Stand fast saints, a remnant remains!

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God?
Or am I trying to please people?
If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10

(the lone thing remaining before the storm / Julie Cook / 2020)

Yesterday I offered a post about those who are not what they appear to be.
Think bin Laden, George Soros, and yes, even Bill Gates.
As in…looks and actions can be deceiving.

We must always be willing to question motives.

I had mentioned that I wanted to take a more Spiritual look at our current situation
in this ailing Nation of ours.

I want to do so by sharing something I read yesterday on a reblog that someone else had posted.

I confess, I love a good prophet—and mind you, we don’t hear nearly as much as we
should about modern-day prophets.

So imagine how excited I was when I read the following.

Oh, I might add that many would question or scoff such words of prophecy…
disputing such as fantasy or fairytale.
But when someone offers a prophecy and it is held accountable to God’s word…
well, I am all ears…

So please read and ponder…

The real Supreme Court.

Posted by appolus on September 20, 2020

So this is not to be construed as a political post and I will not indulge anyone
in a back and forth over one political party or another.
The death of RBG and the timing of it is high octane fuel on an already burning inferno.
This country was already being torn apart by division and
just when you think it cannot get worse, then it does.

A country under judgment looks something like this.
The cries of the innocents shout out from a blood-soaked land.
The fall out from this death will expose completely the fault lines and the hypocrisies
on both sides of the political divide.
Make no mistake, the supernatural forces of Moloch will rage.
Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.
The Lord gave me a word from Lamentations chapter four last May.
One of the most serious words He has ever given me, you can read it below.
The issue in Lamentations was the slaughter of the children by the mothers.
For years they had worshiped Moloch and when their backs were to the wall
and they were under siege, the cooked and ate their own children.

What low state must a people arrive at when they will rejoice at their
ability to murder their own children? The world is locked down in a pandemic,
fear stalks the streets, violence, and divisions of people are at the breaking point.
Saints, God is speaking. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken.
Draw close to your Lord and know that He is the Master of your soul
and no matter what you see unfold, He is in charge.

When the Hebrew children defied the powers that be and declared that no matter what,
they would never bow down to the gods of this world, all hell broke loose and in its fury
the fires of destruction were intensified seven times.
We are entering into that time, the fires of hell’s fury is just about to be intensified.
We must be willing to stand and make the same declaration as the Hebrew children.
Even if we die in the fires we shall never bow down to the gods of this world.
Stand fast saints.

The Lord gave me this word, a hard word to be sure.
My only charge is to deliver it.
In Lamentations chapter four we see a very different Jerusalem.
That once tremendous city, shining like gold above all other cities,
is now tarnished and under siege.
It is slowly starving and its once-proud stones that made up the temple now lay scattered
in the streets like common rubble.
Zion was about to fall.
Impregnable Zion, on the verge of utter ruin.
They were surrounded by the world outside in a siege that would only end in its utter ruin.
And in the greatest horror of all, the women would cook and eat their own children.
There is no lower state in all the world.
This was worse than Sodom for Sodom fell in one day,
there would be no such luxury for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
The symbols of their God lay ruined and they were about to be devoured by the world.
Matthew Henry asks this question of the women in Jerusalem who cooked and ate their own children.
This act, was it “the power of necessity, or the power of iniquity.
” Such a powerful question, ponder on it for a moment reader.
In a secular sense America was the shining light for the nations.
It shone like gold in comparison to old Europe that had grown tired and dim.
It took the world’s huddled masses. It gave hope to people from all around the world,
like a city set on a hill, it drew them to herself.
In two word wars she fought and in the second war she saved civilization itself
and the name of God was never far from the lips of her citizens.
Now look at America if you dare. Her institutions have been corrupted.
Over ninety percent of all the porn in the world spew forth from her bowels.
Her merchants and statesmen sold her out to the highest bidders and she became
the whore of the world whereby many became rich by her.
Yet her greatest iniquity lay with her mothers.
Now the question Matthew Henry raised about the mothers of Jerusalem.
Was their horrendous act born out of necessity or iniquity?
Can I argue that a righteous woman would never cook and eat her own child.
Only the hardest iniquitous hearts would ever contemplate such an act never-mind carry it out.
I asked a question recently, a rhetorical one.
What is more horrendous, to slaughter an infant in the gas chambers or in their mother’s womb?
What human being would allow their wombs to be so violated and their child to be so mutilated?
A woman, a generation, ripe for judgment.
Ripe to be surrounded by the world and put under siege.
Ripe to have the stones of their temples torn down and scattered in the streets
like rubble only fit to be buried.
Sixty-five million babies slaughtered and dedicated to the world.
A world that would consume them, darken them, and ultimately destroy them.
Zion was impregnable, yet it fell. America the proud, you will fall.
Not like Sodom, not like Gomoragh but you will slowly starve to death.
Most definitely spiritually, but perhaps even physically.
In the history of the world, no nation has sinned to this extent.
God has sent His warnings. The towers fell and the cry was not one of repentance,
but “we will rebuild.”
The whole world has come to a standstill and the cry is not one of repentance.
From their ministers, it is “soon it will be business as usual for we have not missed a beat.”
The real tragedy we are facing right now in Christendom is a blindness to the need for repentance.
The virus that causes this blindness is willful ignorance.
They choose not to see. Not only no repentance,
but a doubling down on wickedness, and most of the world cheers,
or peeks out from behind the curtain and says nothing.
Our silence is our guilt. The cheers from the world we should expect,
the silence from Christendom is a deafening roar.
We stay behind our curtains, our walls, as the world spirals downwards.
Our highest ambition is to get back to “normal.” God help us

So saints, if you abide in such a place, can you stay there?

It is time for the saints of God to step out of the boat, step into the storm,
lift your eyes and fix them on Jesus, our soon coming King.
Where will He find you when He comes?
Behind the walls?
Hanging onto the boat for dear life?
Shall you not walk upon the water?
It is there that you shall find Him,
we must go to where He is and leave behind where He is not.
Frank Mceleny

The real Supreme Court.

“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference.
And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits.
Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
St. Maximilian Kolbe

Not what they appear to be…

Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many;
the intelligence of few perceives what has been carefully hidden
in the recesses of the mind.
Phaedrus

(thinkstock)

I can vividly remember, years ago one evening we were watching the evening news…
This was during a more innocent time…a time when I still believed the news was news…
It wasn’t biased, not false, not politized, nor polarized…
Peter Jennings was reporting a story about a rather odd yet obscure figure.
An ingénue sort of an individual–but in this case, the figure in question was male.

He appeared to be like some tall and lanky yet benign sort of goat herder.

There was some film footage of him walking amongst a rocky terrain complete with staff in hand.
He wore a robe-like covering with some sort of religious drape or scarf along with a
tribal hat which was covering a greying head with a long greying beard to match.

He seemed harmless enough but watching him, I had a distinct disturbing feeling.
There was something about this “goat herder” that I found very very troubling.
Little did we know then that this news story was the first blip on the radar.

Bill Clinton was the current president of the day.
This was a blip on his radar…a blip he allowed to simply pass him by.

This seemingly innocuous man was actually Osama bin Laden and he was just
making a name for himself on the Western airwaves.

Little did I know that evening, all those years ago while simply
watching the evening news, that there would be a 9/11 thanks to this “goat herder”.
Nor did I know, or any of us know, that there would an onslaught of dominos
falling one over another—
all heinous acts carried out under the banner of Allahu akbar.

And so, over the years, much like when I first saw that image of Bin Laden,
there has been another man who seems innocent enough at first glance but has
given me that same sense of foreboding…
his name is George Soros.

I’ve written about him before starting back in 2016.
Here are four links to four posts featuring Mr. Soros.

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

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2019/07/07/we-live-in-both-dark-and-light/

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2019/07/30/this-is-what-should-keep-you-up-at-night/

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/why-do-important-people-scare-me/

Once again I’ve caught another recent article featuring the likes of Mr. Soros.

It’s an article written by Robby Starbuck who is a Cuban-American producer and director.

The article is about how George Soros wants to remake America.

Why Aren’t We Allowed To Talk About George Soros’s Plan To Remake America?

According to Mr. Starbuck,
Since 2015, George Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas, Colorado,
California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states.

Since 2015, George Soros has been executing a plan to reshape the country through
local district attorney elections by pumping unprecedented amounts of money into races
that typically only see candidates spend in the low five figures.

Here’s why he has an interest in these local races. Soros is exploiting the reality
that all politics are local in some way. To transform America,
you have to transform the way towns and cities operate.

Mr. Soros is Hungarian by birth and whose family were non-practicing Jews.
The family fled Hungry during Nazi occupation by obtaining false papers, changing the family
name from Schwartz to Soros and claiming they were Christians.

From everything that I’ve read, I still can’t understand Soros’ divide and conquer mentality.
But one thing I have discovered is that if you criticize Mr. Soros, you are considered
antisemitic.
An unspoken hands-off perimeter has been put up around this very enigmatic man.

Why criticizing a non-practicing Jew is considered antisemitic is beyond my soul.

Mr. Starbuck surmises that “the left’s assumption that questioning someone’s political
spending is equivalent to questioning his dignity as a person is itself a deeply
bigoted assumption, designed solely to silence dissent and shut down debate.”

Mr. Soros is a golden calf to the Left and I suspect it has everything to do with both
his money and his power.

Mr. Starbuck notes that Soros has spent an unbelievable amount of money on the campaigns of
progressive left DA’s across the country.
The assumption is that if you can alter the leaders of the law, you
can alter the cities themselves, if you can alter the cities, you
can alter the states, if you can alter the states you can alter the Nation.

Starbuck explains:
Buying Prosecutors Who Are Soft on Crime
Since 2015, Soros has pumped tens of millions of dollars into local races in Texas,
Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and New York, as well as swing states
such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Arizona.
In 2016, Soros spent $2,000,000 on a single sheriff race in Maricopa County, Arizona,
helping the leftist candidate, Paul Penzone, win.

In Philadelphia, Soros spent an insane $1,700,000 to elect Larry Krasner DA.
Soros has also given millions of dollars in grants to candidates in other states.
These enormous contributions have a correspondingly enormous impact.

Although his efforts haven’t been universally successful,
the vast majority of Soros-backed candidates have won with Soros donations
pushing them across the finish line.
Here are just a few examples:

$2,000,000 to fund Kim Foxx in her Cook County (Chicago, Ill.) re-election bid.
$1,400,000 to fund Aramis Ayala’s campaign to become state’s attorney of Orlando, Fla.
$1,150,000 to fund Jake Lilly’s run to become DA of Jefferson and Gilpin County (Denver) in Colorado.
$958,000 to fund Joe Gonzales’s run to become DA of Bexar County (San Antonio, Texas).
$650,000 to fund Jose Garza in his Travis County (Austin, Texas) re-election bid.
$750,000 to fund Joe Kimok in his Broward County, Fla. state’s attorney race.
$583,000 to fund Kim Ogg’s run to become Harris County (Houston, Texas) DA.
$583,000 to fund Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in her race to be Arlington County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
$500,000 to fund Jody Owen’s run to become Hinds County, Miss. (Jackson) DA.
$406,000 to fund James E. Stewart’s run to become Caddo Parish, La. (Shreveport) DA.
$392,000 to fund Steve T. Descano’s bid to become Fairfax County (Va.) commonwealth’s attorney.
$275,000 to fund Diana Becton’s bid to remain as Contra Costa County, Calif. DA.
$147,000 to fund Darius Pattillo in his run to become Harris County, Ga. DA.
$116,000 to fund Kim Gardner’s re-election bid as St. Louis circuit attorney.
$107,000 to fund Raul Torrez bid to become Benalillo County (Albuquerque, N.M.) DA.
$89,000 to fund Scott Colom’s bid to become DA of Lowndes County, Miss.
That’s just a partial list, but it surely corroborates Gingrich’s point that Soros
“paid for” the outcomes of those elections, notwithstanding Harf’s unsubstantiated denial.
In 2018 The Los Angeles Times reported that Soros spent $2,700,000 on California DA races alone,
and another $16 million on 17 DA races in other states.

So my question is why would a billionaire businessman and supposed philanthropist spend billions
of dollars to alter campaigns all across the country?

Could all that money not be better spent on say feeding hungry children worldwide?

Starbuck also wonders as to why the big-spending and seems to have an idea.

“That leap from remaking our justice system to remaking America may seem like a long jump to some,
but law and order is the core of America’s existence.
Without law and order, you don’t have a country.”

And thus I wonder, are we not witnessing a nationwide cry from our liberal progressive left
to defund the police…a cry to throw out the law, throw out the order,
throw out the rules…all for a seismic shift in what might soon to be considered a
“former” America?

And so for a nation to have no order, no law, no rule…one is left with only one thing–
anarchy.

I will piggyback off of this thought of a downward spiral tomorrow with
more of a prophetical Spiritual take…but just remember that if you remain silent,
if you know what is taking place is wrong, but opt to say nothing, choosing to ignore
what is happening by looking the other way…the life you think you know and love will not
always be there.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/19/why-arent-we-allowed-to-talk-about-george-soross-plan-to-remake-america/

why do important people scare me…

“What comes into our minds when we think about God
is the most important thing about us.”
A.W. Tozer

No one should really scare me, right?
If I am God’s and He is mine, then no one should scare me, right?

Well, I will confess that maybe psychopaths scare me.
They scare me because they don’t care what type of evil acts they unleash…
Think chainsaw killers…killing, torturing, maiming all for fun.

Yeah, scary.

But like I say…if I am God’s and He is mine, think
“do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” sort of thinking…

But what about important people?
What about the people out there who wield power because of their money,
their positions, their roles within society…?

And so I have now decided that important people, or people who think they are important,
kind of scare me…as well as the nuts with chainsaws.

They scare me because they believe they have the world’s best interest at heart
and in turn, they like playing puppeteer.

They think they know what is best for both you and me and will flex their mindset
regardless of us little people.

I’ve always heard tell of that little conspiracy that there are just a handful of powerful folks
in the world who actually control pretty much all of the world–
the rest of us are just the victims of their whims, thoughts, and often selfish intentions.

I think of those secretive, elitist and highly protected meetings—
Think Davos in Switzerland.
The World Economic Forum

This year’s meeting was held in early February prior to the world pandemic outbreak.

The focus was to be “The World Economic Forum’s 50th Annual Meeting in Davos will focus on
how stakeholder capitalism can solve the world’s urgent challenges.”

It is a yearly meeting of the world’s rich and powerful…the leaders, movers, and shakers.

Invited attendees range from presidents, EU leaders to the likes of rich folks
like Oprah and Bill Gates—folks who like to use their wealth and positions to “influence”
the masses.
Even the more controversial figures such as George Soros and
the teen environmentalist activist Greta Thunberg are those invited to Davos.

We average folks usually don’t care much about such meetings.
We don’t much care because that’s just what world leaders and rich folks do…
they go to meetings and talk about the state of the world…
or more like the economic health of the world–
while we, the small folks of the world, do the true work of the world…
the making, buying, selling, and trading for the world.

So yesterday I caught another interesting post over on
Smoke of Satan and the Open Windows of Vatican II.

Well, it wasn’t so much a post as it was an offering of two links.

The second of the two links was to an article found on the blog ‘Barnhardt’,
regarding a member of the Italian parliament addressing her fellow MPs regarding Bill Gates.

Yep, Bill Gates.
The brain behind of all things PC and Microsoft now turned global activist, Bill Gates.
Gates’ ears should have been burning this past week thanks to the Italian Parliament.

May 16,2020
Bomb dropped in Italian Parliament: Gates should be arrested for crimes against humanity

A speech offered in the Italian Parliament by Italian MP Sara Cunial:

We all know it, now.
Bill Gates, already in 2018, predicted a pandemic, simulated in October 2019 at the “Event 201”,
together with Davos (Switzerland).
For decades, Gates has been working on Depopulation policy and dictatorial control plans
on global politics,
aiming to obtain the primacy on agriculture, technology and energy.

Gates said, I quote exactly from his speech:

“If we do a good job on vaccines, health and reproduction,
we can reduce the world population by 10-15%.
Only a genocide can save the world”.

With his vaccines, Gates managed to sterilize millions of women in Africa.
Gates caused a polio epidemic that paralyzed 500,000 children in India and still today with DTP,
Gates causes more deaths than the disease itself.
And he does the same with GMOs designed by Monsanto and “generously donated” to needy populations.
All this while he is already thinking about distributing the quantum tattoo for vaccination recognition
and mRNA vaccines as tools for reprogramming our immune system.
In addition, Gates also does business with several multinationals that own 5G facilities in the USA.

see the full article on the following link

Interesting Links: 1) 1968-69 Hong Kong Flu 2) speech from Italian MP that impugns Bill Gates

Bomb dropped in Italian Parliament: Gates should be arrested for crimes against humanity

So yes, the rich and powerful scare me especially when they have ideas of controlling
world populations by global sterilizations.

I will admit that I have not followed up on the speech by Gates.
But I have heard him in various interviews address third-world concerns…
perhaps that concern is depopulation.

The second link is to an article by the NYP of all things newsy.

It is an article about another pandemic during a different time.
A pandemic that, as far as the US was concerned, was trumped by the ‘summer of love’—
all despite the fact that the Hong Kong flu was raging worldwide.

Funny how three days of communal music, love and living surpass a global pandemic.

Maybe we need another Woodstock, a part deux…or on second thought, maybe not…

Here’s that link:

Why American life went on as normal during the killer pandemic of 1969
https://nypost.com/2020/05/16/why-life-went-on-as-normal-during-the-killer-pandemic-of-1969/

https://smokeofsatan.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/interesting-links-1-1968-69-hong-kong-flu-2-speech-from-italian-mp-that-impugns-bill-gates/

conspiracy musings

“All that happens is as habitual and familiar as roses
in spring and fruit in the summer.
True too of disease, death, defamation, and conspiracy—and
all that delights or gives pain to fools.”
Marcus Aurelius

(apple blossoms /Julie Cook/ 2020)

Now you should know I don’t believe in aliens.

No area 51…no code blue book.

And I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts…

But… I do believe in spiritual warfare…
meaning…demons/evil and angels/heavenly are defintily real.

However…

The jury remains out on this whole virus business.

Where are the real power players during all of this?
Have we heard from George Soros?
Hillary or Bill?

Where are those who believe they wield world power and domination?

It does make for intriguing thoughts while one is confined to quarters going on
now nearly 5 weeks, with a houseful of demanding family.

China seems now almost giddy.
Free and ready to rally en masse.

All the while our stock market rides a daily roller coaster and our
fellow Americans “screw” one another to the wall over essentials such as toilet paper
and Lysol.

To mask or not to mask…that is the question.

How does such a virus make such rounds in such a short and narrow window?

There is a southern county in our state that has experienced some of the highest
numbers of cases and deaths.
It is not near a metropolitan area, yet it has maintained a consistency with Fulton County,
home to Atlanta…

It is all so strange and surreal.

And is it not odd that we may readily go to and from various stores and businesses
albeit at qued distances…yet our houses of worships, are deemed by law, forbidden?

If ever we needed a church to open its doors to those who might wish to pray
or simply sit and ponder…it is now!

Yet faith and the observance of such is suddenly deemed non-essential.

Oh the irony in such thinking…

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.
Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain,
‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart,
but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer,
believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11:22-24

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…

we live in both dark and light

“The true diversity of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.
To diminish the number of dark, to increase the number of luminous,
that is the aim.
That is why we cry: education, knowledge!
To learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.
But whoever says light does not necessarily say joy.
There is suffering in the light; an excess burns.
Flame is hostile to the wing.
To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.
When you know and when you love you will suffer.
The day dawns in tears. The luminous weep, be it only for the dark ones.”
― Victor Hugo

(prematurely fallen muscadine / Julie Cook / 2019)

See the picture above?

Look closely.

At first glance, you see some sort of greenish greyish orb perched in the middle,
amongst the debris of what must be some sort of woodsy ground.

However, upon further inspection, you will note that the right half of the green orb,
or rather a prematurely fallen muscadine, is the side with actual color,
as is the surrounding area.
The color of life and growth.

The left side appears to be rotting or rotten while the surrounding debris around the
muscadine is equally ashen and grey…as in decaying, rotting and dark.

It is a prime example of contrasting imagery between light and dark, life and death…
With the poor muscadine being caught in the middle.

And if the truth be told, that muscadine, my friends, is more representational of both you
and I then either of us can even begin to imagine.

Light vs dark…
life vs death…
While we are constantly suspended between the two.

It’s as if each one vies for our very being.
The endless struggle for mankind.

That struggle is much more active and much more real than most of us care to admit,
let alone contemplate…as the forces of both light and dark, life and death, continuously
wage battle over our very existence.

Metaphors, yes…yet also very much a reality.

I started an interesting book the other day, The Shadow Party
How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and the Sixties Radicals seized control of
the Democratic Party
by David Horowitz and Richard Poe.

“Ahhh”, you say rather knowingly…” one of ‘those’ types of books.”
A book that speaks of conspiracy and paranoia.
And so now you’re assuming that I am one of those paranoid loons or deplorables
we hear so much about—oh so lovingly nicknamed by Hillary Clinton…
all because I am a conservative individual reading a book that reads like
a Hollywood spy thriller.

Yet the book is much more than a tale of political upheaval, speculation and
finger-pointing.
The book actually, and perhaps unbeknownst to the authors themselves, speaks to this very
battle of both light and dark, life and death, that I previously referenced…
it’s just that they speak on a level that hits much closer to home than anyone might imagine
as it addresses our life here in America.

There is a great darkness growing in our Nation.
And it is both you and I who hang in the balance.

It is a life that is growing ever more precarious while we are perched between
both light or dark, life or death…
For we are living in some terribly strange times.

This book reminds me of a wonderful post I read the other day by one of my favorite bloggers—
Robert, Bobby, Kloska from Thoughts from the Side of the House.
Bobby is a former professor at Notre Dame who doesn’t
post as often as I or others would wish due to some tremendous health struggles
that get terribly in his way.

His struggles with cancer and the devastating outreaching effects have been an
amazing witness unto themselves.

I, for one, am most grateful that he continues to share both ups and downs.

This past week, for the fourth of July, Bobby wrote about what it is that is
at the root of what many of us believe to be a “crisis” in this Nation of ours.

“Life in America has never been perfect.
In every age, there have been injustices, conspiracies, and controversies.
This is not unique to America; it is part of the human condition.
Yet in America, because we had inherited these noble institutional mechanisms, hope remained.
So long as the republic contained within itself a critical mass of virtuous citizens
committed more to the common good than to privileging any particular sect, group,
or class, then the structures through which we grapple with self-governance could
still yield improvement.”

Today, I have my doubts.

We live in a country that in the span of only a few generations has suddenly lost
any kind of right understanding of objective truth –
as the founding fathers put it in the Declaration of Independence, “…
of the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”
Today, the prevailing understanding of truth is that it is something purely subjective.
This is no small matter.

Today, there has emerged this new idea that you and I supposedly have some kind of
power to create whatever truth we want.
This, of course, not only opens the door to logical self-contradictions,
it very clearly contradicts objective reality itself.
You’re not George Washington even if you think you’re George Washington and
“claim this as your truth.” Simple people see this.
Grounded people see this.
People connected to the earth and nature really see this.

Sophisticates, distracted people, and afflicted people often do not.

What we have is a crisis of truth.

In all human communities, freedom is built upon personal and collective
responsibilities.
These responsibilities always rely upon truth.
Our greatest problem today is not simply that we have lost any meaningful concept of truth.
No, it’s worse than that.
Our greatest problem is that 1) we don’t know that truth is something objective to be discovered;
and 2) we no longer have adequate tools to do the work of discovery.

Let that sink in.

We don’t understand that truth needs to be discovered…
and yet everything of consequence depends on this one thing!

The discovery of truth does not come cheaply.
It requires diligence, patience, nuance, thoughtful consideration, and intellectual
humility.
To actually discover truth and not merely “win” an argument,
it is enormously helpful to be able to presume the good will and sincerity of one’s
discussion partner. But today our public discourse is largely carried out on Twitter.
News and opinion media have become reactionary and overly polemical.
Even our so-called presidential debates take on the form of a cheap tv game show.
How helpful is that?
Complex questions cannot be answered in one minute sound bytes.
It is folly to even try.

A crisis of truth leads to a crisis of love.

The loss of truth has led to the particularly harmful notion that your disagreement
with one of my ideas is somehow disrespectful of me as a human being.
Tragically, in 2019 America, “disagreement” equals “hate” to a lot of people.

But what if you truly love me?

To love is to will the good of another person.
If I hold an opinion that is not rooted in truth,
then that opinion can be quite harmful to me and to the people I influence.
Isn’t the most loving act to help me discover the truth?
Yes, this might require a discussion, debate, or argument.
Prudence dictates that such discussions occur at the right time,
in the right place, and with appropriate people.
But the premise of these kinds of honest disagreements and discussions is love.
To neglect such conversations with people you supposedly love
(or even with the culture at large)
is to not really love and care about them at all.

At the end of this sobering and somewhat frightening discourse,
Bobby is quick to remind us that not all is lost.
This is not a hopeless situation…

Not hopeless because it is in our hopelessness that our real Hope is to be found.
For in that Hope, resides the One true Everlasting Truth.

The Main Crisis on American Independence Day in 2019

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Romans 12:12

should we go or should we stay….

“And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too.”
Elizabeth I

(leftovers from the great wedding of two years ago / Julie Cook / 2014)

The votes have been cast and the people have spoken–much to the disbelief of many other people on this planet of ours…

BREXIT has become reality.

And why pray tell, is this yank daring to wade into the fray across the pond, in the land of over there, you may wonder…

Well, as I’ve stated to a few of my British comrades in arms…. that whereas it would appear that as an American I have no dog in the Brexit fight…it is for that very reason, that I am an American and my closet allies are those of the United Kingdom, that on the contrary, I think we all have a dog in the fight—
as do the other EU countries who are now set for divorce.

It is, however, not for me to ever state how I think those in GB should vote, just as I don’t enjoy being told who I should for for president. But as an outside observer, who is keen on this particular observation, as GB’s decisions do have an effect on this land of their first cousins….I have watched, read, waited and now marvel over the outcome.

The world powers-that-be have each waded deeply into the fray’s waters by telling the people of Great Britain how to vote.
With our President sadly leading the pack.
I apologize on his behalf…that an American president should tell the people of the United Kingdom how to vote on a very in-house sort of referendum…it’s not a very proper thing to do to be sure.

When I was a young new teacher, we had a long standing and powerful superintendent who was considered to be an entrenched member of the good ol boy system within our state’s educational, as well as political, systems.
He and I were not on the same sides of a political fence and I greatly resented each time an election would roll around and he’d make the rounds to each school, calling for a faculty meeting, just in order to tell “his” teachers how to vote…and that was to always cast a vote for his “friend.”

Now I could understand if there had been some sound educational reasons as to why we should be voting for his person of choice…
But for this superintendent, it was strictly a party vote of friends voting for friends—and I for one am not keen to vote for someone just because they are in cahoots with the boss…
especially when I don’t think them worthy of my vote…

I think I was also leery of voting for the entrenched politicians who had made a career out of their office.
For we know what they say…”complacency or familiarity breeds contempt”….
maybe that should read “breeds lethargy and corruption…”

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.

I have grown tired, vexed and weary of our political leaders telling us what’s good for us when they haven’t brought about any good themselves…
I am tired of those of the younger generations who whine and complain about those who vote for things such as leaving the EU or vote for politicians that don’t cater to the whims of youth, those young ones whose rallying cry is that “they” have stolen, or are in the process of stealing, our future…”
Yet they are either too preoccupied to be bothered with voting or don’t educate themselves on the bigger picture…

And granted the markets have gone tumbling today…
but it’s that analogy I keep hearing—that the markets are so volatile and actually so unstable that if someone sneezes in one section of the world, every other global market quickly reaches for a tissue lest the sneezing becomes a catastrophic epidemic —sending everyone scrambling for cover…
all of which we are seeing today.
That simply just doesn’t seem very secure in the first place…

So votes like Brexit, which send shock waves into the seemingly untouchable circles of the rich and powerful, the young and the unversed,
as well as for those of us of more average stature,
actually offer a bit of fresh air—
that the people–the average people, still matter.
For good or bad, they still can make a difference.
Their voice, for good or bad, can still be heard…
and that the vote of the everyday person does indeed still matter…

I think Brexit is just one more example of the average, dare I say middle aged and older person, being tired of how this world is being run…

So here’s to adjusting our sails…

The pessimist complains about the wind;
the optimist expects it to change;
the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward