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

If you don’t like it, simply ignore it… or better yet, deny it…

Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands,
till they have lost it.
Sophocles

If you haven’t noticed, this week’s national current events have been interesting.

Troubling, yet most interesting.

There’s been a great deal in the way of political current events…
all with an odd underlying theme…
a theme of anger with a heavy dose of ignoring the facts…
or perhaps it’s more of a matter of anger with strong denial…

As in… if I deny it, it isn’t real.

1) According to an article in the New York Post,
“Hillary Clinton has now twice snubbed a process server
attempting to deliver the defamation lawsuit filed against her by Democratic presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard, according to Gabbard’s attorney.
Gabbard sued the former secretary of state for $50 million last week for calling
her a “Russian asset.” Clinton has refused to retract the statement.

Ergo…if Hillary refuses to accept a court order, it doesn’t exist.

2) According to an article that appeared on Fox News regarding Stacey Abrams, the
one time Georgia Gubernatorial candidate who lost her bid as Governor to Brian Kemp and who,
after a year later, continues to refuse to acknowledge defeat…
The former lawmaker has still not conceded the election and has indicated that she
does not plan to.
“We don’t have to concede elections anymore, because when we concede,
we are condoning systems that are used to oppress us,”
she said last May according to the Texas Tribune.

Ergo…if Stacey doesn’t concede defeat, she never lost.

3) In an article from Fox News…
In scathing comments Thursday as her party appeared on the verge of defeat
in the Senate impeachment trial, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued that President Trump
“cannot be acquitted” if the trial lacks the witness testimony and documentation
that Democrats have been seeking.

The San Francisco Democrat also fired on Trump’s impeachment defense team,
saying they’ve “disgraced themselves” during this week’s trial and suggesting
they deserve disbarment over their trial remarks.

But Pelosi challenged whether that acquittal would be valid,
in remarks that seemed a bid to undermine any Trump claim of victory.

“He will not be acquitted,” Pelosi insisted during her
weekly news conference, according to Politico.
“You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial.
You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that.
Does the president know right from wrong? I don’t think so.”

Ergo…if Nancy doesn’t agree with an impeachment result, then it never happened.

And so just when we thought we’d heard it all, there was a recent article found in
Christianity Today by our dear friend Pastor David Roberston.

The good pastor offered his observation regarding a recent story concerning
Franklin Graham being banned from speaking in various UK churches.
Unlike his father, Billy Graham, Franklin is not welcome in churches throughout the UK.
In large part because of Graham’s views that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are sinful.

Ergo, if we don’t like what Graham or others share about the Bible and what is
considered sinful, then we simply turn our back and shove our fingers in our ears…
and therefore sin is simply no longer sin…

In other words, you can’t own what you refuse to claim…right??

Pastor Robertson notes…
“That is why all of this is so important.
Many of our civic institutions have been taken over by an ideology which is fundamentally
anti-democratic, anti-factual and intolerant – in the name of tolerance.
The State, having replaced God, has become the source of all morality and values.
If you don’t agree with those values you are not one of ‘the people’.
You are untermenschen.
You are out.

He adds an important observation by A.W. Tozer…

“The church goes along with everything and stands against nothing –
until she is convinced that it is the safe and popular thing to do;
then she passes her courageous resolutions and issues her world-shaking manifestos –
all in accord with the world’s newest venture – whatever it may be.”

In all of this, there seems to be the running connective thread of
anger and denial…a connective thread found in both our political and religious circles.
And now we can add the thread of division.

Democrat vs Republican.
Conservative vs Liberal
Believer vs Non-believer
Sin vs Repentance
Pride vs Humility
Death vs Life

We can pretend there is no division, no either-or, no growing divide,
no wrong, no right, no sin, no death…

We can see it for what it is or opt for what it isn’t…because ignoring it
seems to make it all just go away…

We see no evil.
We hear no evil
We speak…

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the
ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
Ephesians 4:18

And I thought ‘woke’ meant something you did after sleep

In 2020, Americans are going to be forced to choose between two opposing visions:
the pro-American vision of President Abraham Lincoln
and the deeply anti-American vision of the modern left…
The modern left’s outlook is radically different from —
and deeply hostile toward — the classic definitions of
American liberty and history.
Newt Gingrich

Yep, it’s hard to keep up if you’re of a certain age.
And perhaps even harder if you make the conscious decision to abstain from
social media…
Because it appears that social media is THE place to learn all sorts of new words,
both good and bad, and oh so part of our ‘woke’ culture.

According to an article on business2community.com:
The Oxford English Dictionary has added a plethora of new words to their online database.
Those searching their dictionary can now find the definitions of words such
as “woke,” “hygge” and “post-truth,” which they named last year’s Word of the Year.

One of the most notable entries for many on social media was “woke,”
a slang entry that was met with both praise and backlash.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “woke” as:
well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination
and injustice; frequently in stay woke (often used as an exhortation).

In later use perhaps popularized through its association with
African-American civil rights activism
(in recent years particularly the Black Lives Matter movement),
and by the lyrics of the 2008 song Master Teacher by American singer-songwriter Erykah Badu,
in which the words I stay woke serve as a refrain.
In addition to having an original meaning of simply “awake,” the adjectival “woke”
has been around far longer than some may think.
According to Oxford Dictionaries, the earliest use in a figurative sense was
in a 1962 New York Times article.
Titled “If You’re Woke, You Dig It,”
it “describes how white beatniks were appropriating black slang at the time.”
The term is now widely used to challenge others to be more aware of
injustices in the world.

It seems that the folks of all things dictionary, be that Merriam-Webster, Oxford or others,
have actually added 600 new words this past year.

At this rate, my communication skills will no longer be woke but more like asleep…

And I for one find such words stupid…as in dumb, useless and if the truth be told, lazy–
as they are nothing more than slang.

There already exist some pretty great civil descriptors out there–
of which mean very much the same.
Yet I wonder…is it because these existing words are more pointed and
seemingly painfully direct…Because we know this progressive culture of ours is actually
afraid of pointed, direct and painful.

And as a small aside, might I just add that I am sick and tired of hearing,
seeing, reading the ‘F’ word at every turn. We went to the movies last evening
to see the movie 1917 and in the very first preview of coming movies, Will Smith opened
the preview spouting off the F word…sigh…
And despite my having written many a post of the use of vulgar slang as being now
acceptable, I am digressing…

So all this talk of culture, words, and of being woke had me thinking when I caught
the following article by Newt Gingrich.

If anyone out there is woke (please note that my Grammarly correction wants that to read ‘is waking’),
I would think it would be Newt.
As a history professor, author, historian and former Speaker of the House,
Newt knows a thing or two when he looks back while looking forward.

Here are a few tidbits from his latest article followed by a link for the full
story.

Newt Gingrich: In 2020, Abraham Lincoln will be controversial and divisive.
(Yes, Lincoln!) Here’s why

Lincoln clearly admitted that the work of freedom was unfinished and that we owe it to those
who gave their lives to continue the work of extending and improving liberty for all people.
In fact, Lincoln said it is our duty to extend “under God, … a new birth of freedom.”

(Of course, the anti-religious left would scoff at the reference to God.
Yet, both Lincoln and Washington shared a belief that America existed because of
Divine Providence’s benevolence.)

We have moved from government of the people to government of the experts.

The gap between Lincoln’s belief in the people and the contempt elitists such
as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.,
have for those who Hillary Clinton called “deplorables” tells you a lot about the gap
between Lincoln’s values and the values of the modern American left.

One of the great challenges for the Trump administration and its allies is
to re-center government on Lincoln’s values and dismantle the elitist
“bureaucrats know best” model that now defines so much of our government.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2020-abraham-lincoln-controversial-newt-gingrich

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…

it’s all making sense…or maybe not

“God will judge us not according to how much we endured,
but how much we could love”
Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ

Well, I sat down late Easter afternoon…worn out, exhausted and thankfully thought I might be
starting to actually be feeling a tad bit better…but I
certainly didn’t want to say that out loud.

I wanted to shift my thoughts to something from what I had just finished reading.
It’s a book about a story…the story includes my own yet fully compiled story
oddly intertwined within…
so any talk about all of that is going to have to wait…

Therefore I opted to pick back up a book that you may remember that I had been reading…
reading until things went a bit skewed.

That Hideous Strength: How The West Was Lost
The Cancer of Cultural Marxism in the Chruch, The World and The Gospel of Change
by Melvin Tinker

And I had every intention of offering another tidbit today that really struck me as to
how Mr. Tinker, and in turn, C.S.Lewis, foresaw what was to be the catalyst for
so much of our cultural troubles today….but, something else caught my attention.
Something that required me to put that thought on hold a day or two longer.

I’ve written about Christian Persecution before.
I’ve actually written about it a great deal.

But the trouble is…the persecution keeps escalating.
Not lessening, not keeping an even keel but growing

Now it’s not that I would ever think that my tiny little words could make
much of any sort of difference, it’s just that I feel it important to
speak out—just like I do about abortion.

These things don’t get any better, so I just keep trying to shine a little
light in the darkness.

Since Sunday, nearly 300 people have died from the terrorist bombings which took place in Sri Lanka
during Easter services.
8 bombings total rocked the country with 3 churches full of worshipers, along with three upscale
hotels, being purposely targeted.

The attackers were Islamic extremists.

Western leadership outrage hit the twitter waves…

Hillary Clinton offered condolences
“On this holy weekend for many faiths,
we must stand united against hatred and violence.
I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers
and travelers in Sri Lanka.”

Barack Obama offered condolences for Easter worshipers….
“The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity.
On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal,
we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”

But wait…

What exactly is an ‘Easter worshiper’?

Christians go to Chruch on Easter in order to worship…so might they be what the former president
was painfully trying to acknowledge?

Yet last I checked, no one worshiped Easter.

Christians worship, on Easter, the Risen Christ…The Redeemer.

So I think we’re seeing one piece to this puzzling problem…
American leadership never likes to use the “C” word….that being the word, Christian.

But I’ve written about that before.
I’d actually written about President Obama having a very difficult time voicing the fact
that there is actually real persecution against Christians.

And for all his grandiose rhetoric and eloquence of speech when speaking or addressing
a crowd, he could never call a terrorist attack what it actually was…
an attack by Islamic Extremists.

According to a story offered on Fox News back in Janurary,
“An international Christian organization is warning that the persecution of Christians
worldwide is set to rise in 2019 — and it’s calling on the United States to do more to help.

Release International, a U.K.-based charity that helps supports persecuted Christians
around the world and a partner organization of Voice of the Martyrs,
warns that this year, particularly in China, India, and Nigeria, persecution
against Christians is rising.

The story continued…
“These are countries that have long been on the list but we’re seeing
an upwards curve, an alarming rise in persecution,”
Andrew Boyd, Release International spokesman, told Fox News.

“Release has been doing this work for 50 years,” Boyd added.
“I have no doubt that persecution is increasing and it is alarming
and the contexts are different. You have militant Islam in Nigeria;
China, which is communism; India, which is militant Hinduism;
North Korea which is a weird blend of communism and Emporer worship.
There is an increasing intolerance and it’s being played out in violence and
we know it because of the reports that are coming from our partners on the ground.”

https://www.foxnews.com/world/christian-group-warns-of-sharply-rising-persecution-in-these-countries-in-2019

And yet our leaders continue to turn a blind eye while refusing to use the “C” word
or the ‘I E” words…

It was way back in 2014 when I first started writing about Christian persecution.
A year later it was to be a post about Islamic Extremists.

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/ostriches-and-ducks/

Tomorrow I hope to tie in what I was reading regarding the catalyst that has lead
our culture into its current abyss and rising attacks on Christianity…

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
2 Timothy 3:12

chasing monsters

“We are each other’s harvest;
we are each other’s business;
we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
Gwendolyn Brooks

(the setting sun in a western Georgia sky / Julie Cook / 2017)

Like most folks I imagine, here on the east coast, I awoke yesterday to learn that a horrific tragedy had unfolded while I had slept..taking place out west.
In Las Vegas to be exact.

Shock, disbelief, raw and numb…
were just a few of the words used to describe my initial bleary eyed
reaction.

Readying for the day I gravitated between the television and my phone just
trying to glean the latest news coming in as I tried making sense of what
I was hearing, reading and seeing.

My son and I had a day of traveling on our agenda so once in the car, with me driving,
he pulled up the local Atlanta Channel 2 Action New’s live feed so we’d be able to
see and hear the President address the nation.

All I could think about was here was one more president coming before a somber Nation,
once again, to offer words of solace and comfort in the face of madness.
How many times has Trump already done this?
How many times had President Obama done this?
How many times had President Bush……

Below the streaming live feed my son kept watching and reading the scrolling comments
coming into the station from its viewers. He read some of these to me….
and I was sickeningly appalled at the words he shared.

There were no words of bereavement, no words of sorrow but rather words and feelings
from viewers expressing disdain and mockery.

From disgusting, vile and derogatory remarks about the President and his family to the
notion that this latest massacre equated to mere payback to whites….
I was quickly reminded why I shun social media.

One viewer finally expressing what I was feeling—“is there a way in which I can turn
off these terribly offensive and insensitive comments and just listen to the President?”

My son turned his phone off as the comments were simply too distracting…
too inhumane really, too monstrous…so we continued our drive mostly in silence as our minds worked to absorb the enormity of these latest events.

Later in the afternoon, as I finally made my return journey home alone,
I did something I normally don’t do while driving…I turned on the radio to the news.
I usually prefer to drive in silence, lost in my own thoughts sans any music or chatter..
but today was different… I wanted to hear and feel what the Nation, my Nation,
was experiencing.

I caught the live press briefing from the White House.

There is a big difference when listening to something verses watching it—

With the visual imagery being non existent, the words take on more of their true
intended purpose.

The White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, came to the podium and offered words of both sorrow and condolence.

She began the briefing by talking about Puerto Rico and The US Virgin Islands and of the ongoing efforts to offer the necessary aid and support to help in the recovery efforts
for these islands following the deadly assault by the hurricanes.

Next her voice began to waver and crack as she began to speak about our common bond
as Americans and the unity of our shared humanity.

She addressed the current unfolding events coming out of Las Vegas.
She shared the various stories of the heroic acts offered during the melee.
The selfless sacrifices freely offered from stranger to stranger throughout the
surreal shooting.
The stories of those who offered their own bodies as shields in an attempt to protect others.
Such acts she noted recalled the verse John 15:13….
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Once finished she turned the remaining time over to the gathered reporters fielding their questions.

I don’t know.

One would think that the heaviness felt from this emotional observation would have been enough to take the wind out of the sails of that most caustic room of reporters.
One would have thought the enormity of what had recently unfolded, just as it continued
to unfold, would have been enough to soften even the most callous and anti-Trump
reporter. One would think, that while our Nation was currently experiencing a tragedy
of epic proportion, it would be reason or should and would be reason enough to have a quieting effect…
but it didn’t.

They did wait until the second question however before falling into their typical
patterns.
The questions began immediately over gun control.

Ms Sanders quickly reminded those in the room that this was a time of National
reflection, National mourning, a time of coming together in our collective
sorrow all the while as the investigation was currently active—it was all too fresh,
too raw and it was NOT the time nor the place to begin the questioning of or for
revisiting policy decisions or for the attacking of a president….the tit for tat of typical partisan politics.

And yet question after question, reporter after reporter began the litany…
There were those who pushed Hillary Clinton to the forefront of conversation with her
less than sympathetic knee jerk tweets regarding the NRA, there were those who revisited the President’s comments from 12 years ago regarding gun control….
on and on they went.

It all reminded me of a friend of mine who just won’t ever take to hearing the word
“no” for an answer.
She’ll turn and twit her query ever so until she gets the answer she wants to hear…
and that’s what this Q & A reminded me of—-someone determined not to hear the word or words “no” or “not now” as they turned and twisted their words over and over,
again and again as they desperately worked to have their affirmative moment…

And yet time and time again, Ms Sanders stoically redirected the focus to the current moment—
to the pain we are all experiencing….not to the what ifs, not to the would haves,
nor to the should haves….

I think I would have just thrown my hands in the air and walked away.
They just didn’t get it—they didn’t get that this is not the time nor the place….

There is however a time and a place…
but today, right now, was / is not that time nor that place for bickering over policies
failed or not. It is not the day to point the fingers.
It is not the day to be accusatory.
It is not a day of politics.
Not the time nor the place for right or left or anarchist…

For today is the day we sort through the shock as we allow ourselves to grieve.
Today is the day we mourn the lives lost and the lives forever changed.
We allow the pain and yes we even allow the anger…
As we mourn another lost piece to the puzzle of our American innocence.
As we digest that life once again, will never be the same as we knew it.

Yet as a Nation, we seem to have forgotten to allow ourselves our own grief.
The press leads the way, our politicians follow suit as now an angry and hate
filled Nation begins the ugly rhetoric.

Did we better grieve or mourn more honestly before this social media of ours—

Before the distractions and the million of tiny soap boxes we each now
climb upon offering up our hateful and accusatory 2 cents as if anyone is really listening…

When was it exactly that we became this way…?

I ponder these thoughts as I hear of the gut wrenching yet heroic tales of selflessness
offered from stranger to stanger—
sheltering, protecting, offering aid to strangers in the crowd… each
caught in the middle of a nightmare.

As a Nation we must allow ourselves time as well as permission for our collective
sorrow, for the shock, for the disbelief and for our own very humanness…
rather than heeding the call by those now jaded and who have forgotten that we are
more than right, more than left, more than anarchist…eschewing their cries in the meida or on social media to gather the pitchforks in pursuit of the monster—
because in our haste, we might just be chasing after the wrong monster…

Heavenly Father, giver of life and health: Comfort
and relieve your sick servants, and give your power
of healing to those who minister to their needs,
that those for whom our prayers are offered may be
strengthened in their weakness and have confidence
in your loving care; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
(Book of Common Prayer)

fruits of our labors

You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
Psalm 128:2

(bluebird on the peach tree / Julie Cook / 2017)

Tis the fruiting season…
that time of year when blooms are blooming, pollinators are pollinating, and fruits
are emerging…

And perhaps it is no coincidence that this is also the season that we mark those
most important passages of both age and time…
For this is also the season of graduation.

A time for the young and not so young scholars to begin the journey of bearing the fruits
of their long arduous labors.

Commencement ceremonies are abounding as prolifically as the springs flowers in bloom…
And so it is with this ultimate rite of passage that the speeches offered on behalf of
all graduates, those lofty words of inspiration and hope,
are flowing from the lips of the wise, the wizened, the sages, the politicals, the learned,
and the elder…
those who have been chosen to do so because of their seemingly wise years lived.

Yet I was taken aback yesterday when I listed to one such speech.
Troubled by the “wizened” offerings.

It was the speech delivered by Hillary Clinton to the graduates of her very own alma mater
Wellesley College in the small hamlet of Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Commencement speeches are intended to inspire those who have just spent the last
4, 6, 8, 10 or even more years laboring to get to this coveted position—
sitting in a crowd of look-a-likes…individuals all donned in black cap and gown,
sitting in a chair marking the time honored tradition of passing the torch as each
college and university readies to send forth its best and its brightest into the arms of
an awaiting world.

Hoping, nay expecting, that these new graduates will hence forth go outward,
sharing and prospering….
in hopes of making the world a better place…

Yet Mrs Clinton’s speech was not so much about hopefulness as it was about regret…
and that regret being her own.

Not only did she share the tale of her initial morose following the election with a bit of
comic relief regarding her long walks in the woods (we may remember the news story of
the young mother out walking the day following the election who literally came face to
face with then former candidate Clinton out seeking a bit of solace in the woods)
to the depressive ritual of cleaning out one’s closest while ending with her last little
quip that also… “Chardonnay helped”…

But it was her whipping up the crowd of these eager young women who were hanging on each
word uttered, each breath offered…that I found most troubling.

Clinton reminisced about having delivered a similar speech during her own graduation
at Wellesley as then President Nixon, who was accused of breaking Federal laws,
left office disgraced under the cloud of impeachment as she likened that past sad political time
to our very own current time…with the elephant in the room being the current sitting president…
all to a resounding hoot from her enraptured audience.

She next told the girls to be proud.
To be proud of their anger….

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think fanning the flames of anger is something that boasts of
hope and bright futures but rather entrenches the thoughts of division, disrespect and alienation.
She was whipping the flames of all things defiant and all things of the resistance she is now
focused on leading with her latest “foundation” endeavors.

So not so much a speech highlighting the thought of what we can do to work together unifying
this great Nation of ours, but rather a speech hammering home the idea of discord…
A Nuremberg moment of great enthusiasm and fanfare yet disparaging about never getting over a
loss while spreading the rhetoric of anger, hate and mistrust.

So don’t go out bearing the fruit of your years of study having labored to acquire
vast skills and knowledge…
knowledge and skills that are suppose to help make this world a better place,
more prosperous, more hopeful and brighter for those who will come after you….
but rather go out as an angry militant, lashing out at any and all who you feel oppose
your views.
Be intolerant while emasculating the men in your lives, as you shout no we won’t
rather than yes we can…

It just seems that these are not the types of speeches that enrich our lives, but rather work
at tearing us apart…

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water,
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1

so much for remedies

Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken without
developing new evils requiring new remedies.
William Howard Taft

This picture of the collegiate dammit doll, that does not always
successfully assist my beloved Georgia Bulldogs with a win,
is looking more and more like a potential
voodoo doll as I am just about at that point…
To the point that if I rip off said left leg of dammit doll,
will my own left leg feel any better??

So I went for my little nerve block yesterday…the one I had high hopes for.

Arriving a tad early, they finally called me back to the procedure room.
I had to hop up on the table and was instructed to lay on my stomach
as the cute young assistant pulled my tee shirt up to my head
and my shorts down to my keister while she proceeded to place the
sterile papers on my back in such a fashion that only a sectioned portion of my back was exposed.
She then rubs me down with betadine, alcohol and whatever else she had on that tray.

The doctor comes in donning a lovely lead gown complete with a lead apron for his neck.
I cock to my head to the right to see that the little assistant is now donning
her own cute polka dotted lead gown with matching neck guard as they were both
making darn certain their thyroids were covered up from the x-rays
they’d be using on my back during the procedure.

I didn’t have a lead guard for my thyroid…
maybe cause I was on my stomach or maybe they just knew
that my thyroid was already too far gone to be concerned with.

I explained that the drilling pain in my back and hip had subsided
but that there was now an excruciating burning pain in my inner thigh
and groin with the top of my thigh being totally numb.

“Hummmm, that’s odd…”

Not a reassuring comment from my young tall, just recently married, Asian doctor.

I asked the doctor if this little shot business was instantaneous and he couldn’t exactly say.
He says the goal is to get rid of the pain…
Yes that is my goal as well.

“How will you know where to shoot in order to help these oh so fiery nerves of mine” I ask
“Will the X-ray show that?”

“Oh no, the x-ray just let’s me see the spine, but from what you tell me I might
need to shoot higher.”

Great.

The reason they did a MRI was because they couldn’t see the two bulging discs on the x-ray—
so now he thinks an x-ray is going to steer him straight….?

Like I say,
Great.

As they position the x-ray machine, letting it fire off for an image, they both step back.
I begin feeling a little like Typhoid Mary as they keep taking steps back to a safe distance…
Them in their lead gowns and guards and me in my jacked up tee shirt,
jacked down gym shorts and tennis shoes.

“you’re going to feel a pinch.” he tells me.

Try more like a skewer has just been threaded deep into your back.

My fists clinch as the little beep beep monitor on my finger lets all present know
that I am now in pain.

With each x-ray blast, each step back, each skewering, lidocaine and steroids are injected
deep into my back

“Do you feel the steroid going in, feeling it down in your leg?”

“No”

“Hummm.”

I did however feel not so good.

Kind of heavy in a weird way and now my neck was hurting from being cocked backwards…
herniated discs there as well, but that’s for another day.

They x-ray and skewer me several more times before they finish.

And just like that, my tall, recently married, lead covered Asian doctor leaves the room.

The assistant slaps a small band-aid on my back and tells me to go home, sit with
my feet and legs elevated, no lifting, no cooking…just rest.
“Watch for any white liquid coming from the holes”…leaking spinal fluids I fear,
as she adds “no showering for 12 hours”…

I sit up on the table as I ask her how long it would be till I could tell any difference.

“possibly tomorrow, but give it a week.”

A week???
A freaking week?????
UGH!!!

I get up and go out to my waiting husband…
Who’s looking ever so hopeful—

“How do you feel?”

“Let’s just say that the pain that I came in with, is now going out with us.”
“Add to that a sore back like I’ve just been beaten.”

He takes me home, helps gets me situated and tells me not to worry about supper, he’ll
pick something up.
I tell him, no, that I can cook as I feel no different, but my back is just sore as hell.

I sit on an ice pack for about 30 minutes when I say to hell with this.

My leg still feels like crap and I was now mad.

I started getting supper ready, slamming every drawer and door in my wake.
I went out to start the grill, still slamming and bamming.

My husband comes home to find me in the throws of the tears of utter frustration.

I fall into his arms sobbing that first it was dad, now it was me…
He tells me that we’ll go to the clinic down in Columbus but I sob that
between all the doctors I’ve been to in the past month, between both me and dad…
I’m done…

We’ve seen…
Primary care physicians, his and mine.
Urologists,
Gastroenterologists,
Oncologists,
Radiologists,
Orthopedic surgeons..
everyone’s PAs
CT scans,
Cystoscopes,
Surgeries
x-rays
MRIs
Nerve Blocks
Hospice

you name it, dad and I have done it all… starting late August.

I am done for a while…

When it was finally time for bed, I decided I’d take half a pain pill.
I have amassed a small arsenal of prescriptions that each and every doctor and PA has prescribed…
with me forgoing all of them as they have been various drugs from hell—
sedatives, pain meds, anti-inflammatory meds, nerve meds…
none which have been the first bit helpful, curative, let alone safe with me driving
back and forth literally every other day to dads…

I take only half of the hydrocodone as a whole pill will keep me up and wired for hours.
Hopefully half will help.

At 3AM with my eyes never having actually shut and with sleep now long elusive,
my mind frantically racing, I pondered how in the hell people could
ever get addicted to these things as they only make me wild and
ready to go run a freaking marathon.

I ponder the current affairs of the world.
I’m thinking that in my current mood and state of mind that I could
be put in a room with both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
and could knock some sense into both of them,
or better yet,
I could knock them both silly.
I was ready to take on Basher Assad, Kin Jong Un, Vladimir Putin and all of ISIS combined.

It was a ‘don’t mess with me’ moment to be sure in the wee hours of the morning…
all the while as my leg was on fire…
which got me singing Alicia Keys’ “this girl is on fire” in my head at 3AM…

I was relieved at first light…the mental madness would now come to an end as
the day and fire of leg would resume..

So, it’s back to square one…whatever square that is….
With the thought of me finding a nudist colony as the whole pants thing is not working
for my leg…
I’ll keep you posted at to what I find…

I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths,
from the realm of the dead.
Psalm 86:12-13

Go boldly where many dare not tread

The scripture is filled with examples of genuine masculinity;
you could mine David’s story for probably a year by itself.
And we have to get the masculinity of Jesus back.
Not the pale-faced altar boy, but the man that made a weapon and cleared the temple,
who boldly cast out demons and calmed the raging sea.
John Eldredge

(Blue Herron and sandpiper / Santa Rosa Beach, Fl / Julie Cook / 2016)

I often feel as if I am that lone voice, crying in the wilderness.
As I climb ever higher on this bully pulpit of mine.

I want to shout…

“HEY FELLOW CHRISTIANS….”
CAN YOU HEAR ME???

Or maybe I should clarify…

“HEY FELLOW AMERICAN CHRISTIANS…”

Sigh….

We have all been complicit and silent far too long..
As we look at the current state of this country…
It makes one just want to scream…

Have we all just simply lost our minds???

From the election madness
to racial division…

From immigration run amuck
to a rapid escalation in crime…

From our inner cities doubling as war zones
to our obsession with anything but our current mess…
think the whole Brad and Angelina crap….

From non citizens having more rights than citizens
to those who think only one color of life matters

I mean come on…

It is time for the average, decent Christian citizen to say NO MORE!!!!!

And why do I say Christian???
Because Christians know better.
Dosen’t mean they / we always do what they / we know is the right thing to do,
but deep down, they / we know better….

Who cares if John Lewis sits on the floor of the House in protest…
He can sit all day long.

Who cares if Colin Kaepernick sits, or raises his fist or kneels
during the National anthem…
He can be defiant and rude and disrespectful all day long…

All of those actions are easy…
But they don’t do anything except sew more discord, more alienation, more resentment
and more division…

The harder thing is to get up off the floor and up off the playing field by going into
those communities, those inner cities…
and actually talk face to face with those young black Americans…
who are angry…
and to those who continually commit crimes,
telling them that violence cannot continue begetting violence.

Because that is all that is happening.
And might it be added that no black life is any less nor anymore important
than any other color of life…
As those hard conversations have to happen “at home” before they can be carried forward.

Who cares if Hillary is a woman…
I am a woman…
and there are those who say that’s enough reason fro me to vote for her.
That is no reason.

Who cares if Madonna or Katy Perry take their clothes off publicly
as some sort of reason to get the vote for Hillary—
at last check, nakedness was never a reason to vote.

Hillary lies and that’s that.

Michele Obama can laud over her and sing her praises all day long
but Hillary has lied, continues to lie as she has allowed people to
be brutally tortured and murdered under her watch…
All the while as she continues claiming “no recollection” over email servers.

And why is all of that so quickly forgotten by both you and I?

Hillary supports abortion.

At last check, abortion and Christianity were at odds.

Lying and Christianity are at odds.
Murder and Christianity are at odds.

We should be sick of hearing “it’s my body, my choice”

At last check God gave me / you our bodies and said they were to be treated as a temple…
with respect and dignity…not willy nilly, however we felt…

Sleeping around, being irresponsible, putting wants and desires before sense and practicality
comes with repercussions…but we don’t like repercussions, or responsibility….
So we’ll be selfish in that regard and claim it’s our choice….

Who recalls God’s commandments coming with options?

Donald Trump is brash and arrogant, yet hasn’t spent life being groomed politically.
so when he shoots off at the mouth, well, he’s not use to having handlers prep him…

But he’s no prize either….

Conceit and arrogance, and cut throat business has never been in agreement with God’s word.

All of which has us in a mess!

I read somewhere this morning that someone was asked who they were going to vote for
and their response was very sobering….

“God.”
“I’m going to vote for God.”
“I’m going to write in His name…because He hasn’t lied and won’t lie”
“He actually loves America and all of her people and has been with us since the very beginning..
and His word is never ending….”

Made perfect sense.

Yet all of the Civil Liberty folks out there cringe at that notion.
All the atheists cringe at that notion
All the satanists cringe at that notion.
All the liberal folks cringe at that notion.

Because God’s word is pretty much the last and final word and we are living in a world that
doen’t want to buy into any other words but our own…

The BBC ran the following story today about one of the survivors in the deadly July attack on the Rouen priest by the two Islamic jihadists.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37505350

It’s just one more reminder, in a very visceral fashion, that we, who call ourselves Christians,
are perhaps not doing enough in this world of ours…that we have not, are not,
and for some reason, will not take a stand for God and our Christian faith…

It is time for us who claim Jesus Christ as our Savior to go forward…
forward to where most dare not tread.

Yet most folks now stand in fear….
fear of insulting others, as in fear of being not correct enough,
in fear of rocking the boat, as in fear of being ostracized
in fear of alienating ourselves, as in fear of being cut off.
in fear of drawing attention, as in fear of drawing the ire of the Muslim world.
as the fears continue on and on….

Be not afraid
Boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ…
Time is of the essence.

The wicked flee though no one pursues,
but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
Proverbs 28:1