The Wild Tears Fall

Here is a sobering reminder of why we must keep fighting. God rest the unborn!

'Let's not do politics; let's build Poland.'

Thus said a billboard featuring a large image of Donald Tusk, looking rather blue collar with no jacket or tie. If his sleeves were visible, I'm sure they were rolled up above the elbow.


A Pole walking with me frowned at the slogan and said that the sentiment communicated by the billboard was actually, to a certain extent, illegal.

'What? How so? I personally rather like the words, though I don't believe that Tusk genuinely means it.'

'He's supposed to support his party's politics; he's taken an oath to do so.'

I groaned. 'The law should never be able to restrict a man from having an awakening of conscience, especially the crime is merely breaking with one's party platform.'


Last Friday, such an awakening, or at least a stand, did take place in Poland. Fifteen noble souls defied the PO's (Civic Platform) party line, and voted in favour of a bill that would ban abortion completely. And yes, their coalition now wants to make them pay for voting according to their conscience, rather than following the coalitions modus operandi.


One may argue that rejecting their faction's position and favouring a higher, moral code was undemocratic. Is PO not in power because of votes? However, Jacek Tomczak, one of the fifteen, did not only justify his actions ethically, but politically as well.


“I voted against the rejection of the (bill) because it was a civic project supported by 600,000 citizens...As a conservative I could not vote against my conscience, especially as it concerned the right to life of the most innocent and defenseless human beings.” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/exclusive-interview-polish-lawmakers-threatened-with-fine-for-supporting-ab)

Mirosław Puta stated outright that one's political party should not dictate positions on 'ideological' issues at all. That's an intriguing statement. When Aristotle concluded the Nicomachean Ethics, he ended with the words, 'Now let us begin.' He meant that the student was finally ready to read his work, Politics. For the Philosopher, the entire point of laying down a rational framework for moral conduct was to guide one's understanding of how a state should function properly. While Puta rightly understands that his party does not have the final say on moral issues, he ought to recognize that it should be the other way around.


The formal Marshall of the Sejm, Marek Jurek, did not tolerate such flaws in his own coalition, and in his integrity, resigned his tenure. He has now formed his own party, but it is a tragedy in Western democracy that he had to do either of these things. A statesman should be chosen for himself, not for the conglomerate faction to which he is expected to pay court. Consider this scheme to institute genuine democratic reform in Britain:


Can one guess why the fictional Prime Minister did not put it forward? Yes, that's right. By the end of the episode, the elitist 'Permanent Secretary for the Department of Administrative Affairs' (backed with a bargaining chip from a Leftist politician) reminds the Prime Minister that he was not given power by the people, but by his party. What kinds of horrible things would the coalition do to revenge itself upon him if he betrayed it by reforming local government at the party's expense?


George Washington's Farewell Address on bequeathing the presidential office is not infallible advice for a state, but it does contain the sincere opinions of a man who was a leader and a statesman rather than merely a politician. Of the five key warnings laid down in the speech, the second is by far the most significant to a democracy qua democracy:


...Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty...

...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. (George Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States)


The reason I am a monarchist and not a democrat is not because of the superior beauty, pomp, and poetry of the former order. It is because there will always be a king, whether he rules directly or through the command of a group. Whatever title one may choose to give him, be it president, prime minister, dictator, or Cromwell's hideousely ironic label, 'Protector of the Realm.' The only variation is how entangled the support behind the throne is, whether there is indeed one head or many, and how long the reign may last (life, four years?).

An outright, functioning monarchy is more advantageous to the people in its transparency. If the king did in fact become a Cronus devouring his children, it would be better to know exactly who he is that one may visit him at his bath à la Charlotte Corday (assuming of course, that it is the kind of tyrannicide that St. Thomas Aquinas would approve of: removing rather than exacerbating the problems of the state). In a party state though, such an expediency is absolutely impossible. As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, the tyranny of the majority would be more entrenched than that of a king's, and one cannot combat that sort of tyrant.

Washington, et al., had been more reluctant to demand independence from England than the fiery rebels of New England, and though he has left many rousing and eloquent words as to the reason he took part in the War of Independence, we shall never know how much he believed that the colonies would be freer in their own union. Like Tocqueville, he seems to have seen the constitutional form of government as an experiment, and his tenure as president undoubtedly showed him how delicate an experiment it was. 


One wonders what he would think of the EU's 'Philadelphia moment' and of a system governed by men who are not elected at all, though they definitely toe a certain party's line. 

Gaius Mucius Scaevola, as so vividly depicted by Livy, shall always strike an impressive visage in the imagination, regardless of one's political views. Even though he botched his venture into the hostile Etruscan camp by assasinating a well-dressed secretary rather than the enemy king, he managed at least to declare his fierce defiance, and that of 'three hundred other youths of Rome', by thrusting his hand into a flame and saying, 'Rather this than a king in Rome!' 

According to the republican historian, this impressed King Porsenna so much that the monarch released him. Yet, had that young man seen the forthcoming travail of the modern world, he would have placed both hands in the fire crying, 'Rather this than the rule of a party in Rome!' 

Would a party be as clement as Porsenna at such a display of defiance? Well, are those fifteen lawmakers being fined or not?

Nine years ago, my chemistry class was having a discussion cut all too short. While I love science, and chemistry is an especial favourite, forays into philosophy and ethics intrigued me the most by far. Yet, our teacher was most irksome in this regard, for she would put forward an extremely combustible position in the most provocative way possible, then cut short the argument saying: 'Something to think about.' We were never allowed to pounce on the proposition beyond a few scant sentences.

Once she brought up stem cells. Again, a provocative subject, which we did not get very far in discussing. Since this was a class in Tennessee, most members believed in the sanctity or unborn human life, and being a class of quite rational individuals, too, it held the proposition that the ends do not justify the means. A few young men did shrug their shoulders though, and say, 'Well, the embryos from which they are taking these stem cells are leftovers from in vitro fertilization. They're just going to be left frozen, so why not use them?'

I shivered. Having seen pictures of children adopted and carried to term from such states, I knew that they might still live life as any other man or woman can. Though their vast numbers makes that chance unlikely, it is not impossible. Even given how unlikely adoption is, should a human being's person be so callusly harvested for its potential resources? There are images in my mind, imprinted by my visit to Auschwitz, of carpets made from human hair, pictures of soap boiled from human flesh, and descriptions of men prying the gold fillings from the teeth of Jews, Poles, patriots of any non-Aryan nation. Why not? After all, they were dead; what use were these things to them now?

One of the most striking evils concerning these acts, aside from the murders which made them possible, is their uselessness. Was there a shortage of carpets in Germany? Was soap so scarce that they were driven to using the cadavers of men, women, and children? Perhaps all those dental fillings melted together made some reasonable amount of gold, but what a despicable act committed to obtain them!

In vitro fertilization is an act of subordinating human life to another human's desires, whether those who employ this service know this or not. The 'pick of the litter' alone is chosen to be born, while his brothers and sisters are left in a clinical limbo. As good as dead where the law is concerned, morbidly curious scientists have stepped into exploit their flesh. Yet, even pro-abortion advocates would likely abhor the odor of grave-robbing, so these chemical artisians exalted their endeavours to the very realm of Heaven. Within the pillars of life, would be found the cure for every ailment, perhaps even the Fountain of Youth, and isn't that worth the price of an embryo legally devoid of personhood?

I hope I am not willing to murder another human being for the sake of saving my own life. Even if I were that weak, my personal evil would still not be justified. The same applies to every human soul: one cannot do evil, even to achieve some perceived good. Hence, the sacrifice of so many on the altar of scientific 'progress' is as justified as burying Vestal virgins alive as scapegoats for Rome's failure in battles.

The other wretched evil in the ugly business is that the pseudo-justification is a lie. Not one medical achievement has been garnered from embryonic stem cells, not one. Graph vs. host cases and defective overstimulus in patients do abound, but these are hardly progressive steps in medicine. The incredible leaps science has made via stem cells have been made from using adult stem cells.

The case of Ben Leahy of Australia is just one amongst many:

"Following some chemotherapy and administration of marrow stimulating drugs, the patient's own bone marrow stem cells are harvested from the bloodstream on a machine during a narrow window of time," Dr Pidcock explained. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/18/2902815.htm)

Now Italian researchers have unearthed a cure for certain cases of blindness:

Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_he_me/us_med_stem_cells_blindness)


Scientists, in the age wherein they have been most exalted, could certainly stand to remember that humility is a boon to one's work, not an impediment. Ego virtually always stands in the way of objectivity, ergo in the way of the scientific method, ergo in the way of progress. And is it really so backward to say that the repugnance of an act should cause one to hesitate performing it?

The modern female does not wish to be passive, so it is time to move into woman’s more active sphere. Feminine volition must here choose allegiance, to take or to give. To usurp or to submit. Of course, here I am referring to the intensely personal relations in one’s life, those linked to vocational callings and the deepest movements of the heart.

There are and have been many instances from time immemorial where a woman works alongside a man with little difference as to gender. Does one really suppose that a fishmonger disdained to bargain with a woman in the Middle Ages? Was it impossible for a landlady to extract her rent from male tenants? Did farm labourers constantly harass the dairy-maids without any restraint from an overseer? For pity’s sake, no work would ever have gotten done!

In line, however, with the dreary suppositions presented above, it is a trend amongst many ‘gender studies specialists’ to be so wholly obsessed with the problem of sex that they wish to find it lurking around every corner. Between every man and woman haggling over the price of tomatoes, there must be a Freudian urge motivating their actions. Just as the flesh underlies one’s clothing, the erotic underlies all we do. If they look at their own personal experience they would surely see otherwise. I approached a vendor in an open air market to buy mushrooms the other day. He looked bored as I walked up; he looked bored as I haggled him down a złoty, and he looked bored when I made my purchase and left.

As one female writer said to women concerned over seeing a doctor for feminine examinations: ‘He’s busy, and you’re not that special.’ Therefore, it is plain that many of our relations in life will be platonic and indifferent to gender, unless the parties involved are either extremely courteous or extremely amorous.

But one does not define himself by these superficial forms of intercourse. Does a man, standing upon a mountain bald overlooking a sea of clouds, gazing across the perpetually rolling see, or perched on a rock in a painted desert, think of himself as a retail worker, a managing director, a doctor, or even a teacher? In the most unvarnished corners of the world and of the heart, only those roles touching the core of a his soul ought to remain in mind.

Those intimate and sacred relationships are those that present the quandary of the essay. What a woman (or a man) owes to an employer, a colleague, or a random stranger is evident and not frequently problematic, as they usually don't touch upon her deepest desires or happiness. A woman free of peevishness is not likely to complain of subordinating herself to the interests of that institute which pays her for her time, unless that organism does not pay well.

So when asked if a woman has a place in the workplace, one cannot but say yes. Women have worked alongside men throughout history, and even the much loved (and hated) woman of Proverbs 31 had dealings with trade and sales. Yet, it is more fitting and usually more likely that women rely more on the motions of their hearts than the advances of their careers for happiness.

A female doctor, who resented my family for using a feeding tube to nourish my grandmother after she could no longer swallow, was thrilled to learn that our unjust economy was forcing my mother back into the workplace. My mother diplomatically said (as this woman controlled the aid we received for taking care of my father’s mother), ‘Well, this is not going to be a career or profession for me. It’s just work.’

‘Good for you!’ she replied with a toothy smile, completely unaware of how unwelcome that response was. I cannot but smile wryly and draw a parallel between that doctor and the traditional matron of a bygone era, with my mother cast as the non-conformist ingénue.

‘I’m engaged to be married,’ the female rebel would begin.
‘Oh, how wonderful!’
‘No! I do not love the man, and I do not wish to marry yet, but my parents insist I will have a husband all the same.’
‘Good for you!’ I wonder if the doctor would appreciate the humour in that likeness.

As to the professional woman that apparently has a job she likes, she may wish to reconsider the amount of time invested in it. Unless she is single, she has a husband, and if she has a husband, she ought to have children (the natural product of spousal relations), and children crave Momma. As vital as a father is to his child, the physical and near presence of the mother is irreplaceable both according to traditional lore and current analyses. As research by the University of Alberta in Canada shows, a mother's touch is vital to the development of a person's sense of security, male or female:

A simple pat on the back of the shoulder by a female in a way that connotes support may evoke feelings that are similar to the sense of security afforded by a mother's comforting touch in infancy. (http://in.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idINIndia-48470920100513?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11732)

When I myself was recovering from runaway asthma at age 4, I am ashamed to say that I was constantly telling my father that I wanted ‘Mommy’ near me, as loving as his presence was. I cannot recall that without wincing, but there it is.

It is also the mother that children requite with coldness for not having been with them all day, unfair as that is. Having babysat from age 12 onward, I have seen it over and over again, as well as many of my colleagues.

However, for many households, two bread-winners are necessary. There is nothing more to say on that matter, for it cannot be helped. Marxism has very successfully, and with the help of women, invaded global society, seeking to break down the family unit, i.e., that which nourished the individuality, for the unique soul is the enemy of Communist State. Of course, destroying motherhood was the only way to subvert family life, and Lenin recruited females with great success.

He called it liberation. What he was actually initiating was 'depersonalization,' as Karl Stern so aptly dubbed it. Removing the gender specific roles of woman, she became another cog on the state's wheel.

Is this totalitarian liberation actually better than the 'drudgery of the home?' Is homemaking even the dreary pathetic work it is made out to be? Let another more eloquent thinker address the question:

...when people begin to talk being to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult, but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question...If drudgery means only dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge in the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean...I can understand how this might exhaust the mind (the role of homemaker), but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? (G. K. Chesteron, What's Wrong with the World: Part III, Chapter iii: The Emancipation of Domesticity, note and emphasis mine)

As a teacher, I have certainly felt the limitations of my profession as described above. I provide the basis for learning at school, then my students go home, where they should begin to live the lesson. How often I envy the women who can make the children to study at home and show how these rules play out in the life around them. It is painfully obvious to me that mothers' work is more meaningful and significant than mine, for when I see that a student has neglected his homework, my first thought is that I wish I were his mother, so I could see to it that he was actually applying himself.

However, in the modern era, many actual mothers do not have that luxury. Scores of women are imprisoned in the workplace just as they were in factories during the Industrial Age or on plantations via racial slavery, and until society is remade, this modern enslavement shall continue.

While it is useless to preach concerning the unjust requirements of a tottering economy, something further may be said against that feminist disdain for sacred feminine duties. As sympathetic as I am towards the Society of Saint Pius X, the silencing of Bishop Richard Williamson was rather a long time in coming.

When arguing against university education for women, he hurled this hateful shard of obsidian:

…And if she has a "degree", how will she not think herself above the multiple humiliations of being "barefoot and pregnant"? (Letters of Richard Williamson)

How dare he link excellence of the mind or spirit with abhorrence for the most wonderful fulfilment of woman’s nature? The more liberally (meaning truly, not Leftistly) educated or philosophical a woman is, the more likely she is to appreciate what other women take for granted. She houses life in her womb! She feeds another human being with her body and gives of herself in the most direct and heroic manner.

G. K. Chesterton once said that to see a thing as one saw it for the first time is to see it as it truly is. If I told you that at a certain hour in the night, a celestial object would appear in the sky so immensely bright that it would blot out the stars, illumine the atmosphere so completely that its refracted light would colour the heavens with all the vivid hues of the rainbow, and even force the plants of the soil to respond to its presence, you would be amazed and wonder what comet, meteor, or planetary event would produce such an occurrence. Well, the answer is 'as plain as the midsummer sun,' which we all too often take for granted. Contemplate the physicality of womanhood long enough, and the same wonder will be discovered.

In fact, concerning the fleshly part of her identity, woman has escaped the limbo imposed on man by modernity. In the First World, and perhaps parts of the Second and Third as well, there are no ceremonial passages into manhood that are as meaningful as they have been in former epochs. There is no changing of names that affirm a man of where he now stands, and few trials of physical endurance. Ignored by society, youths must look for affirmation in some more personal way, which is often less satisfying due to its ambiguity.

Getting a car? Not so easily accomplished for some and still not enough to fill this hole. Losing one's virginity? Though it is an act which the modern world often identifies ‘becoming a man’ is nothing more than a gratification of the flesh and will not satisfy this yearning. It can only overwhelm it by appealing to overweening concupiscence as the former appeals to materialism.

Women however know when they have become women as surely as they know the motions of the moon. The trials and hardships of her sex visit themselves upon her regularly and without fail. She needs no confirmation of herself from without on those days when she sometimes even writhes in pain.

When with child, the fact of her womanhood is even more brutally plain through what she endures. If she wishes not to have the assistance of medicine, then as she prepares to give birth to her child, she finds it necessary to accomplish the great feminine act of submission in a very literal manner: to let the pain take her body, and accomplish her labour. Is this not an act of magnificent personal accomplishment? Is it not the greatest gift one may give to society? that of its continuation?

The ladies of the Russian biathlon team, and most recent Olympians in that field, put the whole world in awe with both their feat and these words from Anna Boulygina:

No medal compares to having a child. I think children are the main thing women are designed to do. Having a family is an enormous help to me and it is due to their support that I am able to achieve this result.

And from Olga Zaitseva: My child is my greatest happiness and he is my best little gold medal. It has made me calmer.

And Olga Medvedtseva (on whether pregnancy ruins a woman’s body): I would say it is a very stimulating experience and I would recommend having kids, don't be afraid of it.

Let us return to Gertude Chiltern in the fourth act of An Ideal Husband. This thoroughly modern woman, almost a little too political and rigid, finds herself in a situation with moment beyond her temporal, Victorian world. Her principles dictate that her husband must abdicate his brilliant political career, which was only made possible by a single act of incredible dishonesty. Logically, his redemption hinges upon his willingness to sacrifice the fruits of his crime, and that is what she demands of him.

On hearing of Robert Chiltern's resolve to quit public life, their surprisingly devoted, dandy friend, Lord Goring, takes the regal Gertrude aside and pours forth words so extraordinary that one might never believe they came from Oscar Wilde’s all too clever and witty pen:

Lady Chiltern, allow me. You wrote me a letter last night in which you said you trusted me and wanted my help. Now is the moment when you really want my help, now is the time when you have got to trust me, to trust in my counsel and judgment. You love Robert. Do you want to kill his love for you? What sort of existence will he have if you rob him of the fruits of his ambition, if you take him from the splendour of a great political career, if you close the doors of public life against him, if you condemn him to sterile failure, he who was made for triumph and success? Women are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness. Pardon, not punishment, is their mission. Why should you scourge him with rods for a sin done in his youth, before he knew you, before he knew himself? A man's life is of more value than a woman's. It has larger issues, wider scope, greater ambitions. A woman's life revolves in curves of emotions. It is upon lines of intellect that a man's life progresses. Don't make any terrible mistake, Lady Chiltern. A woman who can keep a man's love, and love him in return, has done all the world wants of women, or should want of them.

My sisters, stay your indignation at the line ‘a man’s life is of more value than a woman’s.’ Those words do not have the same significance as 'dignity of life,' and they hinge upon the fallacious idea that a public career is more important than a private one (which all wise men and women know is poppycock). Instead, heed the rest of these words. It does not follow that what is good and true for us is always what we wish to hear, anymore than medicine is always pleasant.

Now what happens when Lady Chiltern conquers her ‘high moral tone’ and instead acts from her womanly heart, truly forgiving her husband his past misdeed?

Lady Chiltern: You can forget. Men easily forget. And I forgive. That is how women help the world. I see that now.

What happens next is proof that this is a play, not a novel, for it needs a fine actor to bring it to life. An artist who knows to pause after that line, trembling with manly emotion. He must then take the lady in his arms crying out her ancient, sacred title: ‘My wife! my wife!’ And Wilde’s Victorian comedy passes beyond its historical period and enters the plane of the epic. Gertrude Chiltern is exalted with Andromache, Penelope, and Beatrice.

Of course, not every woman is married to Robert Chiltern, and this is a work of fiction. Yet, when speaking to a woman who is happy in her married lot, one often finds she has through heroic womanhood, caused this title with such emotion to fall from her own husband’s lips.

The second great feminine title is one that women have often tragically prevented being uttered. Since woman’s 'liberation,' motherhood has frequently been dismissed as a mediocre, ‘easy’ thing state to enter. By too many it has been regarded as nothing more than an impediment to sexual freedom. Women have flooded their bodies with steroids to render their fertile wombs as barren as stone, while men have comically masked their maleness with rubber, fearing lest they be man enough to beget another human being. When all else fails, and life is conceived, women allow their bodies to be invaded in order to quench that life. The roles of wife and mother are at best conventional and at worst, oppressive.

How could he be called an oppressor? And as argued above, how could raising him, and shaping his world be thought insignificant work? What is so wonderful about sexual freedom that it has priority over the life of another? What is so great about the Self that it should be exalted above our neighbours, even the neighbours most dependent on ourselves?

Feminists have most certainly succeeded in making the importance of women felt. What better way to appreciate good health than to lose it? Women also have begun to appreciate the lives that their foremothers have led, as doors are allowed to slam in their faces, and they find men are in no way pressured by society to 'do the decent thing' when they find themselves 'in trouble.' Abortion becomes a more likely alternative for a girl who would rather keep the child, as the legality of abortion absolves a man entirely from his paternal responsibilities, et al. In the rather enjoyable romantic comedy, Leap Year, there comes a moment when the antiromantic couple find themselves in a room with one bed. It is clear that the man has no intention of forfeiting a good night's sleep to the fair sex:

Anna: What? No gallantry? Declan: You lot wanted the vote. So lie with it!

I cannot speak for all my sisters around the world, but in an age where votes mean nothing, because politicians obey the oligarchy of bankers and wealthy special interest groups, I feel a little shystered when I think I traded chivalry for the ballot.

Feminine affirmation is vital to the majority of the male world. Her submission is not simply a pleasant thing, but something he needs in order to accomplish great things. When a younger sister would ask me if I liked her picture, she was just looking for a pleasant compliment. When my little brother asked me the same, he was looking for something much more integral to his being.

Women of the Liberation Movement have often jeered at the dependency of man's ego on woman, holding it up as a defect in that sex and naming it the thing which has driven him to the cruelty of keeping woman down.

There is a twofold fallacy in that argument: first, as I have said earlier, the lack of prevailing feminine genius even in favourable climates has suggested that there was not much for man to oppress to begin with.

Second, for women to speak in such a manner is ironically puerile, and extremely ungenerous. If a man were to lord his physical strength over a woman, and to use it to bully her, would we not call him a barbarian? So if a woman flaunts her certainty of self over a man, belittles him and injures the masculine pride that drives him to excel, what name does she deserve? Like a child who has discovered he has power of life and death over a caged bird, woman has set about dismantling man.

It was good of Lady Godiva to endear the plight of the people to her heart, and not to support her husband in his cruelty. Yet, it was feminine failure in that she could not use his love to turn him towards good, but instead humiliated him with her famed gallop. Queen Esther howver represents the true feminine triumph in that she not only saved her people; she also saved her husband.

In the lovely book and equally exquisite film, Enchanted April, one is presented with a vivid example of how women can save the world by simply waiting and feeling. Two of the four women in this story are unhappy in their loveless marriages, and on first encountering the story, I expected to behold a pleasant romp in Italy which would give the ladies' their second wind and embolden them to start new lives back in England. A bit of a feminist cliché , but I have to admit the idea had some appeal.

What happens instead is that the women see where they went wrong in their lives by trying to control their husbands instead of simply loving them. With the Italian sun, the smell of wisteria, and the grandeur of the castle, San Salvadori, to strengthen them, they ask their husbands to share their holiday. When the men arrive, and see the new tenderness and passion evident in their wives, the women accomplish what all the reasoning and begging in the world could never have done; they have brought out the best in their men.

Just as children are never so well brought up as by good mothers, never are men so noble as when women rely on them.






The Desires of a Woman's Heart: V by Rachel Rudd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at foolishnessntears.blogspot.com.

...that Our Lord saw this in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He still died for us.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/133209/family-guy-peter-assment

'Then Jesus answered and said: "O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?"' (Matthew 17: 16)

From a time where the woman hid her deed in the wood, and wiped the babe’s blood upon her shoe, now is the age where her act is glorified, and ‘blessed are the breasts that never nourished.’ The choice to abort a pregnancy: the great right, the magnificent triumph of modern woman.

She has taken a life; why then should we praise her?

--Nay, nay, not a life. Only one who breathes hath life, and this body is dead before it breathes, while still growing in the sea of its mother’s blood.

But why still then must we praise her?

--For having secured her liberty at any cost!

And then, how can she accomplish this mutilation of her body and the extinction of another’s?

--An accomplice skilled in such ways.

Who must pay this accomplice’s wages?

--Why, thee, thyself!



And so it shall be if the Freedom of Choice Act is signed. And this by the man that held as senator that even one breathing may not yet be living, provided that the mother desired his death before he drew breath.

Indignation swells within me every time I hear one call the Democratic Party of the
United States liberal. Not only is it bigoted in its rigorous set of ideals (those who differ with them are often dubbed ‘evil’ not ‘mistaken’), but it also demands the support of those who do not agree with the righteousness of their causes.

What is their grand cause? Why do they support a woman who wishes to end the life within her? Why do they wish to acknowledge the right of two in the same gender to mutually masturbate with one another? Why do they encourage sexual laxity in the young by forcing schools to teach them how to get away with it? Why do they make it hard economically for a couple to be generous and open to giving life?

Well, to know what they want (assuming that ‘liberals’ and neocons are foresighted enough to see their actions ends) one need only consider the result: a culture living for passion and cushioned with options after passion is spent. What stops someone from giving in to the moment? Is it later pain from the action itself?

It is a virtuous act when the future repercussions of a sin on one’s soul and conscience stop him from doing evil. But more often it is the immediate inconvenience and the censure of the culture that keeps him in check.

Contraceptives, abortion, and cultural approbation have made it possible for man to engage in any ritual stimulating his appetitive passions without restraint. What sort of man or woman does this produce? Very likely, as man is made for pleasure and happiness, such a one will pursue the most immediate goods in pleasures of sex, food, and diversion. But afterwards?

Then come the panic and frenzy. Is an unmarried pregnant girl to hang her head in shame? Certainly not; the worst censure her kind will give her is that of imprudence, not impurity. It is the weight, the weight of another forcing to look at him. Within her, he demands sacrifice from her body, abstinence from pleasure. He forces her to love him; she must now give as well as take.

However, giving is not done in this new age. It is heinous to part with more than a few coins to pauperize those about; to give one’s life to another is not to be borne. In this cold realization then, are the modern crimes committed. Perhaps whetted with fear of a new life, fear of love, but all the same they are crimes of passion spent.

There was a lady lived in York -
all the lee and loney
Fell in love with her father's clerk -
down by the greenwood sidey-o
She loved him up, she loved him down -
all the lee and loney
Loved him 'til he filled her arms -
down by the greenwood sidey-o

She leant her back against an oak -
all the lee and loney
First it bent and then it broke -
down by the greenwood sidey-o
She leant her back against a thorn -
all the lee and loney
There she had two fine babes born -
down by the greenwood sidey-o

She took out her reaping knife -
all the lee and loney
There she took those fine babes' lives -
down by the greenwood sidey-o
She wiped the blade against her shoe -
all the lee and loney
The more she rubbed, the redder it grew -
down by the greenwood sidey-o

She went back to her father's hall -
all the lee and loney
Saw two babes a-playing at ball -
down by the greenwood sidey-o
'Oh, babes oh babes if you were mine' -
all the lee and loney
'I'd dress you up in scarlet fine' -
down by the greenwood sidey-o

'Oh Mother Oh Mother if we were yours' -
all the lee and loney
'Scarlet was our own hearts' blood' -
down by the greenwood sidey-o
'Oh babes Oh babes it's Heaven for you' -
all the lee and loney
'Oh Mother, Oh Mother, it's Hell for you' -
down by the greenwood sidey-o

What acts sicken us in the chill serpent and the grotesque spider ought to nearly kill us when done by the hands of man or woman. That of the mother animal devouring her young is such, what then of the woman who kills her child? Her form is made to nourish the infant. The fluids coursing through her matter pull her toward the babe in affection. What passion enflames her to extinguish the innocent life sprung from her own? With the most painful groan we must conclude: no passion, but passion spent.

In whatever age or clime, a woman faces the most intense darkness after the moment of love. If the man should leave, yet his seed take root within her, she undergoes the building up of a new life alone. Yet, is this a curse? Is the swelling of another soul and body within her a punishment for sin? Nay, how many women have yearned throughout the ages of the world for such a thing as life to grow within them? This is but the natural—and naturally desirable—fruit of the love between man and woman.

If however she anticipates this cultivation too burdensome, why did she give in to her passions? Why lie with one whom the law and her kin could not hold to account to remain with her? How great must have been the fire that smoked out her reason. With shame curdling her heart and he fear clutching her mind, one may feel pity easily for her vice.

Yet, to what deeper darkness does she turn in her need? Her accomplice is gone and away. She doesn’t hold him to account; perhaps because the world itself no longer blames him. Who then is to suffer? Who will pay the ransom for her future freedom and happiness? A blade of ice must surely first enter her, when she turns her hand against the innocent evidence of her excess.