges from the car screaming out his hatred of black people while announcing that he is the Christ.  He’s a nut, and a racist one at that, and a few woman intervene to try to help the black man who is pinned between the vehicles.  As they do so, the crazy man grabs one woman in a wrestling hold and seems to be threatening her life when a young long-haired bearded (white) man appears with a hatchet.  He hits the crazy man three times in the head with the hatchet (once, we find, with the sharp end) before the crazy man goes down.  Police arrive, along with local TV cameras.  We see that no one is dead, while one, the long-haired axe-wielder, is pictured walking away from the scene, a large backpack slung on his shoulders.  The TV reporter gets the camera man to move over to the young man, who then grants an interview.
 
            Says our hitchhiker, “Yeah, this crazy dude attacks this black dude and then this woman, so I take the hatchet and, like, smash, smash, smash!  Got the fucker good,” or something like that.  I remember the three-fold “smash.” For visual aid, imagine a really stoned California surfer dude talking and you’ll get the gist: scarf on head, skate board under arm, a man of the road.  But more, he was the only one to effectively stand up to a potential killer – and a racist, insane one to boot.   
 
            The documentary shifts its focus to the reporter.  “I knew I had found gold when I interviewed him,” says he proudly, and indeed he had.  Within a day, there were hundreds of thousands of hits off his interview, and then millions, going global.  People offered new surf boards to the bearded hero, and in no time, the kid had an agent, whether he liked it or not.  Soon he was on with Jimmy Kimmel.  He played warm-up for bands and was all the rage.  This happened around 2013, if anyone can recall.  What the media ignored, however, was who this kid really was.
 
            They had wanted a likeable hero, a surfer-dude zen wise man who lived for the moment and thought little of his own well-being for the sake of others.  Instead, what they got was a messed-up young man from Manitoba who had taken on his surfer-dude homelessness as a persona, a mirage that covered his nervous disorders and painful, apparently loveless (and fatherless) upbringing. 
 
            He drank in excess; he was stoned all the time.  We also find that the crazed racist had first picked up the hitchhiker before the attack, in which time the young man had given him weed that he said was laced with PCP or Special K or some other mind-destroying stuff.  Worse still from the promoters’ point of view, he also messed up hotel rooms.  None of this was what they had wanted or envisioned at all.
 
            And that – the handlers – is what this documentary was really about, whether intended or not.  The fame-building had taken place in sunny California, where each agent and reporter that was interviewed had the hardened approach of a shark in a feeding frenzy.  To get the fame and the money from this new-found phenomena, they rushed in for the first bite, never looking at what they were feasting on.  They claimed in the documentary that, while they of course wanted a piece, they were really doing all this for the hitchhiker.  This poor homeless kid will now be rich and famous!  What more could he want? 
 
            Obviously, they were doing it for themselves in an ugly display of greed and raw usury.  The kid needed anonymity and poverty, if not intense psychological treatment.  His lifestyle was his therapy.  With money and fame came substance abuse and fuel for his over-excited trauma-driven nervous system.  Finally, all of the attention led him to extend himself into the no-man’s land of murder, and a senseless one at that.  He will now sit in prison for the next fifty-plus years. 
 
            At first I was simply angry at the users of this guy, looking at them as the Hollywood sharks that they are.  Then it dawned on me: which of us has NOT been the target of a huckster? Who among us has NOT done things that we wouldn’t have if not pressed to do them by others: by others who would find some entertainment or profit in the doing without sharing the consequences? 
 
            Soft-brained dolt that I once was, and still am at times, I surely have been swayed, not to murder, but to idiocy that may have had long-term consequences.  But apart from shameful personal failures promoted by others, we seldom see that bigger-league users might be swaying vast crowds of people in much the same way and for the same reasons – using collective needs and weaknesses to get the folk to do things that profit the users. 
 
            We have vintage videos of such things on the History Channel.  Hitler stands out as an especially flamboyant example of the user, and the defeated German people as the wounded surfer dudes in SS uniforms, but there are many, many other examples.  Did Chairman Mao get down on his knees and dig with the peasants in the Cultural Revolution, or did he use those millions of lives to consolidate his power and his place in history?  Did Charlie Manson lead the way in the murders of high-status people, or did he use the fragile and the stoned to bring about his twisted revolution and his fame?  We know the answers.  We have all been the kid tricked into putting his tongue on the frozen flag pole at one time, so might we not be being used now?
 
            Marxists would have it that our hierarchical system protects those in power, and in certain ways that is true.  Still, the old-time users exploited a culture and a religion – general Christianity - that they intended to keep in place.  What we are seeing now is a purposeful displacement of centuries of tradition for…what?  This is not a small thing, not a twisting of familial ties, say, to buttress patriotism, but an actual re-definition of basic institutions.  And this is not being done by one or a handful of intellectuals or New Age priests, either, but by the power elite at large, those running the education systems and the media and the election-proof bureaucratic state.  So we have to ask –what’s in it for them?
 
            We know the answer.  Although we are being told that all is for our own good, we know that the changes are only good for certain small groups, and probably not for their good in the long-run either.   If not for the good of the many, then, we must conclude that, in the end, it is for the good of the few – and mostly for those few who are promoting the changes.  So why are we going along with the program?
 
            For one, we are not desperate, not yet.  I myself still have to count calories; for two, we would be fighting City Hall, and we all know that you can’t fight City Hall.  Most insidious, however, is number three – that the powers that be are using our best traditions to subvert those very traditions.  ‘Judge not lest ye be judged; we were all immigrants once; love is love; don’t be a “phobe;” hey, your life ain’t so perfect, so don’t be a hypocrite.’ And, ‘Traditions, particularly religious traditions, are based on fear and patriarchy.  Are you one of those?’
 
            It is a devious trap.  Like the hitchhiker, we know where we belong, but are sometimes persuaded to think that maybe they are right, that maybe it would be better to be on the other side of the fence.  Maybe we are too judgmental, and racist and sexist, and so on. But before we go along with the program, first we must look to those who are wooing us: are they like Christ, willing to lose all and gain nothing to better our lives?  Or are they profiting from these changes, either financially or emotionally?  Just as important, are these changes improving our lives in general, or have they or will they cause a precipitous demise in order, discipline, and well-being? 
 
            Not long ago, a group of us went to Medjugorje, the site of Marion apparitions, where we heard again and again from the laity, the priesthood, and even from Mary herself, that those who clung to the spiritual and moral traditions would decline noticeably in the decades to come.  Those who remained in the faith, however, would be ‘saved”, however that might be interpreted.  But whether we believe in this or not, it is still smart to check out the cost and quality of the goods that are being sold before we buy. Those stripping society of centuries, even millennia, of tradition have no idea where their new ideas will take us, but they do not seem to be concerned.  They are getting what they want now, and to hell with the consequences.  Our hitchhiker, left to think about his own betrayal for decades to come, would understand.
 
            While it is my belief that satanic influence underlies it all, it is not necessary to agree with that spiritual possibility to realize that flimflam artists have taken over the show.  Beware the shell game.  We must keep what we know to be right in our hearts, regardless of siren calls, sneers and jeers, or the promises of wealth and happiness that would shame the likes of the proverbial Nigerian prince. 
 
            To play on the famous words of the Who song: Meet the new boss/Worse than the old boss/Let’s not get fooled again. 
           
               
 
              
 
           
           
           
 
 
            

 
            A few weeks ago we finally got around to watching the movie, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” based loosely on the English rock group Queen, but focused primarily on its flamboyant singer, Freddy Mercury.  That’s just his stage name, I know, but this essay is not about Freddy nor the movie. For me, the latter was somewhat disappointing, in that it held tightly to the formula theme that is always used for performance stars: improbable rise from obscurity, outrageous fame that leads to outrageous excess, and then some sickness or slump that turns the star towards an inward reflection that makes all right again one way or another.  Yup, all there. 
 
            What interested me most, however, was how Freddy handled the intense pressure that must have come from playing before huge crowds.  The crescendo to the movie was the band’s performance at Live Aid before hundreds of thousands in live audience, and billions of others watching on TV.  The movie showed him walking out from behind the curtain to greet them all, which he did in a way typical of stars: he opened his arms to them and told them that he loved them.  At the end, he blew them kisses and, if I remember right, told them again of his love.  That, too, was cliché.  But that, this professed love for the crowd, is often really expressed by the stars.  Just last month, I learned ‘why’ in a personal way. 
 
            If we can believe it, word on the street has it that most people fear public speaking more than death.  Such we hear, and although I have never seen that specific poll and somewhat doubt it, there is some truth to it.  People hate public performance, the worse for the more exposed they are.  I have sat with people taking turns saying common prayers that have been said thousands of time, and have seen many forget the words.  They at least have the courage to try, but there it is: the fail.  And if some fail, so could you.  And if you could fail, you probably will sooner or later – if you take to public performance.  So you try like hell not to.
 
            I am not immune to this fear, and in fact have failed spectacularly in some public performances.  The fear is there in me, and were it not for my interest in playing guitar, I would probably never do anything in front of a large audience, or an audience filled with strangers, again.  What happens is, if you play a group instrument such as the guitar or piano (or, gasp, the accordion) you are going to be asked to play.  And sooner or later, you will not be able to refuse.
 
            So it was that I took up with a classical guitar ensemble, to both get better at guitar and learn how to handle public performance better.  It should work, I had thought, as years of classroom teaching had finally gotten me comfortable with that form of public performance.  However, I was to find that playing in the ensemble resisted comfort or peace.  Playing chords for popular songs was one thing; playing individual notes in tandem with several others was another.  There, every mistake could be heard and noted; there, everyone, from your fellow players to the audience, could easily detect your mistakes.  And with each mistake, lack of confidence could spiral out of control.
 
            All was made tougher by a two-year reprieve from performance do to our spectacular reaction to Covid.  When we came together again, most of us were raw, almost like newborns in the harsh Darwinian world of the performer.  We practiced; we got by with a few puff performances; then we began some really tough stuff that was destined for a higher goal.  Finally, the time for that goal arrived: we would play in the big city, the metro of big shoulders, Chicago.
 
            Yes, it was to a small audience at a college of music, but still, this would be among people who were accustomed to attending – and comparing – innumerable performances.  Surely, some hicks from the Land of Cheese could not measure up. 
 
            Fortunately, Chicago was far away and the venue was so short – no more than a half-hour of our own individual effort – that a good excuse for not going was ready-made.  I told the disapproving master of the ensemble, the former band leader of the local high school himself, that I could not attend.  My reasoning was true, and peace fell upon me.  Until it didn’t.
 
            Doubt began to form: was I just chickening out?  Wouldn’t the ensemble be underrepresented beside the bigger group that had invited us?  The others were going because they were making a trip of it, staying overnight in hotels with their spouses and shopping for Christmas on the Magic Mile.  For me, it would be a two-plus hour drive down, a little bit of playing, and then the same drive back that evening.  A huge waste of time and money for a gig that was being done gratis. All true.  But still I felt that I was somehow missing out.
 
            Another guy in the group had the same situation, and I had left it to him – clever me – saying that I would drive down if he decided to go.  He said nothing, and it appeared that I was in the clear, until a few days before the performance.  Hey, says he, shifting the burden, I’ll go if you do.  Feeling guilty already, I would not go back on my word.  We would go.
 
            It was on the drive down that something happened – or didn’t happen.  I felt a bit of adrenalin psyching up for the event, but no fear, not even the fear I had felt for the minor performances before.  Instead, I felt comradery, as if we were all equally in this together.  This continued right on down to the college, then right on up to the stage. When it came time to play, it was felt as a fun challenge that was actually enjoyable, accompanied by the knowledge that the audience was getting something out of it – even if only some pointers on what NOT to dol.  We came together later in a joint performance, the professionals among them spectacular, and then had a pretty good smorgasbord afterwards as we talked congenially. The food was better than ours up north, too, except for the cheese.
 
            Sure, we are not talking about Live Aid and Queen, but now I understand the stars better and how they can handle being stars.  The problem with people who avoid like death giving a speech or public performance – and that includes most of us at times – is that we feel that the audience is there only to criticize.  In most venues, particularly those that are free, that is simply not true.  If we stumble and fail, people feel sorry for us, but will not throw stones.  Rather, what the stars know is this: people want to be entertained or informed by someone who has the guts to entertain or inform.  Just by willingly standing there before them is a sacrifice that most appreciate.  In a way more subtle than obvious, they love you.  The stars recognize this by telling the audience that they love them.  The crowd loves being loved and so showers the star with more love.  As we are comfortable to be ourselves with those we love, the star outshines himself with whatever talent he has. This brings more love.  A star is thus not only born but maintained.  We could do the same. It happened to me by accident, and with that, can be made to happen again. 
 
            So it is with ‘A Star is Born.’ Our species has been following stars for eons.  We have now passed the height of one star that was born, Christ on Christmas, and the tale of the three wise men who followed that star.  Christ came to earth to be king, which is always a sacrifice for the better ones, but this kingdom was to be much more.  There would be no applause or love showered upon him in his final performance.  He would be stretched out in pure humiliating sacrifice.  But instead of condemning the jeering crowds, many of whom did come to criticize him, he begged his Father to forgive them.  His last performance was the ultimate sacrifice and projection of love in the most hostile of crowds.  Like Freddy Mercury, he was doomed to an early death.  And like Freddy in the movie, if not in real life, he was ultimately reborn a star.
 
            Big time.  Like Elvis, Christ’s fame actually grew after his death, until the greatest empire the West had ever known officially deified him.  For the ultimate in sacrifice and the ultimate in love – to give his life for his fellow man – he became the biggest star ever born.  His life became the template for the star, although his falling from public grace came from the faults of the public and not his own.
 
            A star is made to shine above the earth.  Among mortals, the path to becoming a star is propelled by ego, which has to be chastened to make the star a true star.  For the biggest star ever, the ego to be chastened was that of the crowd.  We were taught that to follow that star in sacrifice and love would make each of us the biggest star of all.  We fear rejection, but cannot resist the call.  Like the star, we want to be loved and are pulled this way just as Freddy was pulled to the stage.  And like Freddy, we must go through our periods of sin and redemption to claim the ultimate prize.
 
            Freddy’s star will not come to this Freddy.  I don’t have the talent and would be paralyzed before a large crowd.  There is fear again, the opposite of love.  But the template is there for all of us to see.  We will all try to follow it one way or another, and with faith will come to understand that it was never about “me” but about all of us: every one of us both audience and performer, each of us reaching for the same star.    
 
Happy New Year!