Separation of Church and State? Well, Just Sometimes

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered Am I
Fully satiated after a day of intemperate wining and dining, with a few days off to recover and walk it off, life on the farms and ranches out here is returning to normal. We discovered that we really are quite lucky to live way out here: nobody was tempted to find the nearest big town to do what most of the country seems to enjoy: going shopping like lunatics the day after Thanksgiving. No ma'am, it just isn't interesting when you consider it's a four and a half hour round trip excursion. Now, for food and our wine, well, then it's worth it, but to get squished to death like a worm, no sir. Thanks, we'll pass.

 

What we don't pass on though is Schuyler's always delicious cocktails. Today he served Black Russians, made with "handmade" Tito's Vodka and Kahlúa. For those who don't like alcohol, he made Fruit and Ginger Ale, an English mulled drink which he serves chilled. We used his cocktail to welcome back Marie Christine and her husband Jean-Paul, who had been back in France for a couple of years and returned the day after Thanksgiving. They returned to their beautiful horse farm, which had been leased to a couple for these past two years.

 

Together, Marie Christine and Jean-Paul run one of the best dressage schools within a two-hour radius. Dressage, some of you may know, is the art of riding horses in High School fashion, as at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and they had spent the last two years in France in intensive riding clinics so they could bring better but yet baroque riding techniques to their multitude of clients. It is a joy to welcome them back, though we will also miss their tenants, who had become good friends.

 

Slowly, Elizabeth and Liz brought up a subject that, because we had just celebrated a holiday that still has some religious overtones, was bothering them immensely. Their bringing up this topic ended up bothering the rest of us just as much. Both Elizabeth and Liz were just a bit befuddled. Befuddled, i.e. a tad more than confused. First, Liz said, what does it mean today to be "religious?" Bubba and Bubbette, Bob and Judy's live-in ranch hands, have made it clear to everybody in our group that there is only one God, and only one "religion" - theirs. In other words, according to these paragons of rapture and Godly savvy, you have to be born-again and throw your arms up to the heavens at least hourly and squeal: 'Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus! We're such good and pious people. Please damn everybody else and send them straight to hell!" If you're unwilling to brown your nose when Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell bend over and grab their ankles and say: Kiss! you're just not going to heaven sweetheart.

 

Bewilderment? Times a gazillion!
O.K., Liz and Elizabeth said, if you're so holy, and nobody else can fill your shoes, surely that means that every other faith, Protestant or not, is doomed to hell, right? Oh, and those Mormons! Jeez, those Quakers; Christ's Blood! those Pentecostals. Ah! They said, Holy Mother of Jesus (but not the Catholic one, she's frying in hell, Bubette smartly told Bob and Judy), unless you're Republican and born-again. Liz said very quietly, conspiratorially: hey guys, we're all going to hell and everybody we know and everybody around the world who isn't born-again and Republican is going straight to hell.

 

Seems, Elizabeth told us, that we have to be as sweet and committed to corruption, pollution of the environment, deforestation, cronyism, fanatically committed to the unrelenting growth of the Military-Industrial complex, political cronyism, crushing of Freedom of Speech and Assembly, and committed to that highly born-again practice, torture, as is the Bush Cabal, if we want to be saved, like the born-agains. Hell, maybe we all need to argue for seceding right and left in order to form more perfect born-again independent statelets!

 

Schuyler, On The White House Poop Church
Well, Schuyler told us, actually, to understand the separation of church and state, you have to study, in depth, Thomas Jefferson's fears and thoughts on the subject, of which there are way too many for us to go into here. But briefly, he adamantly believed in that principle. Now, today, here come the people who are already labeling their collective memoirs "Mein Kampf at Krawford."

 

It seems, Schuyler, Liz and Elizabeth told us, the Bush Cabal has thrown its full weight, the scary power of the IRS, behind intimidating churches. Nice, don't you think? Christian, don't you think? What the Founding Fathers believed in, don't you think? Well, it seems this one church, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, a church that has a history of voicing its objection to our country going to war regardless of the party in power, is in deep doodoo. Ah! but now we have the nefarious, dastardly seriously fascist Bush Cabal in power, and they didn't like that one little 'ol church saying nasty things about Bush's illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, and so, Bush Inc. is sicking the IRS on them.

 

Funny, haven't heard about Bush Inc. attacking, via the IRS, churches that glorify him, have you? So, it's a warning to churches everywhere now: if your sermon glorifies the torturer Bush, your tax status is o.k. Speak badly about the Fascist Cabal, and out you go, churchy-pooh! Cripey, you don't think this White House wants to erase over 200 years of United States Constitutional history do you? Surely they wouldn't be so nasty, or would they? Surely the Cretin Shrub isn't SUCH a cretin, or is he?

 

The Dinner Gong for Our Paradisiacal Dinner
Just as we were called in to dinner, Liz told us what Daniel Defoe had once written: "And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst."

 

With this thought to ponder, we took our places at our respective dining room tables, the adults in the dining room and the teenagers in the dining area of the great room.

 

Although Marie Christine has only been back a day or two, she and Jean-Paul immediately fell back into our old routine and they immediately pitched in to help prepare dinner. Tonight, they prepared a comforting but not too heavy soup, a Chanterelle and Tortellini broth which they cooked with sherry, and of course also served alongside in our little glasses of Tío Pepe's Muy Seco sherry.

 

Jeremy and Jean-Paul prepared individual casseroles of Prawns and Crab. The Le Creuset casseroles, which are enameled cast iron, kept the casseroles wonderfully warm. Also, because we learned to cure all of our Le Creuset kitchenware with milk, nothing ever sticks, so even casseroles prepared with lots of cheese don't stick. The guys selected a very affordable Brander 2004 Santa Ynez Valley Sauvignon Blanc which had a wonderful pink grapefruit flavor. They chilled the wine perfectly, and this course was received with real gusto.

 

After small dollops of boysenberry granita, Max and Alex brought in some meat they had been grilling on the porch, a simply prepared Pepper Steak that they paired with a Clay Station 2002 Lodi Malbec. This wine had plum jam flavors that really complemented the steaks. Max, whenever he can take advantage of the grill, normally serves us grilled vegetables, and tonight was no exception. He grilled, in the myriad little grilling baskets we have just for his vegetables, large-diced carrots, pearl onions, bell peppers, zucchini and minute young potatoes. Our teenagers have learned that their meat portions will always be small, but that there will always be plenty of heavenly vegetables. They have also learned that no fast food chain could ever cook for them dishes they could like better than ours. Corny, maybe, but they also know that we fix our meals with love and friendship, a far cry from fixing meals eons before serving them and miles before arriving at some frigid, soulless kitchen.

 

Kathy had made a bunch of Key lime pies, and perhaps breaking with tradition, paired the pies with small glasses of ForestVille 2003 California Chardonnay, which has in its structure a scent of white flowers, and, of course, Key limes!

 

Fare Thee Well Until Tomorrow
This was our first dinner shared since we gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving. We spent Friday and the weekend catching up on normal farm and ranch chores. We had several horse blankets that needed mending, water troughs to be cleaned before Winter really sets it, fences to be checked, and wherever necessary, repair run-in shelters for our animals.

 

To share the thoughts of some of our teenagers, with which I agree whole heartedly, I'm growing to the point where I hate, as do the teenagers, to refer to our pets and livestock as animals. There is not one within our 13 mile-radius who is intentionally vicious or sadistic, so why should we call them animals. Rather, what should we call those people in D.C. who are sadistic, vicious, uncaring, unfeeling and diabolically opposed to the welfare of the less fortunate?

 

A shorter evening than many, but a good evening. The teenagers are delighted that they don't have homework to do when they go home, and that instead they can spend hours on the phone talking to their friends, and knowing that in the morning they'll have a decent amount of time in which to take care of their horses or other pets. We, well, we're just enjoying the beginning of a season where each meeting with our friends will help us become better advocates of all churches, not only the Republican-backed born-again churches that crush dissent.

 

Summary:
This White House allows some churches to preach hell, fire and brimstone, as long as the said evils are directed at liberals, progressives, and Democrats, but if a church dares to speak unkindly of the White House's many dastardly deeds, the IRS will immediately step in and revoke the church's tax-free status. Sounds like a pretty vicious double standard that the Founding Fathers never envisioned, doesn't it?

©Copyright 2005 Grindstaff Chronicles. All Rights Reserved.
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Reprinted from The Grindstaff Chronicles Newsletter which is published in the USA by farmers, ranchers, and neighbors.

It is intended to share the thoughts and lifestyle of people who work hard, like to relax and enjoy life, and are often dismayed by news, politics, and the events of the day that defy common sense.
http://www.GrindstaffChronicles.com
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