Charles Moore comments on a new biography of Hewlett Johnson (d. 1964), for over three decades the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, and an ardent Stalinist. Moore writes that Johnson’s biographer, John Butler, reports all these things, but manages also to report admirable qualities the man demonstrated — qualities that made him popular with his congregation. Observes Moore:

I am glad that Mr Butler has approached his task in this way, because it makes the book much fresher than a work of character assassination. But its effect is to point up how extraordinary it was that a free country like ours could excuse people who defended mass murderers so long as they were from the Left. If Johnson had spoken of Hitler as he did of Stalin, no one would have received him in polite society.

For his unusual views, Johnson suffered nothing worse than a few cross letters from the Archbishop and semi-successful attempts to dislodge him from various Canterbury positions (“Ominously, the governors began to plot Johnson’s removal as Chairman of the Governing Body”). By contrast, the victims of the man he worshipped died in their tens of millions. His speeches and writings helped legitimise this. Johnson was told by Raul Castro (who, replacing brother Fidel, rules Cuba to this day) that people believed his pro-Communist writing because he was a priest. That is a terrible thought.

I would not have imagined that elements as simple as wine, togetherness, and the Beatles for Rock Band on Wii would be so healing. It was a pretty great Christmas, despite everything. If Ruthie had been here with us, she would have been right in the middle of everything, microphone in hand, belting out “Twist & Shout.” She wasn’t with us, but she was.

For some years now, it has been a Christmas Eve tradition in my family for my mother and my sister Ruthie to go to the Starhill Cemetery, the country graveyard near our family home, and light a candle on each grave. A time-consuming task, but a labor of love  and communal memory (because they lit a candle on each and every grave, not just the graves of family members) by Mama and Ruthie. I’ve never seen this with my own eyes, because it has been many years since I’ve been here on Christmas Eve, but I could easily imagine how beautiful it was, given the deep night blanketing the graves so far from the lights of town.

This year, Ruthie lies in the graveyard, having died from cancer in September. My mother was too sad to honor the dead this Christmas Eve, given that her own daughter was now among them. The tradition was to end.

My mother and father stopped by our house in town on the way to evening services at the Methodist Church. Earlier in the day, they told me that they were planning to join us at a family Christmas Eve get-together at my cousin’s house, but when they stopped by late this afternoon, I could tell that they were just too down. They were probably going to go home after church and go to bed.

While they were at services, I drove out to their place in the country to fetch some Santa presents from Daddy’s barn. When I turned onto their road, the sight of a couple hundred pinpricks of light in the graveyard startled me. It looked like fireflies hovering close to the ground. Mama had lit the candles after all! I thought. I wonder why she didn’t tell me? I was going to call her and congratulate her, but I knew she was in church, and couldn’t take the call.

An hour or so later, I was at the party at my cousin’s house, when my mobile phone rang. It was my mother, sobbing. “Rod,” she cried, “somebody put the candles out tonight at the cemetery. On the way home from church, we turned off on the road coming home, and there they were.” She could hardly speak through her tears.

“You’ve got to find out who did this for us,” she said. “Ruthie and I … every year … now somebody … .” She sobbed, and searched for words.

“Whoever it is, they will never know what this meant to me. They will never, ever know.”

Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again. It was my mother, and she was still crying.

“It was Susan Harvey Wymore,” she said. “She had called your daddy a few days ago and asked if I needed help lighting the candles this year. He told her that I wasn’t going to do it this year, because it was too hard, so soon after Ruthie’s death. So she did it for me, and didn’t say a word. Oh God, Rod, she will never know what this means. She will never understand how much this touched me.” And she cried some more.

The Harvey kids grew up around Starhill, though I didn’t really know them, because they were so much older. But Lord, the healing mercy for my mother in that Susan Harvey, going through the cemetery after dark, blessing each grave with a candle, like Mama and Ruthie did for years, to keep the tradition alive. I told everybody at the party about it. A cousin of mine heard this and said, “Isn’t that something. You might not know this, but I believe that Susan buried twins.”

So she knows what it’s like to lose a child — in her case, if my cousin remembers correctly, children. The candles Susan lit in the graveyard tonight were not the only lights that she made shine in the darkness, nor the most important. Ah, this town, these people.

O night, O night divine, O night when Christ was born…

Merry Christmas to you all.

I’ve written before about talking to Palestinian Christians in Israel back in the year 2000, and hearing them tell me they hated the Israelis, but they were absolutely terrified of Palestinian Islamists. As bad as the Israelis were for Palestinians, they told me, if Hamas takes over, it will be much worse.

This, I take it, is what they meant:

There hasn’t been a Christmas tree in Gaza City’s main square since Hamas pushed the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza in 2007 and Christmas is no longer a public holiday.

Imad Jelda is an Orthodox Christian who runs a youth training centre in Gaza City. With unemployment hovering at 23%, he has seen young Christian men leave to study and work abroad in their droves. “People here do not celebrate Christmas anymore because they are nervous,” Jelda said. “The youth in particular have a fear inside themselves.”

Karam Qubrsi, 23, and his younger brother Peter, 21, are the eldest sons in one of Gaza’s 55 remaining Catholic families. Both wear prominent wooden crucifixes. “Jesus tells me, ‘if you can’t carry my cross, you don’t belong to me,'” Peter explained. It’s a demonstration of faith that has caused him some trouble.

He describes being stopped in the street by a Hamas official who told him to remove the cross. “I told him it’s not his business and that I wouldn’t,” Peter said. After being threatened with arrest he was eventually let go, but the incident scared him.

The brightly decorated tree in the Qubrsis’ living room sits at odds with the sombre mood. Their sisters Rani, 29, and Mai, 27, left Gaza in 2007 when the 30-year-old manager of Gaza’s Bible Society bookstore, where their husbands worked, was shot dead, having been accused by radical elements of proselytising. They now live in Bethlehem.

This, I fear, is what’s coming to Arab Christians in Syria. It’s what’s coming to Coptic Christians in Egypt. Remember, Christian, as you celebrate the birth of Jesus in peace and security tonight, that there are many of your brothers and sisters in the Muslim world who cannot do so, in fear for their lives.

A reader passes along this story from USA Today. Excerpt:

WASHINGTON – More than 2.5 million voters have left the Democratic and Republican parties since the 2008 elections, while the number of independent voters continues to grow.

A USA TODAY analysis of state voter registration statistics shows registered Democrats declined in 25 of the 28 states that register voters by party. Republicans dipped in 21 states, while independents increased in 18 states.

The trend is acute in states that are key to next year’s presidential race. In the eight swing states that register voters by party, Democrats’ registration is down by 800,000 and Republicans’ by 350,000. Independents have gained 325,000

This week, the Republican Party lost one member, and the Independents gained one: me. I’ve been a registered Republican nearly all my adult life, but when I registered here in Louisiana, I put down “Independent.” I’m a conservative, for sure, and expect to vote Republican most of the time, by default. But I don’t want to be formally affiliated with that bunch, and I consider myself more open to considering Democratic candidates than I have been.

The reader who sent this to me — sorry, L., but I don’t know if you want to be identified, so I err on the side of caution — adds:

I wonder if there are parallels to folks leaving (or not caring about) organized religion in droves. I suspect there are. I also suspect here that there’s an opportunity for a remaking of the political landscape over the next decade or so.

An interesting thought. What do you think, readers?

Hello from the Land of Insomnia.

Not that you asked, but Levin needs to open up a can of whup-ass on Count Vronsky.

That is all. On to Chapter 17, and 3:30…

UPDATE: This passage is what I fell asleep last night, finally, thinking about. It’s from the restaurant dinner in Chapter 11 with the merrily dissolute Oblonsky and the upright and a bit too earnest Levin. Oblonsky is asking his advice on how to handle his mistress and his wife, given that she’s leaving him after having discovered his dalliance with the governess:

“Oh, you moralist!” [Oblonsky says] But just consider, here are two women: one insists only on her rights, and her rights are your love, which you cannot give her; and the other sacrifices herself and demands nothing. What are you to do? How are you to act? It is a terrible tragedy.”

“If you want me to say what I think of it, I can only tell you that I don’t believe in the tragedy. And the reasons is this: I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his ‘Symposium’ — both kinds of love serve as a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For such love there can be no tragedy. ‘Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good-bye,’ and that’s the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there everything is clear and pure, because …” Here Levin recollecting his own sins and the inner struggle he ahd lived through added unexpectedly, “However, maybe you are right. It may very well be. But I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

“Well, you see you are very consistent,” said Oblonsky. “It is both a virtue and a fault in you. You have a consistent character yourself and you wish all the facts of life to be consistent, but they never are. For instance, you despise public service because you want work always to correspond to its aims, and that never happens. You also want the activity of each separate man to have an aim, and love and family life always to coincide — and that doesn’t happen either. All the variety, charm and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

Levin sighed and did not answer. He was thinking of his own affairs and not listening to Oblonsky.

Here’s what I was thinking about as I fell asleep: They are both right. At least it seems so to me. About 60 percent of me is a Levin-like moralist. The rest is an Oblonskian aesthete. These two natures are always at war with each other. I affirm both, simultaneously. This is why Christopher Hitchens’s observation that life as it is actually requires the keeping of two sets of books. Yep.

So, we will have been back in St. Francisville for a week as of tomorrow. Despite the chaos and stress of the move, of settling in, of preparing to host Christmas dinner for my family here on Sunday, Julie and I are really amazed by how much we’re loving it here. I mean, I figured we would, but it’s been just great so far. For me, it’s such a strange feeling, because I was last a full-time resident in this town in 1983. I’m seeing the place through eyes three decades older, and in some ways it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time.

Our friend Jason came by to visit today, and brought us a couple of books as a welcome present: my friend Danny Heitman’s volume about John James Audubon’s time painting birds at Oakley House here, and a coffee-table collection of photographs of St. Francisville, with an introduction by Danny, who is a marvelous writer. I read Danny’s intro tonight, and learned that Katherine Anne Porter came through town in 1989, and wrote an essay about the place. Then I looked through the gorgeous images by a photographer called Bevil Knapp, and I thought, “This is my town? Really? It’s so beautiful.” Here’s a link to a sample of Knapp’s St. Francisville photos. Of course I grew up amid all this beauty, but as often happens, you don’t know what you have.

This morning I woke up at 4:30, lit candles, said prayers, and decided it would be nice to take Roscoe for a walk before the sun came up. We padded down Royal Street and up Catholic Hill, where we looked out over the Bayou Sara bottom, said a prayer at the statue of Mary and Baby Jesus, crossed ourselves (well, I crossed myself; Roscoe is a heathen), then walked past Grace Episcopal Church. I reached up and batted the Spanish moss hanging low over the sidewalk. Then we walked by the Methodist church, trimmed in golden Christmas lights, and indeed a vision in the darkness. Then to home, and coffee, and reading by lamplight until the sun came up. It was as perfect a morning as I’ve had in ages.

One of the best things to have happened to the town since I last lived here was the opening of BirdMan, a coffee shop and breakfast place which, I swear, is the real-life version of Lake Wobegon’s Chatterbox Cafe. I’ve been going there this week to use the wi-fi in the morning and drink the excellent coffee. You see everybody there you know, and people you don’t. Met a country boy this morning, a guy in a flannel shirt and a trucker cap, who was hunched at the counter over his coffee, drawling to his friends two stools down about how much he loves the movie “Charade,” and happy endings. I was introduced to him a few minutes later, and eventually had to ask, “Who’s your daddy?” I didn’t know his daddy, but my daddy knows his daddy, and … well, you know how this goes. For me, this is … well, it’s comforting, and fun, and even a delight. An older man walked by as we all stood talking, and I was introduced to this fellow. He’s Walter Imahara, and I’m telling you his name because it turns out the Baton Rouge paper did an article on him recently, showcasing the botanical garden he’s creating just outside of town. The Imahara family is famous around here for their nursery in Baton Rouge. The Imahara patriarch, James, moved here with his family in 1950 from California, after having everything taken from him during the war, when they were put in camps by the US government. Mr. Imahara (Walter’s father) took a job as gardener at a plantation house nearby. An excerpt from the story:

Imahara filed a claim for $100,000 with the U.S. government for lost land and income when the family was forced off its land in California and interned during the war. He got $17,000.

Mills helped Imahara start James’ Gardening Service in Baton Rouge after Imahara had worked at Fred Heroman’s nursery. The family moved to Baton Rouge in 1952 where Walter Imahara, with his sister, May, and her husband, Sam Kaga, would build the business into a household name.

Walter Imahara describes the family’s first house in Baton Rouge as a shack he was too embarrassed to bring classmates from Istrouma High School.

His father was bitter, Walter Imahara said, but he was busy, too, rebuilding his life as the stereotypical Japanese gardener working the grounds of Afton Villa with his family before starting to build the nursery and landscaping business in Baton Rouge.

Wanda Chase, daughter of John and Lily Imahara Metz, has her landscape architecture practice next door to her Uncle Walter’s former plant nursery now Louisiana Nursery on Perkins Road. Chase grew up working for her grandfather and her uncle and now owns the business.

The family’s Japanese heritage and harsh treatment at the hands of fellow Americans drove his father, Walter Imahara said.

The bitterness subsided. At 96, James Imahara carved “Happy to Be Alive” into a cypress board in Japanese characters he’d taught himself.

Incredible man, James Imahara. He suffered so much, and triumphed. Today, his son Walter, now retired and in his seventies, has put a million dollars of his own money into establishing this botanical garden. I had no idea this project existed until I met Mr. Walter this morning (yes, this is the same Imahara clan that Grant Imahara of “Mythbusters” comes from). I called my wife, who loves horticulture, to tell her about her great good fortune. I bet Mr. Walter will have a volunteer docent when he re-opens in the spring.

Lynn Wood, who owns and runs BirdMan, told me this morning, “The things you hear at this counter. Sometimes I wish I had a tape recorder and could just lay it up there and get it all.”

The epigraph in Bevil Knapp’s book of St. Francisville photographs is a quote by Woodrow Wilson, of all people:

“The South is the only place in the world where nothing has to be explained to me.”

Me too. I like that. I had forgotten how much I like that.

Just got back from Christmas shopping in Baton Rouge all day. While I was away, I received the following communication from my wife:

A little while ago I got a call from somebody in the president of AT&T’s office. His name was Tom, and he couldn’t have been nicer. Somebody had sent him your blog post, and he was afraid that whoever answered was going to bite his head off. He’s my new best friend, and I told him he was lucky my husband was away for the day. He told me he was going to make it right, and he did. We now have wi-fi, thanks to the great Tom Jordan, his lovely sidekick Betsy, and the hands-on assistance of Paul Stewart, who was super-fun.

You are going to write a blog post telling your readers what happened, and you are going to use the names of the AT&T people who helped us. They were great. And you are going to be nice about it, and not say another ugly word. You are not going to be a sore winner. That’s my message to you.

She means it too. I hear and obey, as I inform you of this happy outcome via my new and working wi-fi.

Thinking about the sick feeling of disgust that came over me when I learned that Christopher Hitchens had publicly praised Lenin for crushing the Russian Orthodox Church, I was reminded of the precise moment when I began to turn from the Left. I arrived at college as a fairly convinced left-winger, and certainly an ardent one. I joined the Progressive Student Network at my university — a small, unpopular group, to be sure, but more interesting to me than the College Democrats. I’d work the table in front of the student union building, passing out pro-Sandinista literature and suchlike.

One morning, I woke up at my apartment that first semester in freshman year, turned on the news, and learned that the Achille Lauro hijackers had shot the wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer and dumped his body over the transom. I was gobsmacked by the cruelty of this act, and was still fuming when I turned up at the PSN table to work that morning. When I expressed my views to my colleagues, a tall, garrulous comrade griped that our corporate media always reported on Palestinian terrorism, but never said boo about Israeli terrorism. And then — I’ll never forget this — a short Puerto Rican fellow who headed the group sat there calmly behind the table, looked at me through his Coke-bottle glasses, and said calmly, “Well, if he was rich enough to take the cruise, maybe he deserved what he got.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. The sheer cold-bloodedness of it. He was prepared to justify — no, was indeed justifying — the terrorist murder of an old Jewish man in a wheelchair, because that old man had the money to take a cruise. My thoughts were jumbled that morning, but I knew in my heart that I had to get as far away from these lunatics as I could.

This instinct, I think, is what made all my admiration for Hitchens, despite knowing his many flaws, evaporate. Not his hatred of religion, but his willingness to justify the murder of innocent people for the sake of cleansing the world of “heretics.” In fact, I think it must have had something to do with my ultimate decision to distance myself from the Catholic Church. In the end, I could not stand to be part of something whose leadership was willing to endure the sodomization of children by some of its clergy, and to justify tolerating it in the name of the mission. To too many bishops, Catholic children and families were simply collateral damage. Over the years of writing about this, as a Catholic, I would look at my own little children in the evenings and think that they, and their mother and father, are nothing to the bishops of the Roman Catholic church. If a priest had sodomized one or more of my children, we would have been treated in the very same way these people I was interviewing and reading about had been treated. The human factor was not relevant to them. It’s not the same as justifying murder, of course, but it’s on the spectrum.

This is not a theological argument, obviously; I am simply saying that there is something in my own emotional constitution that finds the violation of human dignity, and its justification for religious, political, or otherwise ideological reasons, abhorrent and intolerable. Every appalling thing Hitchens said, that I knew he had said, I could live with and forgive, because as he puts it in his memoir, it often happens that the right people believe and say the wrong things, and vice versa. If I stopped admiring the good in people I know who believe appalling things, my life would be lonelier, for sure. Some of the things I believe strike others as appalling too, and I hope they will, in their humanity, tolerate my beliefs and look for the good in me.

But there is a limit. As disgusting as some of Hitchens’s opinions were, and as wrong as he was about consequential questions (as, of course, I have been), nothing he said that I was aware of ever struck me as — what’s the word? — as defiling, in some foundational spiritual sense, as his justification of mass murder and torture for the sake of exterminating religion.