tik tok…time is ticking

“Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world.
There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.”
Elisabeth Elliot

(shutterstock)

First, let me start out by saying thank goodness for Elisabeth Elliot’s quote.
The following post was a difficult one to write.

It is based on an even harder article; one that I read before being ‘inspired’
to write the post.

So yes, it was good to be reminded that cruelty, and that which is truly wrong,
are not the greatest forces in the world…despite often feeling overwhelmed
by their darkness.

I need to remember that love and love alone is the one eternal constant.

And so if you’ve ever read many of my posts, you already know that I don’t take
the matter of abortion lightly.
I find it to be a painful and ugly reality of human beings being human.

Let me be the first to say that I am really really happy not to be caught up in the constant
shape-shifting and undulating communication formats that just keep morphing and multiplying
in this post-Christian, uber cutting edge, 21st century of ours.
It’s really too much to try and keep up with, as well as maintain if one wants
to be current and trendy.

Formats like youtube and even Instagram are so yesterday when you can
use a platform like TikTok

According to TikToc’s site, they explain that TikTok is the leading destination for short-form
mobile video. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy.

Creativity and joy.
I’m all for it.

As a former art teacher, I love hearing about a cyber place that affords the opportunity for creativity!
And as a human being, I know that I can sure use some more joy in this world of mine!

It sounds like a nice place.
A nice site for folks to get creative and happy while sharing that creativity and happiness
with others.
A kumbaya cyber gathering spot for sharing warmth and laughter…albeit a place for
some random silliness as people seem to have way too much time on their hands
if posting videos of both animals and people doing dumb things is the latest greatest craze…

However, it appears that TikTok seems to be shifting away from its original mission of
spreading happiness and joy as it is now becoming a site for both darkness and death.

Huh?

Is not darkness and death the antithesis for creativity and joy?

It seems that TikTok is now the hot new place where young gals are posting videos of
their abortion procedures.

Graphic and even disturbing videos.

And yes you have read correctly–there are gals out there, young gals,
who are giggling and being silly while uploading videos of their own abortion procedures.
As in a sick twisted, yet not without the moments of youthful silliness, step by step documentary.

Where, praytell, is the creativity and joy in that?

And so now that you are somewhat befuddled and confused over a story that started out about
spreading creativity and joy and yet has now spiraled into something rather insidious and sinister,
you must be wondering where on earth did I ever hear of such!?

Well, I was reading over yesterday’s offering from The Federalist when one of the featured
stories caught my eye.

If Girls Want To Be ‘Candid’ About Abortion On TikTok,
They Should Livestream It All
MARCH 4, 2020
By Joy Pullmann

This article deals with sensitive information that may be traumatizing especially
for post-abortive men and women and those who have experienced miscarriage.
My heart goes out to you. You can heal.

Pro-life activist Lila Rose says Twitter forced her to remove a viral video she
reposted of a young woman celebrating her Planned Parenthood abortion on the social media
platform TikTok.

According to a twitter post that Twitter removed, pro-life activist Lila Rose wrote:
Our ability to be cruel is endless.
When society celebrates abortion, should we be surprised to see this kind of cruelty?
My heart breaks for this little helpless baby,
killed on camera, his young mother joking about it.
And it breaks for her, who will live with this all her life
twitter.com/lilagracerose/

The article continues with a twitter tit for tat…

Insider summarized the TikTok video this way:

The user @cpcake21 posted a 20-second clip, which began with an apparently positive
pregnancy test belonging to her friend Ashley. The girl shows off her stomach before
the video follows them to a Planned Parenthood clinic,
where they point out a solemn couple in the waiting room before cutting to Ashley
on the table in a medical gown.
The video, which was posted from a now-private profile but posted in some tweets,
is overall lighthearted.
Set to a remix of Bruno Mars’ ‘It Will Rain,’
Ashley nervously laughs and fist pumps before she’s in the exam room.

Twitter removed the tweets it didn’t like, TikTok removed the videos that spun out of control
but not before the damage, sharing, shock, and disbelief were spread far and wide…kind of
like that desire for creativity and joy….spread it far and wide.

A small war ensued between the pros and cons with Twitter and TikToc siding with the pros and
attempting to silence the cons…but isn’t that how things now work?

The author of the article continues…

It’s hard to know where to begin.
With what looks like teenagers joyfully making the choice to have their wombs suctioned out
or induced with a miscarriage?
With the weird and sick trend of abortion-happy posts on the social media platform
saturated with young Gen Zers?
With a “reporter” who has a huge platform encouraging murderous
and self-damaging behavior among teen girls?

Let’s just go with the transparency angle.
You want “open and candid” information about a major medical decision that ends a life you created?
Great.
Let’s livestream it.
The whole thing.
Not just the fist-pump, but also the entire ultrasound the abortionist is watching while
he suctions out the baby, or the blood and tiny body pouring into the toilet
after an abortion pill while the young mother vomits and sobs.
Go ahead.
Be “transparent.”

I dare any mainstream media outlet or abortion organization to go full transparent.
To preserve the mom’s privacy, you don’t have to show her face.
Just show the procedure.
Nothing to hide, right?
Everything to celebrate, right?
Own that rhetoric.
Prove it’s true.

Of course, they won’t.
Because all the “shout your abortion” and “abortion parties” nonsense is a web of lies
attempting to conceal one of the most grotesque national sins Americans have ever allowed
our government to sanction.

The article is extensive as well as graphic.
But isn’t that what abortions are?

They are graphic moments of both life and death.
They are not neat nor are they pretty.

Maybe folks make light of such acts because how else can they cope with something so tragic?
Despite clamoring for legalization, proponents for abortions still wish to keep the details
and graphic nature hidden from plain sight…
that is except for when some young girls, who don’t seem to
grasp the severity of their actions, decide to post an “adventure” and then a few rabid activists
encourage said behavior as “brave.”

When did the taking of a helpless life become brave?

Abortion advocates don’t like for the opposition to lay all the cards plainly on the table for all the
world to see….it’s a messy business.
Ugly, messy and deadly.

They want to be able to perform such acts while preferring that no one really acknowledges
the ugliness of it all.
Keep it light and easy…creative and joy-filled.

The clock is ticking…

Here is the link to the full story.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/04/if-girls-want-to-be-candid-about-abortion-on-tiktok-they-should-livestream-it-all/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=3f4087fbae-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-3f4087fbae-84149832

Be careful to whom and to what you show favoritism towards…

As our country is in the process of rejecting its Christian roots,
it now appears that we are losing the fruits as well.
Rev. David Robertson

A week or so ago, I wrote a post featuring the words of our good friend from
across the pond, the Scottish Presbyterian Pastor David Robertson.
David was writing about how a fellow ‘man of the cloth’ had come under fire
for merely quoting from David’s blog, The Wee Flea…

He cited David’s words and in turn David reports that:
“It was described as a ‘rant by a furious vicar’.
Why?
He was just challenging the current fashion to indoctrinate children with the basic
tenets of Queer theory.
Not least the belief that gender is not connected with biology and can be changed.”

When writing a weekly column in his church’s newsletter, the News media outlets
went bonkers over this poor vicar’s desire to quote David .

Well…
shhhhhh…don’t tell anyone, but I actually quote from David’s blog quite often!
And I’m doing so again today.

Chalk it up to the delirium of grandmotherhood duty coupled by worry or simply
from wanting to speak the Truth…but it appears as if I’m quoting again…
today…

Ooops.

David observes that we are finding ourselves living in “the end of rationality”
and I for one, totally concur.

It’s as if our culture has been attacked by some massive rabid raccoon and is now suffering
terribly from a fatal case of hydrophobia…aka, rabies.

For it seems clearly apparent that our uber progressive liberal and anti-Judeo Christian society
is on an insatiable quest of being increasingly intolerant to any deviation from what David
notes as a New Orthodoxy.
It is this, “State’s” new doctrine—nothing more and nothing less.

Why do I hear leather goose-stepping boots reverberating in my brain?

David observes that even the Church is sadly now compliant as this poor Anglican vicar’s
superiors and diocese quickly distanced themselves from him and his newsletter, of which
quoted from David’s blog, by publicly stating that the vicar’s views are not “their” views.

David continues…
“It is just assumed that anyone who disagrees is out-dated,
doesn’t understand and is on ‘the wrong side of history’;
whereas those who are intelligent, virtuous and on ‘the right side of history’
can admire the finery of the Emperor’s new clothes.
But those who have eyes can see that the Emperor is naked.”

“…we are no longer concerned with what is right and wrong, but rather our ‘values’.
Although just quite how we arrive at these values and what they are based on,
is left unspoken.
You can have your views but if they go against ‘our values’,
you had better not express them. Or the Secular Inquisition will
investigate and insist on your recantation or punishment.

David closes his post with this startingly observation as well as a revelation…
The liberal/progressive thought police may not be as obvious as the
Saudi Arabian religious ones – but they are even more dangerous.
Using the tools of mockery, ignorance, superiority, and intimidation,
they have the ability to overwhelm and destroy any opponent.
The Church here has a tremendous opportunity –
not just to stand up for ourselves, but to speak up for those who cannot speak up
for themselves.
Who will stand in the gap?
Who will face down the new authoritarians and fight for freedom?
Peter Hughes has done so. As have others – including the Vatican.
Will Christians stand together with them?

And so the question is posed my friends…what will we as Christians do?
Will we simply capitulate and keep quiet or will we stand up against
this rabid “New State”?
Will we keep quiet so as not to rock the boat and our tidy little existence or
will we dare to speak what we know is the Truth?

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men,
I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,
but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 10:32-33

The Religious Thought Police are Here

something is definitely brewing

“Hier stehe ich.
Ich kann nicht anders.
Gott helfe mir.
Amen.”
(Here I stand.
I can not do otherwise.
God help me.
Amen)
Martin Luther

“Our leaders don’t believe the values of the New Testament take
priority over everything else.”
The Rt Reverend Gavin Ashenden

(the old Methodist Church in Cades Cove, TN / Julie Cook / 2015)

Yesterday I shared a heartening tale about a modern day take on Martin Luther’s
500 year old defiance against an ailing Church.

It appears that these 500 years later on … we are again ailing….
or perhaps we are simply still ailing, never having actually been healed.
I’m not so certain as to which it actually is.

Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed leadership within many mainline
Christian denominations yielding, be it willingly or by duress, to the whims,
nay demands, of a growing egocentric hedonistic society that claims everything
in the name of acceptance and love.

But what society fails to understand is that whereas God is indeed Love,
He is also a God of Order…His Order.

I have watched in frustrating bewilderment,
for more years now than I care to recount, church doctrine and or policy being
twisted and contorted to fit an ever demanding culture’s idea of order.
As society works to claim a new oddly fitting human behavior.

Almost 6000 years have passed since God spoke very specifically to Moses.
He issued a set of “rules” for human orderly living.
God had spoken and literally laid down the law.

Then several millennia past and God saw fit to send a proxy,
a stand in for man…one who was to take man’s place in the inevitable
eternal damnation that man had claimed for himself by imposing his own order while
ignoring God’s…

….That so whomever would believe, would be saved and would have eternal life.

It was straight forward…even simple really.
Yet man insisted on making it complicated.

So while Western Civilization marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation—
as it matters not on which side of the fence you find yourself,
the Reformation is being remembered none the less…

However…me thinks there might be something new brewing about?
As in, might we be witnessing perhaps a new bit of Reformation taking shape?

I for one hope so.

Twice during the course of this past week,
I have found myself both hearing and reading the thoughts and sharings of two
very different men of the cloth concerning this “change in the air”—

Yet neither man has cited any particular change as they are merely working to share
the current state of affairs—the health of each one’s collective church body.

One is a Catholic monk who I’ve mentioned here before…Father Hugh—
who happens to be an ardent keeper of the faith and an Australian monk serving in
a monastery in the UK who is not afraid to speak Gospel truth,
even if that truth runs counter to that of Rome.

The other being a former Anglican priest and Chaplin to the Queen, who now is a
missionary Bishop of The Christian Episcopal Church–a ‘renegade’ break away of
Orthodox Anglican and Episcopal laity and clergy.

Both men have noted that our collective Church leadership has capitulated.
As the leadership has accepted false doctrine as some sort of new doctrine.
A form of “soft socialism” so says Bishop Ashenden.

Father Hugh has shared a letter written by a well respected American Theologian and Capuchin monk, Fr. Thomas Weinandy, regarding the dangerous position Pope Francis
appears to be placing the Catholic faithful.

Bishop Ashenden on the other hand in a recent airing of Anglican Unscripted, also
addresses this dangerous direction the current leadership of the Anglican Church seems
to be taking its flock…

I offer you the links below to Father Hugh’s posts regarding Father Weinandy’s
very public letter to Pope Francis.

It should be noted that since writing and having published his letter to the Pope,
the good Capuchin Father has been asked to resign his post as executive
director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for Doctrine.

Just as I suspect those clergy who have tacked the Southwark Declaration to the doors
of various Anglican Cathedrals or who vocally support the Declaration from their pulpits
will eventually suffer reprimand and or repercussion or something even worse.

Just as I would expect to receive such should I tack the Declaration to any door of
any Episcopal Church here in the states—- I would be accused of hate mongering….
because that’s how we handle those who hold fast to the solemn Word of God—
for if you opt to follow the word of God as stated in the Gospel,
particularly when it concerns same sex unions, you are accused of bigotry and hate….
never mind what God has said about such.

Let us offer our prayers for such brave individuals who are not afraid, despite
common thought and new cultural norms, to share God’s truth…

https://hughosb.com/2017/11/02/here-i-stand-i-can-do-no-other/

https://hughosb.com/2017/11/03/laffaire-weinandy-a-watershed/

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason
(for I do not trust in the pope or councils alone, since it is well known
that they have often erred and contradicted themselves),
I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted.
My conscience is captive to the Word of God.
I cannot and I will not retract anything,
since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
May God help me.
Amen.”
Martin Luther

when righteousness perseveres

“Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God.
For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility,
righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?”
C.S. Lewis

“Righteousness acts never in its own interest,
but in the interest of fellow men.”
Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

(The Rev. Samuel Leighton Green)

Say what you will about battles, conflicts and wars…
…such that there is no such thing as a just war.

And that may very well be true…

For historians still question the necessity of such wars as WWI
yet concede to the fundamental importance and necessity of WWII.

Yet both wars were some of humankind’s bloodiest conflicts…
with each resulting in a catastrophically global loss of life.

While at the same time each war has helped to shape the world, for both good and bad,
as you and I know it today.

And as is the case with history…
importance becomes more real, more relevant and more personal when it is
picked apart and examined individually…
by each single person after person, after person…
for it is in the details of each participant that we begin to see things
more narrowly verses that of a generic and sweeping panoramic view of
the statistical and numerical.

The following link is to a story found on the BBC regarding
the Reverend Samuel Leighton Green.
Green was one of a special group of men who served during the brutal
trench warfare of WWI.

As a member of the clergy, he was exempt from the mandatory draft,
yet volunteered anyway as he knew someone would have to tend to those
“fighting lads” spiritual needs.

Green also felt a moralistic sense of justification to the war’s necessity.

He served with the “blasphemous and foul-mouthed” 1/4th (City of London)
Battalion–the Royal Fusiliers.
Green served alongside this brave group of men throughout the duration of the war.

Green was awarded the Military Cross not once but twice for his bravery under fire.

It would behoove us to uncover more of these stories of such selfless souls…
those brave men and women who remain a part of the “Constant” to which mankind so
clings during the chaotic…

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-37377025

let’s make it a true daily double Alex…

The other evening, while I was at the sink doing the dishes, following the National News,
Jeopardy was next up on TV.

Halfway listening, as the water ran and the dishes clanged in the sink,
I heard one of the contestants asking for a question in one of day’s categories…
It was the hidden daily double.

You know, those hidden opportunites where the contestant is offered the choice of
wagering their entire accrued winning total…
all in hopes of answering the question correctly…
with the chance of either doubling their winnings,
or, should they choose to play conservative, at least adding slightly…

“Let’s make it a true daily double Alex”….

This is where the audience will often gasp while Alex is heard to sardonically quip “helllloooo”

I don’t remember the particular question, nor the amount for which the contestant was now playing…
but I remember hearing the contestant stating what I thought to be the correct answer.

Alex however, the ever audacious, all knowing host, quickly corrected her pronunciation
informing her that her answer was incorrect due to the fact that
she did not correctly pronounce the word—-

But the thing is Alex knew,
as I knew,
that she knew…
the answer…

She just pronounced it incorrectly.
And in Jeopardy, pronunciation is key… down to each vowel, consonant and syllable.

And as a native southerner….accents can play the devil in pronunciation….just saying…

So the contestant lost it all…
her entire show’s winnings….
and was now forced to play catch up…
working her way from behind back into the running….

Odds were not in her favor…

So the question for us all is….

Are we gamblers in life or are we the play it safe kind of person?

Would we be feeling confident, perhaps even daring, by making things a true daily double…

or…

would we play it safe, holding onto what we had by wagering only a nominal amount,
if we even wagered at all…??

You may claim to be the latter of the two—always playing it safe…
But do you really?
And to what extent….?

We’ve all read the stories…
the one about Peter…
that lovable yet often mindless disciple who took to the notion of speaking first
and thinking later…
The one who lead more with his heart and often less with his head…
Impulsive perhaps
Full of emotion
and most likely a true daily double kind of guy…

Remember it was Peter who was charged with the keys to Heaven…

However when the going got rough and things went bad,
really bad for the Carpenter and then his followers,
Peter, when confronted with his association and knowledge of the rebel rousing Carpenter…
as he was no doubt regretting that whole daily double attitude…
Peter pled the 5th.

He knew him not…

Three times he took the 5th…
He knew him not….

And like Peter, we are currently finding ourselves, this very day and time,
faced with the same sort of accusations…

Aren’t you one of them?

Don’t you know Him?

Are you not one of His followers?

They ask this when prayer is no longer allowed in public and you keep silent.

They ask this when the faithful are told that they can’t use or display a cross,
have a public Christmas tree or manager on display, use the word Christmas or even
read a bible publicly…while you remain silent.

They ask this when your fellow brothers and sisters, around the world,
are tortured and murdered for their faith in Jesus Christ,
the very Carpenter Peter once tried to deny…
and you choose to remain silent…because that is over there…
and you are over here…
In the home of the free and brave….

You play it safe, you play it conservative…
You dare not play the daily double because then they will know that you are “one of them”
and there will be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…like Peter…

So maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about…
those missed pronunciations,
those missed spellings,
those overt politically correct stances,
the overt politeness
the falsehoods that we are continually fed
the denials we face daily over our belief…

It was later, when it truly mattered, when Peter,
who when faced with his own martyrdom opted for the true daily double…
by announcing to Nero and the crowd…

“Yes, I knew Him”

“Yes I know Him”

“And yes, I am one of them…one of His…”

…”And I have made this life a true daily double for His sake,
your sake and the sake of the salvation for the world to come….

Proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
Acts 28:31

a few hearty souls

“When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”
Billy Graham

(a tall standing Gerber daisy braves a sunny November day while an impending cold front fast approaches / Julie Cook / 2014)

The lines have been drawn as two opposing forces prepare to collide.
A line of division stares at the unsuspecting.
The assault will be coming, whether anyone is ready or not.
However, time is of the essence.
It is now or never.
Prepare or pack.
The choice is to stand and fight, or to run for cover.
But will there be any cover in which to seek?
Only a few have stayed behind, relishing and lingering in what little warm comfort remains.
When the first small wave of change appeared, the masses had already fled.
It is all now left to only the few brave souls, those who dared to claim what the others discarded.
Truth has mixed with the lies of disbelief and only the hearty few who remain can sort it out.
The shift will be seismic.
The consequence, life or death. . .
as the lone query is posed, this is about flowers and cold fronts, right?
Maybe comes the dry reply.

Standing out in a crowd vs being lost in the crowd

“I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!”
― Oscar Wilde

There are 15 small sparrows along with 1 yellow finch jumbled together in this picture. 16 small birds all vying for some scattered seeds in the straw. There were many more of these small birds pecking about under the tree but I focused in on the most concentrated group. They are difficult to distinguish from the straw as their coloring allows them to blend in so nicely, hopefully camouflaging them form the hawks that often circle above.

One might imagine that the yellow finch may seem a tad out of place as he is different. He is the lone member of his clan mixing it up in the midst of an entirely different family—and yet, he seems not to even take notice that he is yellow and they are brown. He’s a bit smaller than the larger sparrows and yet they don’t seem to mind having this yellow interloper joining their luncheon. No one getting lost in this small lunch crowd.

Today the calendar reminds us that it is the feast day of a little known obscure 1st century saint. Saint Prisca, or more commonly referred to as Pricilla, who along side her husband, Acilius or Aquila, are said to have worked closely with Saint Paul–having allowed Paul to live in the their home for almost 2 years.

At a time when woman were not considered necessarily as equal partners and would have always deferred to their husbands, Prisca / Pricilla, along with Aquila, are referenced 6 different times in the new testament, often with her name being written before that of her husband’s name–unheard of during that time period. Some scholars even attribute the anonymously written Book of Hebrews to Prisca / Pricilla. It is thought that perhaps Prisca / Pricilla was a teacher, as this was in part the reason for her prominence and referral by Paul throughout the New Testament. Such a dangerous route for anyone during this time in history, but more so given that she was a jewish woman now following that crucified rebel rouser known simply to her heart at the Messiah.

This couple was, what we would consider, 1st century missionaries who worked extensively with Saint Paul to help spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ–all this despite having been exiled from Rome by the Emperor Claudius who had called for all Jews to be banished from Rome. History teaches us that Prisca / Pricilla, just like so many of the undeterred members of this young new religion, was eventually martyred for her faith. The date for her death, that of beheading in Rome, is noted as today January 18th.

Prisca / Pricilla knew of the dangers her teaching and faith would cause but she was not deterred. She chose the moment, choosing not to run and hide, but to continue sharing the life-changing importance of Jesus Christ–daring to swim against the tide of mainstream thought and belief. She made the decision, chose the moment, and never looked back.

Here is an example of a woman working alongside the men, making the ultimate sacrifice, working besides St Paul–oddly there is none of the sexism that St Paul is always so doggedly accused of here, no admonishment due to the fact that she was a woman–she chose her moment, she dared to take a stand, eventually paying the ultimate price with her life. Beheading. A gruesome death for anyone, let alone a woman. Prisca / Priscilla is now remembered, rather notably, throughout Rome as there is a church, as well as a set of Catacombs bearing her name.

May we all be more willing to go, when time dictates, against the proverbial stream in the name of Righteousness and Truth, choosing to seize the moment despite the fact that the way of the World may be in the opposite direction or because of our age, sex, learning. . . May we choose to be the one who stands out in the crowd rather than the one who remains lost, all for the sake of Righteousness and Truth. May we choose to be bold and brave–when the World would tell us to be quiet. Are you ready? Prisca / Pricilla didn’t think twice.