God commends David for considering building a house for Him, but tells him to leave it to his son. So Solomon builds the Temple, the House for the Glory of God to dwell in. But God's words to David, though literally and historically fulfilled by his son, Solomon, were also a type — a pattern — for something later to be revealed.

The son of David, who would build a new house was Joachim, the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For Mary's body — the Temple not made with hands — became the dwelling place for the Glory of God, Jesus Christ, God With Us.

The Son of David is also  Jesus Christ, Himself, Who, in His turn, would build yet another house: the universal church, the New Israel, welcoming all humanity and all creation into the Covenant. In this extended typology, Mary is the Ark of the Covenant, hidden out of sight in the Holy of Holkies, and herself the Throne of the Presence of God.

HAMLET, INCEST, AND ELIZABETH I

[Notes on a conversation with sharif Graham]

I thought you would like this,, remembering our conversation about Hamlet. BTW, I meant to mention that it occurred to me that Hamlet's harping on "incest" was an exercise in political-correctness, since Elizabeth I's legitimacy rested on the incestuous nature of her father's first marriage. (Catherine of Aragon had previously been married to prince Arthur, who died shortly thereafter. Henry VII quickly married her off to his second son, who became Henry VIII. This would have been incestuous, according to the same ecclesiastical norm that concerned Hamlet. Catherine, however claimed that her first marriage had never been consummated, and hence was itself a nullity, so her marriage to Prince Henry was NOT invalid.) There was, of course, no way to prove her claim, but - as my professor Edward Rochie Hardy observed - "She ought to have known!" So an important part of subsequent English history is entailed in this strange canon law. I think Hamlet's insistence on the "one flesh" business (Claudius as his "mother") maybe the clue to the Church's thinking: the dominical pronouncement on marriage ("...the two become one flesh, therefore what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder") would seem to imply that your sister-in-law becomes your own sister, for purposes of consanguinity.

When centrism beconess "alternative reality"

A response to one of Rick Moody's valuable digests on resisting Trump.

I want to reiterate how much I appreciate this service. Also, to respond to a particular article about losing our mind on the left. I think it is particularly important for two reasons, tending somewhat in opposite directions:

1) it seems to me that spreading "alternative realities" serves only the adversary. It may feel good at the moment, but it helps to prepare one of the fundamental preconditions of totalitarianism, that reality is a matter of the will.

2) Another way of denying basic reality is simply to line up all the perspectives and allegations - from left to right and select only the "center" as trustworthy. In other words if an assertion is far enough out of the mainstream consensus, it must be crackpot.   Although this may usually be true, it is not always true, and it is another way of saying that reality — like faith — is a matter of the will. However rarely, it is nevertheless true that "sometimes the tin hat fits."

I am afraid that most of us who  [unlike Michael Moore] were surprised at the Trump victory fell into this trap to some extent. Habitual centrists tend to view Moore as a crackpot, don't they?  In my opinion, the arbiters of fact, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Los Angeles times can be trusted in the facts that they report  [most of the time - see below about Gary Webb]. They are not quite so trustworthy and the facts they decide are not "fit to print."

My own deeper experience of this, from 30 years ago, has to do with CIA cooperation with international drug trafficking. [I am afraid this is still going on: the price of heroin continues to decline and right now it is never been cheaper. Meanwhile, truckloads of manufactured heroin roll from Afghanistan across the big, new, four-lane bridge I saw being built by the USA from Afghanistan to Tajikistan in 2006].

In the '80s,  The Times &al. did not exactly suppress this kind of news, but it did minimize it, relegating it to the back pages. In my opinion that is because it's was so explosive. Powerful interests do have a say. Even the extremely circumspect report of the Kerry subcommittee on the subject, which corroborated the outlines and many of the details of this malfeasance, was reported briefly and then forgotten. There was simply no appetite to kick this hornets' nest.

Then there is the more recent case of Gary Webb ["Dark Alliance"]. The three great newspapers pilloried him as an irresponsible crackpot. Sadly, it appears that he was unstable, and he ended up taking his own life. But that does not obviate the fact that the three major newspapers all misreported the contents of his book. "Dark Alliance" gave the details of the findings behind the Kerry Report. [I considered them rather old news, because I was involved in researching the subject in the early '90s, and most of it was right in the congressional report.] The Times &al, reported that Webb had alleged that the CIA had deliberately targeted African-American communities. That was 

not true.

These communities, themselves, said so — loudly — but Webb had never alleged that. It was a conclusion from his work drawn by the people themselves. At most, Webb documented what might be called "depraved indifference" on the part of the CIA. I believe the rather hysterical reporting of the three major newspapers arose out of their own interest in defending their previous coverage of the matter. They had dropped the ball. They never exactly lied, but they prescinded from the more explosive leads. So,Webb had to be a crackpot.

All this is a long way of saying that we would be well advised to keep a skeptical eye on the arbiters of centrist consensus. As we used to say, "just because you're paranoid does not mean They are not out to get you!"