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And they shall be led by a child

January 5, 2017   ·   0 Comments

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. After coming into the house they saw the Child…and they fell to the ground and worshipped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented Him gifts….

MATTHEW, 2: x,xi (part.)

My regular partner on this page – panning furiously for conservative ‘nuggets of gold’ amidst the overwhelming dreck and dross of the daily news of awfulness, horrors, terror, or ridiculous states of undress and stupidity including most Kardashian-events/Mariah Carey-malfunctions – Claire Hoy, has beaten me fair ’n’ square to the golden source material I was going to use for this column.  It was to have been Michael Den Tandt’s exquisitely sharp column for National Post (Dec. 7), titled “Youngest MPP (Oosterhoff) gets rude introduction to the new face of ‘tolerance’ in liberal Ontario”:  One might use adjectives to describe Den Tandt’s writing such as “angry,” or “brilliant,” or “culturally outraged,” or….

Mr. “Fast Hands” Hoy, however, is the eminence grise of this thoughtful comment setup for the fine, family-oriented Orangeville Citizen;  and I salute his sound conservative wisdom and authentic Ontarian voice.  What I would point out  though about Michael Den Tandt’s column is that Den Tandt is most culturally alive to protecting Ontario’s newest and youngest (ever!) MPP, Sam Oosterhoff, 19, who – in December – took the lacklustre Mr. Hudak’s seat in the  provincial legislature as a polite, young social conservative.  However, reading Mr. Den Tandt’s column, one can see that the sterling Oosterhoff, ’though young, is the right person for the job of representing constituents in the riding of Niagara West-Glanbrook.  My favourite part of the Den Tandt column “experience,”  which I peruse online to this day, is an e-comment appended to it, written by one of the steadiest letter-writers to National Post, a man of measure thought and maturity,  Iain Foulds, who wrote a lovely encomium of Oosterhoff, “A brave and impressive young man… he can confidently look forward to bullying and abuse wherever he goes (and) a media consistently smearing him and his values….”

Not so very nice is it, our current reality:  We have forgotten, in our soft ’n’ comfy times, that many Christians before us stood up for their faith or stood firmly against evil, paying the fullest price humanly payable for their witnesses.  What of the miraculously heroic Protestant pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a dogged founder of the “Confessing Church” in Germany who faithfully met his horrifying end at age 39 in Flossenburg concentration camp, Nazi Germany, April, 1945.  Pastor Bonhoeffer, imprisoned for years, wouldn’t be shushed or be silenced by fear into false witness.  Or Anne Frank, a precious and precocious Jewish girl and diarist hidden in Holland during World War Two for trying years by brave-as-anything, common Christian Dutch-folk:  All Frank wanted was to be a teenager – simply – to find love as have we all wanted, and to survive the “dark age” that was descended – then, at that time – upon Europe; and, her dream for her future was to become a journalist when an adult.  She would have been a great one too; but tragically, along with beloved family members, Frank was exterminated by the Nazi Germans – aged 15 – at Bergen-Belsen, likely during March, 1945.  It is good to remember our deepest, in-common religious roots and the unconquerable strength which endures up through them: better than drinking, I find! 

This “holiday” season I have been re-reading a glorious book, the Winding Quest: The Heart of the Old Testament in Plain English (1972) by the gifted writer Alan T. Dale, about the 20-something true prophet, Daniel:  How defiant of unjust authority while remaining faithful and routinely brave was he!  Oosterhoff’s’ ‘lions’ are more mere pussycats to my mind, invigorated and stirred by this past weekend’s revival of outdoor, “traditional” hockey.

We are living in quite animalistic, darkened, pro-death, and neo-pagan times and we, hereabouts, must keep trying to keep what the best in civilization and our culture alive; and, it is not easy; and, we cannot expect the “world” to be kind.  But, most people in Ontario are, especially in the small towns and communities around Orangeville and Shelburne, ready to lend a hand, ready to try to push you from life’s ditches.  The Christian lights through Christmastide have flickered but have not failed through these parts…yet.  And they oughtn’t.  Many are those who would appear amongst us, quite often smiling and well-dressed, giving false witness:  One such person is the NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, a United Church minister.  DiNovo has been voted, having been a perennial runner-up, Toronto’s NOW magazine’s “Best MPP.” 

However, she is a boastfully truculent, drunk-on-victory, false prophetess if the truth be told.  On Boxing Day morning, on the radio on NewsTalk 1010, I heard DiNovo crowing and boasting of having had “her” legislation passed at Queen’s Park this past December.

Sam  Oosterhoff, ’though duly elected MPP, was not allowed to be sworn in or be seated in the legislature by the PC party’s ‘leaders’ and, ahem, brain-trust, until the following day, as he would have most likely voted against this legislation, “Bill 28.”

I’ll give the last passage to Mr. Oosterhoff’s Dutch-heritage good ‘n’ honest fellow  man, Den Tandt, whose ire was most definitely raised by young Oosterhoff’s shabby treatment by the (gross) mainline media at Queen’s Park:  “Oosterhoff was unprepared for what awaited him under the hot-lights…. A media grilling so feverishly hostile it (was) something to behold…. More bizarre still, though, was the tone of many of the reporters’ questions, which were framed as accusations, with (only) a cursory effort to mask the questioners’ contempt…. (N)early half the 29-member PC caucus were sorting their sock drawers during the vote (including Oosterhoff, whose swearing-in was unaccountably delayed until the next day)…(and no PC MPP) voted against…Bill 28.  (This legislation) enshrines equal parenting rights for LGBTQ (etc.) Ontarians….  As Obi-Wan tells Anikin in Revenge of the Sith:  ‘Another Happy Landing!’”

I don’t know much pop culture-wise or in social media currency, but I know this last reference is to Star Wars:  Better, like the real Wise Men and good people of all creeds in the Bible, to follow spiritually the light of that Star to Bethlehem of Judea and to behold joyfully there once more, that that light may still shine in our hearts to this very day to burn away fear and falsity, darkness and untruth, and rising hostility and insidious hate.

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