The art of how to or how not…

The God of all mercy teaches us that our vocation is to learn to love
and also to be able to love after the image and in imitation
of the Most Holy Trinity.
Christ, therefore, is situated at the heart of marital and family life,
in other words, at the heart of the gestures and the attitudes of
the husband toward his wife, and vice versa,
of the father and the mother of the family toward their children—
which you seek to put into practice in trust and in truth.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

(the Mayor struggling with the art of the fondue / Julie Cook / 2021)

In yesterday’s post, I noted that I had not kept up with the news during our
small family’s recent little getaway.
A smart and delightful choice I might add.

And thus, upon our return home, I foolishly thought that I needed to play
a bit of catch-up.

So of course there was the story about the plane full of smug, arrogant
and really stupid Democrats who thought they were running away from Texas,
setting their sights on being liberated in Washington D.C.

But what it really was…was a plane full of super-spreaders of Covid.
So why do we vote for such people…??
I digress.

And then there was and is the continuing migrant story…
but where do we start with that one???
Covid, welfare, gangs, sex trafficking, drugs…
Simply not enough time.

Then there was the typical story of hostility in The House between
Dems and Republicans.
A bipartisan panel to look into that House infiltration fiasco…
HA..bipartisan…that’s a good one!
But what’s new???

And of course there was the story about Dr. Fauci proclaiming that we
all need to mask up again…vaccine or not.
But maybe it’s more about the haves and the have nots.

Yet Dr. Fauci now wants us to mask our toddlers…
wee ones who will be heading to pre-school and or daycare.
So hear me now as I channel my best Charlton Heston voice…
NOT ON MY WATCH–NOT MY GRANDCHILDREN!
And no, NO SHOTS for toddlers.
We simply don’t know enough.
Perhaps that shall be one of my many mountains to perish upon.

And once again, there was the continuing story about CRT.
That idiotic ideology which I referenced yesterday.
How to teach about not being a racist…
Lets set people apart, teach them about shame, teach them about resentment,
teach them about angst and anger—those are some really powerful
kumbiya thoughts…right????
Eyes rolling.

And now there’s this latest story about the White House promoting the
Abolitionist Teaching Network whose desire is to “disrupt whiteness”…

What in the heck is that all about???

So let me backup to where we really need to be with this whole
education thing.

If you want to go backwards, which it seems the woke folks are bent on…
let’s go back to what actually worked back in the beginning…

God.
Prayer.
The Ten Commandments.
Faith.
Family.

That pretty much covers all of this lunacy in a nutshell!
Go back to those particular key components and all this fiasco will
finally be righted.

Righted only if those 5 things fall back into their original place…
then and only then will we ever have some sense of normalcy and peace….
otherwise it’s Katie bar the door—
all Hell is about to break loose and I mean hell with a big H…
as in literally.

Love, by its essence, involves a leap into the unknown, a death to oneself,
because genuine love is a love that loves to the end.
And to love to the end means to die for those whom you love.
Robert Cardinal Sarah
From his book Couples, Awaken Your Love!

don’t walk around with a bucket on your head

“By slow, thoughtful watching, you can gain much,
as against working up a wild, panicky condition.”
Ernest Vincent Wright, Gadsby

The Mayor thought that putting her toy bucket on her head and walking through the house
was a good idea.

It was fine for a while…

It was all fine and good until she ran into the Sherrif and knocked him over.

So there is indeed a moral to the tale of the Mayor’s haphazard choice…
actually, there are probably several morals.

But the one thing I’m finding as somewhat reflective of the times in which we now live…
is that The Mayor is not the only person walking around with some sort of
a bucket on her head.

The difference is that we just can’t see the buckets on the heads of those
caring little for those they tend to be running into or over whereas we
can clearly see the Mayors.

The Mayor, we hope, would not intentionally plow over her younger brother
when seeing him clear as day.
However, there are so many of our fellow human beings who are not wearing buckets
on their heads, blocking their vision, but who are none the less plowing into
and over their fellow members of humankind…and the thing is they don’t care.

Now granted the Mayor may not have cared too much about running over her
younger brother…that is until she was scolded…then she really cared.

Sadly today our fellow man, or woman, scolded or not, cares not.

We’ve witnessed this plowing into and over one another,
pretty much daily for the past four years, all because we are a deeply divided country.

Our fellow countrymen, and women, show very little care
or concern for those who are on the opposing side of not just politics but
on opposing sides of pretty much everything in life in general.

For example, Mr. Biden has spoken of a mandate given to him by the people…
what with his win of the White House.
Now since that win has not been officially verified by the powers that be, that
kind of talk is slightly premature.
This has been a razor-thin election, once again.

Mandates are not found in near 50 50 votings.
50 50 is a near-perfect split…mandates tend to come
from landslide results.
The masses demanding their will.

We have a split of the masses on two varying sides with each vying for their
own mandate…and they, we, you, me will continue plowing into one another until
that mandate of choice is met.

Something has got to give…

I believe a Divine scolding is in order…

Get ready, because that scolding is coming.

What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
Isaiah 10:3

Satan rejoices…as thuggery reigns supreme

“We are placed in our different ranks and stations,
not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him.
As Christ has worked, we too have but to labor in them for Him.
As Christ has His work, we too have ours;
as He rejoiced to do his work, we must rejoice in ours also.”
St. John Neumann

(Law Enforcement Today—images of Atlanta on fire…agian)

Satan rejoices…plain and simple.

This thought raced across my mind as I watched, along with the world,
the sheer horror of what had been happening in Minnesota.
A city of civil unrest and a city on fire.

All a result, once again, by another death of a black man in police custody.
Forget that he was in custody for having committed an offense or crime.

Ode to the choices we make.
Ode to the repercussions of our choices.

All the officers involved were immediately found guilty in the court of social media
as the Mayor openly wept on television over what seemed to be a near intentional
killing by some of his city’s police officers.

As the recorded incident spread like wildfire on all things social media,
the ire of mob rule was reawoken and unleashed upon a weary nation.

Pandemic…What pandemic?

A tidal wave of angst-driven hate rolled across Minneapolis, just like any
life-destroying tsunami does—it covered the land in a maelstrom of total destruction.

That same maelstrom, otherwise known as civil unrest,
came washing down to Atlanta, as well as several other major US cities…
even up to the gates of the White House.

It came with the same selfish looting, destruction of property, and raging fires—
all telltale signs of true unbridled anarchy.

The results of banal animal behavior.

It is what we have come to accept as commonplace when social media sends out her tentacles
of half understanding, assumptions, and soundbites.

I just happened to be in Atlanta babysitting when the city of my birth
was once again, set a-light.

(the irony of liberal based CNN under seige)

Atlanta is familiar with burning.
She is known as the city of the legendary Phoenix as she always rises up from
the ashes of death.

I’m not so certain she can continue doing so when it is now her own people
turning on her for no real reason, burning her from within.

But is it really her own people or is it the various organized militant groups
such as Antifa and Black Lives Matters?
Groups who have their own agenda and not the agenda of comfort and solace
to the family of George Floyd.

No…
the fires, the looting and the destruction of property are not showings of solidary
with the death of George Floyd, or for any of those who preceded Mr. Floyd,
those who were also killed at the hands of police officers…regardless of crime, resistance
obstruction or pure innocence.

Andrew Young, former Atlanta Mayor, US Ambassador, but more importantly
Civil Rights icon, lamented last night while watching the Atlanta riots,’
‘I’m thinking I want to cry’

And I think we all want to cry.

Because the truth in all of this is that the young people who are ranting and raging
across this nation, care not about Andrew Young nor of the sacrifices he endured alongside
Martin Luther King for the betterment for young black men and women, they care about nothing.

This boiling anger is not about justice or injustice.
It is not about civil rights.
It is not about a peaceful approach to wrongs endured.

It is plain and simple…about hate.
Hate of self and hate of others.

And one of the greatest crimes in all of this?

Our elected officials have capitulated…they have given into the anarchy.
They are allowing anarchy to play out before all of our eyes
as they lament their, and in turn, our appeasement to these
hate-filled masses—a yielding at all costs to the demanding and
voracious hate-filled animal within…naively thinking such capitulation will
satiate this monster known as hate.

Colin Kapernick, the infamous football player turned anthem kneeler,
has offered to pay for the defense of the rioters in Minneapolis
calling them “freedom fighters.”

Freedom fighters are our men and women
who serve in our armed forces…those who put their lives on the line
for our own lives and freedom…not the anarchists or looters, or arsonists…

We speak of laws, yet the rioters’ and anarchists we are seeing across our
televisions believe in but one law…the law of hate.

The Old Testament extolled the virtues of the Laws.

The Book of Exodus has a long list of Jewish Laws

Exodus 21-24
“These are the laws you are to set before them:

“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.
However, if it is not done intentionally,
but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate.
But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately,
that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.

“Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.

“Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death,
whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.

“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

“If people quarrel and one person hits another with a stone or with their fist
and the victim does not die but is confined to bed,
the one who struck the blow will not be held liable if the other
can get up and walk around outside with a staff; however,
the guilty party must pay the injured person for any loss of time
and see that the victim is completely healed.
Exodus 21:12-19

For the entire list of laws see the link:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+21-24&version=NIV

“Biblical scholars generally interpret “eye for eye,”
which was derived from the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi,
as a restriction on retaliation for personal injuries —
in other words, only an eye for an eye.”
(Politico)

That was the justice code of many ancient nations, in particular
the ancient Jewish Nation.
A nation that longed-for its Messiah.

When that Messiah came, He proclaimed a new law.

That new law was one known as forgiveness.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek,
turn to them the other cheek also.
And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Matthew 5:38-42

May God have mercy on us all and turn the hearts of those who strive for hate…

Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’
For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:13

Newsflash

“Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind,
as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”
G.K. Chesterton

(the sole remaining apple as the deer ate the other one / Julie Cook / 2017)

On Wednesday there was a confrontation.
The confrontation being just one more bizarre piece to an already bizarre and crazy puzzle
that seems to be continually playing out now daily in our lives.

Sigh.

There was a senate confirmation hearing for the position of deputy director of the
White House Office of Management and Budget.
Now that doesn’t sound like a fun job to me but I suppose someone has got to do it and
what a good thing that there are those who want to do so…..

The fellow up for the post is Russell Vought, President’s Trump’s nominee…
who just so happens to be a practicing Christian.
Meaning, Mr Vought is committed to his faith and tries to live his life accordingly.

This seems to be problematic for Senator Bernie Sanders who maliciously grilled
the nominee over, not his competency for the position but rather of all things, his faith.

It seems that Mr. Sanders does not believe that someone who holds the belief that
Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation is competent to hold office.

Last I checked that was pretty much the primary tenant to Christianity…
and Christians have been holding all kinds of posts and jobs since the
formation of this nation of ours with little to no issue over salvation….

The exchange on Mr. Sander’s part was exceedingly heated…even caustic…
culminating in a rant.
However for his part, Mr Vought maintained his position throughout the exchange
in a calm, respectful and dignified manner.

The following link is the story recap to the event:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/09/bernie-sanders-attacks-trump-nominee-for-following-teachings-christ.html

So just when I thought that maybe, just maybe, the country…meaning the news media,
the politicians, the lawmakers, the “leaders”, the followers… could all just finally get
back to the business of simply running the country, reporting on real news and simply
getting back to the task of living so that the rest of us could do the same…

here comes Senator Bernie Sanders who is appalled that Christians think that the only way
to salvation is through Jesus Christ…

Newsflash Senator….they’ve been thinking that way for the past 2000 years….

because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his
lips and so is saved.
Romans 9:9-10