false or not… prophets there be…

This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.'”
Jeremiah 6:16

(painting of the prophet Jeremiah by Rembrandt 1630)

A few months back, our long lost and very busy friend Wally offered a piece from
Bogard Press regarding prophets…in particular, that of false prophets…

by Mark Clements
Wednesday, October 2

False Prophets Have Always Been Present
2 Peter 2:1-3
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be
false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction,” 2 Peter 2:1.

Counterfeit spiritual authorities have been in existence since the time
of Adam and Eve. One of the hallmarks of God’s creation is man’s tendency to reject
the sovereign rule of its Creator. From the Fall of Lucifer to the Fall of Adam
and the consequent depravity found in every human since, it has always been
easy to find examples of people who mislead others into theological error.
In an effort to warn his readers, Peter reminded his readers that false teachers
have been among God’s people from the beginning.
What could they expect from counterfeit spiritual authorities?
Peter wrote that false teachers would begin by introducing heresy that denies the
lordship of Jesus Christ, they would show evidence of fleshly living,
including sensuality, blasphemy and greed.
They would seek also to exploit God’s people for their own gain.

We can be sure such heretics persist among God’s people today.
Satan would love nothing more than to convince would-be believers into thinking
that they are following Jesus when they are really following him.
These false teachers offer a counterfeit to Christianity and fool many people.
Remember, these false teachers are condemned by God and will reap destruction.
We must not only remain vigilant in adherence to God’s truth,
but also we have a duty to protect those who would be exploited by the greed
and sensuality of those caught up in man-made religion.
We will be able to recognize false religion by studying the beautiful truth of
God’s Word and hiding it deep in our hearts.

JUST A THOUGHT
Not everyone who calls himself Christian follows Christ

I too have written a few posts over the years regarding prophets…with some of those
posts being more of a lamentation as to where have those voices gone…or better yet,
where are those voices today?

Where are those who speak loudly and boldly of God’s word?
That voice of the one crying out in the wilderness…
“Repent and seek ye the way of the Lord…”

Where are those voices of Godly and spiritual authority…

Voices speaking in tune with the will of the Great I AM??

I think that they are still here living amongst us…
it might be that the false voices are simply crying out even louder.

For sadly today, we seem to have a din of voices that are crying out but are
crying out far from anything Godly…
as in they, and even their lesser minions, are readily claiming the authority of
some new world order…an order that is far from the Omnipotent Creator of all.

One of the latest voices swirling around in the mire of our crazy culture is that
of a young lady from Sweden named Greta Thunberg.
A 16-year-old young woman and environmental activist.

Greta is just a kid but is a very fast-rising rock star who is a globally vocal
spokesperson for all things climate change.

Now I don’t doubt climate change for a minute nor of man’s impact on the demise
of our environment, etc. but I also don’t buy the planet’s demise is to occur in the next
11 years or so–as claimed by many members of the climate change bandwagon.

The notion of prudence comes to mind when such Henny penny the sky is falling
claims are made…just saying.

I’ve not followed much of the news of Greta.
But I’ve been unable to help but notice that her face is plastered all over
the place.

Every time I turn on the computer or see some headline, this young woman is there.
Even Time Magazine has made her their person of the year— or is that month, or week or day
as they seem to be naming folks faster than I feel years pass…but that’s probably
just me and my age.

She seems like a bit of a radical child and an often angry young woman who
is appearing to be somewhat of an opportunist or perhaps sadly, a pawn…

Yet none the less, she is being highly touted by many as the new climate prophetess.

Does she have parents, a family?
Does she go to school?
I never seem to hear of them or see much about a home life.
But perhaps, like I say, I’ve not followed her enough to know.

The latest picture I caught was of her sitting in a German train station surrounded
by a slew of bags and sleeping bags, looking like a kid backpacking across Europe,
but in actuality, she was extolling and grousing over her ill-treatment by the
train authorities.

However, it appears that her grousing and poor lonely image was misleading
as she and her party had actually traveled first class and were all treated very kindly
by the German train personnel…so say the train folks.

Greta later backtracked about the grousing…

Hummm…

She has addressed world leaders while being highly disrespectful regarding the US President…
but hey, that’s not unusual as everyone seems disrespectful of the US President.

But in a recent interview without her usual angst-ridden and oddly
conjectured scientific script, she could not answer, nor did she appear to understand,
reporters questions put before her.

I’ve even caught an odd story that seems to have gone quite viral—
that being the notion of Greta being a time traveler.

Now I had no idea that there were such things as time travelers,
other than maybe Star Trek and getting beamed up…
but it seems to be a real thing with lots of folks on board.
So when lots of folks are on board, things are real right?
Or so that’s what this culture of ours seems to believe—just
look at places like twitter…they’ll tell you.

So here is a picture of a group of kids in the Yukon in 1898 looking for gold…

How in the heck someone thought to go looking for some old picture because
it appears Greta was in the picture is beyond my soul but look they did
look and they did find it.

And thus folks have decided that Greta is indeed in that 150-year-old picture
and is one who has traveled from there and then to here and now in order to warn us…
to warn of us of what is happening to our climate.

Is a time traveler like a shapeshifter?
And what exactly does the child of a Gold Rush settler in 1898 in the middle of
the Yukon understand about climate change?

Yet it appears that there are folks out there who consider Greta to be such a prophet,
or is that prophetess?
They believe she has been sent to warn us.
Sent by whom, they’re not saying, but she’s been sent none the less…
or is that, she’s traveled here to warn us.

Hummmm…

I often think stories like this come down to one thing…that of truth vs Truth.

The little t vs the big T.

Man vs his Creator.

Awareness is one thing.
Raising awareness is indeed important.
Doing our part for the world around us is crucial…
but…
when we turn activists into prophets, or even superhuman time travelers,
well, we raise the human to a level that is beyond human…
we begin taking human word as being otherworldly, promoting them to demigod status.

We want them to be a voice from on high telling us of our errors or our needs.
We think they have all the facts.
We become mesmerized, hanging on their words and supposed wisdom—
which is most often more observation and conjecture than gospel.

We yearn for that all-knowing, all-seeing “wizard” who, when all is said and done,
is just a mere mortal man, woman, or in this case, child,
hiding behind a curtain shrouded in smoke, pulling on a bunch of knobs and levers.

Yet we seem to yearn for something, for someone who great and grand…
who is in authority, who is without doubt—we yearn for God—-
but in our zealous yearning, we’ve turned small false voices into small little gods.

Little voices and little gods who, like shooting stars, quickly burn out and fade
from memory until the next bright light passes our yearning path.

So perhaps it would behoove this off the rail culture of ours to consider where
to put our yearning…our faith and trust.

Maybe its time for a good testing of these modern-day prophets and prophetesses.
Some much-needed introspection as to why we seem to keep throwing such
individuals up on the altars of our worship.
Why do we feel they deserve our “worship”–our attention, our noteriety…

So it would be best that we simply remain watchful while being wary—
the prophets have spoken and time is of the essence.

Blow the trumpet in Zion,
And sound an alarm in My holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble;
For the day of the LORD is coming,
For it is at hand:
A day of darkness and gloominess,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains.
A people come, great and strong,
The like of whom has never been;
Nor will there ever be any such after them,
Even for many successive generations.
Joel 2:1-2

the mystery of Judas; the Church’s dark night of the soul

“We (the Church) are experiencing the mystery of iniquity,
the mystery of betrayal, the mystery of Judas”
Robert Cardinal Sarah

(The Taking of Jesus by Caravaggio 1602 / The National Gallery of Ireland / Dublin)

A couple of weeks back I highlighted a small intro to a new book offering by the Guinea Catholic
prelate Robert Cardinal Sarah…
a man who minces no words when it comes to God’s commands to man.

He is a staunch advocate for the Christian faith and the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
A true defender of the faith.
And a man who viscerally recognizes the sins of the Chruch, the sins of those entrusted
with shepherding the fold.

I pre-ordered this latest book offering, The Day Is Now Far Spent
It is a book that is based on a conversation between the Cardinal and the French journalist
Nicolas Diat

The book arrived today via the mail and just so you know,
the first two introductory pages are already more yellow than they are
white and black as I have highlighted almost every word.

Cardinal Sarah’s voice has been long needed…not only for the Catholic Chruch but for our
entire Global Christian Church.

Cardinal Sarah addresses, head-on, the sexual abuse scandal that is taking the
Catholic Chruch to her knees.
He addresses the dire situation the West is currently facing regarding her very foundation…
that being her Judaeo/Christian cornerstone.
He addresses the growing crisis of faith.
A crisis that is eating away at the very core of Christianity.
As we are living in a post-Christian culture that reviles the Christian faith.

The Cardinal explains that in his first book,
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise,
he had invited us all to learn the gift of silence…
however, today, the Cardinal finds that he can remain silent no more.

“I must no longer remain silent.
Christians are disoriented.
Every day from all sides, I receive calls for help from those who no longer know what to believe.
…The Chruch is experiencing the dark night of the soul.
The mystery of iniquity is enveloping and blinding her.”

As Pope VI used to say, we are being invaded by the smoke of
Satan. The Church, which ought to be a place of light, has become a dwelling place of darkness.
It ought to be a secure, peaceful family home, but look: it has become a den of thieves!”

“Following Jesus, the Chruch is experiencing the mystery of scourging.
Her body is lacerated.
Who is inflicting the lashes?
The very ones who ought to love and protect her?
Yes I make so bold as to borrow the words of Pope Francis: the mystery of Judas hangs over our time
The mystery of betrayal oozes from the walls of the Church.”

I am both deeply encouraged as well as deeply concerned reading what this solider
of the Cross has to say to all of us regarding our faith and that of the Church in general.

We need to be mindful that there is indeed a smoky veil that is engulfing our faith.
Those of us in the West are under dire persecutions albeit on a vastly different level
than that our brothers and sisters around the globe who live in a physical peril for
holding fast to their beliefs.

Ours is more an insidious downward spiral…a psychological attack.
Add in the culture of death that both Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa each
addressed as a key contributor to the demise of Christianity in the West along, with the
death of the traditional family and we have a toxic mix for our own totality of loss.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing more of this insightful man’s wisdom.

Let us pray for the global Christian body of believers as we must arm ourselves against
Satan’s attacks.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5

fervent determination

People often ask me:
What should we do?
When division threatens, it is necessary to strengthen unity.
This has nothing to do with a team spirit as it exists in the world.
The unity of the Church has its source in the heart of Jesus Christ.
We must stay close to it, in it.
This heart that was pierced by the lance so that we might be able to take refuge
there will be our house.
The unity of the Church rests on four columns.
Prayer, Catholic doctrine***, love for Peter, and mutual charity
must become the priorities of our soul and of all our activities.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
from The Day Is Now Far Spent

(detail of the intricacies of a web /Julie Cook / 2019)

(the intricacies of the spider /Julie Cook / 2019)

Given the surge of sins in the ranks of the Church,
we are tempted to try to take things into our own hands.
We are tempted to try to purify the Church by our own strength.
That would be a mistake.
What would we do?
Form a party?
A movement?
That is the most serious temptation: the showy disguise of division.
Under the pretext of doing good, people become divided, they criticize each other,
they tear each other apart.

And the devil snickers.

He has succeeded in tempting good people under the appearance of good.
We do not reform the Church by division and hatred.
We reform the Church when we start by changing ourselves!
Let us not hesitate, each one in his place, to denounce sin, starting with our own.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
from The Day Is Now Far Spent

****Whereas Cardinal Sarah (1945 Guinea) is a prominent
Catholic prelate, as a non-Catholic, I can still read and take heart in his words.
In this case, I consider ‘Catholic’ to mean the global Christian family, just
as I consider ‘the Chruch’ to mean the collective Christian family…

when feeling insignificantly small

“If you once realize that to-morrow,
if not to-day, you will die and nothing will be left of you,
everything becomes insignificant!”
Leo Tolstoy

(a lone little sanderling eyes both sea and beach / Julie Cook / 2017)

The morning reading began with a portion of Psalm 119.

Incline my heart to your decrees and not to unjust gain.
Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless, give me life in your ways…
Psalm 119:37

The reading was actually verses 33-40 but it was verse 37 that actually reached
out and grabbed me by both shoulders.
It shook me so hard and fast that it caused me to reread what I had just read twice!

I grabbed a pen.

I underlined.

I digested.

And then I felt a sense of a galactic knowingness…an invisible nod from a great
and distant Source that approvingly found satisfaction in the
“by jove, I believe she’s got it” moment of knowing.

I think it was the part about “turning my eyes from watching what is worthless….
give me [rather] life in YOUR ways….”
(with accent and brackets being mine…).

Turn…me…from…worthless…to…You….

in a nutshell!

Maybe it’s because that’s what I’ve been doing all these many months.
I’ve been watching this whole global and national situation as if being some sort
of innocent bystander.
Someone who is watching madness unfold yet is either being held hostage or is
helpless to do anything of any real significance to stop the madness.
As both society and culture…careen out of control.

And then there came the readings closing prayer….

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly;
and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away,
to hold fast to those that shall endure;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Collect for the Sunday closest to Sept 23rd, Book of Common Prayer

As in let me not be anxious, fretful, depressed, overwhelmed, sad, frustrated
about earthly things…BUT [rather] love things heavenly…hold fast to that which will endure—that being Jesus Christ who lives and reigns along with the Holy Spirt
and the One True God…for ever and ever…

And whereas I have at time felt very much like a small insignificant David standing in the shadow of an overwhelming Goliath….as the world and her ills have appeared more than challenging, more than daunting, more than overwhelming…
as I add to that my own more seemingly insignificant yet equally comsumming
issues of life, God has spoken…
He has not forgotten as He remains consistent and steadfast…
Nothing is too great or too overwhelming for a great and Awesome God…

And the people were heard to say AMEN!

Xena, princess warrior

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin,
or to be against God’s will.
Jean d’Arc

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war,
while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sun Tzu

(image of St Joan of Arc–Jean d’Arc / Joan of Arc, c.1450, Illuminated manuscript on parchment, Musée de l’Histoire de France, Paris)

No this is not a picture of the fictional character Xena, Warrior Princess but
rather an image of Saint Jean d’Arc otherwise known as Joan of Arc .

Joan was a warrior…a righteous warrior.

Myself you ask….
well, for as long as I can remember, I have often felt that I’ve been called to be
some sort of a warrior…like Joan…a holy warrior who has been called to
raise the sword of righteousness….

And adding the word princess behind the notion of warrior just seems to be
an added nice touch…
allowing any and all female warriors to still be a girly girl if she so chooses.

Yet my calling however may be more along the lines of a Queen Margaret of Scotland
or even a Queen Adelaide of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire…a role of leading
by example without the sword….as the word “Queen” simply adds a bit of umph and sophistication to the role…

For all of these were sainted women who lived virtuous and holy lives….
heeding the call of God by following the internal compass of the Holy Spirit…
be it with sword in hand or generosity of heart.

Holy warriors, be they of the literal role like Joan who led the troops into battle
or more like our two queens who opted to lead lives of holy virtue,
while living in the face of all that was not virtuous nor holy,
as each was following their gift and calling.

Yet both of these sorts of hearty holy souls heard God’s call and in turn
yielded to His instruction.
They do this by way of deep prayer, contemplation,
reflection, study of Holy Scripture as they then follow the God given
directions offered by the leading of the Holy Spirit.

They are not knee jerk individuals.
Nor are they passive pushovers.

They are tempered.
For their faith has been tried and tested and refined in a furnace of righteous indignation.

I am neither necessarily virtuous nor holy but I am willing to take my stand,
raising my sword and my standard when I see it necessary….
as I continue to learn how to bide my time, bite my tongue…
while holding my knees at bay.

Which is hard in today’s world with its current run of chaotic lunacy.
I keep telling God, “just say the word”…
and I’ll take off running and screaming into the fray like a banshee brandishing
my sword of righteousness….

Funny thing, He’s yet to sound my call into battle.

This country is currently teetering on the edge of a very dangerous precipice.
The slippery slope that our leaders, on both sides of the aisle, have chosen,
which is only pushing us even closer to the loss of balance.

Things around this nation and around this globe are an absolute mess.
The worst I’ve ever seen.

Not even during WWII followed by Korea which beget Vietnam,
or even the psychotic Cold War…because in each of those incidences, we
pretty much knew the enemy or at least what we were fighting for and against…
Western Civilization rallied together to stand united against blatant
evils and tyranny.

Not so in today’s world…for today we have seen the enemy and he is
actually us…as in ourselves

It is us with our ungodly choices of liberalism, socialism, Marxism, materialism,
anarchy, along with a free and open society..
all of which are not working…

Why isn’t it working?

Because we are a nation, we are a Western Civilization, that has turned
our backs on our God….
and there are repercussions for a people who turn their backs on God.
As we are living those very repercussions and they will only grow in
severity as we continue down this road of self destruction.

The global Christian family has become not only the whipping boy to an
out of control society, but the sacrificial lamb for all the worlds ills.
Well, maybe the first blame usually falls to our sitting President, but
eventually it comes around to those conservative, moralistic Christians.

(This is where I wrote about 4 more paragraphs that I had the presence of mind to
go back in and cut due to that pesky problem of knee jerkitis….)

Because the intolerant and childish behavior of the
‘oh so pious pseudo tolerant, materialistic, human rights, anarchist, liberal
loving, socialist blind ignorant progressives who clump everyone they can think
to blame, other than themselves,
into a single basket of their own perceived ills as they’re working fast and furious
to be our own true demise….

And just to make certain folks “get it” this “new” no holds bar liberalistic
society will riot, picket, protest, sue, demonstrate and demand capitulation…
and just incase you don’t get the point, they’ll break some windows,
block the streets, threaten your livelihood, scream and kick until you
bend to their will.

Yet during all of this, many Christians are simply turning the other way hoping
it will all just go away.

Yet the picture however has been painted and the die has been cast…
as the masses are demanding a head on a platter…
and that head is Christianity.

So they proclaim that the teachings of the Church, the words of Christ,
the teaching of the tenants of our very God… are in a word… passé…
as in no longer suitable,
no longer relevant,
no longer tolerable.
and therefore are no longer allowed.

And if you think such talk baseless or extreme or fanatical…
then you have failed to see the headlines from around the globe.

As we the faithful passively sit silently watching while allowing the masses to
chip away at the footings of the very structure that has upheld the life of our
monotheistic Western Civilization since Emperor Constantine conferred
the first council of Nicaea and Gregory the Great in 590 set the western
Christian Church in motion.

So I’m standing,
with a nervous hand upon the hilt of my sword,
as I await the call.

As our dear friend Citizen Tom so eloquently stated in his comment on yesterday’s post…the time for being nice is over.

(If you want some Christian perspective and wisdom regarding our nation, her history
and how God’s hand is a part of each and all, please visit Citizen Tom…. https://citizentom.com/2017/08/20/what-you-must-learn-from-white-supremacists/)

For we are not contending against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world rulers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12

degree of separation

“We cannot live only for ourselves.
A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men;
and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes,
and they come back to us as effects.”
Herman Melville

(the fist pickings from the 3 container tomato plants / Julie Cook / 2017)

It has been said that the citizens of planet earth are separated, one from another,
by a mere 6 degrees…
or what some researches refer to as “the small world phenomenon”

“If you just take a look at the numbers,
the six degrees of separation idea seems pretty plausible.
Assuming everyone knows at least 44 people,
and that each of those people knows an entirely new 44 people, and so on,
the maths shows that in just six steps everyone could be connected
to 44^6, or 7.26 billion people—more than are alive on Earth today.”
(excerpt from an article by Fiona McDonald for Science Alert / sciencealert.com)

full article link here:
http://www.sciencealert.com/are-we-all-really-connected-by-just-six-degrees-of-separation

We’ve seen the notion of this “phenomena”,
and it’s original test of theory dating back to the 1960’s…
as it has morphed over the years into a movie, a college drinking game and even to a
broadway play…as it appears that the notion that we are all so closely connected,
seems to hold a deep fascination with the citizens of the globe.

And yet we wonder as to the responsibility that might come with such a
close connection of kinship…..

The idea that we actually know one another by some interwoven intertwined web of
acquaintances apparently holds us captivated.
The notion that we are each one connected soul, connected to other souls,
souls of which we hold on to tightly in our own little circle of souls,
is seen as eerily soothing.
Just one big happy globally dysfunctional family.

And yet the irony found in our desire for unity is that we also clammer for separation.
We want everything about our lives compartmentalized…separated….
while at the same time we painstakingly seek a global connectivity while also
demanding equality for all and a toleration of every
imaginable choice out there…
except for those who choose the Omnipotent.

So our connectivity and toleration and inclusiveness is actually limited despite
the lies we continue telling ourselves to the contrary.

We vie to find our connectedness…one to another…
while at the same time we vehemently fight to sever our, and everyone else’s,
ties to the Creator…

We fight tooth and nail to separate Him from every aspect of our very
independent secular lives..
While at the same time patting ourselves on our backs for an overt
pride found in the general connectivity and the false unity we think we’ve created…
For we claim inclusiveness in our broad reaching connectivity while at the same time
demanding that any notion of a connection to God be erased from thought.

This fickleness of ours will indeed be our undoing….
for we cannot be connected to everything and everyone while pretending
to disconnect our being, our soul, our own, our all from the very One
who knitted us in our mother’s womb….

For we cannot run nor hide from His knowledge and omnipotent presence,
no matter how far we go or how hard we try….
and until we are able to see and understand and acknowledge that He is a part
of even the very air we breathe,
then we will simply continue this petty exertion of our energies while
puffing up and inflating our trite egos of self,
in this endless ongoing emptiness we find so very fascinating and captivating….

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For thou didst form my inward parts,
thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:7-13

For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39

plucking time

“Today one may pluck out one’s very heart and not find it.”
― Franz Kafka

(the first of the season / Julie Cook / 2017)

Simplistic seasonal changes give way to the reaping of small harvests…
As the western world reels from another chaotic and senseless attack.

Caustic comedians are wallowing in sanctimonious apologies
while casting wide nets of blame blanketing the very ones they mock.
As a fallen candidate joins the fray with the same empty mantra…
“Not my fault….”

Madness and hatred are the offerings on tap
while unsuspecting berries ripen on the bush

There’s an old nemesis who seems to be enjoying renewed friction
while the media and press proclaim the sky is falling.
As the dividing line between right and left becomes impossible to bridge.

There’s something comforting in the mindless gathering of ripening fruit
Something seemingly mundane yet blessedly sane…
as the world spins wildly out of control….

Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?
But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
“Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for
the hope that you have.
But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience,
so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ
may be ashamed of their slander.
For it is better, if it is God’s will,
to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 3:13-17

Authority vs Power

“Another time of testing has come.
Another day of reckoning is here.
This is a testing and a reckoning…
that could prove even more decisive than earlier trials.”
Os Guinness

(statue of St Peter stands looking over St Peter’s Square, The Vatican/ Rome, Italy / Julie Cook / 2007)

“The Kingdom of God is the realm of true authority; the kingdom of Satan is seen in the tyranny of raw power.”
(God and Churchill/ Jonathan Sandys & Wallace Henley

In his 1931 essay, Fifty Years Hence, written long before Winston Churchill was elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, the then former Chancellor of the Exchequer penned his bleak yet precautionary predictions for the future of not only Western Civilization, but the world at large.

Churchill’s essay was written post WWI, while the destructive images of a devastated Europe raged fresh in his mind just as the rumors of new wars festered along the horizon….

“Without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, Science herself may destroy all that makes human life majestic and tolerable. There never was a time when the inherent virtue of human beings required more strong and confident expression in daily life; there never was a time when the hope of immortality and the disdain of earthly power and achievement were more necessary for the safety of the children of men.”

Churchill’s opining of predictions were but a stone cast into a pond whose ripples were to reach to what he saw to be 1981…
however his words and thoughts, those ripples, continue to be relevant to our own day and time these 85 years later…well past the initial envisioned fifty years.
In fact his words ring more true today than they did in 1981.

I think we’d all agree that our times are exceedingly precarious.
Many an observer notes the almost tangible and even palpable fear that is presently running as an electric current throughout the world.
Radical Islamic Extremists,
global terrorism,
coups,
civil wars,
our own racial divide and unrest…
all of which has rocked this 21st century world.

There are many, myself included, who can’t help but to see the mirrored comparisons of a rising Adolph Hitler and his Nazi death machine compared to today’s current menacing death machine of Islamic fanaticism and its declared war or caliphate against the West and the Judeao / Christian foundation…of which has stood since the days of Constantine…

“We are confronted with another theme. It is not a new theme;
it leaps out upon us from the Dark Ages–
racial persecution, religious intolerance, deprivation of free speech,
the conception of the citizen as a mere soulless fraction of the State.
To this has been added the cult of war.
Children are to be taught in their earliest schooling the delights and profits of conquest
and aggression.
A whole mighty community has been drawn painfully, by severe privations,
into a warlike frame.”
(except of speech broadcast to Britain and the United States October 16, 1938)

Reading these words, not knowing they were spoken 78 years ago, in a different time and place, one would imagine them to be easily written today…
If we listen carefully we hear the ominous warnings…
warnings concerning the madrassas of today with their radical teachings to the youth of Islam…
we hear of the ongoing global teachings of intolerance for Western society…
we hear of the hate for the Christian and Jewish communities throughout the world…
warnings and reminders being echoed of the soulless citizens having lived or who are currently living under the blankets of communism, totalitarianism, dictatorships and the growing rise of socialism….
anything but democracy….

It would behoove us, as we stand on the cusp of the dire decisions and votes being cast…
with their often ominous results–
not only on a national level, but to the choices, votes and decisions being made globally,
to understand the difference between what is true authority verses what is power merely cloaked in a false authoritative shawl.

Authority shows itself in constructive power, whereas raw power is inevitably destructive, as Hitler and the Nazis amply demonstrated. Authority is granted from the higher to the lower, but power is seized.
Authority is given to the humble, those under authority; power is snatched by the proud, who acknowledge no authority over themselves. Authority is sustained through relationship, which is why Churchill devoted so much time to communicating and to being among the people. Raw power, on the other hand, is sustained through four control mechanisms: manipulation, condemnation, intimidation, and domination, skills that Hitler and the Nazis honed to a sharp point”
(God and Churchill / Jonathan Sandys & Wallace Henley)

Again, words written regarding a past time yet even more relevant today…

May we open our ears to the past as we open our eyes to the future as we currently wrestle with seeking
new governing leadership…
May we be mindful to look to those individuals who seek not to grab power but rather to those who seek to lead under the authority that has been granted from the only One who can truly grant authority to those who seek His counsel for those who which they are charged to lead….

The whole world is upborne and sustained by God’s Love, and each person was created as an act of love. This is truly incomprehensible to us because we can’t see clearly the breath, and depth, and enormous scope of such great love. God looked at each stage of Creation and said clearly that it was good: the sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the earth, the animals, the birds, the fish, and the plants. All is good, all is blessed, and all is an outpouring of Trinitarian love. When we were created, then God said that this was more than good, but very good. Very good! When will we live up to such a great calling, to such a great love: personal, intense, and giving the power to also create around us an expression of God’s goodness and love. Help us, O Lord, to fulfill Thy precious love in us and in all we touch and see.
Amen.
(offering prayer from the monks at St Isaac’s Orthodox Skete)
(http://www.skete.com/index.cfm)

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

(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

3 minutes ’til

(old wall clock in the Jameson Distillery, Midleton, Co Cork, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

The Doomsday Clock

A metaphorical clock created in 1947 by a group of scientists who all had a hand in creating the nuclear bomb.

A clock whose hands, when set at midnight, would signify the almost certain and impending demise of all mankind.

Interesting that those who helped to create “the bomb”… the very thing touted as being the be all to end all wars…in turn create a clock marking the end of mankind….hummmmm

The clock is currently set at three minutes ’til midnight.
The only other time, during its 69 year existence that the clock edged closer to the ominous midnight hour was in 1953 when it was set at 2 minutes ’til midnight.

What pray tell, one may ask, could ever be a determining criteria to the fretful moving of the two hands ever closer to or further from the dreaded bewitching midnight hour?

Well the obvious threat would be that of nuclear war or the use of nuclear weapons somewhere across the globe….
think Iran, North Korea, China, Pakistan, Israel, India, Russia, the US, ISIS….you get the picture.

Global economic stability…or lack thereof…think IMF, stock markets, world banking, black markets, recessions, depressions….

The precarious health of the environment….think global warming, global cooling, locusts, plagues, floods, erosion, pollution….

Seeing any or all of the latest headlines ringing round the world and you can get some sort of idea to the scope of “criteria” as to what makes the doomsday hands tick closer to the proverbial pumpkin turning, glass slipper seeking, fairytale stroke of midnight turned reality tale type of harbinger of cataclysmic death and destruction.

Yet I’m not really certain as to why we need a group of world renowned scientists, nobel prize winners and leaders in all things academic amassed together in some sort of board room or labortory telling us we’re almost ready to implode. One look at the news and anybody with any sense can plainly see the alarmingly rapidly increasing impending demise of mankind splattered across every news outlet from Sydney to Katmandu, from Spokane, to Liverpool, from Tibilsi to…..you get the idea.

It all reminds me of those homemade beacons of foreboding doom stuck in the ground along wayward roadsides declaring to one and all… “REPENT! THE END IS NEAR”

And yet, I’ve not noticed a run on the churches…
You know, like when the weathermen start predicting an impending storm and suddenly all of humanity descends upon every grocery store within the bullseye of the storm in order to snatch up every loaf of bread and every gallon of milk as if those two things alone are the only things that can sustain us throughout the duration of hunkering down and battening down the hatches…

One might imagine that when the rallying cry of doom is sounded by those in the know, the average citizen would feel as if he or she may want to get serious with that whole getting right with one’s God concept, as in the time has come….filling the local pews to the brim as everyone jockeys for position while seeking the saving grace before the you know what hits the fan….

Or maybe not…

Maybe everyone is just so jaded, so gloom and doomed out…so hardened of heart…
as in over it…
as in sick and tired of thinking about the dreaded end…
merely preferring to think that destruction and mayhem are either over rated or merely part of the inevitable and that there’s just not avoiding the inevitable.
I actually think one of the networks has a new show, a black comedy, coming out focusing on the very concept of living life in the wake of “the end”….

At any rate, I found the story as well as the fact that the BBC found it necessary to report that the hands are somewhat stuck…as in they aren’t moving, most interesting. It’s three minutes ’til and that seems to be it for now…no moving backwards or forwards—and depending on one’s outlook, maybe that’s a good thing…at least we’re not moving forward, with maybe a chance to go backwards…

However, given the precarious global situation I don’t think backwards is going to be an option anytime soon.
And whereas man may need reminding every once in a while that he’s sitting on the brink of total annihilation, I am reminded of many a biblical passage which addresses this rather interesting position we’ve gotten ourselves into….

…And yet, I am not running about like Henny Penny proclaiming that the sky is falling…rather I am resting in the peace of the knowledge that no matter what may or may not blow at this supposed midnight hour, my life rests in the blood of the lamb, in the saving Grace of the One True Resurrected Savior of Jesus Christ.
Come what may, I am His and He is mine—
and there is a great deal of contentment found in that one small fact…

Here’s a link to the story…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35412454

Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10