Ted Drewes

If you've ever had a Ted Drewes "concrete," you'll know that it is the standard by which all other frozen custards are--and should be--judged. So, today Karen and I were having our regular (she, a chocolate, and me, a raspberry) when lo and behold who should walk up and introduce himself but Ted Drewes! How cool is that? We had a delightful conversation for about fiften minutes. A celebrity moment! And I was just a few blocks away from where I first met Francis Schaeffer two decades ago! I'm gonna have to make it to this wonderful little corner of St. Louis a little more often.

Sub-Creative Genius

When Rudyard Kipling interviewed Mark Twain on this day in 1889, Kipling was still making his reputation while Twain was at the height of his fame. Kipling’s entertaining account of the meeting for a group of reporters began with a flourish of braggadocio, “You are a contemptible lot, over yonder. Some of you are Commissioners, and some Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the Victoria Cross, and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and smoked a cigar—no, two cigars—with him, and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly that I do not despise you; indeed, I don't. I am only very sorry for you, from the Viceroy downward. To soothe your envy and to prove that I still regard you as my equals, I will tell you all about it.”

Kipling described all the trials and tribulations of tracking down Twain at his gothic mansion there in central New York—the hassles, the run-arounds, the delays, and the off-putting diversions that almost deterred him from his task. , “They said in Buffalo that he was in Hartford, and again they said, perchance he is gone upon a journey to Europe—which information so upset me that I embarked upon the wrong train, and was incontinently turned out by the conductor three-quarters of a mile from the station, amid the wilderness of railway tracks. Have you ever, encumbered with great-coat and valise, tried to dodge diversely-minded locomotives when the sun was shining in your eyes? But I forgot that you have not seen Mark Twain, you people of no account!”

But at last the men met and Kipling was awestruck, “The thing that struck me first was that he was an elderly man; yet, after a minute's thought, I perceived that it was otherwise, and in five minutes, the eyes looking at me, I saw that the grey hair was an accident of the most trivial. He was quite young. I was shaking his hand. I was smoking his cigar, and I was hearing him talk—this man I had learned to love and admire fourteen thousand miles away. Reading his books, I had striven to get an idea of his personality, and all my preconceived notions were wrong and beneath the reality. Blessed is the man who finds no disillusion when he is brought face to face with a revered writer. That was a moment to be remembered; the landing of a twelve-pound salmon was nothing to it. I had hooked Mark Twain, and he was treating me as though under certain circumstances I might be an equal.”

The two men talked of publishing and writing and gardening. They discussed the novels of Scott, the stories of Hart, and the verse of Burns. Then Kipling got to the heart of the matter, “Growing bold, and feeling that I had a few hundred thousand folk at my back, I demanded whether Tom Sawyer married Judge Thatcher's daughter and whether we were ever going to hear of Tom Sawyer as a man.” Twain replied that he hadn’t decided yet. And then the two men dreamed and conspired and imagined what might be, what ought not be, and what should be until the waning hours of the night.

The portrait that finally emerged from the interview, was not so much of one man or the other, but of the way an artistic mind, engaged and inspired by another, may spin worlds of thought and imagination. It was, as Kipling asserted, “A holy moment when the subcreative genius of the Almighty is suddenly made manifest.”

That's a fine way of reminding us that iron sharpens iron.

Congrats!

Yahoo! Bryan proposed to Elisabeth! See the exciting details in Elisabeth's No Name Pub Blog.

1066 and All That

It was on this day in 1066 that William the Conqueror (1027-1087), a Norman prince and a cousin to the royal family of Saxon England, assembled his troops on the shores of the English Channel. He was preparing for an invasion of that "sceptered isle" the next morning in an effort to wrest the crown from his won kith and kin, King Harold.

Born in Falaise, France, William was the illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy. Upon the death of his father, the Norman nobles, honoring their promise to Robert, accepted William as his successor. Rebellion against the young duke broke out almost immediately, however, and his position did not become secure until 1047 when, with the aid of Henry I, king of France, he won a decisive victory over a rebel force near Caen. During a visit in 1051 to his childless cousin, Edward the Confessor, king of England, William is said to have obtained Edward’s agreement that he should succeed to the English throne. In 1053, defying a papal ban, William married Matilda of Flanders, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Flanders and a descendant of King Alfred the Great, thereby strengthening his claim to the crown of England. When Edward died however, the powerful English noble, Harold, Earl of Wessex, was elected king. Determined to make good his claim, William invaded.

Just two weeks later, on October 14, the Normans defeated the English forces at the celebrated Battle of Hastings, in which Harold was slain. On Christmas Day William was crowned "King and Conqueror of England" in Westminster Abbey. It was to be the last successful invasion of England but not the last dynastic change amongst the ever-feuding royals. But then, that's another story.

Solidarnosc

Solidarity--or, in Polish, Solidarnosc--was a remarkable workers' union founded 25 years ago this month. What began as just another group of hopelessly idealistic, disgruntled shipyard workers and dissident intellectuals became an unstoppable force for change that ultimately toppled the Communist bloc and changed the balance of power in the world.

The Poland that begat Solidarity a quarter century ago is hardly recognizable today. Then, Poland was a totalitarian, satellite state of the Soviet Union, under Moscow's firm hand. Today, Poland is a democratic country and a member of the European Union as well as NATO. Much of that development is due to the influence of the trade union that got its start in the Gdansk shipyards in 1980.

The origins of Solidarity go back even further, to 1976, when a "Worker's Defense Committee" was founded by a group of dissident intellectuals after several thousand workers who had been on strike were attacked and jailed by authorities in various cities. In 1979, the committee published a charter of worker's rights.

In 1980, a new wave of strikes again broke out, this time sparked by a seemingly insignificant event. The communist government had raised the price of meat in the cafeteria of the Lenin Shipyards in the northern industrial city of Gdansk. A female worker had complained about the price hike and was fired. That led 17,000 workers to put down their tools and barricade themselves inside the plant under the leadership of Lech Walesa, an electrician at the shipyard.

By mid-August, strikes had spread throughout the country and millions of Polish white and blue-collar workers took to the streets demanding better working conditions, even though only 10 years earlier, similar strikes had ended in bloodshed with dozens of people killed by machine gun fire and over 1,000 injured.

But in August and September, 1980, after weeks of the strike action, the workers in the shipyard reached their goal. The strike movement, which would soon be formally known as Solidarity, was accepted as an independent trade union.

"Finally we have an independent union under our own administration," said Lech Walesa. "We now have the right to strike and we are going to demand more rights soon."

Organizers were anything but sure of their victory, though, even when, at the end of that strike, the government signed the "Gdansk Treaty" with its 21 demands, including freedom of expression, a free trade union and the right to strike. "Getting the right to have an independent trade union was a breakthrough," said Bogdan Lis, one of the founders of Solidarity. "It was so unbelievable that we could only wonder then how long it would last."

The reformers got their answer less than a year later, when the former defense minister, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who took over the reins of government in February 1981, took away the new-found freedoms. "I hereby proclaim martial law in all of Poland," he announced on television as a shocked nation watched.

Martial law lasted two years after that and the communist leaders did what they could to cripple the Solidarity movement. Government critics and union adherents were put in internment camps, including the leadership circle around Walesa. The Party tried to rid the country of what it considered a trade union disease.

While forced underground, the drive for freedom was not easily stopped, according to Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, one-time chair of the Polish writers association and Polish foreign minister in the 1990s. "The breakup of the trade unions was a step that cannot be without consequences," he said after his release from an internment camp in October 1982. "Many have been released from prison, but many are still behind bars, even renowned writers and professors. There are many who are still being arrested and sentenced, many women among them. We Catholics in Poland are very upset and worried."

Lech Walesa himself was arrested and stayed under house arrest until the end of 1982. But the movement he led, although officially dissolved by parliament in 1982 and driven underground, remained active. The unrest in the country could no longer be quieted by draconian measures from on high.

In 1988, a new wave of strikes and labor unrest spread across the country, and high on the list of strikers' demands was government recognition of Solidarity. General Jaruzelski announced he was ready to talk with the opposition and in April 1989, the government agreed to legalize the trade union and allow it to participate in free elections to a bicameral Polish parliament.

In 1990, Solidarity experienced its perhaps sweetest triumph when Walesa was elected president. But at the same time, that marked the beginning of its long demise. The movement began drifting apart with internal fighting over interests and the speed of reforms leading to its losing popularity and influence. Even Walesa, a national hero, became a target for criticism with his high-handedness. He narrowly lost a bid for re-election in 1995 to a former communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski, head of the Democratic Left Alliance.

But the story does not end there—at least not for Poland. Today, twenty-five years after Solidarity was launched, Poles head to the voting booths again. This time they seem certain to return a center-right coalition to power. And all around the world, the yearning for freedom against totalitarianism remains a vital concern. The idea of Solidarity is the "most important answer to the globalized world in the 21st century," Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski has said. "The message of 'Solidarnosc' lives on,” he argued, “as we recently saw in during the orange revolution in the Ukraine." Viktor Yushchenko, the victor of that orange revolution likewise said, “By storming freedom, Poland gives an example for the continuing path toward freedom. Each country does it in its own way. But Solidarity was a guidepost for all of us.”

And it still is. As ex-Czech president and longtime dissident Vaclav Havel asserted, “On the 25th anniversary of Solidarity, we should all be reminded of the countries where there are still dissidents fighting for human rights, and where people are not free. Solidarity does not only mean freedom, it means responsibility,” adding that the people in “Belarus, Burma, Cuba and North Korea still need clear signs of support, still need freedom, still need Solidarity.” We might add to that list all the nations in the grip of poverty and tyranny in the Islamic Bloc, across the heart of Africa, and throughout China. Indeed, may God be pleased to raise up another Solidarity for these oppressed masses.

Signs of the Times

The mainstream media’s newspaper of record admitted late Saturday that one of its reporters fabricated part of a news story on Hurricane Katrina relief. Saying his paper “flunked” the test of basic journalistic fairness, New York Times public editor Byron Calame said Alessandra Stanley’s September 5 report claiming that the Fox News Channel’s Geraldo Rivera “nudged” an Air Force relief worker out of the way so he could film himself rescuing a Katrina victim had been made up out of whole cloth.

Stanley’s bogus report continues a pattern at the “Old Gray Lady” of making up the news. Two weeks ago, columnist Paul Krugman finally was forced to admit that he falsely claimed media recounts in Florida showed Al Gore winning the 2000 presidential election. In August, a Times profile of Hillary Clinton changed a quote first reported by NewsMax where Clinton said she was “adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants.” In the toned down and doctored up Times version, Clinton’s opposition was to “illegal immigration” rather than the immigrants themselves—making for a very different story.

Reading Aloud

Recently, I have been listening to the BBC audio productions of The Chronicles of Narnia as I run. The experience has reminded me that the power of hearing great stories read aloud is an unsurpassed pleasure.

Silent reading is actually a fairly modern innovation. As late as the eighteenth century, it was thought that the best way to truly appreciate the classics was to read them aloud--all the better to relish the beauty of the words, the music of the composition, and the architecture of the ideas.

In books like the Waverly novels or Shakespeare's plays or even something as contemporary as the Narnia tales, the sundry uses of experimental literary structures or the proliferation of odd colloquialisms make reading aloud even more advisable. You’ll quickly find that what was an obstacle when you were reading silently has suddenly been transformed into a delight. Unfamiliar phrases, peculiar historical references, and odd vocabulary choices become all the more charming, challenging, and cheering.

Late last night I began rereading the wonderful old epic poem Marmion. Though I was alone in my library, I could not help but break the silence of the night to read the sonorous tones of Sir Walter Scott's brogue aloud. What a perfect way to end a long and wearying day.

Fopperies

"I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of the poor uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbors, than I ever met with outside of the pages of the Bible. My firm conviction is that they have the advantage of never being separated from tradition by the fopperies of fashion." Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

What Does It Profit A Man?

"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" (Luke 9:25)

Charles V was one of the most remarkable men in history serving as king of the Spanish realms of Castille and Aragon, the Austrian dominions, and the Netherlands as well as Holy Roman emperor for some forty years. He very nearly succeeded in uniting the world into a vast Roman Catholic fiefdom--stretching from the Americas to the frontiers of Asia.

He was born with the most royal pedigree of any man since the time of the Caesars: he the son of Philip I, king of Castile; maternal grandson of Ferdinand V of Castile and Isabella I; paternal grandson of the Habsburg Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I; and great-grandson of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. On the death of his father in 1506, he inherited the Burgundian realm; following the death of Ferdinand in 1516, he became ruler of the vast interconnected Spanish kingdoms and colonial possessions; and when Maximilian died in 1519, he gained all the varied Habsburg lands in central Europe, where his younger brother, Ferdinand, later Emperor Ferdinand I, was governor. Also in 1519, Charles, having bribed the electors, was designated Holy Roman emperor.

Thus, before his twentieth birthday, Charles was by far the most powerful sovereign in Christendom. His inherited lands far exceeded those of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. His territory included the Spanish realms of Aragon and Castile; the Netherlands; the Italian states of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia; Spanish conquests in America and Africa; and all the Habsburg lands of the Germanies and the Central European Slavic realms.

Yet, his hegemony was not without challenges. He ascended the imperial throne at a time when all the German kingdoms, principalities, and duchies were agitated by Martin Luther and his dramatic grassroots Protestant reformation. In an unsuccessful attempt to restore centralized authority and absolute jurisdiction, a great diet was held in Worms in 1521, before which Luther made his memorable defense of the Gospel of sovereign grace. The diet rejected his position, and Charles subsequently issued an edict condemning Luther--but the reformer enjoyed the protection of several German electors and the masses of the people as well as the blessing of Providence.

Meanwhile, Charles was distracted by the rivalry between England, France, and the various Spanish kingdoms over the fractured Italian provinces, city states, and counties. War resulted, so Charles was unable to prosecute his assault on the Lutherans. And as if that were not bad enough, the Ottoman Turks, under the able leadership of Sultan Suleiman, were threatening to overrun Europe. The Turks already controlled the Balkan Peninsula, and in 1526, the Moslem hoard swept over the Hapsburg lands of Hungary. Then just three years later, the Turks laid siege to Vienna.

Though Charles was finally able to quell the rivalries in Europe and hold Suleiman at bay, the ever expanding decentralization of authority wrought by the Reformation emboldened the German princes to seek autonomy for their states. The peasants took advantage of the turmoil in 1524 and revolted.

In the end, it seemed that one thing or another would always conspire against his attempt to unite all of Christendom into a single Imperial See once again. Weary of the constant struggles and heavy responsibilities of his scattered realms, Charles in 1555 resigned the Netherlands and, in 1556, Castille and Aragon, to his son Philip II. In 1556 Charles announced his intention to abdicate the imperial crown in favor of his brother, Ferdinand I, who officially became emperor in 1558. Now a broken man, Charles retired that year to the monastery of San Jerónimo de Yuste in Extremadura, Castille, where he died alone, despised, and rejected on this day in 1558.

A Winsome Untruth

The first Ecumenical Council was convened in the Byzantine city of Nicea in 325 by the recently converted Roman emperor, Constantine. It was a momentous occasion--the first time the church had convened a universal synodical meeting since the time of Peter, James, John, Barnabas, and Paul at Jerusalem to discuss the initial outreach of the largely Jewish church to the Gentiles.

Three hundred and twelve bishops gathered. In the center of the room, on a throne, lay the four gospels. The emperor himself, dressed in a purple gown and with a silver diadem, opened the council saying, "I rejoice to see you here, yet I should be more pleased to see unity and affection among you." The next few days would be devoted to achieve that purpose, if at all possible, by finding an agreeable way to describe precisely who Jesus was.

The problem was that a prominent Eastern bishop, Arius had been preaching that Christ was actually a creation of God--the first of all his creatures, of course, but a creation nonetheless. He was not of the essence or substance or nature of God. "There was a time when the Son was not," he and his followers insisted. They even made up popular Unitarian songs, slogans, and jingles with catchy tunes to propagandize their ideas among the masses. The appeal was very compelling--this new non-Trinitarian was simple to understand and required no complex doctrinal formulas to explain. It was a very sane, rational, straightforward, seeker-sensitive, relevant, charismatic, and contemporary counterfeit faith. It was a winsome untruth.

Bishop Alexander of Alexandria was horrified. Jesus, the Word, had co-existed eternally with God the Father he argued. If Christ were not God, then man could not be saved, for only the infinite and holy God could forgive sin. He deposed Arius. Arius did not go quietly. He gathered followers and continued to teach his pernicious doctrine. The factions rioted. The unity of the empire was shaken. Constantine was alarmed. And that was why he called the council in the first place.

As the council progressed, the bishop of Nicomedia defended Arius' views, attempting to prove logically that Jesus, the Son of God, was a created being. Opposition bishops snatched his speech from his hand and flung it in shreds to the floor. They had suffered for Christ, some of them greatly, in the persecutions of Diocletian. They weren't about to stand by and hear their Lord blasphemed. Otherwise, to what purpose had they borne their gouged eyes, scourged backs, hamstrung legs and scorched hands?

The issues of Nicea boiled down to this. If Christ is not God, how can He overcome the infinite gap between God and man? If a created being could do it, there were angels aplenty with the power. Indeed, why could not any good man himself bridge the gap? On the other hand, Jesus had to be truly man, otherwise how could he represent mankind?

The orthodox bishops ultimately prevailed. Arius was condemned. At that point the council decided to write a creed that clarified the Bible’s teaching on the nature of Christ’s person and incarnation. The Nicean Creed became a document of fundamental importance to the church and gave clarity to the issues of orthodoxy and heterodoxy.