Easter morning me and father are down in the basement brushing shoes. We put polish on them last night with a rag father keeps with his shoe shine kit on a shelf over the washing machine. I used the rag but brown polish came through on my fingers. We polish our shoes every Sunday but I know this Sunday is Easter because we went to church on Friday and we died eggs and my mother set the dining room table and there’s a lily in the front room and ham in the refrigerator and yellow jello with something in it and plastic eggs in a basket on the kitchen table and the sun shines like this only on Easter. I woke up cold this morning. I put on clean pajamas and put the wet ones in the clothes basket. Then I went into the kitchen and ate cereal. Father woke up. He got the Sunday paper off the front porch and came into the kitchen to make coffee. He waits for me to finish eating and scratches his belly and yawns. He tells me to let mum sleep in. She works too he says. After I’m done with my cereal we go downstairs to polish our shoes. We go back upstairs and father sits at the kitchen table drinks coffee. He opens the Sunday paper and gives me the funnies. We wait for mum and my brother to wake up. They wake up. My mother has coffee and my brother eats cereal. My mother says something to father in his ear. He tells us kids to go into the front room so he and mum can talk. We go. I share the funnies with my brother. We sit there for an hour. We look out the picture window and see father walking around the bushes with a basket of plastic eggs. We know what he is doing. We run to the back door. I hold the door handle and my brother bites his nails. Father comes to the door and says there are fifteen eggs hiding in our yard. See what you can find he says. We run to the front yard and look through the bushes and behind trees and in the mail box. The grass is wet and sparkly we find eggs but there are more we run to the back yard and find more. We pull up the bottoms of our PJ tops and hold the eggs there. We count them I have eight and my brother has seven we go back inside and see what’s inside Jelly beans gum tootsie rolls mother says to have only a couple she doesn’t want us bouncing around in church she says. Father is in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes. Mother is washing goblets. I don’t know why she calls them goblets. They are not scarry to me. Me and my brother get ready for church. The clothes feel stiff but I wear them to look nice mother says. Father combs my hair and my brother’s hair. We wait in the front room and read the funnies. Finally it is time to go. We get in the car and drive to our church. I’ve never seen so many people. Mother wants to get a seat before they are gone we sit next to my friend Jeremy’s parents I smell flowers. People are talking a lot. Mothers are telling kids to be quiet. My friend Jeremy is sitting on the other side of his parents. Hes kicking the pew in front of him. The lady in front of him with a flower hat turns around looks angry but she smiles when Jeremys mom puts a hand on Jeremys knee and makes him stop. My best friend Billy isn’t here his family doesn’t go to church. We have to stand up and sit down a lot and listen a lot the seat is hard and I can’t sit still and I can’t listen a big woman is singing a high song that hurts my ears. I want to draw. I take the pencil in front of me and a card I draw Easter eggs and the face of the big woman I show it to Jeremy and he laughs. The man up front walks back and forth and then he stops and says o death, where is thy sting o grave, where is thy victory and I think about bee stings and moms gravy. Finally he stops and we stand up again and my pencil and card fall under the seat. A man behind me picks them up and gives them to me and smiles. Everyone smiles today even the woman at the organ who made a big burp sound when the music fell. Father and mother talk and talk and talk and finally we get back into the car and go home. On the counter is a strawburry pie. Mother puts on her apron and puts the ham in the oven. Father mashes the sweet potatoes. I tell them don’t forget to put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. Mother takes a bag off the shelf and gives me and my brother a marshmallow. She tells us to go watch TV while they make dinner. We go downstairs. I turn on the TV and only Charlie Chan is on. Finally mother calls us and we go upstairs to eat we have to wash our hands before we sit down. Mother lights two candles on our table before the food comes father prays he thanks God for the food and Jesus and empty tomb abundant life heaven and earth sea and dry land family and friends those present and not present wonders great and small and mother says amen. Finally mother brings out the ham and the sweet potatoes and something green. Everything is hot she says. When the rolls come out me and my brother grab one. My mother asks me if I washed my hands. I look at them and my fingers are brown. They smell like polish it’s shoe polish soap and water and some scrubbing will take it off father says I tell them I better eat first because scrubbing is a lot of work. The end of what we did special on Easter Mrs Meyers your student Micheal M Skokram.
On a cold and damp March afternoon, Maeve met with funeral director Finn Joyce to discuss final arrangements. The appointment was set up after she responded to a mailer asking if it “would give you peace of mind to plan in advance so that your family would not have to make the arrangements themselves” and after reading an article about “Unexpected Deaths in The US Are Rising at an Alarming Rate.”
Director Finn, a tall thin man with dark auburn hair, pale skin, soft hands and a whisky voice, greeted Maeve and showed her to the Arrangement Room. There, he offered her coffee and water.
Finn began their conversation by pointing to a photograph on his desk: “My wife Fiona and I have lived in the area and have operated this funeral home for twenty-five years. Fiona works with families of the deceased to arrange details of the funeral and the obituary wording. She also does the makeup and . . .”
Maeve broke in. “I was here for Eileen Delaney’s funeral. She was a friend of mine.”
“By the number who attended the funeral, she was well-loved. How long had you known her?”
“We worked together at the Evercrest Nursing Home for some thirty-five years.”
“I know the place. I been called there many times. Do you still work there?”
“Yes. I’ve taken over Eileen’s responsibilities.”
“Ah, well then, maybe I’ll see you there. My wife helped Eileen’s husband with the funeral arrangements and wrote the obituary with the help of her husband and family. We have a list of services that we can offer you and we can talk about your last wishes.” He handed her a brochure.
“We prepare obituaries, arrange clergy services and pallbearers, coordinate with the cemetery or crematory . . .” Finn stopped when he saw that Maeve wasn’t paying attention. She was looking over his shoulder at something on the wall.
“That watercolor. I know it.” Maeve said.
Finn turned around. “My wife bought it at an art show here in town. I love how the light filters through the trees.”
“That’s Summer at Blossom Grove.”
“You know the artist?” Finn got up from his chair and looked at the corner of the painting. “You know M. Monahan? Wait. Is that you?” He looked at the application on his desk. “Well Maeve, you’re quite an artist.”
Maeve blushed. “I painted the same scene at four times of the year. I wanted to show the greening and flowering and the fading and falling of leaves and the limbs in winter.”
“You know, Maeve, people have brought watercolor portraits of the deceased to the wakes here. The portraits are a beautiful memorial. They have a graceful ethereal quality to them. I provide an easel next to the casket for the portrait.”
“I paint them. I paint portraits of the people in the home. When they pass, I give the portrait to the family. I got the idea when I attended my Irish grandfather’s funeral. Family and friends came to look at his dead body the night before he was buried. They drank and shared stories about his life. When a person dies at the home, the funeral home is called and the deceased is abruptly taken away. With my portraits, I give the family a corporeal reminder so they can share stories about the person’s life.”
“The portraits are well done. You’ve must have been doing this for a long time.”
“Thank you. Yes. I started as an oil painter years ago when I worked as an ER nurse. I wanted to depict the actual strangeness of the real world I encountered every day with surrealism, in a Frida Kahlo kind of way. But over time, the work and my life were becoming too dark. So, I decided to make a change and work in a nursing home where there is a less tragic and more of a long-suffering realism. And, that’s when I became a watercolor portraitist. I like the medium. Watercolors have a life and a flow of their own when you brush them on the paper. You let go and see what happens. They are kind of unruly to a certain degree as are the subjects I paint.”
“From the comments I overhear at the wake, you certainly capture the essence of the person,” Finn remarked.
He went on to explain his services and then invited Maeve to the display room where several different caskets were showcased. He then showed her the Reposing Room where the prepared body rests until the funeral takes place. He went on to show her a Reception Room where memorial services are held.
“There will be a wake in this room tomorrow. A tragic story,” Finn shared. “A 46-year-old man – a husband and father and founder of an investment firm – was killed in a car-jacking. The newspaper said the killer got away.”
“How terrible. The sudden loss of a husband and father must be devastating for that family.”
“Yes, it has been. I met with his wife this morning. She is having a hard time . . . How does one reckon with the out-of-the-blue senselessness of what happened?”
At that moment, Fiona walked up and introduced herself to Maeve. She recognized Maeve from the art show and praised her work. She then mentioned to Finn that a call had come in. She gave him the name and location.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Finn said. “Feel free to call if there are any questions. Maeve offered her hand. Finn took her hand and put his hand on hers.
“Sorry to share that with you. I am deeply saddened by what happened. After all my years as a mortician, I have never become accustomed to such unforeseen tragedy. And, sadly, there will be no watercolor portrait to place by the casket tomorrow.”
Maeve nodded her understanding and then thanked Finn and went on her way.
~~~
The next morning, after working a night shift at Evercrest and then making a stop, Maeve drove home to Valley Mobile Home Park and found two cars parked out front of her mobile home. She parked next to her trailer, grabbed the mail from the mail box, and then ran to the door and walked in. Sitting at the kitchen table were her younger sisters Molly and Morren and her niece Maisie. Duffy, Molly’s Pomeranian, began barking wildly when she walked in. Maeve put her purse and the mail on the counter and looked at all three.
“Who died and why is Duffy carrying on like that?” Maeve asked, taking off her rain coat. The three women sitting before her reminded her of nesting dolls – Molly the largest of the three and Maisie the smallest.
“Duffy doesn’t like that black cross running down your face.” Molly replied.
“It’s raining.” Maeve grabbed a napkin form the table and began dabbing her face.
“And Duffy doesn’t like that guy next store.” Morren added.
“My neighbor?” Maeve asked. “Why? What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s a disgusting creature, Molly blurted. “Those tattoos, that yellow skin, his scarred-up face and watery eyes. He looks like a carny who runs the Tilt-A -Whirl. He was out in front of his trailer and gave us a nasty look when we got out of the car.”
“Well,” Maeve asked the group, “was Duffy barking at him and did you give him a nasty look when you saw him?”
Molly sighed loudly. The other two just looked at their hands.
“I don’t know him, “Maeve said. “He stays to himself. There’s something sad about the guy – like he’s had a hard time of it.”
“Maybe so. He is what he is,” remarked Morren.
“We’re here to check on you,” Molly declared.
“Check on me?” Maeve laughed. She poured coffee for herself and the others and sat down.
“Yeah, Moreen and I are wondering why you’ve been so quiet lately.”
“I’ve had things on my mind. Last things things. Do something about Duffy.” Maeve replied.
Molly had Duffy come up on her lap.
“Is that why you went to church this morning?” Morren asked.
Maeve looked at the three of them. “I thought I should become a familiar face around there. I want to be recognized by the gate keepers when I go the way of all the earth.”
“I see that you’ve been reading the obits,” Molly held up the open newspaper.
“My co-worker Eileen died suddenly. Cardiac arrest. I wanted to see what they wrote about her,” replied Maeve.
Molly looked through the obit page. “Let’s see what it says . . .
“Eileen Delaney passed away on . . . at her home aged 68. She will be greatly missed by her family who adored her, friends who loved her, and many people whose lives she impacted in such a beautiful way at Evercrest Nursing Home. Eileen was along-time member of such and such Church. Eileen was born . . . married William Patrick Delaney. . . celebrated a beautiful 42-year marriage. Bill passed away . . . Eileen greatly missed him. She and Bill had many adventures together . . . traveling to Europe and Caribbean and Alaskan cruises. Ballroom dancing and hiking were their favorite pastimes.They are survived by two children . . . three grandchildren. Sadly missed by brothers . . . brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, relatives and a wide circle of friends. Eileen stayed active throughout her life . . . she was a member of the American Needlepoint Guild. Eileen Delaney’s’ family invites you to join them in celebrating her life. Please attend with your best Eileen stories. The funeral service and burial will be held . . .
“How long have you been working at that nursing home,” Morren asked Maeve.
“About thirty-five years. Since the divorce.”
“Maeve, you could’ve gone on to get your doctorate in nursing like me,” Molly said. “Then you could write papers, have them peer reviewed, and published in journals. You would be recognized for your work, make better money, and move out of this trailer park.”
“Recognized?” Maeve replied. “I see myself doing what I’m doing. I don’t see myself doing anything else or living anywhere else.”
“Maybe not. But do you hate life? Morren badgered. “I mean, c’mon, you haven’t remarried and you haven’t gone anywhere and now you’re thinking about death. What about life?”
Maisie spoke up. “Aunt Maeve, do you have a bucket list?”
“A bucket list?” Maeve got up and walked over to the kitchen window and looked out. She was surprised to see her neighbor looking back at her from his kitchen window. How strange, she thought.
“Yeah, you know, things you want to do before you die.” Molly said.
“I had an appointment with a funeral director yesterday to talk about funeral arrangements,” Maeve pointed at her sisters, “so you two won’t have to bother with them – and I have an appointment with Father Flannery tomorrow after work to talk about the art of dying.” Maeve took the Joyce Funeral Home brochure out of her purse and placed it on the table.
“What brought on all this morbidity Maeve?” Molly prodded. “Is it because you are with the dying five six days a week? What about living a little?”
“It’s not morbid to plan one’s death. And besides,” Maeve smiled, “I am thinking outside the box.”
“Not too would be a grave mistake,” Molly came back.
“The funeral director blamed the cost of living as driving up the cost of dying. He said I could pay now or pay later with a payable-on-death bank account accessed by my family.” Maeve sat down and waited for a reaction.
Morren looked at Molly and then at Maisie. She wasn’t sure if that was a joke.
Maisie laughed. “Now I know where I get my weird sense of humor. Aunt Maeve, I meant doing things like travel. You could. . . go see the world, see the pyramids.”
“You want me to go look at tombs? No, thanks. And no, I don’t have a list like that.”
“You could go to Barcelona or Rome and meet some dashing foreigner and be swept off your feet.” Molly urged.
“You know,” Maeve replied. “I listen to the stories of seniors in the home. Their stories are better than romance novels and what’s on TV. The things they’ve seen and done . . . you’d be surprised.”
“I just want to see you broaden your horizons,” Morren pleaded. “You have work. You have a hobby. But with all that that the world has to offer, why not live a little.”
Molly looked at her watch. “Well, Maevy, we came to check on you. My TV program starts in twenty minutes. We better get going. If you suddenly decide to take off to parts unknown let us know.”
Maeve picked up the coffee cups and put them in the sink. She saw her neighbor again standing in the window. But this time he had a gun in his mouth. Maeve yelled “Oh God!” and ran out the door. Molly, Morren and Maisie ran to the kitchen window.
“What’s that creature doing?” Molly scoffed. “If he offed himself there would be one less freak in the world.”
“What’s aunt Maeve doing?” asked Maisie.
Maeve was standing in the rain between the two mobile homes in her blue nurse scrubs. She was saying something to her neighbor but his window was closed. He kept shaking his head. Maeve pleaded with him, “Open your window! Open your window!” Finally, with one hand, he pulled up the kitchen window.
“Talk to me, “Maeve begged, “I’m listening.”
The man took a swig of something and then wiped his mouth with his arm.
“Lady, my best girl died in January been together for fifteen years she was on dialysis my dog Biscuit hell I think some of those mean kids around here ran off with her I lost my job at the steel mill I’m about to lose my trailer.” The man held up a piece of paper. “I find myself in the impossible position of being who I am right here and now.”
“I’m listening,” Maeve replied.
“What are you looking at?” The man jerked his head angrily toward Maeve’s kitchen window where Molly, Morren and Maisie were watching. He waved his gun at the window and the three women disappeared from it. Molly called the police.
“I’m here . . . for you,” Maeve pleaded with her neighbor. “I don’t know your name. What’s your name?
“Esau.”
“Esau, don’t die like this.”
“Is there a better way to go about it?
“You could die holding someone’s hand. Can I call Father Flannery?”
“What’s he gonna do throw holy water on me and make it all better hell I was baptized as a little tiny baby and look at me now I done some stupid things in my life but I paid all my debts I am good people labeled not good enough to attend my own daughter’s wedding can you picture that?
“Yes! I can paint you,” Maeve offered.
Esau laughed. “Paint me?”
“Yes. I paint portraits.”
“Lady don’t you see I’m already painted.” The man pulled off his tee shirt. “My cross hain’t bleeding like yours is I got this in Nam.” The man pointed the gun at the cross tattoo. “I got a lot of things in Nam that’ll change a man forever.” He put the gun back in his mouth.
Maeve dabbed her face with her sleeve. Overhead, the sky was growing darker. A sudden crack of thunder and its rumbling off had Duffy howling. Large drops of rain were falling.
“I’ll paint a portrait of you, right now Esau. So your children can remember you.” Maeve said this to buy more time.
“Lady, they want nothing to do with me.” Esau scowled.
“They never will if you shoot yourself,” Maeve replied.
He took another swig from the bottle. “You’ll stand in the rain and you’ll paint me?”
“Yes! Or inside if you’ll let me in.” Maeve replied. “Do you have family?”
“Yessss I havvvvve family,” the man howled. “My best girl has family but you know NO ONE wants to see you until you’re dead.” He put the gun back in his mouth.
“I can call them. Hold on. I can paint your portrait for them. Hold on Esau,” Maeve yelled. “I’ll get my phone and paints.”
As Maeve turned to run back inside, she heard a loud pop. Esau was gone from the window.
My father, on the nights when my mother goes to bridge club, makes creamed chipped beef with peas on toast for supper. He told me one time that in the military it’s called “shit on a shingle” or SOS for short. He makes me eat it even though I can’t stomach peas or the dried beef or the gravy and I’m not a soldier. Tonight again, my mother is at bridge club and I’m sitting here with SOS.
After looking at my plate for a long time, I move the peas out of the gravy, off the toast and onto the plate with my knife. I’m hoping I won’t have to eat them. The kitchen phone rings and I jump to answer it. My best friend Janey wants to know if I want to go with her and her boyfriend Nick to watch West Side Story at the Sky-Hi Drive-In. I say I sure do and hang up. My father doesn’t want me on the phone during supper.
The peas are cold and clammy now and I say I they’re cold and clammy and I can’t eat them. My father tilts his head down and tells me to eat them. I want to say no but I need his okay to go to the movie. So, I stab some peas with my fork and swirl them in the flour gravy and then I eat the green-grey mush with a bite of toast. I gag. I drink some milk and wash it down. My father lifts his head and says “alright”. I clear the dishes and wash them. I’ve done what he wanted, so now I can ask him about Friday night. But I wait until he’s sitting in front of the TV.
An hour later, my father is in the basement watching TV. I sit with him and ask about his movie. He says troops have been ordered to risk their lives and retake a hill that’s not important in the battle. I ask him why. He says it shows the enemy their resolve to continue to fight if an agreement is not reached in negotiations.
A Marlboro commercial comes on and I ask him about Friday night. He wants to know about the movie. I tell him it’s a musical about people fighting, dancing and falling in love and he says “Okay. Ask your mother when she come home from playing bridge”.
My mother finally gets home and I tell her about Friday night. She says she knows the movie. “Saw it with a friend when it came out in ’61,” she says. She knows Janey and Nick and she says it’s okay with her that I go.
Saturday night Nick’s car pulls into the driveway. He honks the horn and I yell “They’re here”. My father yells from the basement “Have a good time honey. Call if there is a problem.” Mom, on the phone with someone, yells for me to come straight home after the movie. I yell back “I will”.
I get in the back seat of Nick’s Chevy and we drive off – but not in the direction of the Sky-Hi. I ask where we’re going. Janey turns to me and says that Nick asked his friend Tom to come along. He had nothing to do, Nick says. I immediately panic. I wonder if I look alright.
I have a face full of pimples and a bony nose that’s too big for my face. I wonder if I used enough concealer. The green top I’m wearing is wrinkled. It was at the bottom of my closet. And the jeans I’m wearing are worn thin. I was expecting to sit in the dark and watch a movie with Nick and Janey.
We pull up to a ranch house on the other side of town. Nick honks the horn. A skinny blonde-haired guy walks out the front door and down the front walk. “Here’s Tom,” Janey says.
Tom gets in the back seat. Janey introduces Tom. I don’t know him from school. I give him a quick smile and then give Janey a stare. She just winks back at me. She knows I don’t have a boyfriend.
Tom is neatly dressed. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, khaki pants and loafers. His boxy glasses make him look like a bookworm. In junior high school he’d be called “a climber” and Nick “a greaser”.
The Twin Theater Sky-Hi Drive In is on the west end of our town. On the way we listen to the AM radio. A Chicago station plays Born to Be Wild and I Will Always ThinkAbout You. Tom and I sit quietly in the back. I suck in my lips and look out my window. The cloudy sky looks like flour gravy.
We arrive at Sky-Hi and pay for our tickets. Nick drives over to a center spot in the East Theater. Nick and Tom say they’re going to the concession stand. They ask what we want. Janey and I ask for Cokes and popcorn. I hand Nick some money and they head off. The guys return after twenty minutes just as the coming attractions start. I roll down my window and Tom hands me the Coke and popcorn. I say thank you. He gets into the back seat on the other side of the car.
Janey’s been sitting next to Nick the whole time he’s been driving. Now Nick puts his arm around Janey’s shoulder and they snuggle together. Janey asks “are you guys okay back there?” I say I have to move over to see the screen. I look at Tom and he gives me a nod that says it’s okay. I scooch over to the middle of the back seat and put my legs to the left side of the floor hump. “That’s better,” I say.
Finally, the movie begins. There’s an overture and then the Jets sing about being a Jet and beating up other gangs. The Jets and the Sharks want to fight each other for control of the streets. But first they go to a dance. It’s a musical, so I guess it doesn’t have to make sense.
At the dance, Tony of the Jets meets Maria, Bernardo’s sister. Bernardo is the head of the Puerto Rican Shark gang. Tony and Maria fall in love at first sight. Nobody is happy about that except Tony and Maria. Tony’s half in half out about the gang stuff but he’s all in on Maria. He wants to run away with her.
Tony and Maria start singing Tonight and I stop eating popcorn. I put my hand down on the car seat so I can lean forward and hear what’s coming from the speaker. My little finger touches Tom’s little finger. He takes my hand into his. We stay this way, looking at the movie and holding hands, until the movie ends and headlights turn on.
It’s past midnight when we leave Sky-HI. Nick says he’ll drive me home first. I go back and sit behind Nick. Tom looks out his window. Everyone is quiet. Nick turns on the radio. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing comes on. I suck in my lips and look out my window. On the way home I see a car with one headlight and say “perdiddle.” Janey and Nick kiss.
At home I get out of the car and say thanks to Janey and Nick and goodnight to Tom. Tom says good night looking at Nick and Janey.
I go inside and hear the TV on in the basement. I walk down the hallway to my bedroom. My mother is sitting in her bed reading her magazines. She sees me and asks “Susan, how was it?” I poke my head into the room and tell her it was alright.
“Just alright? Nothing more?” she asks.
“Nothing more than alright” I say.
“Okay,” she says. “Now go to bed. It’s late. Tomorrow’s another day.”
As I walk away she reminds me that she has bridge club again tomorrow night. I say okay.
In my room I take the ticket stub out of my jeans pocket. I find a pen and write on the back of the stub West Side StoryTom. I pull my keepsake box out from under the bed and put the ticket stub inside along with the Valentine cards from third grade and my second-place medals from clarinet solo contests and some poems I wrote. I close the box and put it back.
I go to bed thinking about the movie and Tom and peas on my plate.
I walk into Katy’s Place just after seven AM and look for my sister. I don’t see her so I look for a table. Seven men and a woman, each in a police uniform, are sitting at a long table eating breakfast. Two tables have not been bused yet from the day before. The other tables, except for one, are taken by couples and one family. I sit down at the last open table.
It’s Sunday morning in this small Indiana town. The streets are quiet. Traffic lights blink red. Some folks, I figure, are at home getting ready for church and others are sleeping in except for a gaggle of seniors sipping coffee down at the MacDonalds. The rest are here in this small diner near the town square and the courthouse and halfway to my sister’s house. It’s my first time here.
There is only one waitress and she can’t keep up with the tables. Is it always this busy early on a Sunday morning? It’ll be some time before I can ask for coffee and some menus. But it doesn’t matter. I’m waiting for my sister to drop off my eight-year-old niece.
While I wait, I look around. There’s a half-wall between the long table where the police are sitting and the entrance. Across the room there is a partial wall separating the kitchen from the served. On the wall I’m facing is a picture of a black horse standing in profile in front of a white fence. The horse reminds me of Black Beauty, a horse-memoir book my grandmother gave me when I was a little girl.
The waitress comes over and asks me what I want to drink. I tell her coffee and chocolate milk. I let her know that there will be two of us. Waiting for the coffee, I have an idea. I give my friend Anne a call. I ask her if my niece and I could come over this morning after breakfast. Anne says “Sure!”
I’m spending the day with my niece. My sister is headed to a day spa for the works: a massage, manicure, pedicure, and facial. She told me when she called yesterday and asked about today that she has to get rid of a lot of built-up stress.
The waitress brings my coffee and the chocolate milk. She takes two menus from under her arm and plunks them on the table. And she’s off.
After a half-hour I see Mandy and my niece come through the door. They walk over to the table. My sister looks at me and says “Aimee wants to be called Adam. Be sure to say Adam.” I don’t know what to do with this information. I have no place for it. I just tell Mandy that we have a big day planned and that I’ll bring “my niece” home later this afternoon. Mandy says “That’s fine” and then tells “Adam” to “behave with aunt Nora”. She begins to leave and I stop her.
“Listen,” I say to my niece, “this is our special day together. No phones.”
Mandy looks at me, her eye brows in a ‘V’, and says “Really?”. I say “Really”.
My sister takes the phone from my niece and says “Just for today. Just for aunt Nora.” She pockets the phone and leaves.
My frowning niece sits down where I put the chocolate milk. I ask about the chocolate milk. She takes a drink and says “It’s good”. She uses her tongue to wipe her upper lip. Her blue eyes follow her tongue like they’re connected. I can’t help notice that my niece’s beautiful blond curls have been cut off, the sides of her head are shorn. I didn’t say anything. What was I going to say?
“Did your mom take you to church last Sunday for advent?”
“She took me to the library. For story hour.”
My sister is the head librarian in her town. She has a Masters of Library and Information Science. I think that means that she should be really good at putting things in their proper place. But now I am having doubts about that.
The out-of-breath waitress comes over. I tell her we’re ready to order. I don’t want to keep Anne waiting. I order a stack of pancakes for my niece and some scrambled eggs with bacon and an English muffin for myself.
The room is loud with conversations, shuffling chairs, and some piped rock music. I want to have a conversation with my niece but I’m having a hard time hearing her, so I have her sit next to me at the table.
“Did you hear about Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus at story hour?
“No.”
“What did you hear about?
“Ah, something about, ah, boys liking boys, girls liking girls and a girl who wanted to be a boy. Stuff like that. It wasn’t Charlotte’s Web. Like last time.”
“Who read the stories to you?”
“Ah, some man wearing ah dress and a wig. He talked funny.”
“Did he say it was OK to pretend to be a boy all the time?”
She nodded yes.
“Does your teacher call you Adam?”
“Uh-Huh.”
“Do the kids in school call you Adam?”
“Uh-Huh. Miss Bigelow said they had to or they would be punished.”
I raised five kids and never had to deal with any of this. My kids chose what musical instrument they wanted to play and what sport to play in. At this point in the conversation, I hear myself wanting to come down on the whole gender switcheroo business, but I stop myself. I’ll just be Aunt Nora today and see what happens.
Our food arrives. I watch my niece take her time carefully lathering the pancakes with butter and then pouring syrup on the stack. Looking at her wide wonderful eyes, I feel that I can’t say nothing. I want to say things without saying things.
“You know,” I began again, “A woman runs this place. This is Katy’s Place. And that police officer over there (I point my head) is a woman. Both were girls once.” I hear myself forcing things with the obvious and tell myself that it’s time to shut up.
With a mouthful, my niece looks over at the long table. She turns back, swallows and says “What is advent?”
“Advent is the season of arrival – the arrival of Jesus our Savior into the world.”
“Oh.” She went back to eating.
“Hey kiddo. We’re gonna have a fun day. Right after this we’re going to a horse farm.” My niece tilted her head to one side and her eyes lit up. “My friend Anne has a new foal she wants you to see.”
We finished our breakfast and I paid the bill.
~~~
We drive over to next county where Anne has twenty flat acres of white-fenced property. The long driveway leading to her ranch house and the horse barns is lined with evergreen-shaped trees. The leaves are a deep green with a bluish tint. Birds dart back and forth between the dense branches.
I park the car near the front of the house and we get out. Anne leaves her porch chair and walks over. I introduce her to “my niece who wants to be called Adam” with a shake of my head “No”. Anne understands. She leads us over to the barn and the foaling stall. Inside is a baby horse – a foal.
“This filly was born last night,” Anne tells us. “I was sleeping by the stall and then got up for a bathroom break. Came back and found her waiting for me. It happens that quick.” Anne tells us that it takes around 11 months for a foal to fully develop inside of the mother- “the mare”.
“This one is already walking around, “I say.
“Foals can stand, walk, and trot shortly after birth,” Anne says. “They’re up and nursing within two hours of being born. It’s important that foals nurse. They get what they need in their mother’s milk. In about ten days they’ll be eating grass and hay.”
“What else can you tell us about fillies?” I ask, hoping she’ll say things without saying things.
“Like all foals, this one will grow rapidly and be playful. During their first year, they learn to walk, run, and develop strong bonds with their mothers. Fillies are delicate and refined in their build compared to colts. They are known for their grace and agility. They are calmer than colts.”
Anne turned to my niece. “What shall we call her?”
My niece’s jaw dropped and then, ten seconds later, out came “Addie. Let’s call her Addie.”
“Why Addie?” Anne asked.
“For Advent,” my niece came back.
“Addie it is,” Anne said. “Do you want to learn some tips on horsemanship?”
My niece said “Oh yeah.”
Anne started heading to the tackle room with my niece in hand but I stop them.
“Anne, hearing you say “tips” just reminded me that I forgot to leave a tip at the restaurant. Dear Lord! I get into my head and lose track of things like my keys and my glasses and tipping. I need to go and make this right before the waitress leaves. Can my niece stay with you while I do this?”
“Sure,” Anne replied. “There’s lots to see and do here.”
Back at the restaurant I walk past the tables and behind the kitchen wall. The waitress is surprised to see me. I hand her the tip money and apologize for forgetting. She looks relieved. Walking out, I see the horse picture again. On the way back to Anne’s I think about Black Beauty.
The story of a highbred horse’s life is told by Black Beauty. As a colt, Beauty enjoys carefree days on the farm. But things change when owners sell him. Some owners are kind, some are cruel, and some are bungling when it comes to horses.
Under one master, Beauty and his best horse friend Ginger are forced to wear the check rein – a piece of a carriage horse’s harness to keep the horse from lowering its head. This was done to make the horse look fashionably noble in Victorian times. But the check rein caused lasting pain and undercut a horse’s pulling strength. Beauty and Ginger had to learn to live with this.
Another owner, a man with a drinking problem, didn’t look after Beauty’s shoes. Beauty’s legs collapse at one point and the owner is thrown off and dies. After a corrective medical procedure, Beauty’s legs are permanently scarred. No longer considered presentable enough, Beauty is put to hard work as a job horse.
Beauty is rented out by drivers who do not know how to properly take care of horses. As a result, Beauty incurs long-term physical harm. The author Sewall wrote the story from the horse’s point of view “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses”.
Back at Anne’s place I find my niece sitting on a chestnut horse called Sassy and wearing one of Anne’s wide-brimmed cowboy hats. From the look on my niece’s face, I didn’t have to ask Anne how it went.
Later, as my niece and I head to the car, Anne offers to have us come every weekend to see Addie grow and to teach us western riding. I ask about that.
She explains that it involves learning how to sit deep in the saddle, how to walk, jog, lope, and gallop a horse, how to hold the reins with the non-dominate hand, and teaching a horse to be responsive on very light rein contact to move in the direction you want instead of a pulling motion.
At the car, Anne tells my niece “Going forward, I’ll need your mom’s approval”.
“We’ll talk to her,” I say looking at my niece. “Let’s see what happens.”
“The Gleaners” (1857), by Jean-François Millet, depicts women picking up loose grain in the field. Without words it relates the hardships and the dignity of everyday workers. The painting connects us to our own human story. We recognize something of ourselves in this glimpse of reality. We understand a day’s slog and strain. We empathize with the workers.
The painting’s aesthetic realism, its naturalism and unromanticized imagery draw us in. We like that it rejects idealization and artificiality. “The Gleaners” portrays ’us’ as we are. And the subject’s universality – women doing manual labor – is a catalyst for imaginative truth.
We empathize with the subjects as we project ourselves into their perspective. We imagine what it must be like working in a field under the hot sun. We imagine constantly bending over to pick up left-over scraps of the grain harvest so that poor women and children could live on them. We imagine ourselves in 1857.
We find ourselves stepping out of our world and connecting with history – mankind has been doing manual labor since the beginning of time. We find ourselves connecting not just with the women, but with all of humanity, a humanity that shares the work, burdens, and cares of life. And, our imagination wants to know more of the wordless ‘story’.
We cannot see the women’s faces. Are the women young or old? Are they talking to pass the time? Singing? Are they married? Have children? Do they work from sun up to sun down? How do their backs feel at the end of the day? Are their hands dried out and cracked from handling the grain?
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Anton Chekhov’s stories are noted for their ‘naturalness’ – the ability to show ‘exactly what a little piece of life’ is like. Like with Millet’s realistic painting, his prose provides down-to-earth characters, details and a setting that, though with Russian aspects, is universal in its close-to-home familiarity.
Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, in his Lectures on Russian Literature, described Chekhov as writing “the way one person relates to another the most important things in his life, slowly and yet without a break, in a slightly subdued voice”.
Chekhov, a practicing doctor, observed everyday life and ordinary people as he made house calls and treated patients. He wrote with a concentration on the daily lives of individuals using natural detail. We connect with the subjects in terms of shared experiences, emotions, and challenges that are common to all human beings.
You won’t find sanctimony or moralizing or happy endings in his stories nor heroes in the conventional sense. Chekhov had nothing to prove, no ideology or politics to promote, and he created all his characters equal.
And though Chekhov’s stories seem to go nowhere, his ‘close to home’ imagery mirrors our own situations. Life often goes on unchanged or less than we had hoped for. Life often goes on without resolution. And that is the case in a touching story by Anton Chekhov – “On Easter Eve” (1886).
A brief introduction: “The narrator describes his moving experience of attending an early-morning celebration of Easter Eve in the countryside after crossing a river in flood in the middle of a very starry night, admiring the fireworks and listening to the boatman’s account of the sudden demise of the church deacon while composing Easter hymns.”
The ferryman, a novice monk, grieves the loss of a brother. Nikolai, a sensitive soul enraptured by words, was skilled at writing Akathists. (Akathist or “unseated hymn” is a type of hymn usually recited by Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic Christians. It may be dedicated to a saint, holy event, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity.)
The passenger (narrator) listens to the ferryman recount the death of his best friend Nikolai and about the gift Nikolai had for writing hymns of praise. “And Nikolai was writing akathists! Akathists! Not mere sermons or histories.” The passenger then asks “Are they so hard to write then? The ferryman responds “Ever so hard” and goes on to describe what’s involved, including the following:
Everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. There must be in every line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable. It must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor.
Just one more quote to invite you to be with the narrator and ferryman “On Easter Eve”.
Here the narrator describes Easter Eve at the Russian Orthodox Church, reminding me of the swollen river he had just crossed:
One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all nature, from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and the trees under which the people were moving to and fro. But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so marked as in the church. An unceasing struggle was going on in the entrance between the inflowing stream and the outflowing stream. Some were going in, others going out and soon coming back again to stand still for a little and begin moving again. People were scurrying from place to place, lounging about as though they were looking for something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church, disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity were standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself in some movement, even in senseless jostling and shoving.
Juxtaposed “On Easter Eve”: great sadness and great celebration, life and death, light and dark. Chekhov captures common shared experiences. There is nothing lofty, sarcastic, or judgmental in the story. There’s just a truthful and loving portrait – a ‘gleaning’ – of humanity at its most authentic moments.
“French painter Jean-François Millet, whose humble manner of living stands in stark contrast to the impact his work had on many artists who succeeded him, saw Godliness and virtue in physical labor. Best known for his paintings of peasants toiling in rural landscapes, and the religious sub-texts that often accompanied them, he turned his back on the academic style of his early artistic education and co-founded the Barbizon school near Fontainbleau in Normandy, France with fellow artist Théodore Rousseau.” Millet Paintings, Bio, Ideas | TheArtStory
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Margarita Mooney Suarez shares about beauty and the liberal arts. (We need more women like her.)
Beauty and the Liberal Arts, with Margarita Mooney Suarez
Wearing camel hair clothes with a leather belt, eating locust and wild honey – that’s not the way, truth and life of today’s celebrity preachers. No. The wilderness figure of the unentangled Forerunner was light-years away from metropolitan Evangelical-industrial-complex pastors.
John the Baptist had none of the trappings of celebrity mega-church preachers, not even the dressed-down attire that some celebrity preachers wear so as to not put too much emphasis on appearance while placing emphasis on their appearance and calling attention to themselves.
John the Baptist didn’t dress like swanky celebrity preachers, who call attention to their prosperity gospel. He didn’t dress like royalty.
The Forerunner didn’t promote himself. He said “Someone a lot stronger than me is coming close behind” and “Look! There’s God’s lamb! He’s the one who takes away the world’s sin! He’s the one I was speaking about when I said, ‘There’s a man coming after me who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me. I came to baptize with water – so that he could be revealed to Israel.”
The Forerunner was a doormat. He laid down his life to make way for the One who would lay down his life for the world, of whom, John told the crowd, he was not worthy to undo his sandals.
John the Baptist didn’t preach impediments. He didn’t preach a prosperity health and wealth gospel or a power of love and positive attitude gospel. He wasn’t a reed bobbling in the winds of culture. The Baptist announced a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins – not a “you can do it” message.
The Baptist wasn’t a culture warrior. He didn’t preach mushy church talk. He didn’t entertain. He didn’t cajole. He didn’t try to impress with his knowledge. He didn’t preach social justice. Dressed in penitential garb, John called for repentance and criticized a King for his wicked ways.
His wasn’t a ‘you gotta get saved so you can go to heaven’ message. There was no ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ retribution principle sermon. No. He declared a person, a lamb, a Holy Spirit baptizer, a realized hope. John’s message was for those who had ears to hear: repent and be baptized and I’m not the center of attention.
John the Baptist didn’t have a large auditorium with a worship band and multi-media productions. His message drew huge crowds out to a wilderness riverside. The whole of Judea and everyone who lived in Jerusalem went out to the desert to see the spectacle of a hairy wild-eyed Elijah standing in a river calling for confession of sins, repentance and a plunge in the river.
John the Baptist didn’t have degrees, references, prestige or the charisma of a “winning personality”. The bona fides of the crude and unorthodox John were the words that came out of his mouth and all the prophets and law that had made their prophecies before he came on the scene.
John the Baptist had none of the revenue streams of the modern-day mega pastors. He had no salary. He didn’t receive perks and special treatment. He wore and ate and lived off the land.
The Baptist had no social media accounts or TV presence. He had no royalties from book sales, no online webinars, no DVD sales. He didn’t sell “merch”. He didn’t offer boat cruises and trips to the Holy Land (well, he was already there) and receive a free trip in return. He had no brand or image to protect. There was no John the Baptist newsletter promoting his ministry, detailing the number baptized, and asking for donations.
John the Baptist didn’t have a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion. Like the son of man, John the Baptist had nowhere to lay his head except when it was time to give up his life. John’s head, laid on a platter, was a gift from King Herod, “that fox” who regularly enjoyed listening to John’s disturbing words.
The Forerunner heralded the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not his own. Sent from God, John came as evidence about the life that was the light of the human race so that everyone might believe through him. He prepared the way, not for himself but for the One who was to come. John eschewed self-promotion, celebrity, and the creation of a following. He wasn’t Forerunner “forward”.
Is that the way, truth and life of today’s celebrity preachers?
The following text were referenced: Matthew 11: 7-15; Mark 1: 4-11; Luke 1: 57-80, 13: 32; John 6:6-36
“Regrettable errors” is one regrettable way to describe the mishandling of sexual abuse in a church. But that was the response of a Bishop who failed to act quickly on allegations against a lay minister.
As reported by Kathryn Post on Sept. 30, 2022, “A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.”
As you’ll learn from the following reports, Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese had made a “secret appeal “to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. This deliberate act began a power struggle with Foley Beach, primate and archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.
The following reports by Kathryn Post and the abuse survivor’s accounts that include grooming are disturbing to read and more so for me. I knew the leaders – the “shepherds” – involved in the “regrettable errors”.
I attended the Church of the Resurrection for many years. Stewart Ruch became pastor of “Rez” while the church gathered in the auditorium of Glenbard West High School before moving to Wheaton. I lived around the corner from Stewart and Kathryn. I was in small group with Eirik Olsen and Randy York, now priests in Bishop’s Ruch’s close-knit diocese. My thoughts follow the reports.
How would you assess the handling of the sexual abuse situation, the attempted cover up, and the ensuing power struggle from the following reports? Bishop Ruch’s paltry mea culpa and a claim of spiritual attack – CYA defense mechanism strategies designed to protect oneself from discredit and from being discharged from a coveted position? Does a bishop have oversight in name only? What Say You?
“(RNS) — In July 2021 Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese, went on leave after making what he called “regrettable errors” in handling cases of abuse in the diocese.
By that time, many who attended the roughly 30 churches in Ruch’s diocese knew that the missteps Ruch was referring to had to do with his delay in informing them of the accusations against Mark Rivera, a volunteer leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, an Upper Midwest Diocese church in Big Rock, Illinois.”
~~~~
What had happened was this, according to Bishop Stewart’s Letter Regarding Devastating Situation in Diocese of May 4, 2021.
“Two years ago, on May 20, 2019, Mark Rivera, a volunteer lay leader (with the title of Catechist) at Christ Our Light in Big Rock, Illinois, was accused of a sexual offense against a minor. Christ Our Light was part of the Greenhouse Missionary Society, which is within our diocese. When Greenhouse leadership learned of this accusation, Mark was immediately removed from his position as Catechist. On June 10, 2019, Mark was arrested and jailed in Kane County.”
“(RNS) — Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor in a conservative Anglican denomination who was convicted in December of felony child sexual abuse and assault, was sentenced on Monday afternoon (March 6) to 15 years in the department of corrections.
Judge John Barsanti of Illinois’ 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Kane County granted Rivera the minimum sentences for his crimes. The judge earlier found Rivera guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old (a Class X felony) and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 (a Class 2 felony). Rivera will get credit for time already served in jail and spent under electronic monitoring and will be eligible for parole before completing his full sentence.”
The mother says leaders in the Anglican Church in North America pressured her not to report her daughter’s abuse allegations
“In May 2019, Cherin’s 9-year-old daughter told her that she had been abused by [Mark] Rivera. She reported the alleged abuse to [Rev. Rand] York, believing that her great uncle and the others in church leadership would protect her daughter.
According to Cherin, who asked that her last name not be used in order to protect her daughter’s identity, church leaders not only failed to report the allegations to the police or to the Department of Children and Family Services, but some also pressured her not to go to the police.
Despite this pressure, Cherin reported the alleged abuse to the police. In June 2019 Rivera was arrested and later charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse. He is currently out on bond.
In November 2020, Rivera’s neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg, reported to the Kane County Sheriff’s office that Rivera had raped her twice between 2018 and 2020. The Kane County Sheriff’s office would not comment beyond saying there is an ongoing investigation. Rivera’s lawyer did not respond for comment. (Emphasis mine.)
Ten people in all have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a volunteer leader in the Anglican Church in North America.
“Church leaders and members in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, of the Anglican Church in North America, trusted Rivera’s spiritual authority. According to reports from former Christ Our Light Anglican Church parishioners, they dismissed his frequent physical affection — his habit of kissing young girls on the cheek or inviting teenagers to sit on his lap — as “just Mark being Mark.””
After 9-year-old child told her mother that Rivera had abused her, “nine additional people have made allegations of abuse by Rivera, including child sexual abuse, grooming, rape, and assault, and Rivera has been charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse of the 9-year-old. To date, the diocese has publicly acknowledged only some of the allegations, and according to abuse prevention advocates, has downplayed the access he had to children and others while in church leadership.”(Emphasis mine.)
““Both my diocese and the ACNA got hit this summer by a vicious spiritual attack of the enemy,” Ruch wrote to the denomination’s top official, Archbishop Foley Beach, on Jan. 14. “I believe this is the case because both entities are doing robust Gospel work, and Satan hates us.”
“I have decided to come off of my voluntary and temporary leave of absence effective March 7, 2022,” Ruch announced to Beach. “I believe my calling as a bishop who is responsible for leading and pastoring my diocese requires me to return to my work of service, preaching and oversight.”
The ongoing investigative process, he further said, was neither “canonical or, more importantly, biblical.”
Despite an advising chancellor and others expressing solidarity with Ruch through some ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo, “others say that Ruch and other leaders have made the situation worse by defending the church instead of attending to Rivera’s alleged victims.” (Emphasis mine.)
~~~~
“A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.
The probe into events in the Upper Midwest Diocese, conducted by the investigative firm Husch Blackwell, also found that an ACNA priest did not report abuse by a lay pastor to the Department of Child and Family Services, claiming a church lawyer told him he was exempt from mandatory reporting laws. It also found that Bishop Stewart Ruch III and others allowed a church volunteer to have contact with teenagers after he had lost his teaching job for inappropriate behavior with students.” (Emphasis mine.)
Returning from self-imposed hiatus, ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch works to regain trust
“After 16 months of a self-imposed hiatus after admitting to mishandling sexual abuse allegations in his diocese in Wheaton, Illinois, Bishop Stewart Ruch — a charismatic, controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America — is taking steps to revive trust in his leadership. But a meeting last week held to soothe concerns of members of Church of the Resurrection showed he has work to do to restore trust.”
At a staged meeting where “Ruch and other leaders at Resurrection sat in armchairs in front of a packed church, according to church members who attended . . . Ruch read several statements, answered questions chosen from those submitted by congregants and read by church leaders. Ruch answered by reading from a script.”
“It gave me hope that the church realized that they needed to make some institutional programmatic changes or implementation and policies that would make it clear to everybody what their roles were when and if these kinds of crises hit,” one Resurrection member told RNS.
“But Ruch and other church leaders also appeared to want to manage the narrative about the bishop’s handling of the case and his return. Attendees were asked not to record the meeting, and clergy, accompanied by two police officers, were stationed at the sanctuary entrance. Audrey Luhmann, who stopped attending Resurrection in person over her concerns about church culture and who has been an outspoken member of ACNAtoo, an anti-abuse advocacy group, was barred from entering the meeting. ACNAtoo also reported that another clergy staffer tried to compel an alleged abuse victim’s mother to leave the meeting.” (Emphasis mine.)
“Archbishop Foley Beach, the primate of the Anglican Church in North America, accused his denomination’s highest court of attempting to stop an investigation into an Illinois bishop’s alleged misconduct.
“According to a statement Beach issued Wednesday (June 7), Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese made a “secret appeal” earlier this year to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. After the tribunal issued a stay order, Beach and other denominational leaders questioned the impartiality of four tribunal members. He also asserted that the denomination’s bylaws don’t give the tribunal authority to issue a stay order.
“This power struggle, which had been conducted behind closed doors for months, broke into the open Wednesday with Beach’s Sept. 7, 2022 “Update on the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.””
A 10-person board of inquiry found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial for violating denominational bylaws.
“Bishop Stewart Ruch, a controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America, will be brought to a church court trial, according to an announcement published to the denomination’s website on Tuesday afternoon
On July 10, a 10-person board of inquiry selected by the denomination’s leader, Archbishop Foley Beach, received a presentment (or list of charges) against Ruch. The board submitted a public declaration on Friday that said at least two-thirds of the board found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial. Specifically, per the denomination’s bylaws, they found grounds to try Ruch for violation of his ordination vows, for “conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power” and for “disobedience, or willful contravention” of the denominational or diocesan bylaws.” (Emphasis mine.)
Per Wikipedia: “ACNAtoo formed in June 2021 when Joanna Rudenborg took to Twitter and alleged that she had been raped twice by ACNA catechist Mark Rivera and decried the subsequent mishandling of multiple survivors’ allegations by leadership in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.”
“Ursa” alleges that Christopher Lapeyre abused his power as a teacher and mentor to groom her while she was a minor and enter a manipulative sexual relationship with her when she was a very young adult.
As mentioned above, I had personal connections with Stewart and Kathryn Ruch, Eirik Olsen, and Randy York while attending Church of the Resurrection during its GWHS days. I was in a small group with Eirik and Randy and their wives. Wheaton College grads, Stewart and Eirik and Randy and their wives, Jeannie and Kaye respectively, are especially close.
I’ll start by saying that I knew each of them to be decent people who love the Lord.
-It is said that after a spiritual crisis, Ruch returned fully to the Christian faith in September 1991.
-Stewart had been the rector of the Church of the Resurrection since 1999 and later consecrated as the first bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest on 28 September 2013.
I knew Stewart to be a high-spirited guy whose heart, as he said from the platform, was for evangelism. He came across to me as someone who could spur excited devotion but also as someone all over the place. So, I was surprised that he was made rector of “Rez” and doubly surprised when he was made a bishop.
Though a decent guy who loves the Lord, Stewart was in no wise of the caliber needed for those positions. Stewart, in my estimation, was not a spiritually mature candidate for either position. His becoming pastor was one of the main reasons I left “Rez”. Another was that there was a “Leanne Payne” contingent that concertedly wanted Stewart in those positions. (More about my Leanne Payne experience in a future post.)
As revelations of the mishandling of sexual abuse under Ruch’s oversight became known to me, I was confirmed in my assessment of Stewart.
Eirik Olsen and Randy York are working priests and leaders in Ruch’s diocese. I know them as very capable in the business world. They both operate in a corporate milieu that does not tolerate sexual misconduct. HR depts rush in to handle allegations. So, I was surprised to find that they were slow to act in these matters.
I understand the scriptural criteria for accusations in a church setting. I also understand that sexual abuse and the grooming that precedes it happen in private. Allegations of abuse turn into “he said she said” scenarios. Two or three witnesses are not around to corroborate allegations. But ambiguity in matters of abuse is not a stop-and-mull-over-it-to-see-what-happens sign.
If there is any question, you separate out the alleged perpetrator immediately and provide counseling for the alleged victim. You don’t make excuses for the alleged perpetrator. Blind allowance is not an act of grace. You work to uncover, not coverup, what is taking place. In general, when someone is reluctant to press an issue, are they compromised by similar issues?
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you.
From the accounts presented above – remember Mark Rivera was found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to 15 years – one does not let more chips fall where they may before acting. Act to sort out what is true from the posturing obfuscations.
And one does not hide behind a subjective defense of “spiritual attack” to fend off accountability. If Bishop Stewart can sense a “spiritual attack on himself and the church, why didn’t he (and Leanne Payne-discipled others) sense it around Mark Rivera and the abused in Big Rock?
Incompetence by all three men is my finding. And a lack of spiritual discernment on the part of all three men and the church that put them in those positions. Stewart must be removed from his position.
Putting well-liked good-natured people into positions of oversight is deceptively easy. If you want to test someone’s maturity before placing them upwards, place them under the direct oversight of someone spiritually mature and give them a responsibility for several years. If you don’t know what spiritual maturity is then learn, not from books, but from obedience to Christ in all things.
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you, not under compulsion, but gladly, as in God’s presence; not for shameful profit, but eagerly. 1 Peter 5: 2
If one member of the body suffers, all members suffer with it. 1 Cor. 12: 26
What Say You?
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On the flip side of selecting “agreeable” pastors . . .
I watched him park his black Mercedes. I watched him cross the parking lot. He was angry talking on the phone. I watched him sneer at a man get out of a car next to his. I watched him looking at his watch. I watched him enter the home. My son Edward.
I watched over him in my belly. I watched him at my breast. I watched his first steps. I heard his first words.
I heard his loud voice from my chair by the window. I heard my name. I heard “Five minutes.” I heard the front desk “Over there.”
I watched him come over. I heard “Mom, I’m here.” I felt a kiss on my head. I smelled cigar and bourbon. I saw my face cringe in the mirror. I saw him look in the mirror. “Sit down,” I said.
“I don’t have much time,” he said.
“Where you off to?” I said.
“My new business Going Beyond Inc.,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Human enhancement technology,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Life extension. Changing and improving humanity with technology,” he said. “Well how you been?”
“I’ve been here where you put me,” I said.
“I asked how you are,” he said.
“I’m eighty-seven years old have trouble reading, hearing, walking, eating, pooping, Jim is gone, and my only child has business to attend to,” I said.
“I come as often as I can get away,” he said. “Besides,” he said, “I pay them good money to look after you when I’m not here.”
“You better get on with it” I said. “Things are not improving here.”
I saw him place a twenty-dollar bill on the lamp stand.
“Have them buy some of that candy you like,” he said.
“I’ll rent a son,” I said.
I watched him look in the mirror one last time. I felt a kiss on my head. I smelled cigar and bourbon. I heard “Bye mmmm.” I watched him walk away.
I heard his loud voice from my chair by the window. I heard “Next month” “Keep eye on her.” I heard the front desk “Oh, she’s not going anywhere.”
I watched him leave the home. I watched him cross the parking lot. He was angry talking on the phone. I watched him looking at his watch. I watched him look over his car on the passenger side. I watched him get in his Mercedes. I watched him drive off. My son Edward.
Joe Vukov, Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Associate Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago, helps to explain the pitfalls of both extremes—on one side, the transhumanists (who embrace technology as a way to become more human) and on the other, the neoLuddites (who shun certain kinds of technology)—and begins to clear a path somewhere in the middle.
Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has inserted itself into our lives. It makes important decisions for us every day. Often, we barely notice. As Joe Allen writes in this groundbreaking book, “Transhumanism is the great merger of humankind with the Machine. At this stage in history, it consists of billions using smartphones. Going forward, we’ll be hardwiring our brains to artificial intelligence systems.”
“Let us not be charlatans and let us state openly that you can’t figure out anything in this world. Only fools and charlatans know and understand everything.”
There’s an old curse that goes something like “May you live in interesting times.” Well, we certainly live in interesting times. High drama, not peace and tranquility, seems to be what is desired by many and readily offered by “fools and charlatans”. Our world is vexed with constant convulsive commotion.
Why would some seek the dramatic instead of peace and tranquility? I’ll answer with conjecture so as to not be considered a fool or charlatan: there seems to be, by the amount of anger and discontent portrayed in the media, to be many unhappy people in the world.
Could it be that unhappy people have a need to remain unhappy? Could it be that unhappy people thrive on passion-evoking conflict to give them something to rage against and to feed their emptiness? A melodramatic life has a history – a story of critical moments that can be exploited and readily referred back to. The unhappy never let a crisis go to waste. And misery loves fellow travelers.
A prosaic life, on the other hand, has no dramatic history. Someone I just came across on social media noted the difference:
“When I look at the world on social media, life has never been worse. When I look at my real life (family, career/finance, general enjoyment, etc), life has never been better.”
Is high drama readily offered by “fools and charlatans? Here’s Bill Nye: “It’s very difficult to tie any specific weather event to climate change, but if you like to worry about things, this is a great time.”
“After Tropical Storm Hilary hit California this week, MSNBC ran to TV children’s show host Bill Nye to hype climate change, a typical move by the far-left cable news outlet. . ..
BILL NYE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
"People like to throw around the expression 'new normal.' It's not going to be normal, it's going to get worse and worse, probably," @BillNye says of landmark tropical storm #Hilary.
Dog bites man. Not news. Man bites dog. Front page news.
Westerly winds dry out non-native grass on Maui. Not news. Downed power line sparks wildfire. Westerly winds cause rapid spread of wildfire. Climate Change!!!!
Below, some of the Lies for the Taking being served up for the frustrated unhappy people who desire to bring everyone down to their level of misery. (Conjecture?)
(See previous posts for links that debunk many of the lies coming out of the mouths of “fools and charlatans”.)
The Lies of the Climate Concerned:
We’re all gonna die unless . . .
King Charles III has launched a catastrophe countdown clock. It will tick until 2030, a year in which he predicts “serious consequences” if the world doesn’t effectively address “climate change.”
“As President Joe Biden prepares to visit Maui, the Hawaiian island devastated by the deadliest wildfire in U.S. modern history, lawmakers and climate groups are begging the White House to do more to prevent future climate-related disasters.
Their argument: If the latest environmental catastrophe won’t spur the president into action, what will?”
Here’s Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organization, with more climate crisis fear porn to bring about centralized control.
The Lies of the Optics Concerned – Maui:
“While en route to Maui, three weeks after the wildfire that devastated the Hawaiian island began, White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said President Joe Biden will “make sure that he communicates to that not only have we been there since day one, has he been there since day one.””
During his speech in Milwaukee, the president appeared to forget the name Maui, referring to the island as 'the one where you see on television all the time.' 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/Ao5DWp8PJb
NEW: President Biden once again tries to make the Maui fire that killed ~500 people about himself by telling a story about how he almost lost his corvette in a house fire.
You can always count on Biden to tell a story that didn’t happened.
Judge Jeanine Pirro GOES OFF over Biden's visit to Maui:
"He has a lack of empathy, he is egocentric, he has got a condescending smirk whenever anybody asks him a question from the press, he is lying, and he's narcissistic." pic.twitter.com/wCbzLvDtpe
Dr. Gottlieb is connected to the FDA, to Pfizer, to the CIA, and more. See Dr. Malone’s article at link below for more on the “pretty concerned” Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
Dr. Malone writes . . .
“Propagation of Fear porn based on fake news and hype is now a validated method for Big Pharma to control governments and their populations. But are people buying it this time around?
“One of my primary care physician colleagues wrote this to me yesterday:
“Who would’ve thought that Covid would resurge as a concern for so many! I’m getting bombarded with calls and request for ivermectin, folks who are testing unnecessarily. Absolute panic out there once again.
“To further the suggestion that another lockdown scare is in the forecast, yesterday the US Department of Health and Human Services announced funding of $1.4 billion to “support the development of a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come” according to a press release” (Emphasis mine.)
How do we prepare for the typical fall flu season? With “a physician that will help you determine the correct dosing of Vitamin D3 and zinc, as well as be willing to prescribe multi-drug, early treatment protocols against COVID, and one that isn’t going to pressure you or your family into unnecessary shots.”
“We employ doctors who aren’t afraid to utilize effective, simple, and safe treatments for viral infection through the intelligent use of prescription medicines that have been around for years, and in some cases, decades. By focusing on the pathology of the toll that viral infections take on the human body, we’ve discovered that some off-label medicines can be more consistent, effective, and safe than new experimental treatments.”
“We’ve already been over everything you need to know about “Eris” here. Long story short, “Covid” is just another made up name for the flu, and the “variants” are coats of paint they slap on the narrative to try and keep it looking fresh.
“In that same article I theorised Eris’ existence was a need to keep Covid alive, and that is part of it…but I also missed something obvious: The next round of Covid “vaccines” hits the shelves next month.” (Emphasis mine.)
The Biden administration has announced a plan to encourage all Americans to receive a Coronavirus booster shot during the upcoming fall season to respond to an apparent wave of infections.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting a rise in virus-related infections and hospitalizations, the White House highlighted that the overall infection rates remain relatively low.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the overall levels of COVID-19 in the country are very low. (Emphasis mine.)
Santa Monica, which is in Los Angeles County, has an extremely low rate of COVID-19 hospital admissions.”
“Positivity rates for the COVID-19 test are similarly low across the country, including in California.”
But that doesn’t stop fools and charlatans imposing mask mandates and people going along with the drama.
Do Not let them do this to your children. Say “NO!” to masks and mandates.
“College students and others across America should be preparing for mass protest against mask mandates citing a First Amendment right to engage in political speech, which refusing to wear a mask can be construed as in any environment attempting to mandate it. The second they mandate wearing a mask, it’s a political issue, so refusing to wear one in such a condition can be construed wholly as a political statement. The First Amendment provides strong protections for political speech.” – James Lindsey (Emphasis mine)
The new Covid regulations are a test. Are we unified in our distrust of them? Will we fight each other? Are we still controllable? Will we take it? Overreact? They will come in waves of escalating provocations that take more and more while making less and less sense.
“A brief list of some of the COVID lies we have heard over the last couple of years (with thanks and acknowledgment to Dr. Scott Atlas):
-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than influenza virus by several orders of magnitude
-Everyone has a significant risk of death from COVID-19.
-No one has immunity, because this virus is new (“novel”) and so expedited vaccine development and deployment is essential.
-Everyone is dangerous and spreads the infection
-Asymptomatic people are major drivers of the spread of disease.
-Locking down- closing schools and businesses, confining people to their homes, stopping non-COVID medical care, and eliminating travel will stop/eliminate the virus.
-Masks will protect everyone and stop the spread.
-Immune protection can only be obtained with a vaccine.
-Natural immunity conferred by infection and recovery is short lived and inferior to vaccine-induced immunity.”
“Who was responsible for these lies?
Deborah Birx (who was trained by Anthony Fauci).
She wrote virtually all official White House guidance to state Governors.
This usurped constitutional authority of states to set public health policies.
Not a lie: “The President took office determined to move beyond these failed trickle-down policies and fundamentally change the economic direction of our country.” (Emphasis mine.)
No conspiracy theory: Bidenomics is high inflation and high interest rates – for Democrats and Republicans; people going back to work after COVID is not creation of new jobs.
The U.S. dollar has been so mishandled and degraded under the Biden regime – by Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell and Congress – that countries are turning to other currency.
There’s a pervasive attitude held by many Washington insiders – respectability. Put in a turn of phrase from Princess Bride, they would say “We are men of respectability, MAGA doesn’t become us.”
The “respectable” hoity-toity see themselves as morally and intellectually superior over the rather distasteful hoi polloi. They are disconnected from the common folk. They relate to them with contempt, with sneering media comments, and through opinion pieces – prescriptions as to how the little people should think and act – like them.
The “respectable” see themselves as lofty and undeniably important – as ruling class. Washington and the media abide them because they are controlled opposition.
Who are these “respectable” people? They include National Review writers, Bill Kristol, David Harsanyi, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, David French, Mike Pence, Indiana Senator Todd Young, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier.
Three presidents – Nixon, Reagan, and Trump – were threats to the administrative state that had incubated during FDR’s three terms and has grown enormously since. The administrative state reacts aggressively when its tentacles, that reach into all sectors of society, come under attack.
And so it was that Nixon was assailed with Watergate and left office. Reagan’s focus on the Cold War may have been the reason why Washington didn’t mess with him.
Today, with unjustifiable impeachments and indictments, a hostile constantly sniping media, and a stolen election, Trump has been mercilessly attacked by the leviathan administrative state that wants not only to maintain its status quo but, even more so, wants to increase its scope of influence over every citizen.
The “respectable” people mentioned above are in on the attack. Justice for them is that which leaves them feeling smug.
‘You’re Wrong’ With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 59: ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’
The Lies that Indict Saying Contesting Elections is a Crime:
Common knowledge. Hillary Clinton contested an election. Al Gore contested an election. Stacy Abram contested an election. Amy Klobuchar contested an election. And others. None of these were indicted.
“The victims this time are Trump and his friends. But it could be you next time, and it will be. “A boot stomping on a human face forever,” as Orwell said. Again, it’s happening now, and it can kill America as we know it.” (Emphasis mine.)
“The Democrats are so far out of line that I can barely comprehend it. They’ve created an incredibly tenuous racketeering charge and indicted lawyers who were legally representing their clients for practicing law. This is beyond the pale.
“The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law.”
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
— Exodus 23:1-3
If you have been on the receiving end of a lie, you know that lies are meant to manipulate. We’ve recently seen that lies pervert justice and indict. We’ve also seen that lies are involved in stealing elections, defrauding voters and dividing the public.
Lies used politically are meant to produce homogenized thought. Lies were used during COVID and now with the Climate Crisis narrative. And what better fear porn drama can be conjured up than a campaign to “combat online misinformation” (that works to keep truth from getting a foothold)?
Who better to deliver the fear porn drama of lies than know-it-all “fools and charlatans” or as they’re called today “the experts”? They were paraded out for the COVID “pandemic” and for the Climate “crisis”. And now for the COVID “variant crisis”.
If you accept and submit to the lie, you’re in the club. If you reject the lie, then the lie has set you up to fail and power sweeps in to “correct” you. If you don’t accept the lie, you’re considered to be an extremist, a cult member:
John Kerry now says you’re in a “cult” if you disagree with his views on climate change. pic.twitter.com/ymDh3bAK4c
Lies set you up to fail – being called names, being indicted, exclusion, etc. – if you do not accept them.
Lies blend contexts, as if they were the same thing, e.g., slavery at one time in the U.S. and all whites are racist.
Lies project onto others. (Watch CNN & MSNBC for examples.)
Lies create anxiety. (“Is he or she telling me the truth? What should I believe?)
Lies oppose human growth and well-being.
Lies destroy the spiritual growth of others and work to preserve and protect a sick world, the world of the unhappy.
When a lie is found out you may find yourself cursing the lie and the liar. Or you may vote for more lies and more drama, interesting times being desired.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Mask mandates will not fly; tell your lawmakers we will not comply.
Mask mandates, and even Covid jab mandates to attend school seem to be returning in some states. And the rumor mill is churning that even more are coming down the pike from the Biden administration.
Regardless if these rumors are true or not, or if more colleges and more hospitals follow suit, one thing remains the same: We will not comply.
Mandatory medicine and mandated interventions such as social distancing and mask-wearing have no place in a free society. Citizens have the right to make responsible decisions about what is best for themselves and their children based on their own unique circumstances.
Email your lawmakers now to urge them to do their part to make sure that mask-wearing remains voluntary. Use link below.
I sent the following Word Doc, composed from the Stand For Health email to lawmakers, to the Governor of Indiana and Indiana’s Health commissioner. Use the document to send to anyone in your state that needs this message.
The German government has embarked on an advertising campaign to brand mothers as ‘climate killers’. You absolutely know that this is all part of the ‘depopulation agenda’.
The only solution to the alleged “Climate Crisis” the Left will accept is Communism. What a surprise.
Property tax means you never own your property. It means you rent it from government.
Truth, beauty and happy go together.
By the Riverside by Belgian artist Emile Claus 1920
In the early chapters of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we are introduced to the winsome character Stiva Oblonsky. With a smile and self-possessed mannerisms, he draws the attention and affections of many. He comes across as likeable, amiable and nothing out of the ordinary – as one of us. Yet, the first thing we read is that Stiva has thrown his household into chaos.
We immediately learn that he has been unfaithful to his wife, Dolly. He’s had an affair with their children’s former governess. We go on to learn that Stiva is remorseful of the exposure of the affair but has not one iota of remorse about what he has done: “He repented only that he had not done a better job of concealing this fact from his wife.”
When confronted by a note exposing his adultery, Stiva worried more about his response than about the hurt he caused his wife. The narrator gives us insight into that moment:
“Instead of taking offense, disavowing it, justifying himself, begging forgiveness, even feigning indifference – anything would have been better than what he did do! – his face, quite involuntarily (“the reflexes of the brain,” thought Stepan Arkadyevich, who was fond of physiology), suddenly, and quite involuntarily, broke into his usual good-nature, and thus foolish, smile.”
Stiva passes the blame for the mess he’s in: “That foolish smile of mine is to blame for everything”. It is his smile that first endeared him to Dolly. And now, as a response that appears to mock remorse, the smile allows Dolly to begin to see what lies behind Stiva’s beguiling demeanor.
Stiva’s evil is not the blatant action-taking evil. History has a record of such people. Rather, it is the absence of good. Stiva forgets, neglects, and fails to act. We get a sense of this in Part III, chap. 7:
“No matter how hard Stepan Arkadyevich (Stiva) tried to be a concerned father and husband, he never could remember that he had a wife and children.”
Remembering is unresolved grief. It’s not for a committed hedonist such as Stiva. He would never embrace suffering. And remembering brings guilt and guilt is suffering, so he is willing to tolerate a sense of sin to get on with life. Life’s unpleasantries are a bother. His forgetfulness is achieved with a smile and social acceptance. Stiva “was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone”.
Behind Stiva’s good-natured smile is what Tolstoy described as “the liberalism of the blood”. Stiva fostered an easy-going liberal mindset:
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took and read a liberal newspaper, not a radical one, but one advocating the viewpoint maintained by the majority. And even though neither science, nor art or politics held any particular interest for him, he firmly maintained the same views on all these subjects that were maintained by the majority and by his paper, and he changed them only when the majority changed them, or, better put, he did not change them at all; they imperceptibly changed within him . . .
“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”
Reading further, we find Tolstoy contrasting the ordinariness of self-giving love, as expressed by Dolly, with the ordinariness of Stiva’s self-satisfying evil, expressed without ill-will or bitterness. Making waves would disrupt his complacency and the slight fog diffused in his brain.
For many years I’ve enjoyed reading Russian literature. Russian history has veered toward extremes – totalitarianism and atheism produced by the intelligentsia aka politically connected radical socialist atheists. Russian literature offers a window into the life and times of Russia, its people, and the thinking that led to so much suffering.
Realism abounds in the works of Solzhenitsyn, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Ultimate questions and meaning of life issues are openly dealt with. No AI. No BLM, CRT, LGBTQ, pandering, no Wokey-dokey or playing with pronouns. Just serious adult things.
With Anna Karenina Tolstoy portrays prosaic good and evil, self-deception, and the nature of love – the seemingly fate-occurring dramatic love of romance vs. the committed non-trumpeting prosaic love that does good, i.e., cares for the family. With more than a dozen major characters and around 800 pages, the novel fleshes out the first line: “All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Once you read Anna, I think you’ll find that Tolstoy’s characters, including the absence-of-good Stiva, are not unique. You may find yourself in their stories and perhaps the impetus for change.
*****
Consider that Stiva is the first transhumanist. Look at his utter acquiescence to whatever is printed and accepted by the majority. And look at his attitude– cooly dispassionate and compliant. He’s a non-entity with a pasted-on smile.
*****
I coined the term “pornservatives” to describe the type of person who on paper or in person looks like a good old-fashioned red-state conservative, but in practice is living a morally dubious lifestyle antithetical to anything that resembles “conservatism” or “trad” values.
“So [the effect of the COVID vaccine] is negative, and that continues. The magnitude of that negativity increases over time. What does that mean, folks? It literally means that the people who received that vaccine were more likely to contract COVID-19 after seven months than the people who did not. That is a fact, has the CDC or FDA ever said a word about that? No.”
Tell me, where is the wisdom of financially befitting – with tax-payer dollars – NGOs like Catholic Charities who are doing the bidding of godless globalists under the pretense of Christian charity? Such groups aid and abet illegal border crossings which undoubtedly involve the trafficking of children, of criminals and of fentanyl? Such involvement serves to dilute and weaken the U.S. with an America hating Progressive/Globalist agenda.
Tell me, where is the wisdom when you employ out-of-control spending and money printing that leads to expected out-of-control consequences such as inflation and devaluation of the dollar?
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been embraced by progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who see MMT as the means for increased government spending that could help finance initiatives such as the Green New Deal policy on climate change and, of course, buy votes.
MMT says that a government can basically blow as much money as it wants to boost its economy as long as that government borrows in its own currency because it can always just print more money. This allows the government plenty of room for free spending without forcing it to raise taxes. It also means it would be impossible for that government to default on its debts.
“The central idea of MMT is that governments with a fiat currency system under their control can and should print (or create with a few keystrokes in today’s digital age) as much money as they need to spend because they cannot go broke or be insolvent unless a political decision to do so is taken.” – Modern Monetary Theory (MMT): Definition, History, and Principles (investopedia.com)
“According to MMT, the only limit that the government has when it comes to spending is the availability of real resources, like workers, construction supplies, etc. When government spending is too great with respect to the resources available, inflation can surge if decision-makers are not careful. (Emphasis mine)
And so it is the political decision of Democrats and Globalists to leave the southern border wide open for the infusion into the economy of low-cost workers to help finance MMT spending for such progressive legislation as universal healthcare and other public programs for which governments claim to not have enough money to fund:
During the past 25 years, low interest rates and highly expansionary monetary policy with little apparent inflation have created the illusion that a government can simply print money to fund exorbitant deficit spending with no repercussions. This core tenet of so-called “modern monetary theory” ignores the fact that deficit spending is constrained in the long run by a government’s ability to satisfy creditors. (Emphasis mine)
"There were all these lies about the Emergency Authorization. They needed the Emergency Authorization to get the Vaccines down everybody's throats."pic.twitter.com/Rh8p57k72Z
Too many doctors and nurses to count in recent months have told me about the alarming rise in sudden cancers in young people since the introduction of the experimental COVID vaccines.
Reporter goes scorched earth on outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot:
"You revoked my media credential. That should never happen in a free country… You can pack your suitcase and get the hell out of my city!"pic.twitter.com/pYaA4ChGud
We need your help to protect parental rights in Indiana! HB1407 is the bill we emailed you about a few weeks ago that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The bill’s author, Rep. Dale DeVon, advocated hard for the bill on the House floor and thankfully, the bill passed through to the Senate.
Sadly, several groups are trying to kill this important piece of legislation, despite Rep. DeVon’s assurances that the judges who have reservations would be able to testify in the Senate committee, as well as his vow to work with them on amendments that would resolve their concerns.
HB1407 is a parental rights bill that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The question is whether the Senate will hear and pass the bill despite the judges’ concerns.
Where are other pastors like Pastor Derek Reimer? Are they hiding behind Romans 13?
BREAKING: Pastor Derek Reimer has been arrested again, this time for breaching his bail conditions following his previous arrest for protesting an all-ages drag event.
In caving to corporate and elite pressure to “fix” Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Gov. Mike Pence and the rest of the state’s laughingstock Republican leadership have ironically bungled into amending it in a way that now makes Indiana the most hostile state in the country to the conscience rights the original law was designed to protect.
The strength of green feeling here, both for and against, is a bellwether for the struggle to come in other countries and farming economies. But BBB [the Farmer Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging] should not be dismissed as ‘anti-green’; rather farmers are more of a lime green versus the dark green of the eco activists, both of whom claim they want to protect the land.
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) – George Harrison
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****
Cindy Wity 
Lies for the Taking
August 26, 2023 Leave a comment
There’s an old curse that goes something like “May you live in interesting times.” Well, we certainly live in interesting times. High drama, not peace and tranquility, seems to be what is desired by many and readily offered by “fools and charlatans”. Our world is vexed with constant convulsive commotion.
Why would some seek the dramatic instead of peace and tranquility? I’ll answer with conjecture so as to not be considered a fool or charlatan: there seems to be, by the amount of anger and discontent portrayed in the media, to be many unhappy people in the world.
Could it be that unhappy people have a need to remain unhappy? Could it be that unhappy people thrive on passion-evoking conflict to give them something to rage against and to feed their emptiness? A melodramatic life has a history – a story of critical moments that can be exploited and readily referred back to. The unhappy never let a crisis go to waste. And misery loves fellow travelers.
A prosaic life, on the other hand, has no dramatic history. Someone I just came across on social media noted the difference:
“When I look at the world on social media, life has never been worse.
When I look at my real life (family, career/finance, general enjoyment, etc), life has never been better.”
Is high drama readily offered by “fools and charlatans? Here’s Bill Nye: “It’s very difficult to tie any specific weather event to climate change, but if you like to worry about things, this is a great time.”
“After Tropical Storm Hilary hit California this week, MSNBC ran to TV children’s show host Bill Nye to hype climate change, a typical move by the far-left cable news outlet. . ..
Meteorologist Ryan Maue responded:
Meteorologist Blasts MSNBC for Trotting Out TV Stooge Bill Nye to Hype Climate Change After Tropical Storm in California (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
Dog bites man. Not news. Man bites dog. Front page news.
Westerly winds dry out non-native grass on Maui. Not news. Downed power line sparks wildfire. Westerly winds cause rapid spread of wildfire. Climate Change!!!!
Below, some of the Lies for the Taking being served up for the frustrated unhappy people who desire to bring everyone down to their level of misery. (Conjecture?)
(See previous posts for links that debunk many of the lies coming out of the mouths of “fools and charlatans”.)
The Lies of the Climate Concerned:
We’re all gonna die unless . . .
King Charles III has launched a catastrophe countdown clock. It will tick until 2030, a year in which he predicts “serious consequences” if the world doesn’t effectively address “climate change.”
King Charles climate doomsday clock is pure green insanity (nypost.com)
“As President Joe Biden prepares to visit Maui, the Hawaiian island devastated by the deadliest wildfire in U.S. modern history, lawmakers and climate groups are begging the White House to do more to prevent future climate-related disasters.
Their argument: If the latest environmental catastrophe won’t spur the president into action, what will?”
Activists and Members of Congress Are Exploiting the Hawaii Fire, Urging Biden to Declare a ‘National Emergency Over Climate Change’ | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
Humans to Blame for Hawaii Fires, but Not How You Think – The Heartland Institute
Here’s Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organization, with more climate crisis fear porn to bring about centralized control.
The Lies of the Optics Concerned – Maui:
“While en route to Maui, three weeks after the wildfire that devastated the Hawaiian island began, White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said President Joe Biden will “make sure that he communicates to that not only have we been there since day one, has he been there since day one.””
3 Weeks Since Maui Fires Began, Biden Claims He’s ‘Been There From Day 1’. (thenationalpulse.com)
“It’s all about me . . .
SICK! Joe Biden Lies About His House Burning Down to Maui Wildfire Victims, “I Almost Lost my ’67 Corvette and My Cat” (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila
Couple Who Survived Maui Fires: ‘Biden Has Really Failed Us’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
Maui coverup: where in the world are all the children? – Revolver News
Maui, Yellowknife, Teneriffe, Rhodes: Who is Behind the Spate of Wildfires Caused by Arson? | The Gateway Pundit | by Richard Abelson
FEMA orders COVER-UP of Lahaina death and destruction
The Lies of the “Concerned” about COVID:
Dr. Gottlieb is connected to the FDA, to Pfizer, to the CIA, and more. See Dr. Malone’s article at link below for more on the “pretty concerned” Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
Dr. Malone writes . . .
“Propagation of Fear porn based on fake news and hype is now a validated method for Big Pharma to control governments and their populations. But are people buying it this time around?
“One of my primary care physician colleagues wrote this to me yesterday:
“Who would’ve thought that Covid would resurge as a concern for so many! I’m getting bombarded with calls and request for ivermectin, folks who are testing unnecessarily. Absolute panic out there once again.
“So, yes- the fear porn is working.”
COVID-19: Eris or Pirola? – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)
“To further the suggestion that another lockdown scare is in the forecast, yesterday the US Department of Health and Human Services announced funding of $1.4 billion to “support the development of a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come” according to a press release” (Emphasis mine.)
Biden Administration Announces Massive $5 Billion COVID-19 Funding Called “Project NextGen” | The Gateway Pundit | by Brian Lupo
How do we prepare for the typical fall flu season? With “a physician that will help you determine the correct dosing of Vitamin D3 and zinc, as well as be willing to prescribe multi-drug, early treatment protocols against COVID, and one that isn’t going to pressure you or your family into unnecessary shots.”
COVID-19: Eris or Pirola? – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)
earlytreatmentmeds:
“We employ doctors who aren’t afraid to utilize effective, simple, and safe treatments for viral infection through the intelligent use of prescription medicines that have been around for years, and in some cases, decades. By focusing on the pathology of the toll that viral infections take on the human body, we’ve discovered that some off-label medicines can be more consistent, effective, and safe than new experimental treatments.”
Premium Early Treatment Pack (earlytreatmentmeds.com)
Masks Won’t Save You – But Here’s A Way To Get The Critical Medications That Can | The Gateway Pundit | by Promoted Post
Weekly Update Archives – Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (vacsafety.org)
The Lies That Mask the Truth about Masks:
HYSTERIA 2.0: Scientists call for the return of face masks as they raise alarm over new COVID variant BA.6 that has a “lot of MUTATIONS” – NaturalNews.com
“Scientists” are even clamoring for the return of masks.
“We’ve already been over everything you need to know about “Eris” here. Long story short, “Covid” is just another made up name for the flu, and the “variants” are coats of paint they slap on the narrative to try and keep it looking fresh.
“In that same article I theorised Eris’ existence was a need to keep Covid alive, and that is part of it…but I also missed something obvious: The next round of Covid “vaccines” hits the shelves next month.” (Emphasis mine.)
Is This The Real Reason “Eris” Cases Are Spiking? | ZeroHedge
Taxpayer money given to big Pharma . . .
Next generation of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies gets a $1.4 billion boost | Nebraska Examiner
“American hospitals made more money than ever during Covid, thanks to special government subsidies, a new study shows.”
Covid was very profitable for hospitals – by Alex Berenson (substack.com)
Yale professor scoffs at the idea that mask mandates are based on science – NaturalNews.com
https://www.brighteon.com/f2b71ad7-2649-41c5-92de-8859c3acf4bb
The Science Is Settled for Now on COVID-19
Face Masks Lack of Safety and Ineffectiveness Research | GreenMedInfo
36 Abstracts with Face Masks (Lack of Safety and Ineffectiveness Research) Research
“In short, Eris is what happens when people refuse to panic about climate change.”
Everything you need to know about Covid’s “Eris” Variant – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)
BREAKING: Insider Says Lockdowns & Masks RETURNING This FALL?!! | Elijah Schaffer’s Top Picks (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Elijah Shaffer
The Biden administration has announced a plan to encourage all Americans to receive a Coronavirus booster shot during the upcoming fall season to respond to an apparent wave of infections.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting a rise in virus-related infections and hospitalizations, the White House highlighted that the overall infection rates remain relatively low.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the overall levels of COVID-19 in the country are very low. (Emphasis mine.)
Santa Monica, which is in Los Angeles County, has an extremely low rate of COVID-19 hospital admissions.”
“Positivity rates for the COVID-19 test are similarly low across the country, including in California.”
But that doesn’t stop fools and charlatans imposing mask mandates and people going along with the drama.
Here We Go: Lionsgate Studio Reinstates Employee Mask Mandate Despite Very Low COVID Cases | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft
Do Not let them do this to your children. Say “NO!” to masks and mandates.
“College students and others across America should be preparing for mass protest against mask mandates citing a First Amendment right to engage in political speech, which refusing to wear a mask can be construed as in any environment attempting to mandate it.
The second they mandate wearing a mask, it’s a political issue, so refusing to wear one in such a condition can be construed wholly as a political statement. The First Amendment provides strong protections for political speech.” – James Lindsey (Emphasis mine)
The new Covid regulations are a test. Are we unified in our distrust of them? Will we fight each other? Are we still controllable? Will we take it? Overreact? They will come in waves of escalating provocations that take more and more while making less and less sense.
NIH Study Suggests N95 Covid Masks May Expose Wearers to Toxic Compounds Linked to Seizures, Cancer | The Gateway Pundit | by Margaret Flavin
“They are lying when their lips moving about how much they care about you and your little life and your paper constitutional rights.”
The Lies of the Government and the WHO
Dr. Robert Malone details some of the lies in his Substack post, who’s responsible for them and more:
“A brief list of some of the COVID lies we have heard over the last couple of years (with thanks and acknowledgment to Dr. Scott Atlas):
-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than influenza virus by several orders of magnitude
-Everyone has a significant risk of death from COVID-19.
-No one has immunity, because this virus is new (“novel”) and so expedited vaccine development and deployment is essential.
-Everyone is dangerous and spreads the infection
-Asymptomatic people are major drivers of the spread of disease.
-Locking down- closing schools and businesses, confining people to their homes, stopping non-COVID medical care, and eliminating travel will stop/eliminate the virus.
-Masks will protect everyone and stop the spread.
-Immune protection can only be obtained with a vaccine.
-Natural immunity conferred by infection and recovery is short lived and inferior to vaccine-induced immunity.”
“Who was responsible for these lies?
Deborah Birx (who was trained by Anthony Fauci).
She wrote virtually all official White House guidance to state Governors.
This usurped constitutional authority of states to set public health policies.
Anthony Fauci
Francis Collins”
The Lies of the COVID Vaccine:
White House says all Americans should get boosted against Covid-19 this fall – Sharyl Attkisson
They claimed it would prevent the disease. FALSE.
They claimed it would prevent spread. FALSE.
They claimed it would prevent hospitalization. FALSE.
Maybe everybody just got it in the wrong arm?
The Lies of Ukraine:
“If We Press This With Russia, It Will Reach Us Here In The US” – Col. MacGregor Tells Tucker Why The Ukraine War Must End Now | ZeroHedge
The Lies of An Election Not Stolen:
MUST SEE: Documentary “Let My People Go” By David Clements About the Stolen 2020 Election to Be Released in October 2023 | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft
Brian Kemp, Who Met With Suspected Chinese Spy Leader, Fights Against An Audit In Georgia – National File
The Lies of Joe “No Joke” Bidenomics:
Joe, you’ve turned the high interest, high inflation economy hose on the poor and middle class.
The official lies – Bidenomics Is Working: The President’s Plan Grows the Economy from the Middle Out and Bottom Up—Not the Top Down | The White House
Not a lie: “The President took office determined to move beyond these failed trickle-down policies and fundamentally change the economic direction of our country.” (Emphasis mine.)
Promoting the Lies of Bidenomics: ‘Bidenomics’ is working – which means Biden and the Democrats may win too | Robert Reich | The Guardian
Questioning the Lies of Bidenomics: President touts ‘Bidenomics’ though new poll shows just 34% approve his handling of the economy | AP News
No conspiracy theory: Bidenomics is high inflation and high interest rates – for Democrats and Republicans; people going back to work after COVID is not creation of new jobs.
Bidenomics Fail: Americans Increasingly Forced to Dip Into Retirement Accounts to Make Ends Meet, Major Bank Reveals | The Gateway Pundit | by Johnathan Jones, The Western Journal
‘Bidenomics’ Just Lost America its AAA Debt Rating in Historic Downgrade. (thenationalpulse.com)
BIDENOMICS: US Housing Affordability at an ‘All-Time Low’. » The National Pulse+
Gary Varvel: Bidenomics is working as intended (substack.com)
Things are bass ackward in the Biden economy:
The U.S. dollar has been so mishandled and degraded under the Biden regime – by Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell and Congress – that countries are turning to other currency.
What is BRICS? Group of world leaders that considered making a new currency meet to discuss economy – CBS News
COMMUNISM THREATENS AMERICA: Brazilian President Lula da Silva Pushes to Weaken the Dollar and Create Single Currency with China and BRICS Countries | The Gateway Pundit | by Fernando de Castro
Explained: Why India & Other BRICS Nations Want To Create A New Currency For Trade Payments (msn.com)
ghazibousselmi on X: “BRICS Summit 2023: Putin’s address Not so veiled inflamed message to the globalist communist leaders of the west: You are destroying, we are building. You are de-industrializing, we are modernizing industry. You are decimating your economies via Covid & Climate crises, BRICS… https://t.co/2r3nxtB9aT” / X (twitter.com)
The Lies of Green Jobs:
‘Dirty’ Industry Workers Aren’t Transitioning To ‘Green’ Jobs, Study Finds | Your Wyoming News Source (cowboystatedaily.com)
The Lies of “Misinformation”:
Coming to the U.S.:
The man posts things critical of the mainstream narrative on social media.
Someone anonymous reports him to the police.
The police reports him to the health system.
Two “health care workers” and two police officers arrive at his door the same day he shares one of my posts about government surveillance.
They drag him away and forcibly lock him up.
He is not allowed fresh air.
He is not allowed to have his lawyer present at a meeting.
Norway LOCKED man in psychiatric ward for questioning mRNA shots (substack.com)
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
The Lies of the Media
The COVID Lie That Started It All – YouTube
The Lies of Respectability:
There’s a pervasive attitude held by many Washington insiders – respectability. Put in a turn of phrase from Princess Bride, they would say “We are men of respectability, MAGA doesn’t become us.”
The “respectable” hoity-toity see themselves as morally and intellectually superior over the rather distasteful hoi polloi. They are disconnected from the common folk. They relate to them with contempt, with sneering media comments, and through opinion pieces – prescriptions as to how the little people should think and act – like them.
The “respectable” see themselves as lofty and undeniably important – as ruling class. Washington and the media abide them because they are controlled opposition.
Who are these “respectable” people? They include National Review writers, Bill Kristol, David Harsanyi, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, David French, Mike Pence, Indiana Senator Todd Young, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier.
Three presidents – Nixon, Reagan, and Trump – were threats to the administrative state that had incubated during FDR’s three terms and has grown enormously since. The administrative state reacts aggressively when its tentacles, that reach into all sectors of society, come under attack.
And so it was that Nixon was assailed with Watergate and left office. Reagan’s focus on the Cold War may have been the reason why Washington didn’t mess with him.
Today, with unjustifiable impeachments and indictments, a hostile constantly sniping media, and a stolen election, Trump has been mercilessly attacked by the leviathan administrative state that wants not only to maintain its status quo but, even more so, wants to increase its scope of influence over every citizen.
The “respectable” people mentioned above are in on the attack. Justice for them is that which leaves them feeling smug.
The Lies that Indict Saying Contesting Elections is a Crime:
Common knowledge. Hillary Clinton contested an election. Al Gore contested an election. Stacy Abram contested an election. Amy Klobuchar contested an election. And others. None of these were indicted.
“The victims this time are Trump and his friends. But it could be you next time, and it will be. “A boot stomping on a human face forever,” as Orwell said. Again, it’s happening now, and it can kill America as we know it.” (Emphasis mine.)
Prosecutorial Bolshevism – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Attorney Robert Barnes Shreds The Trump Indictments With The Duran | The Gateway Pundit | by Larry Johnson
“The Democrats are so far out of line that I can barely comprehend it. They’ve created an incredibly tenuous racketeering charge and indicted lawyers who were legally representing their clients for practicing law. This is beyond the pale.
“The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law.”
Law Professor Jonathan Turley: Effort to Bar Trump From Ballot is ‘Single Most Dangerous Constitutional Theory’ Ever | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
~~~~~
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
— Exodus 23:1-3
If you have been on the receiving end of a lie, you know that lies are meant to manipulate. We’ve recently seen that lies pervert justice and indict. We’ve also seen that lies are involved in stealing elections, defrauding voters and dividing the public.
Lies used politically are meant to produce homogenized thought. Lies were used during COVID and now with the Climate Crisis narrative. And what better fear porn drama can be conjured up than a campaign to “combat online misinformation” (that works to keep truth from getting a foothold)?
Who better to deliver the fear porn drama of lies than know-it-all “fools and charlatans” or as they’re called today “the experts”? They were paraded out for the COVID “pandemic” and for the Climate “crisis”. And now for the COVID “variant crisis”.
In this post I haven’t even listed the lies of the WEF such as Eating lots of meat is bad for the environment and Why eating less meat is the best way to tackle climate change and worse.
If you accept and submit to the lie, you’re in the club. If you reject the lie, then the lie has set you up to fail and power sweeps in to “correct” you. If you don’t accept the lie, you’re considered to be an extremist, a cult member:
Townhall.com on X: “John Kerry now says you’re in a “cult” if you disagree with his views on climate change. https://t.co/ymDh3bAK4c” / X (twitter.com)
Lies set you up to fail – being called names, being indicted, exclusion, etc. – if you do not accept them.
Lies blend contexts, as if they were the same thing, e.g., slavery at one time in the U.S. and all whites are racist.
Lies project onto others. (Watch CNN & MSNBC for examples.)
Lies create anxiety. (“Is he or she telling me the truth? What should I believe?)
Lies oppose human growth and well-being.
Lies destroy the spiritual growth of others and work to preserve and protect a sick world, the world of the unhappy.
When a lie is found out you may find yourself cursing the lie and the liar. Or you may vote for more lies and more drama, interesting times being desired.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century – Tablet Magazine
~~~~~
Mask mandates will not fly; tell your lawmakers we will not comply.
Mask mandates, and even Covid jab mandates to attend school seem to be returning in some states. And the rumor mill is churning that even more are coming down the pike from the Biden administration.
Regardless if these rumors are true or not, or if more colleges and more hospitals follow suit, one thing remains the same: We will not comply.
Mandatory medicine and mandated interventions such as social distancing and mask-wearing have no place in a free society. Citizens have the right to make responsible decisions about what is best for themselves and their children based on their own unique circumstances.
Email your lawmakers now to urge them to do their part to make sure that mask-wearing remains voluntary. Use link below.
ACT NOW: Mask mandates won’t fly. Tell your lawmakers we won’t comply. | Stand for Health Freedom
Face Masks Lack of Safety and Ineffectiveness Research | GreenMedInfo
36 Abstracts with Face Masks (Lack of Safety and Ineffectiveness Research) Research
I sent the following Word Doc, composed from the Stand For Health email to lawmakers, to the Governor of Indiana and Indiana’s Health commissioner. Use the document to send to anyone in your state that needs this message.
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Dissemination of Lies
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Normalization of Lies
“Assault on free speech”: Jordan Peterson social media training controversy explained as psychologist loses court battle (msn.com)
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Lies for the Taking:
Biden Lies And Says Taliban Helping Us Fight Al Qaida – His Lies Are Going To Get A Great Many People Killed (substack.com)
Jake Sullivan Biden’s National Security Advisor Was At The Heart of the Russiagate Lies (substack.com)
~~~~~
The Climate Cult is Satanic.
Future or climate killer?
The German government has embarked on an advertising campaign to brand mothers as ‘climate killers’.
You absolutely know that this is all part of the ‘depopulation agenda’.
The only solution to the alleged “Climate Crisis” the Left will accept is Communism. What a surprise.
Property tax means you never own your property. It means you rent it from government.
Truth, beauty and happy go together.
I support Hillsdale College.
Honor Code – Hillsdale College
Hillsdale College – Developing Minds. Improving Hearts.
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Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Communism, cultural Marxism, Culture, Political Commentary, Politics, propaganda, Short Story, socialism, totalitarianism Tagged with Climate Crisis, COVID, ERIS, lies, lockdowns, mandates, masks, media, politics, propaganda, Ukraine, vaccines