call me a rebel working with the saints

“I rebel; therefore I exist.”
Albert Camus

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel,
and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

George Orwell, 1984


(James Dean, from Rebel Without a Cause)

I read a great post yesterday over on Mel Wild’s site, In My Father’s House, and wanted to share.
It was posted on Halloween and Mel notes that since it was Halloween, ‘why not share our
favorite horror story of 2020—COVID 19 lockdowns.’

I want to share his words because, despite our current election diversion, we may have
missed the fact that most of Europe is currently going back under pandemic lockdowns.
And given the results of our election come Tuesday, we might be headed back down the same
dismal path.

But we are being told that it is all in the name of science you know.
But what is that science really?

So is it a bad thing to want to stop the spread of a pandemic?

Of course not… but the trouble that is found in this train of thinking, which is
supposedly based on “expert recommendations”, is that we must examine who
these experts are, we must determine who they work for and we must exhaust all
our options rather than jump straight to putting the final nail in the coffin.

Despite my rule-following, conservative, law-abiding demeanor, I have been known to harbor
a bit of a rebellious thread.

So when “the” government and the powers that ‘want to be’ are clamoring that we must
suppress the people in order to suppress a virus, I begin to wonder what is
the real angle…
what is the drive to this suppression?

So I find Mel’s post quite enlightening.
Mel bases this latest post on the words of Thomas Woods,
Senior Fellow at Mises Institute and New York Times bestselling author of 12 books.

Mel states that…as Woods put it recently,
the COVID shutdowns around the world have proven that the cure is actually worse than the problem
in more ways than one, which of course is a controversial thing to say,
but it’s hard to argue with the evidence.
I personally have been frustrated by the continued politicization of lockdowns in the name
of preventing the spread of the virus.
On that note, here’s a recent email Woods sent out about how these lockdowns
have failed to stop the virus around the world.
(Trigger warning: Woods’s views are quite libertarian and not politically correct!):

“With Massachusetts seeing a rise in “cases,”
I saw someone on Twitter lamenting that he and his fellow Massachusetts residents
had “dropped the ball.”

Notice that this person cannot admit that the voodoo doesn’t work.
It’s always because the peasants didn’t comply enough.

If you stupid people would just obey us, this thing would go away!

I understand why progressives might be attracted to this way of thinking:

(1) They hold a superstitious belief in the powers of the state —
so if the state says it can wipe out a virus, who’s to say it can’t?

(2) It involves “experts” dictating to the stupid rubes,
which is their preferred model of governance.

(3) It allows them to ridicule the working-class people they despise — why,
if only these backward hicks would “follow the science,” we’d be out of this thing already!

But let’s face facts:

Lockdowns only delay the inevitable, and they leave wreckage in their wake.
(And forget about masks: as I’ve shown before,
mask mandates have no discernible effect on the spread of the virus.
If they were as effective as people say — e.g.,
if we’d just wear masks for six weeks, we’d be out of this! —
there should be some obvious effect on the charts, but there just isn’t.
Believe me, I wish masks could solve the problem so I could get the rest of my life back.)

And what is the point of indefinitely depriving ourselves of what makes life worth living,
so we can live in an antisocial dystopia?
What are we staying alive for then?
So we can sit at home and stare at the wall?

There are other concerns in the world apart from COVID-19.
Incredible that this should have to be said.

Even some of the elderly are starting to say:
I’m at the end of my life, and you want me to spend my final months and years
like a vegetable?
What’s the point?

Meanwhile, vastly more deaths are being caused elsewhere by the policy.
Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta just published a column in the Daily Mail arguing that
the response to the virus has been worse than the virus itself.

Even the New York Times noted that excess deaths from TB, HIV, and malaria
caused as a direct result of the lockdowns will exceed two million.

I could go on and on about the collateral deaths,
but I’m probably sounding like a broken record by now.

As Professor Gupta puts it, “Lockdown is a luxury of the affluent;
something that can be afforded only in wealthy countries —
and even then, only by the better-off households in those countries.”

By the way, Prof. Gupta describes her politics as “left-wing,”
and is aghast that people think she’s part of a right-wing conspiracy
because she opposes barbaric lockdowns.

Mel finishes out his post with these words:
As we observe a day that celebrates fear,
let’s think about how we’ve been continually indoctrinated by the politically-motivated
fearmongers during this pandemic in an election year.
Let’s think for ourselves and do own research.
Again, let’s be safe and use common sense with regard to protecting our vulnerable,
but let’s also not give into fear and stop living our lives.
We need to safely open up our country and get back to living again.

Here is the link to the full post–Mel includes a video of Thomas Wood
addressing this concern

https://melwild.wordpress.com/2020/10/31/halloween-covid-dystopia/

And since today is All Saints Day, I am reminded of those souls who have
gone before us–those who we proclaim as saints—
They are saints because in actuality they were rebels.
They fought the status quo, tyrannical powers, and heresies
all in the name of God, fighting His good fight and giving their lives
by speaking Truth when Truth was unacceptable.
They lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew…
and may God help us to be one too…

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God
words by Lesbia Scott 1929

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

2 They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and God’s love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake,
the whole of their good lives long.

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.

3 They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still;
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.

Illusion

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
T.S. Eliot

the-water-the-water-1563-64
(The Water The Water / Giuseppe Arcimboldo / 1563-64 / Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria)

Few people have the imagination for reality.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Matters of both Life and Death march to their own drum.
Their timing has very little to do with the futile timing of humankind.
No matter how we plot or plan, prepare, arrange or rearrange…
both Life and Death will have the last word.

Think babies being born in the backseats of cars that have been
frantically pulled to the side of the road…
Think of the scenario of one minute being alive and kicking, then suddenly BAM,
a car comes out of no where and now you’re not….

The other day as I was quickly scanning an on-line news sight,
that currently alludes me at this moment,
when one of the listed story’s headline caught my eye.

It was something about life not really being real…as in more illusion then the actual.

I began to feel the eyes inside my head beginning to roll as I hastily moved on
to whatever pressing issue was calling.
I did however make a mental note to go back at some later date and actually read the full
story.

However, life being what it is, I never could find the story,
as it most likely was shortly archived,
and I wasn’t all that keen to dig.

I did however google the words life, illusion and reality and I must say
that I was amazed by the list of news articles over the past several years
that actually dealt with the whole concept of our life’s reality being
something all together different…

Take a small gander at the list of just a few of the latest headlines dealing with such…

Is life an ILLUSION? Researchers prove ‘reality doesn’t exist if you’re not looking at it’
Express UK / December 2016

Is reality an ILLUSION? Scientist says we may be living in a computer simulation
controlled by an evil genius

Daily Mail / August 2016

The Case Against Reality
A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the
one we experience through our senses.

The Atlantic / April 2016

Free will, could all be an illusion,
scientists suggest after study shows choice
may just be brain tricking itself

Independent / April 2016

Scientists Confirm Reality An Illusion, Quantum Physics Show Einstein Wrong
YourNewsWire.com / April 2015

Is Life an Illusion?
The Huffington Post / October 2014

Your Reality Is an Illusion
The Huffington Post / July 2011

This all seems so very Matrixish to me.
I was never a fan of the movie despite my son loving it as it appealed to
his youthful adolescent male imagination coupled with cool special effects.

All of that “what if” business of dimensional realities, simulated realities and
parallel existence.
The notion that maybe we’re just all the creation of some other being’s fantasies…
programed verses created…
as in how some folks believe that “God” is actually some grand game master and we
are merely the helpless game pieces.

For good or bad, I am a realist….
However mind you, a positive and hopeful realist verses a naysaying fatalist.

Think Pooh verse Eeyore.

I take black and white and live with it.
The grey has too many holes.

All of this “reality, illusion or other” mumbo jumbo just seems to fall flat
when it meets both Life and Death.

I say this as Dad is now hanging precariously in the balance.
I saw this when Mother hung in the balance at the tender age of 53.

Life and Death march forth despite our best laid plans or wildest imaginations…
We can neither stop nor prevent either one…
despite our feeble attempts or hopes of at least delaying them.

But here’s the kicker…
in my reality, there is Life as well as Death…
and then,
wait for it…
there is Life everlasting.

Now how’s that for reality..
or not…..

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him.
He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of his will,
to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.
For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will,
according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time,
to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to
the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been
destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory.
In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him,
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,
to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14