Patterico's Pontifications

12/24/2024

Happy Christmas!

Filed under: General — Dana @ 4:10 pm



[guest post by Dana]

I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy Christmas (and Christmas Eve)!

I’m finishing up Alexei Navalany’s memoir, Patriot. (Side-note: It’s refreshing to see patriot being used in the finest sense of the word.) Navalny’s description of one of the three ways in which he learned to endure his imprisonment and unknown future, is worth contemplating:

I decided from the beginning that if I was going to be released as a result of pressure or a political scenario it would happen within six months of my arrest, “while the iron was hot.” And, if it didn’t, I was up the creek for the foreseeable future. I needed to adjust my thinking so that when they did extend my sentence I would feel even more sure I was doing the right thing when I boarded that plane back to Moscow. . .

The second technique is so old you may roll your eyes heavenward when you hear it. It is religion. It is doable only for believers but does not demand zealous, fervent prayer by the prison barracks window three times a day (a very common phenomenon in prisons).

I have always thought, and said openly, that being a believer makes it easier to live your life and, to an even greater extent, engage in opposition politics. Faith makes life simpler.

The initial position for this exercise is the same as for the previous one. You lie in your bunk looking up at the one above and ask yourself whether you are a Christian in your heart of hearts. It is not essential for you to believe some old guys in the desert once lived to be eight hundred years old, or that the sea was literally parted in front of someone. But are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? If you can honestly answer yes, what is there left for you to worry about? Why, under your breath, would you mumble a hundred times something you read from a hefty tome you keep in your bedside table? Don’t worry about the morrow, because the morrow is perfectly capable of taking care of itself.

My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else. They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches. As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me.

Of course, this encouragement does not necessarily mean that the Distressing Circumstance will be removed. But it does mean that a way to endure is ours. And in that way lies hope.

—Dana

13 Responses to “Happy Christmas!”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (20fa76) — 12/24/2024 @ 4:10 pm

  2. Considering that Hanukkah starts the evening of the 25th, one could say “Happy Holiday!”

    Chinese restaurants hardest hit.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/24/2024 @ 4:32 pm

  3. Happy Christmas, Dana! I’ve been reading you for about 20 years now!

    How does Navalny’s book compare to The Gulag Archipelago?

    norcal (a72384) — 12/24/2024 @ 6:58 pm

  4. Cute Emirates Airlines commercial from a couple of years ago.

    Rip Murdock (fe0fab) — 12/24/2024 @ 7:22 pm

  5. The most hopeful words there are. And this too shall pass.

    asset (bdaa3c) — 12/24/2024 @ 11:57 pm

  6. Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate it, today!

    And a Happy Hanukkah to all those who begin their celebration today!

    Thanks much to Dana for all she does here, and — I am nearly certain — elsewhere.

    May the new year bring a little more peace to the world.

    Jim Miller (a0c930) — 12/25/2024 @ 7:03 am

  7. Merry Christmas to all.

    DRJ (f29db0) — 12/25/2024 @ 10:59 am

  8. Merry Christmas! Rejoice for He is born!

    NJRob (eb56c3) — 12/25/2024 @ 3:38 pm

  9. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

    Almost done with a book I didn’t want to read, but couldn’t put down:
    Ordinary Men

    Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.

    Also, re-reading THE GOAL, Theory of Constraints… which should be required reading for everyone in government.

    whembly (477db6) — 12/26/2024 @ 6:59 am

  10. Happy Christmas to folks here. I have made many electronic friends here. Some no longer post. Some still do. I am grateful for the kindnesses of many.

    Best wishes for the New Year.

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/26/2024 @ 10:21 am

  11. Happy Christmas to me, as I upgrade my Galaxy S9 to a Pixel 9 Pro.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/26/2024 @ 2:47 pm

  12. BTW, found a new good Xmas movie: Red One. Yes, it is in many ways stupid, but it’s mostly stupid in a good way.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 12/26/2024 @ 2:48 pm

  13. It’s not a Christmas movie, but I loved Fly Me To The Moon, on AppleTV, which Mrs. Montagu and I saw last night. So good, so inspirational.
    I love astronaut movies. The Right Stuff. Apollo 13, etc.

    Oh, and a belated happy Christmas to you and yours.

    Paul Montagu (7329e4) — 12/26/2024 @ 4:16 pm

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