Camelot for the Masses – “Obamalot”

According  to Hot Air, the Washington Times found “the motherload.” Says Hot Air, “While publicly identifying with the nation’s have-nots, the Obama administration has been cultivating the Beltway social elite behind the scenes.”

In the vernacular of the tax-paying masses, Obama’s hobb-nobbings are just another “loada’ __.” Obama seeks to ingratiate himself with high society despite the imprinted image of  just-plain-folk representing “the humble masses yearning to breath free.”  Not much free for the tax-paying middle class,while the air of  neo-Camelot-ary reigns in Obamalot.  While Obama reaches into our pockets, his “outreach to the luxury lifestyle glossies, which cater to the region’s highest socioeconomic strata with knowing coverage of everything from the choicest real estate and most exclusive parties to the plushest resorts and spas, is not the only recent evidence that the Obama administration is eager to forge ties with the nation’s social and style arbiters.”

Says Hot Air:

Charming the local (and not so local) power structure is good, smart politics, as is having dozens of interest groups aligned on your side coordinating their message with a daily phone call. And just as conservative groups could never get away with that without dark media insinuations about the “right-wing noise machine” building a wall of propaganda around the White House, George W. Bush could never have gotten away with holding a strategy session on how to glad-hand the D.C. glitterati while issuing near-hourly warnings about how we’re on the brink of Great Depression II. I can just picture the mocking nut-roots YouTube clips, destined to be recycled on “Hardball” and “Countdown”: First a quote from a story about Bush’s interest in socializing, then a clip of him and Laura dressed in finery and dancing at an inaugural ball as graphics about the market’s implosion and this year’s $1.75 trillion deficit roll merrily by. They’re … out of touch, you see. Exit question: Couldn’t the meeting have been postponed until, oh, say, after Geithner came up with a bank rescue plan and Treasury had been staffed? This isn’t going to reassure George Will or Tom Friedman about Obama’s ability to prioritize.

Who’s the Leper Now?

The Leper, who comes to Jesus in today’s Gospel (Mark 1:40-45,) is often seen as an embodiment of those who are the “untouchables” of  our society (the poor, the weak, the unwed mother, the addict.)  The Leper, in another view, is one who is “outside the camp”.  The leper is the one cut off from worship and cut off from community.

In the United States today, the Leper is 75% of those who call themselves Catholic, yet no longer celebrate Mass or practice their Faith. No matter the reason that they left the Church (disbelief, anger, lifestyle, boredom), they are now “outside the camp.”

The tragedy is that our worship, while directed to God, has an effect on us.  Worship orders the one who worships.  Worship grounds the worshiper once again in the Truth of Who it is he worships.  It prepares a man for battle, so to speak.  “Happy the people that know the joyful shout!” (Psalm 89:16)  Without worship, the World becomes the voice that lies to him, tempts him and in the end may even conquer him.

The poor and the weak are in the Lord’s camp. The true outsider is one Jesus calls home. “I do will it.  Be made clean.” (Mark 1:41)