this is what should keep you up at night…

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Marie Curie


(Bela Lugosi as Dracula 1931)

When I was a kid, I loved watching those old black and white horror movies from the ’30s and ’40s—
Dracula, Frankenstein, The Werewolf, The Mummy, all the way up to the vampy ’60’s with
Vincent Price’s The Pit and the Pendulum, the Creature from the Black Lagoon
along with such cult classics as Dark Shadows.

At 10, I can remember telling my mother to buy real garlic and not that powdered stuff
she kept in her spice cabinet.
I needed the real deal in order to sleep soundly at night.
Throw in a Crucifix, of which hung on my wall, and all I needed was a silver spike,
some silver bullets and I would be safe and sound.

Ode to the imagination of a 10-year-old.

As an adult, having seen snippets from those same early horror flicks,
I now get tickled seeing the ridiculous over-emphasized melodramatics.

Looking back, however, I can remember the difficulty in trying to convince my
10-year-old self, complete with an overactive imagination,
that sleeping with a strand of garlic around my neck was not exactly prudent
and totally impractical.

Thankfully, I’ve outgrown the frightful likes of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff,
as well as Vincent Price…
however, there is one individual who does, in fact, leave me a bit
restless at night.
One whose very name can cast fear in my heart… just as he should yours.
And all because he remains more of enigma on the world stage rather than
a defined individual.

I’ve written about this individual before…
actually, all the way back in 2016 when the notion of Brexit was becoming a household word…

Of recent weeks, I’ve read a great deal concerning the global financial powers-that-be
bemoaning or gloating, depending on which side of the fence they line their pockets,
what a Brexit would do to the global economy.
The likes of George Soros, a man who has profited, or make that made a killing,
on the downward slopes of markets before (mainly the Bank of England),
is set to cash in once again.
And cash in big—but yet no one really knows how big he cashes in
as he doesn’t disclose much…
This man parlays deeply and dangerously into American politics as he gives and gives
graciously to the Clintons and their campaigns…
He plays his hand in global economies and seems to try to muscle the outcomes of elections
as well as markets worldwide—all to his benefit—

The rich and powerful trouble me.
Rich and powerful politicians trouble me.
Even our self-centered, anything and everything goes, millennials trouble me.

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2016/06/25/should-we-go-or-should-we-stay/

Yes, George Soros troubles me.

And he should trouble anyone who loves America, democracy as well as the gift our
founding Father’s left for us.

And it’s because George Soros is determined to rewrite the Constitution of the United States.

However, this notion is nothing new and according to the authors of the book
I mentioned the other day…dark forces have long yearned to alter
The United States as you and I know it to be.

The book in question is not exactly new as it actually came out in 2006…
The Shadow Party
How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and the Sixties Radicals
Seized Control of the Democratic Party

by David Horowitz and Richard Poe

The authors explain that before there was George Soros, there were others who helped
to form Mr. Soros…just as Mr.Soros has helped to form the likes of others—
Hillary Clinton being one such individual.

Growing up, I knew early on from my interest in history and politics, and in part due to the
mystery surrounding the one time leader of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa, that big Government
was sadly capable of just about anything.

Powerful people like…power.
Just as much as they like control.

J. Edgar Hoover
Franklin Roosevelt
Joseph Kennedy and his three famous sons
Richard Nixon
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Tip O’Neil
Huey Long
Barak Obama
George Soros
Bill Gates
Nancy Pelosi
Katharine Graham

the list of movers and shakers seems nearly endless…

And there are reasons as to why we are currently watching the rise of the Fab 4
Congressional leaders.
It is not coincidental.

Reasons you and I, the average citizen, need to understand.

And so reading, as I do each evening a few pages here and there,
I have certainly been given just enough information in order to produce more than
my fair share of nightmares.

If you are left scratching your head as to why we seem to be in such a mess these days in
this nation of ours, let me simply recommend this book…
It won’t take too many pages until you’ll begin to understand.

Informed citizens or clueless and mindless entities?
…those in the shadows prefer you remain clueless and most definitely mindless.

Sometimes we vote for a candidate not so much because we love them but because
we know they are the lesser of the evils…and becasue we know garlic
does nothing to help the evil intentions…

the hows and the whys…

Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding,
disbelief or ignorance.

W. Clement Stone

rscn4568
(wildflower / Julie Cook / 2016)

Look at this amazing tiny wildflower…
it grows wild along the edge of the woods.

Looking at it closely, it really is amazing isn’t it?

The coloring…
those tiny magenta like spots demurely dotting a milky center…
along with those soft yellow streaks…
offered by what seems to be the errant brush stroke of an artist’s paint.

Those fine tiny little fuzzy hairs,
surrounding each gentle and tender petal…
ready and waiting to tickle the foot of any visiting bee….

Absolutely amazing…

Such attention to detail…

A microcosm of beauty that sits for no one in particular,
randomly along the edge of the woods….
Except say for the birds, the deer, the coyotes, the armadillos…
and chances are, it is only the bees that pay it any heed…

A delightful detail to be marveled over.
A sheer tiny portent of beauty….
offered freely to any passerby to gleefully behold…

Yet I do not see such a tiny marvel as mere happenstance.
I do not find it to be some random mix of atoms that swirled together
over the eons, then popped out as this flower…

I do not look upon anything on this earth as mere happenstance…
the oceans and all that they harbor and hold…
the sky with it’s endless cosmic delights…
the earth be it verdant growth or sandy dunes…
Nothing has happened without the knowledge of the Creator…

But…
there are many who would beg to differ.
There are those who will cry foul over such thoughts…
Those who will fight ardently, tooth and nail, to wipe away any such notion…
because for them, that’s all that such is…
mere notions of the uneducated, the simple, the naive and the misinformed…

So when I hear all of this up and arms wailing and gnashing of teeth over all
of this impending election mess of ours….
as in an exclamation point and question mark screaming after the statement…

THE CHOICE IS JUST THESE TWO CANDIDATES?????!!!!!!!

As in…
That’s it??????
That’s all we’ve got??

The anguished lamenting that is currently taking place over the fact that
out of the hundreds of millions of legal Americans,
not counting our illegal population,
we are left wondering how it came down…
to these particular two????!!!!

Down to a woman who has quite the checkered past…
Do you remember White Water???

A woman who was in charge of the this nation’s top security yet continues
to claim “no recollection” as to how that e-mail businesses got so messed up…
A woman who’s job it was to defend and protect our National security interests
around this globe yet chose to willfully ignore the continued pleas for help
by a United States ambassador…

A woman who now has blood on her hands…

Never mind she is married to the man who helped to usher in this ‘no holds bar’
lack of decorum, dare we say morality, in our press…
let alone in our highest ranking office in this nation…
as we disgustingly recall that infamous little red dress…

And there was that famous presidential address to the Nation…
you remember the one…the one in which that famously ridiculous lie was uttered
to both you and I…
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”
Only to come to find out that, well whoops, he did…

And then there’s the other of the two…
the fellow with the equally checkered past…
Lest we remember each and every wife, gaffe, boast, profane and vile remark…
A man who has made millions by always putting himself and his interests first…
Remember “it’s not personal, it’s just business”
cold, callous and calculating…

A man who has treated his fellow man and woman as less than and as mere objects…
A man who’s line, “you’re fired” has became a common household phrase…
as he can cut ties faster than we can bat any eye….

So yes, it is sadly, oddly, bizarrely down to these two,
out of all of the millions who could have been…
we’re stuck with these two….

So I’m of the thought that this is what happens when the Divine is removed from life.
When the Miraculous is coldly cast aside…
When He who is Greater than is cheaply rendered less than by the mere created?
When the Word of God is rewritten, ignored and replaced…
When we have decided that we are more important than everything and anyone else…
and that we obviously don’t need nor want God in our lives….

So should we really wonder how or why we’ve gotten into this mess…?

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” …
Hebrews10:26-31

Graciousness appears to have died

“Win without boasting.
Lose without excuse.”

Albert Payson Terhune

“A man who called everyone a damn fool is like a man who damns the weather.
He only shows that he is not adapted to his environment,
not that the environment is wrong.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

DSCN3314
(ghost crab who’s given up the ghost / Santa Rosa Beach, FL / Julie Cook / 2016)

We’re not a people accustomed to losing.
We don’t like to lose…
Who does?!
Nobody, that’s who!

We’re a people of winners.
We like winners.
Who doesn’t like a winner…
Nobody, that’s who!

Maybe we’re a little too accustomed to winning.
Maybe we’ve grown to expect it.
Maybe…just maybe…we’ve forgotten how to lose.
We’ve forgotten that in losing there must be graciousness…

Let’s look at a few things…

We love our sports teams.
We want them to win.
Some of us bet on them to win…
as in… betting money…
as in… betting big money.

Losers don’t make us money.
Some of us have been known to do bad things to make our teams win.
We have cheated, lied, twisted reality, conspired with others to do bad things.
We’ve been known to “fix” a game in order to win
We like to win at all costs…

Others of us get into fights when our teams lose.
We decide to fight those whose team beats our team.
We decide to beat the crap out of the opposing winning team’s fans.
We don’t lose well….

Look at our elections…

We like our candidates of choice to win.
We work for our candidates.
We campaign for our candidates.
We yell at other people who don’t support our candidate.
We call those who don’t support our candidates ugly names.
We get into fights with people who don’t support our candidate.
We vote for our candidates.
We get mad when they lose.
We decide not to accept the winner because our candidate should have won.
We contest the voting count.
We demand a re-count.
We demand a re-vote
We make up stories about the winning candidate to make him / her look bad.
We paint a really ugly picture to sway the results.
We lie, pay bad people money…
We want to win at all costs

Look at our primary elections…
There are a lot of people who don’t like a man like Donald Trump
He’s loud, obnoxious, brash, arrogant and troubling to most…
Maybe he’s not “president” material…
Yet he’s been voted into the top position.
He’s the presumptive nominee.
He earned the spot.
But those who don’t want him are mad.
As those who didn’t vote for him are doing and saying all sorts of things to stop him.
They want to ignore the majority of the other people who voted for him.
They want to say that everyone who voted for him is ignorant and racist and just wrong.
When did voting for a person of one’s choice become ignorant, racist and wrong?
We don’t like the voting to not go our way…

Look at the recent vote in Great Britain.
People voted.
The vote was to exit.
But those who lost the vote are mad.
They’ve decided that those who voted to exit are racist, ignorant, wrong.
It was put to a vote…
stay or go…
Go was chosen…
but now…
All those people who voted their choice to go, are now labeled as ignorant, racist and wrong.
We want a re-count.
We want to block the decision.
We don’t want to concede to the majority’s vote.
We want to do everything possible in order to turn the vote around to our vote, our choice.
We no longer believe in choice, or two sides
We will fight and call those who voted against our wishes ugly names.
We won’t accept anyone else’s opinion or right of choice because it is different from our own.

We forget that there are always two sides—
Winning and losing.
And sometimes we just have to live with losing….

Graciousness appears to have died….

But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness,
and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.

2 Corinthians 8:7

The depravity of craziness

I don’t think that you can let the storms of life overwhelm you.
When you do that,
you are no better than the craziness that caused you to be under attack.

T. D. Jakes

RSCN2866
(blooming Japanese maple / Julie Cook / 2016)

Who among us, who is alive, breathing and kicking…
Isn’t scratching their heads in pure wonderment over
this growing maelstrom,
otherwise known to the world as…
the US Presidential Race…???

Firstly the word embarrassment comes to mind…

From the hateful exchanges between candidates…
(the he said, she said, you said, they said…no they didn’ts)

From the loss of civility among educated adults…
(who actually says this kind of stuff…in private let alone in public…
and is actually proud of it??)

From the loss of civility among adults…
(just look at any campaign rally to see grownups, and not so grownups, behaving badly…
very, very badly)

From the hateful remarks by the candidates about the voters…
(last I checked people were voting and voting in a big way for these people so that alone should stand by
itself as some sort of testament to the condition, perceived or real, by the voters of this country—or have we and the candidates forgotten that the voters do matter and should not be perceived as idiots…
as the candidates and the news media assume us all to be…)

From the ridiculous questions asked by the news media of the candidates…
(“did you have an affair…” Not rather the more pressing or pertinent or real questions
such as “what will you do for the economy, what will you do about ISIS, how will you help heal this hurting Nation…
Sadly it is rather the gossipy and salacious…
that scintillating dribble of questions worthy only of tabloid fodder)

From the globally wide laughing joke we’ve become…
(the world now sits dumbfounded, as do I, watching this mockery of our nation’s highest office…)

From the endless sea of mindless freak show spectacles debates…
(how many times and or ways can a person say the same thing??
Or perhaps it’s really just a way to watch them all slowly continuing putting their shoes
and high heels into their mouthes….)

To the frightening reality that one of these 4 individuals (the 5th is just hanging around,
or so we are told) will be the next President of the United States of America—
(As we may note that the word “united” is becoming a bit iffy)

Becoming the President of the United States is a big deal.
It is a VERY big deal.
Yet I fear these 4 (or 5 if you’re still counting) get it.
I don’t think the news media gets it.
I don’t think this country gets it…

Or maybe that’s it…
Maybe the Country no longer cares…
As in it has all merely swirled into a giant mess of pure political anarchy—
as if politics hadn’t been bad enough,
it’s now turned sadly into more of a circus then an organized process.

A free for all…
An all out, knock down, drag out…
fists flying…
name calling…
every dirty trick in the book…
MESS…

All the while as our media, our entertainment industry and our economic machines wrangle with every sneaky hook and crook maneuver to steer the election into their own personal favored corner…
forget the vote of the democratic little person that makes this country what it is…

I realize that politics and voting and governments have never been as they should be–
On the up and up,
models of decorum
the pinnacle of civility
a seamless process
a one size fits all sort of business…

People are people…sadly
And they have been known to beg, borrow and steal…
Plus throw in a little bit of lying, demoralizing, swindling and scandalizing of one another…

But this year, I think most of us would sadly agree, it has fallen to an all time low—on all sides of the spectrum….

Such that I have very real and very grave concerns for this Nation as a whole…
Most folks my age and older do as well…
I think we call that hindsight.

Yet a fellow blogger and brother in Christ, Wally over on Truthinpalmyra.wordpress.com posted a wonderful little placard yesterday that stated:
No matter who is president, Jesus is King…

I find great comfort in knowing that as the world around me oozes away, lost unto itself and to its own depraved craziness…
Jesus Christ remains the Resurrected Lord of All….

All hail the power of Jesus’ name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
bring forth the royal diadem,
and crown him Lord of all.
Bring forth the royal diadem,
and crown him Lord of all.

Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race,
ye ransomed from the fall,
hail him who saves you by his grace,
and crown him Lord of all.
Hail him who saves you by his grace,
and crown him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget
the wormwood and the gall,
go spread your trophies at his feet,
and crown him Lord of all.
Go spread your trophies at his feet,
and crown him Lord of all.

Let every kindred, every tribe
on this terrestrial ball,
to him all majesty ascribe,
and crown him Lord of all.
To him all majesty ascribe,
and crown him Lord of all.

Crown him, ye martyrs of your God,
who from his altar call;
extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod,
and crown him Lord of all.
Extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod,
and crown him Lord of all.

O that with yonder sacred throng
we at his feet may fall!
We’ll join the everlasting song,
and crown him Lord of all.
We’ll join the everlasting song,
and crown him Lord of all.

All Hail The Power Of Jesus Name
words by Edward Perronet (1780)
Tune Coronation by Oliver Holden