What he knew and others chose to ignore. Déjà vu or simply a continuum? (let’s revisit this shall we?)

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,
an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Winston Churchill

(Winston Churchil /Casablanca, 1943)

Following the 2014 Winter Olympics hosted in Sochi, Russia–
the world was basking in the afterglow of global peace and harmony.
This collective sense of worldly kumbaya was found in the simple idea of
the competition of winter athletics.
Yet that sense of good cheer was quickly crushed when that year’s
Olympic hosts, that being Russia, boldly decided to invade neighboring
Ukraine. A sovereign nation.
And now once again, the world sits waiting and watching as a hungry ravenous bear
raises a massive deadly paw, poised to strike.
So given our times…be it 2014 or 2021, I offer this previous
post—not much seems to have changed in 7 years…

On March 21, 2014, with the sweeping act of a single pen, Valdimir Putin signed away Crimea, transforming a portion of Ukraine back to what was Soviet Russia. Changing the world map.

In 1938 Adolph Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia, with a similar sweeping act of a pen, known as the Munich Pact.
Changing the face of Europe forever.

This week, Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaite, who is attending a European Council meeting of the heads of state discussing the EU’s response to the situation in Ukraine, told a BBC reporter that we, the world, are sitting on the edge of a new Cold War.

In 1946, Winston Churchill, addressing Westminster College in Missouri, introduced the world to the phrase “iron curtain” just as the Cold War was rearing its ugly head.

(Churchill surveys the ruins of chamber of The House of Commons after
a German assault of the Blitzkrieg.)

(The smiles of Uncle Joe deceive, while a wise Winston is all too keen to true motives.)

(1943 Churchill addresses a joint session of Congress urging the American allies to remain steadfast, staying the course, in their “duty to mankind”)

Within the blink of an eye and the sweeping act of a pen,
the world changed this week.
The world map shifted as a piece of the free world was unimaginably
sucked back in time.
If we, the world, choose to simply remain as mere spectators,
change will continue–history teaches us such.

Winston Churchill was the lone voice of foreboding warning alerting
the World to the true motives of first, Adolph Hitler,
then those of Joseph Stalin.
Each time, the free world chose to ignore his words.
Words which were alarming, scary, troubling.
Who wanted to think of such?
Why should anyone worry,
it’s not like this was happening in the backyard of the US or
that the island nation of Great Britain would be affected.
That was all over there, not here—
these being our thoughts as we lulled ourselves into looking the other way.
Maybe it’s all just bravado and bluff.
We just want to live our lives.
We don’t want to dwell on bad things. . .

But then the bad things happened. . .

Each time, Churchill was correct.
And each time, the world was too slow to react.

I wonder what Churchill would say after this week’s blatant act of
“what’s yours is now mine” by Valdimir Putin?
I somehow think there’s an “I told you so” out there somewhere.

May we be mindful of our continuing duty.

(and on we go…once again…over and over and over…)

a harbinger

Come, fair repentance, daughter of the skies!
Soft harbinger of soon returning virtue;
The weeping messenger of grace from heaven.
Thomas Browne

(red amongst the summer green /Julie Cook / 2020)

Harbinger as a noun: something that foreshadows a future event:
something that gives an anticipatory sign of what is to come

Harbinger as a verb: to give a warning or prediction of

I’ve written about harbingers before and usually, those posts were related to changing
seasons and or weather.

However, when I was out in the yard, picking ripe tomatoes in the heat of an early August
afternoon, sweat dripping from my face…finding a fully red, fall-like leaf, sitting alone
and somewhat forlorn in the green parched yard of summer…well,
things seemed a bit out of sorts.

My thoughts were not of a coming Fall, along with the changing of leaves and cooling temps…
but rather my mind wandered elsewhere.

When I think of the word harbinger, I don’t think of a heralding of sorts but rather I think
of that which is more foreboding…as in ominous.

A shadowing of sorts.

Seems about right given our current state of affairs…

More on the subject soon…

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves,
and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14

ward of the state…

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance,
and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Sir Winston Churchill

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.
George Bernard Shaw

A ward of the State.

When we talk about wards of the State, what do you think of?

Perhaps no surprise, I immediately think of Annie…
as in “the sun will come out tomorrow”…Annie.
As in the little red-headed orphan who was, in essence, a ward of her state…

snoopnest.com

The definition of the ward of the state, according to legalbeagle.com is the following…
“Not all adults have the ability to care for themselves.
Whether from disability, disease or age, some adults are unable to make their own decisions without help.
They can become adult wards of the state when this happens.
Adult wards of the state don’t have adult family members who are willing or able to serve as guardians.
Guardians are instead appointed by the court from local government agencies to make decisions for them”.

In theory, I too was a ward of the state.

The day I was born, my mother signed the papers and in turn, walked directly out of the
hospital after having giving birth, while I then became a ward of the state—
all before my adoption.

So I get it.
I understand the notion of falling under the care of “the state.”

However my concern today, well past adoptions, is now for our Nation…
and the fact that so many of us seem to want to become wards of the “state.”

“Say what?” you ask…
“Who in the heck wants to be a ward???”
“A ward of the State?!”

But yet sadly, you have read correctly…
it appears as if a wide swarth of Americans want to become wards of the State.

As in giving up one’s ability to make it on one’s own, by one’s own merit,
and simply rest and relay upon one’s “State”— ie, one’s government…
relying on the government to care for us and to keep us up…and thus what does
the State requires in exchange?

Has history taught us nothing?!

Or perhaps the better question remains, do Americans really care?

Do Americans care whether or not they/we rely upon themselves/ourselves or rely upon their government
in order to provide for their needs?

Have we, as a people, not historically been known for our tenacity and fighting spirit
for all that exemplifies freedom??

Yet under a socialist state, citizens become wards of the State and therefore,
all their needs are covered, met and cared for..there is no need to fight for freedom.
They, in turn, become minions rather than fighters.

And so is that what we are?
Is that what we want?

As Americans, is that what we are–is that what we want?

We simply want to be minions?

Do we want to be placated underlings or do we want to be freedom fighters?

Do we want to be free to make our own choices?
Or do we simply want to give all of that up while simply being told what
we can or cannot do?

President Ronald Reagan quoting Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain noted that…
“The Founding Fathers were neither metaphysicians nor theologians,
but their philosophy of life and their political philosophy,
their notion of natural law and of human rights,
were permeated with concepts worked out by Christian reason.”
Reagan continued, “From the first, then, our nation embraced the belief that the individual
is sacred and that as God himself respects human liberty, so, too, must the state”

The Founders believed that freedom of religion and of conscience were both sacred–
more sacred than a man’s castle, as James Madison put it.
“The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man:
and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate,”
wrote Madson, who called conscience” the most sacred of all property.”
The Divine Plan / Paul Kengor and Robert Orlando

President Reagan, long before he was president, riled against the notion of an insidious
and far-reaching ‘state’ —a state that wants to not only care for the physical needs of its
people but a state that wants to make the final decision for man’s personal
relationship with his God.
As in there is no God…only the State.

In 1975, years before he became president, Reagan stated
“Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the spirit,”
“They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans,
treat you when you’re ill –
all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave.
But they don’t understand we also dream, yes, even of owning a yacht.”

It would behoove us to remember that the current folks running for the Democratic
party’s nomination are each touting the notion of the ‘big State’…
that being the big State making both your and me its wards…it’s minions.

Wards are not free but are rather dependant…as in totally dependent.

Dependance did not win us a Declaration of Independence.

Please click the following link which is a story about a prophetic warning.
A warning offered by Ronald Reagan, long before he was president…

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/paul-batura-ronald-reagan-warned-us-about-bernie-sanders-over-40-years-ago

(back to the Mayor and the Sheriff–the life lesson post must wait a bit more)

gee, haw…

“If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master’s presence.
And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your
heart back and place it again in Our Lord’s presence, though it went away
every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.”
St. Francis de Sales

(a pair of Belgium working horses on Mackinac Island / Julie Cook / 2017)

My husband and I hopped in the car the other evening, as we were getting ready to
head over to Atlanta to see our son and daughter-n-law…
and I don’t know what brought it up, but we got off on a small technology tangent.

Most likely what got us started was my wanting to turn on the seat warmers.
Temps had not reached above the freezing point all day, and now the sun was quickly
setting sending temperatures plummeting.
Needless to say, I’ve been mostly cold for the last two months.

My husband said, for no one in particular, “technology left me years ago…
it left me back with gee and haw…”

“GEE, HAW???!!!!” I practically shout before bursting out into full laughter.

For those of you unfamiliar with such words, Gee and Haw are the two words used with
working animals such as mules, draft horses, and even sled dogs.
Gee means for the mule, horse or dog to turn right
Shout ‘Haw,’ and the animal turns left.

My husband can remember as a little boy visiting his grandparents up in north
Georgia with his grandfather using mules to plow the fields.
He’d shout “Gee” then “Haw,” and those mules knew exactly which way to turn.
That was probably in the early 1950’s as rural Georgia was just that, still very rural.

We had actually heard the same terms used recently, this past summer when visiting
Mackinac Island as there are no vehicles on the island—only draft horses doing
everything from acting as the taxis to delivering UPS.
Gee.
Haw

Low tech.
And I must say, I for one, found it somewhat comforting.
It was actually really refreshing.

I know it, being technology, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon but instead will only be advancing…
And sadly so…
for technology has, if it hasn’t already, gotten entirely out of hand as well as a disaster
just waiting to happen…

This insatiable need of ours to see, to know, to hear, to tell everything instantaneously is a very dangerous false need.

It has created a very dangerous sense of profound falsehoods that most of us don’t even
realize.
For we are a people who are greatly dependent upon our technology—for even life
and death issues…

But let’s look at a couple non-life-threatening examples of when technology goes
awry…or perhaps just more of an irksome trouble.

During the busy Christmas shopping mayhem season, my husband’s internet randomly went out at his store. His is a busy retail
business, so when there’s a technology issue and his register goes out, or his credit card machine goes out, he loses money as people will walk out the door.

We spent hours on the phone with AT&T trying to find a person who was actually
“stateside” as we continued narrowing help down to Georgia, then down to our individual town.
That took hours of waiting and frustration. All the while the store is full of people
who want to be waited on and checked out.
We were told it would be days before they could get someone out to check out our problem.
Days was not an option.

In the meantime, we had to pull out the old-timey credit card swiper….remember
those low tech little machines?

A customer would lay their card down on top of a triple carbon copy slip
while the clerk swiped the little lever over the card and carbon paper. The
customer’s card info would be swiped and imprinted onto the carbon ticket.
The customer would then sign the swiped carbon slip as the clerk would then pull off
the customer copy while keeping the store copy…
then off went the happy customer with their purchase.

The old-timey swiping machine worked perfectly fine as we waited for the AT&T technician
to eventually make the trip to the store.
Turns out the internet was out for unknown reasons randomly in the shopping center…
the next time it went out, a week later, the technician sent us out get a new cable…

sigh…

Last evening we went to neighboring town for supper at a Craker Barrel.
I often crave Cracker Barrel’s simple homey fare offering of
good ol’ southern prepared food.
Chicken and dumplings, fried okra, spicy collard greens, southern style green beans…
or even their offering of breakfast for supper.
Plus they had a roaring fire going and we were fortunate to snag
a table by the fire.

When we’d finished our meal we took the bill out to the register to pay.
The line snaked all the way back into the dining area.
We figured they were low of help at the registers…
but that was not the issue.
Their card machines weren’t working probably and weren’t reading folks
debit or credit cards correctly.

Finally, as we made our way to a cashier, we told the manager we were going
to pay with something very novel…real money.

The manager was grateful and said he wished he had one of the old-timey
credit card swiper machines but since he was the oldest one on staff, he was the only
one who even knew what such a machine was…

Low tech.

Those are just a couple examples of small technological issues
of when things don’t work or go wrong.

Now let’s consider a bit larger trouble.

Saturday, a statewide alert went out in Hawaii, alerting the public that a ballistic missile was on its way to the Islands.
It was one of those Amber style alerts that went out on everyone’s phones.
It was not a drill and everyone needed to seek immediate shelter.
For those in Hawaii, it was the end of life as they had known it.

With North Korea’s 24/7 threats, threatening to send a nuclear warhead
in the direction of Japan, South Korea, Hawaii, or Alaska…well its all had everyone
a tad bit nervous…so Saturday, it seemed that the unthinkable was actually happening.

However…

The issued warning alert was in actuality incorrect.
It had been issued by mistake.
There was no missile, no need to duck and cover.
No need for immediate Last Rites.

I wonder how busy the ER’s were following the correction with those feigning a
possible heart attack?

So it should come as no surprise that we’ve gotten really good these days at lamenting,
“technology, it’s great when it works…not so much when it doesn’t…”

And yet I rather miss our low tech dealings during these waning days of ours…

Gee
Haw

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
Psalm 146:3

hard words

As fire is not extinguished by fire, so anger is not conquered by anger,
but is made even more inflamed.
But meekness often subdues even the most beastly enemies,
softens them and pacifies them.
Tikhon of Zadonsk

(icon image of St Tikhon of Zadonsk)

“It is a fearful thing to hate whom God has loved.
To look upon another–
his weaknesses, his sins, his faults, his defects–
is to look upon one who is suffering.
He is suffering from negative passions,
from the same sinful human corruption from which you yourself suffer.
This is very important:
do not look upon him with the judgmental eyes of comparison,
noting the sins you assume you would never commit.
Rather, see him as a fellow sufferer,
a fellow human being who is in need of the very healing of which you are in need.
Help him,
love him,
pray for him,
do unto him as you would have him do unto you.”
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

I caught this quote this morning while playing catch up reading over several blogs.
An Orthodox monk offered the quote and when I read that very first line,
its was if St. Tikhon reached out across space and time,
grabbing me by both shoulders while proceeding to shake me to consciousness.

“It is a fearful thing to hate whom God has loved….”

Whoa…
Ruminate over those words for a minute…letting them sink in…

“It is a fearful thing to hate whom God has loved…”

Not just that it is a fearful thing to hate, but he adds, whom God loves.
As in doubly significant…

It is an ominous observation that transcends time.

St. Tikhon was a Russian Monk who lived in a monastery in Zadonsk during the 18th century.
He is venerated as a saint within the Orthodox Church.
And his observational words are as timely today as they were in mid 1700’s Russia.

The wisdom of those who have trod the very earth of this planet prior to our own wanderings,
have much to offer those of us today struggling to manage our lives.

Have we as Christians not been told repeatedly that God loves each of us…
each last individual one of us???

All 7,465,271,925…of us
(click on the world population meter and this number will have grown considerably
by the time you are reading these words…
it is almost frightening how fast the counter rolls off number after number…
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ )

Turn on any television,
read andy news feed,
watch any current banter, particularly in the US,
and you will see right fast that there is very little if any love roaming about
this great Nation of ours.

Yet St. Tikhon tells us that it is a fearful thing, as in bad…as in really really bad,
not to love those whom God loves.

And don’t we know, aren’t we told that God loves everyone…
Not just Christians…but Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Muslims…

If you can name them, He loves them…
as well as those you can’t name.

Remember the words of the prophet…

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:5

Let that sink in.

He knew you…as in you and you alone….
and He knew me and all those people now around us…

He even knows and loves those who you now hold with great disdain….

let that sink in…

For whom you hold with disdain,
for whom you loath,
for whom you distrust,
for whom you can’t stand,
for whom you claim to hate…

He, in turn, knows and loves.

And now remember the words of the saint…

Help them
Love them
Pray for them

And love them as He loves you….

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath,
for it is written:
“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:18-21

The watchman has sounded the alarm

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
GK Chesterton

“Lord, I am willing to break MY heart that I might satisfy THY heart.”
Watchman Nee

Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.
Habakkuk 1:5

(a single spiraling stair leads downward at Bunratty Castle / County Clare, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

We are surrounded by an advancing diminishing light as shadows lengthen, growing heavy this very late hour.
The watchman perched high in his tower-stand has seen the ominous signs as the impending maelstrom now fast approaches…
Sounding his alarm, the warning falls flat on deaf ears.

The anxious watchman abandons his tower watch, racing downward from his helpless position. He races to alert the slumbering forces and bar the massive castle gate. Time is of the essence.
Slipping, almost falling down the damp cold worn steps, the watchman descends into the
encroaching vastitude of eternity.
Time no longer is gracious or kind.

Confusion reigns down havoc and chaos on the unsuspecting who now hurry about searching for protection.
“We thought it was all ok…
Everyone was happy…
Wasn’t that the point?”
Tolerance of everything, right?
No wrongs…everything being right…everyone was happy, there were no distinctions.
Everyone had things the way they wanted, what was so wrong with that?

The masses agonizingly lament as the sickening reality of appeasement and indifference comes painfully into focus.

Wailing and anguish join as one.
Yet the watchman alone knows the truth.
Hard choices of both right and wrong have crossed the invisible lines of distinction,
melding as one.
Just as young babies are first taught right from wrong…as the meaning of no, don’t and danger are drilled into their tiny heads, their adult defenders find themselves having forgotten those very meanings…

Somewhere along the way, wrong became ok.
The word sin was wiped from the books.
There was no longer regret as there was no longer a need of a conscious.

The ancient manuscripts, now dusty with disuse, were plain in their position and mandates.
The Word was spoken and the Law of the Creator stood firm.
Yet man became his own god and now the hour is late and shadows have fallen…

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
1 John 18-27