no politic

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot.
And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself.”
Mark Twain

“I predict future happiness for Americans,
if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people
under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Thomas Jefferson

(a street sign seen in the middle of nowhere/ Julie Cook / 2023

Driving on a rural road, somewhere between here and there, I spied this road sign…
“No Politic”

Not:
No Politician
No Politicians
No Politics
No Polity
No Political
No Poli-Sci
No Realpolitik
No Political Power
No Power
No Government
No Political Theory

but rather it’s pretty plain and simple… “No Politic”

Oh how the bombardment to our senses would be so vastly different if we
all opted for No Politic.

Not anarchical nor lawless but merely a deference of the politic.
Eschewing from the divisiveness hidden under the umbrella of what we
all know from today’s notion of politics.

Different, quiet, more clear and dare I say, more happy…
all without the current muck and mire of false narratives, the one sided narratives,
the divisions, the resentments, the lies, the schemes, the shenanigans, the constant
stirring of every proverbial existing pot…

All if we each opted for No Politic!!!

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving
be made for all people——for kings and all those in authority,
that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
1 Timothy 2:1-2

caricature of freedom

The church is not primarily a political organisation.
We’re a religious organisation.
There’s a much greater opportunity.
Cardinal George Pell

(bumble bee visits a purple cone flower/ Julie Cook / 2021)

caricature:
noun: caricature; plural noun: caricatures
a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking
characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.

verb: caricature; 3rd person present: caricatures; past tense:
caricatured; past participle: caricatured; gerund or present participle:
caricaturing make or give a comically or grotesquely exaggerated representation
of (someone or something).

“True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society,
which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever
and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality.
It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize
their lives with no reference to moral values,
and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection
and advancement of ethical values.
Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.”
Pope John Paul II

where ever shall we begin….

“If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice,
forgive him—lest there be two bad men.”
St. Augustine

(lovely treasures found along a morning walk /Julie Cook / 2021)

Each and every passing day I want to spout off my take on the
latest madness besieging our lives…
The idiocy of man…and woman…all playing out here in the US.

And each and every idiocy deserves its own epistle.

But there simply is no time in which to keep up with the
turning of the surreal wheels.

As soon as I could write about one thing, something else pops up
and the popping just keeps popping.

Critical Race Theory
Woke School Boards
Woke schools
Wokeness in general
US Education
US Representatives and their big ignorant mouths
Race
Political egos
Egos in general
A US president who, for our own saving grace, needs simply to
sail off to the sunset…taking that wife and son with him.
A vice president who is a silly little girl who simply needs
to be taken away…
Borders
Migrants
Immigrants
MS13
A culture hellbent on canceling most of the life we thought
we knew and loved….
The Media which really is no example of what true journalism is all about.
Vaccines and masks—nuff said
Propaganda
Faucism
Posers
Imposters
Lies
falsehoods
Madame Speaker
The Squad of imbeciles
American Flags
Disrespect
alternative history
triggers
emotions
tender feelings
adults being babies
immaturity
whimps
safe zones
feelings…nothing more than feelings…
Crime
More crime
violent crime
riots
protests
laws
what laws?
Help wanted
checks
Welfare state

on and on it goes…
there is no time to start on one topic before another topic
steals the spolight.

and wouldn’t you know it…
The Mayor and Sheriff are coming to spend the majority of the week
with Mom and Da while Mommy and Dada go on a much needed bit of R & R
Which in turn means you must pray for Mom and Da!!!!

Heck…let’s just all pray now–cause prayer is about all any of us
still really have left…

I think I’ll just take my chances with the ensuing heat, humidity
and cicadas—at least those three things are brutally honest

“To love God’s will in consolations is a good love when it is truly
God’s will we love and not the consolation wherein it lies.
Still, it is a love without opposition, repugnance, or effort.
Who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form?
To love God’s will in His commandments, counsels,
and inspirations is the second degree of love and it is much more perfect.
It carries us forward to renounce and give up our own will,
and enables us to abstain from and forbear many pleasures, but not all of them.
To love suffering and affliction out of love for God
is the summit of most holy charity.
In it nothing is pleasant but the divine will alone;
there is great opposition on the part of our nature;
and not only do we forsake all pleasures,
but we embrace torments and labors.”
St. Francis de Sales, p. 76

when change is needed

When we are no longer able to change a situation –
we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl

For the last couple of days my posts have centered on, firstly,
the notion of tradition.
That thought then lead to the notion of change.
And not that I believe tradition needs to change…
quite the contrary.

But then the news hit close to home Monday when a friend’s husband, who happens
to be a police officer and was responding to an all-call for officers in the county
to respond to an immediate need to render aid to the Georgia State Patrol who were
actively involved with a high speed chase and shots being fired.

My friend, her husband the officer and their teenage son’s lives
have now changed forever.

The following link is to an Atlanta news station offering a video of one of
the suspects firing at other officers responding to the call following the shooting
of my friend’s husband.

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/video-suspect-seen-firing-multiple-rounds-directly-at-officers

These types of incidents are happening all over our country.
A police officer stops a car for a minor traffic offense and
suddenly the stop escalates into utter violence.

The driver and passengers pull out firearms and decide, rather than deal with
what would have been a routine traffic stop, they opt to shoot and run.

Why is that?

Law enforcement all over our country seem to have bullseyes on their backs.

But again, why is that?

Of course we are hearing the masses cry out that the police are targeting minorities.
That the police are profiling.
That the police are brutal.
And I’d agree that not all officers are good.
But the majority are good.
They are doing a job that is taken seriously.

And we, you and I, are the better for it.

So what would have precipitated all this negative thinking?
What has precipitated all the violence directed toward law enforcement
who are out simply doing their job?
What of this defund the police movement?

While all of this madness was swirling in my head, I happened upon the latest thinking by Newt Gingrich…but what does Newt know…he’s just some old white guy…

Consider these indicators that our civilization is beginning to fall apart.

Several days of looting and rioting in Minnesota have occurred even as a trial of a former policeman is underway proving the rule of law works.

A policeman is killed during a car stop in New Mexico, and our elites ignore the murder. In fact, Mayor Mike Elliott of Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis said in the middle of the rioting: “I don’t believe that officers need to necessarily have weapons, you know, every time they—they’re—they’re making traffic stop or engaged in situations that don’t necessarily call for weapons.”

There is a war on police underway with 264 killed in 2020, a jump of 96 percent over the previous year. In New York City, hostile forces use Molotov cocktails to set police cars on fire. Murder rates are skyrocketing around the country with 2020 the biggest one-year jump in homicides in American history – 36.7 percent.

Faced with aggressive criminal behavior and violence against innocent people – including young children being killed – Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib calls for “no more policing, incarceration and militarization.” Ironically, Rep. Tlaib represents Detroit. According to the City of Detroit’s 2020 Crime Report, there were 327 homicides in 2020, up from 275 the previous year – a 19 percent increase. There were 1,173 non-fatal shootings in 2020. This is up from 767 the previous year, which is a 53 percent increase.

In Seattle, Portland, and Milwaukee, no-go zones similar to those in France have been created which are effectively localized secessions from the United States.

Portland continues to be attacked nightly by anarchists. Despite pious statements by public officials, no effective action is underway to restore law and order.

In San Francisco, the declaration by the communist district attorney that theft under $900 will not be prosecuted has led to so much shoplifting that Walgreens is closing all 10 of its drugstores in the city.

The threat to American civilization goes far beyond violence in the streets.

Woke CEOs who refuse to condemn genocide and police state tyranny in China are quick to attack Georgia – even though President Joe Biden was just plain wrong (perhaps lying) about the state’s new election law. Moving the All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado hurts Black small businesses (there are eight times as many employees of Black-owned businesses in Georgia than in Colorado). Furthermore, Colorado’s current voting laws are stricter than Georgia’s new ones. For the woke, it is virtue signaling – not fact – which matters.

The television establishment systematically lied to defeat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. CNN’s Charlie Chester recently asserted: “I came to CNN to be a part of that. Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out…I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that.”

Of course, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC would dispute any CNN claim that it alone defeated Trump. The two papers won Pulitzer Prizes for lying about Trump.

Traditional media hostility and dishonesty are overshadowed by the internet giants, who are increasingly acting like Russian oligarchs. They are trying to erase a leader who was supported by more than 75 million Americans with a ruthlessness worthy of Soviet tyranny and the Chinese Communist Party.

Crony capitalism is becoming bolder as big government and big business reinforce each other at the country’s expense.

Overt racism through race-based reparations, school quotas, and anti-white and anti-male curricula are a return to government-fueled discrimination and segregation.

Finally, when the state of California is considering requiring students to chant every day to an Aztec god who was the center of a human sacrifice cult, there are sound reasons to believe American Civilization is in crisis.

If we are going to remain America, we must oppose the forces trying to destroy us.

The Crisis of American Civilization

The real enemy is already vanquished…for good

“But since the adversary does not cease to resist many,
and uses many and diverse arts to ensnare them,
that he may seduce the faithful from their faith,
and that he may prevent the faithless from believing,
it seems to me necessary that we also,
being armed with the invulnerable doctrines of the faith,
do battle against him in behalf of the weak.”
Justin Martyr (St. Justin),
Fragments of the Lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection

(detail from Caravaggio’s The Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Dei Palafrenieri) 1605)

I have always loved the works of Caravaggio—his play with dark, light and the juxtaposition of space.
Such skills helped to create a dramatic punctuation—effects found in many of his paintings.
Such skillful drama was only highlighted by Caravaggio’s own personal torment and
living the life of a rounder, rapscallion and wanted criminal.

Lots of symbology rests in this particular painting of The Madonna and Child with St. Anne

(Galleria Borghese, Rome)

An unusual image yet one that is both visceral and powerful.

I personally like the imagery of both mother and son, Mary and a young Christ,
each stomping the head of the snake.
It is an allegorical take on Christ’s victory over Satan.
And with Mary’s initial yes to God, she became privy to that very victory.

However it would indeed pierce, if not nearly breaking, her heart before there would be
that final Glory.

I can’t help but think about this image while watching our nation’s news play out in front of us.

With this second impeachment of former President Trump, as a taxpayer, I have been rather incensed.
Because if you are an able body with a pulse, you and I are paying taxes…
and these taxes of ours are helping to pay for political shenanigans.

The former President, along with us taxpayers, have been in this same spot not long ago.
It was a political circus act then, a wasteful black hole of time, energy and our money—
just like it was this past week.
A cheap and tawdry fictional paperback novel masquerading as a real political process.

So one would hope and think that with his having been voted back into normal private life,
that would be the end of our troubles with our rabid political leadership’s fraudulent
spending of ‘we the people’s’ money.
Yet sadly that has not the case.
Being returned to private life is not enough.

So the image of someone who is terrified of snakes,
who has taken a hoe to the head of said snake,
chopping off the head yet not being satisfied with the notion of the head being severed
and thus the snake being dead, continues to pound at and chop up the snake just to be
satisfied that that is indeed to end of the snake.

So don’t get me wrong— I’m not saying the former president is some sort of serpent,
contrary to what many may think.
And no, I’m not saying that there is a correlation to Jesus crushing Satan in any of this
political fiasco…it’s just that I can’t help but picture in my mind some crazed person
with hoe in hand, beating and chopping an obviously dead snake…adding an exclamation point
to the end of said snake…much like our political leaders—as in enough just isn’t enough.

However…the wonderful moral to this, as well as to all stories, is that politicians, snakes,
fiascos, lies, taxes, politics, republicans, democrats, presidents, pandemics, etc, all aside..
it that the victory, in the end, is indeed ours— Jesus has crushed Satan and in the
end we, both you and me, win.

So Jesus has no need to beat a dead horse—He’s already won… and in turn—so have we!

For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.

Deuteronomy 20:4

Birds of a feather

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”
Emily Dickinson

(a great pictures of happy turkeys caught on my husband’s trail cam / 2020)

Ok…if you’re feeling like I’m feeling, you’ll agree that life has gotten
really really heavy.

A crushing weight rests on our shoulders.

Pandemics.
Politics.
Elections.
Civil unrest.
A roller-coaster stock market.
Football is a mess…

Every political voice currently hitting the airwaves is rising in a crescendo of volume
as they speak of all sorts of apocalyptic happenings come November.

Take today.
The gal who cuts my hair was making me a new appointment and it so happened to fall
on November 4th…
I asked her…”do you think we will all still be in one piece on November 4th?”
She responded, “probably not, but I’ll pencil you in, just in case.”

And so when I saw the picture of those turkeys on that trail cam, I laughed out loud.
Turkeys so excited that it’s almost November and it won’t be Turkey season in
Georgia until March…no Thanksgiving table for these birds…

Enjoy it while you can they seem to be saying.
So yes, let’s enjoy life…while we can.

Always be impartial and just in your deeds.
Put yourself into your neighbor’s place, and him in yours,
and then you will judge fairly . . .
Frequently, therefore, examine your heart, whether it is so disposed towards your neighbor,
as you would have his disposed towards you, were you to change places;
for this is the true test.”
St. Francis de Sales, p. 226
An Excerpt From
Introduction to the Devout Life

mob rule

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom,
can never be restored.
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams

Once upon a time according to Roman rule, in order to help keep the peace during
the Jewish festival of the Passover, the acting governor over the Roman province
of Judaea,in this particular case being Pontius Pilate,
offered a frenzied mob the right to choose which Roman prisoner should be released…

Two political prisoners– one being a revolutionist, zealot and murderer while the other
was an assumed provocateur accused by the leading Jewish elders of such treasonous acts
of healing on the Sabbath, sorcery,
exorcising demons and threatening to destroy the Temple as well as claiming
to be “king of the Jews”.

So would it be Jesus, the presumptive son of God, or would be it Jesus Barabbas,
a son of the world–a son of Satan?

And yes, a little known fact…according to ancient historians,
Barabbas was most likely named Jesus Barabbas…as Jesus was a common name.
“Barabbas means, ’son (bar) of the father (abba)’.
Two Jesus’, one whose father is God and one whose father is Satan.
The people condemned Jesus the Son of God to be crucified and set free the Jesus
who is a son of Satan.””https://truthspeaker.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/give-us-barabbas-2/

Jesus Barabbas and Jesus Christ,
represent a clear choice as far as our spiritual destiny is concerned.
Each represents a different kingdom and a different way of entering that kingdom.
Jesus Barabbas represents the kingdom of this world, meaning trying to find salvation in this world.
This kingdom is entered through human efforts, specifically through the use of human power,
including violence.
Jesus Christ represents the kingdom of God which we enter in meekness through faith.
We must realize that there are no other alternatives for our spiritual destiny.
Every person who ever lives will either choose the one called Barabbas–the kingdom of this world–
or the one called Christ–the kingdom of God.”
“The Clear Choice: Jesus or Barabbas”
By P.G. Mathew, M.A., M.Div., Th.M.

Barabbas sought to bring liberty to the Jews through National Zionism.
Jesus Christ brought liberty to all men through his humbling himself unto death
and thereby establishing his Kingdom in the hearts of men, redeeming them from this fallen world.

“The liberation that anti (instead of) Christ brings comes through the political systems
of this world “He was a political animal who believed in self-redemption,
not in redemption through a messiah. The Bible calls him an insurrectionist,
using a Greek word that means one who rises up against the existing authority and institutions–
a seditionist, in other words.
Barabbas had no interest in trusting in the coming Messiah.
He wanted to become the savior of the Jewish people through rebellion and attempted
to liberate them from the yoke of Rome through political means.”
“The Clear Choice: Jesus or Barabbas” By P.G. Mathew, M.A., M.Div., Th.M.

2000 years later, the frenzied mobs continue demanding the liberation of a kingdom…
yet it is the kingdom of this world.

History teaches us that liberation found in the salvation of worldly pursuits is
fruitless.

We have been warned—

“You adulterous people!
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
James 4:4

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke

The world is flat…is that really a good thing?

“This sort of thing reduces my mind to a pulp.
I can faintly resist when a man says that if the earth were a globe, cats would not have four legs;
but when he says that if the earth were a globe, cats would not have five legs I am crushed.”
G.K. Chesterton

(Live Science / Image: © Shutterstock)

Not sure where Chesterton was going with the 4 legged vs 5 legged cat thing but
no, this isn’t a post about flat earthers vs round sphere folks.

As far as I’m concerned, the earth is a lovely white and blue-green orb diligently orbiting
around its sun.
Orbiting happily along with it’s fellow 7 or 8 planets,
depending on where you are regarding camp Pluto.
Throw in several moons along with the occasional asteroid…
and it’s a pretty merry little solar system.

So 4 and 5 legged cats aside, what I’m talking about today is something
rather odd..it’s from a conversation I once endured…
and yes, it is odder than the notion 4 vs 5 legged cats.

It was a comment that came from a man who considered himself some sort
of a global authority.
He was a doctor at Emory University and was a most arrogant individual who
I had the distinct displeasure of dining with.

There I sat in a small restaurant, in a small north Georgia town,
back in 2007 for more than over an hour munching on a poor excuse for pasta.
I was listening to a loud pompous man extolling the virtues of how our children
(our two sons who were supposed to be college roommates at the time) who were, in his mind
at the time, a part of the generation who were to be living in this brave new flat world.

If he said flat earth once, he said it a thousand times.

At the time, I had to jiggle my head in order to get my eyes from sticking
to the top of my head.

It was that same sense of brain irritation experienced when our school system jumped
on the paradigm shift thinking bandwagon…the word paradigm was the “it” word
for about two years…I felt as if we shifted so much that we actually tied ourselves in knots.
New thinking knots, but knots none the less.

So during this ‘get to know one another’ dinner, this doctor expert went on and on
as he extolled how exciting it was that our sons were to now be a part of this great exciting
global flatness.

It was, however, the underlining of what his grandiose grandstanding actually meant…
it meant that the world was now a place of quick and readily available communication and travel.
Instant communication, instant availability, instant information…
all readily available at the touch of a button or from the hoping on a plane.

Skyping, video conferencing, texting, red-eye flights whisking us from one side of the
world to the next.
In the blink of an eye, we could all be readily and rapidly connected.
We could live in one city while working in another while connecting with a partner
on a global scale all within a matter of moments.

We were now moving about our very round world as easily as we could within our own home.
How grand.
How exciting.
How empowering.

And that revelation, which was issued 13 years ago, came racing back to my thoughts today
as I pondered this latest illness that is making the global rounds.

Coronavirus.

I am currently nursing my “jamesitis” —my current 31 flavors of illnesses named for my grandson…
all because I kept him last week while he was sick and in turn, I am now sick with what he had.

A small microcosm of the matter of how what one person has is readily passed to another person.

Our flat world makes it all so quick and easy to pass and to share…
sharing a great deal more than simple information.

We readily share our germs just as we readily share our thoughts, words, hopes, and dreams.

So why do we act so surprised?
Why do we seem so aghast over the fact that this virus is jumping from nation to nation,
all within the blink of an eye, when we readily hopscotch from nation to nation.

Germs spread just as quickly as our fastest speedily mode of transportation.

Our foods, our products, our wants, our desires all crisscross our globe
in the blink of an eye.
FedEx, UPS, the Postal service, DHL…we click, we ship and in turn we receive
within hours.

So why do we act as if this latest illness is a plague sent by Moses to shake
Pharaoh’s resolve?

We have allowed a cousin of the common cold to take our economy to its knees.
Our news media has cast the death knell.
We must don masks, bath in hand sanitizer and put bells around the necks of the infected.

It is certainly not my intention to make light of the seriousness of an illness…
When one is sick, there is nothing worse and it as if nothing exists outside of
that illness.

However, I do worry about the hype, the misconceptions and the malicious use of an illness
by those who do not have the best interest of the ill at heart.

It would not be the first time that an illness or misfortune was used by some
of the more insidious among us in order to produce some sort of twisted gain
or step up.

A flat world means a more traversed world.
And with a greater means to traverse…we must, therefore, take both the good
and the bad with such desired traversing.

There should be no surprise.
No mystery.

The germs come along, hand in hand with the business deals, the travel dreams
and the long-sought goods of commerce.

Now it’s up to us to cull the panic and equip our moving world with the
means to keep moving.

We must be smart.
We must execute educated caution but we must not give in to the
news lead mania of demise.

Could demise be political gain or ruin?
Could demise be economic gain or ruin?
Could demise be humankind’s gain or ruin?

Despite our desire for flatness, we are still round.
We have our vulnerabilities…for we are just human you know, not gods as we so
wish within our excitement for flatness.

This is not the plague…
But yet is it not exposing an Achilles heel?
Does it not expose our weaknesses or perhaps our strengths?
Does it not reinforce our wants versus our needs?

We are round yet our desire is for flatness…

We must always understand the costs that come with our wants.
We never worry about such until it is nearly too late.
How many more chances will be afforded before we either get it right…or not?

The Spirit and the Bride say,
“Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them,
God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city,
which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says,
“Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 22:17-20

humility as viewed through the lens of football

“As long as you are proud you cannot know God.
A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course,
as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”
C.S. Lewis

What is humility?
And why does it matter?

Here are several definitions I found online:

A modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness.

A disposition to be humble; a lack of false pride

Freedom from pride or arrogance: the quality or state of being humble

I really like the last definition…

The first definition has a bit of a ring of self-martyrdom to it.
The second one seems to be left to one’s birth personality leanings…
meaning you’re either born with it or not.

But that last one…
that last one speaks of ‘a freedom from’…

There is a great sense of release in that notion for sure.

For there’s almost a sense of ‘a lifting’ or ‘a removing of’
along with a ‘healing from’.

For to be free of something is liberating…it means you are no longer bound,
as in nothing is binding.
And there is certainly tremendous gratitude found in that!

So it seems that no matter how one slices it, humility is a lacking of arrogance
and false pride….it is also very low key.
All of which is both freeing and liberating…

Humble people tend to be low key and quiet.
They tend to shy away from the limelight…as in they have no use for such.
They prefer to stay quiet in the background.

They don’t tout themselves as this or that but rather yield to the others around them.
They eschew the spotlight…or really any sort of attention for that matter.

This notion of humility has come to the front of my thoughts recently
in part because Atlanta’s news has been all abuzz all weekend over the former
NFL football player Colin Kaepernick’s very much publicized staged workout in town…

From all outward appearances, this seems to be a staged last-ditch effort by a
young man and “his people” to draw the attention of the League’s teams,
owners and coaches to the fact that he is still very much ready to play…
playing for anyone who might ask.
He wants everyone to know he’s still viable and marketable.

But is he really?
And is this the true impetus behind this latest media-driven public spectacle?
Is he sincere?

I can’t remember a single player ever going to such extreme efforts
to get teams to reconsider him as a potential player.

And if this media spectacle wasn’t surreal enough, at the last minute,
Kaepernick changed the location just prior to the scheduled event leading
to confusion rather than the simplicity of simply showcasing his physical talents.

Was it just another issue of who is and who is not in control?

There are plenty of disappointed players out there who have been cut,
let go or who have gone undrafted for a myriad of reasons…

Professional sports are a fickled business.
As cutthroat comes to mind.

There are tons of players who continue working out, attending open practices, etc,
all in hopes of getting just one more shot.

Even big-name players such as Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel obviously come to mind—
Two very different players who were let go and yet did not want to be let go.

Tebow never seemed to get a fair shake…of which I suspect his
very open Christian faith might have had a lot to do with that…
And Manziel, well he simply burned his bridges with his continued drug use and
bad-boy behavior.

Bad-boy behavior becomes a liability in a business dominated by fans.
As in the fans are the ultimate bosses.
When fans pay to come and support a team…money flows.
When fans don’t pay to come and opt not to support a team, the money stops.
Ratings drop, players, opt to leave, as a team then becomes toxic.

No money, no revenue…
No revenue, no pay for salaries.
Maybe if salaries weren’t in the millions, this might not be such a problem.
Liabilities don’t generate revenue.
Arrogant players tend to become liabilities.

Former Steelers and Raiders player Antonio Brown comes to mind.

I just can’t seem to recall any player who has ever created their own media circus
in an attempt to force the hand of the League with the ‘hire me or else’ tactic other
than Colin Kaepernick.

I never cared for Johnny Manziel, even when he was a college player,
all because of his blatant self-destructive arrogance.

He quickly found out that the League didn’t care for it either.
The Canadian League gave him a chance but he still wants back in the NFL.

Tebow, well, he remains a bit of an anomaly regarding his playing.
Once he figured out his football days were seemingly over, as no one really wanted
to give him a real chance, he opted for baseball…
but he didn’t seem to fare any better there.

So yes, there are tons of former players, well known as well as unknown,
who would love to be able to afford their own personal very public media-hyped workouts
in an attempt to strong-arm a League,
but either they can’t or more importantly, won’t.

And maybe humility has something to do with some of that.

Some might argue that tooting one’s own horn is a must in professional sports.

Yet when you’re a sports figure who uses your job (because that’s just what it is, a job)
as a platform for your own personal political views and personal agendas…well then
that is a case of exploitation…
exploiting your work platform for your own personal desires…
Forcing a captive audience, the fans, to endure your selfish antics.

You are no longer a team player but rather a self-centered individual
allowing your on-field antics rather than performance to become an extension to a soapbox
for something so much other than what you are there for…
for athleticism and finesse on a playing field.

A humbled person might see such and reconsider how best to promote a personal agenda…
An arrogant person, on the other hand, is so self-absorbed that they have quickly lost touch.

We see this constantly with our politicians as well as with our entertainers…
just as we now see such in our professional athletes.
No area of our lives seems free of hubris.

It would be so nice to have some places in our lives that remain a-political.
Places of quiet that remain low key.
Places where we can just enjoy a game for the game’s sake… or a concert or even a simple
trip to the mall without being victimized by those who push their envelopes in our faces.

Our souls are so thirsty for the humble.

We hunger for places where there are no spotlights, no news media,
no glaring social media blitzes.
No one screaming “look at me”–

Arrogance and self-absorption dominate our lives.
Yet we readily feed into this very trend every time we feel the need to post our latest images
of ourselves doing whatever it is we do, thinking the world needs to see what we do.
The question however is, does the world really care or is it rather ourselves who are
the ones who care?

It would behoove us to seek the humble, the quiet and the lowly.
Our souls are in dire need of such.
For our souls are parched and need refreshing…

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted.”
Luke 14:11 ESV

crisis of faith or living faith…a choice

In a speech to the Roman Curia on December 22, 2011, Benedict XVI
reflected that
“The essence of the crisis of the Chruch in Europe is the crisis of faith.
If we find no answer to this…then all other reforms will remain ineffective.”
The Day is Far Spent / Cardinal Sarah

(a lone turkey feather lost in the woods / Julie Cook / 2019)

When Joseph Ratzinger speaks about a “crisis of faith”,
we should understand that he is not talking in the first place about an
intellectual or theological problem in the academic sense of the word.
He means a “living faith”, a faith that imbues and transforms life.
“If faith does not take on new life, deep conviction and real strength
from the encounter with Jesus Christ,” Benedict XVI added that day,
“then all other reforms will remain ineffective.”

This loss of the sense of faith is the deep root of the crisis of civilization
that we are experiencing.

As in the first centuries of Christianity, when the Roman Empire
was collapsing, all human institutions today sem to be on the
path of decadence.
Reflections between people, whether political, social, economic, or cultural,
are becoming difficult.
In losing the sense of God, we have undermined the foundation of all
human civilization and opened the door to totalitarian barbarity.

Human beings, separated from God, are reduced to a single dimension—
the horizontal—
and this reduction itself is one of the fundamental causes of the various forms
of totalitarianism that have had tragic consequences in the past century,
as well as the crisis of values that we see in the current situation.

By obscuring the reference to God the ethical horizon has also been obscured,
to leave room for relativism and for an ambiguous conception of
freedom which, instead of being liberating, ends by blinding
human beings to idols.

The temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness before his public ministry
vividly symbolize which “idols” entice human beings when they do not
go beyond themselves.
Were God to lose his centrality man would lose his rightful place,
he would no longer fit into creation, into relations with others
Pope Benedict XVI
Nov 14, 2012