Out of curiousity, I clicked the two ads which are in the banner at the moment (~4:15 cst). Both are under construction. Sorry folks, I don't chose 'em, I'm just too cheap to pay to get rid of 'em. It does seem like some google intelligence is selecting the ads, as they seem to sort of comment on whatever the dominant theme of my blog is at the moment.

At the moment, both ads have to do with quotes, and (perhaps coicidentally) a number of recent entries have been "Thought(s) for the day." Couple of weeks when I was ranting about our Fearless Leader, et al, the ads were more political. Like I say, might be just chance, but since Blogger has been consumed by our friends at Google, seems like the technology wouldn't be too challenging.

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This past weekend was an interesting confluence of observances — Saturday was Flag Day; Sunday was Father's Day and (in the Christian tradition) Trinity Sunday. Now, personally I subscribe to the notion that the divine does not have gender as we understand gender. But the preacher on Sunday did use his grandfather and grand uncles as an icon of the Trinity.

It's often been said that one can't preach on the Trinity without committing heresy. Certainly folk from other religious traditions — especially our Jewish friends — hear this doctrine & think we're polytheists. I don't know of any obvious heresies that Fr Luke committed in his sermon — aside from failing to make it clear that God is neither male nor female (as we understand those terms). My firm belief is the doctrine of the Trinity says more about humans and our attempts to understand God than it says about the nature of God. As I've said in comments on Dr. Omed's site, I agree with Bernard of Claivaux, who said that the only definitive thing we can say about God is what God is not.

The fact that Flag Day would fall on the same weekend is a neat coincidence, because I've been thinking about cheap patriotism and its similarity to cheap Christianity. A couple of articles down, in my open letter to Canon Joplin, I described the worst-case pew-warmer who hears the Word but does not act on it (to paraphrase the Rabbi). To wear your cross, or display your rosary, and still treat others with disrespect is to buy a water-color version of Christianity. I think the same thing is true for waving the flag without consideration.

Are you really proud of how our government has acted in Afganistan and Iraq? Do you feel safer as the possibility of war with Iran or North Korea is being contemplated? Are you really ready to trade in the liberties our fathers believed they were fighting for in WWII for the illusion of "security"?

If so, fine. I don't agree with you, but one of the glories of our country is that I still have the right to disagree with you. I still have the right to say mildly unkind and insulting things about our Fearless Leader. At least for today.

If I were to display a flag, I would want to include an essay with it, so no one would mistake my meaning. I could only salute the flag of the ideal of what our country could be — not what it currently is, not what it is currently doing. To suggest that my waving a flag or not waving a flag has any impact on a service man on the other side of the globe is patently absurd.

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Is the ideal of America "every man for himself"? Seems like a shabby ideal to me.