Step Outside
March 7, 2021 Leave a comment
“Late last month the Boundary Waters was named a dark sky sanctuary by the International Dark Sky Association, a nonprofit that works around the world to reduce light pollution and protect night skies. It’s one of just 13 such designations in the world.
To qualify, a place has to have exceptional starry nights, and a “nocturnal environment that is protected for its scientific, natural or education value, its cultural heritage and/or public enjoyment.
. . . We’re looking at a sky that people looked at thousands of years ago. And to me it feels like preserving a really special heritage. It’s part of the fabric of the Boundary Waters.”
– Boundary Waters designated a dark sky sanctuary
Many years before this recent designation of “dark sky sanctuary”, I took in the “exceptional starry nights”. I did this during my two-week canoe trips out of Ely, MN into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The trips were about camping out in a secluded wilderness with close friends. And for me at least, it was about getting out of town and experiencing a different reality. My parents were not campers.
Born and raised in the city of Chicago and later moving to the suburbs, life was lived under manmade illumination.
I ate, played, did homework – did everything – by the light of incandescent, fluorescent or thungsten-halogen lamps. At night I walked or rode my bike under the mango-yellow light of street lamps.
In the Boundary Waters Wilderness there was none of that. When the campfire smoldered out, or when I wandered off from the camp, the firmament provided the only light.
Within that night sky sanctuary, absent of “light pollution”, billions of stars were sending out light. I learned later that the starlight had come to me from the distant past.
The night sky sanctuary is a time machine. Things had been set in motion long before I came around. I needed to step outside my frame of reference to understand this.
****
Within the eyewitness testimony recorded in Mark’s gospel, there is an account not recorded in the other three gospels. We read of a blind man receiving his sight in two stages. The account is situated right after the account of the disciples not “seeing” – not understanding – what is right in from of them.
In Mark chapter 8 vs. 12-21, we find the disciples concerned about not having brought enough bread for their boat crossing. Their concern and confusion began when they did not understand Jesus’ warning.
“Beware!” said Jesus sternly to them, “watch out for leaven – the Pharisees’ leaven, and Herod’s leaven too!”
(One could say that “the leaven of the Pharisees” leads to a rising sense of self-righteousness. And, the “leaven” of Herod leads to a rising sense of self-importance. Both leavens lead to an eclipsing of the light of day.)
Jesus then sternly replies to the disciples and their mumbling about not bringing bread.
“Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? Have your hearts gone hard? Can’t you see with your two good eyes? Can’t you hear with your two good ears?”
Jesus goes on to point out the obvious to his disciples: they were directly involved in feeding the five thousand and the four thousand. Each time they started with only a few loaves and ended up with baskets full of leftovers. How could they not understand and take in what took place in their presence?
Then comes the account of the man without two good eyes. Mark 8: 22-26:
They arrived at Bethsaida. A blind man was brought to Jesus, and they begged him to touch him. He took his hand, led him outside the village, and put spittle on his eyes. Then he laid hands on him and asked, “Can you see anything?”
“I can see people,” said the man, peering around, “but they look like trees walking about.”
Then Jesus laid his hands on him once more. This time he looked hard, and his sight came back: he could see everything clearly. Jesus sent him back home.
Don’t even go into the village, he said.
The blind man recovers partial sight after Jesus touches him. He gains full sight after Jesus touches him again. The man looks really, really hard all around. Everything then came into view for the once-blind man. He can now “walk perfectly on all his paths.”
Though I’ve read this passage many times before, what stood out this time – Jesus leading the blind man out of the village before restoring his sight. Did the village represent an established framework of thinking – a frame of reference – that needed to be reorientated by Jesus?
Was the variation in setting, from where the man had long groped for a path to outside the village, meant to be an object lesson for the disciples? They also groped for understanding. Did they need to step outside the village understanding of things?
Was the relocation outside the village for the healing a means to clear away obstacles from the man’s path? To straighten out paths for the blind man and the understanding of the disciples?
The disciples and Mark’s readers would no doubt understand the meaning within this account. Seeing and not seeing correlate to understanding and not understanding in words of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 6: 9-10). And both states correlate with the path one walks. This is heard in the words of the Damascus Document found near the Qumran community.
The “Teacher” exhorts the reader to “Listen to me and I shall open your eyes so that you can see and understand the deeds of God . . . so that you can walk perfectly on all his paths” (CD2:14-16)
The gospel of Mark opens with quotes from prophets Isaiah (40:3) and Malachi (3:1) in reference to John the Baptist:
“Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of me; he will clear the way for you! A shout goes up in the desert: Make way for the Lord! Clear a straight path for him!”
In the verses that follow we read of relocation, redirection and the clearing away of impediments in order to walk perfectly.
Mark writes of John the Baptist appearing in the desert announcing a baptism of repentance. A relocation outside the village.
Then we read that “the spirt pushed him (Jesus) out into the desert.” A redirection from villages. (Imagine the night sky over the desert – a dark sky sanctuary declaring the glory of God.)
The blind man, once groping for a path, stepped outside his frame of reference with Jesus. There, he was healed and saw what the disciples had yet come to see– that Jesus is the Frame of Reference. All else is darkness, murkiness, groping, and . . . mumbling.
****
2017 Biologos Conference, Astronomer and President of BioLogos Deborah Haarsma: Christ and the Cosmos
Cindy Wity 
“an issue of evil – pure evil”
March 13, 2021 Leave a comment
“I was a stranger and you . . . you treated me like chattel.”
Legal immigrants come to the U.S. to better their circumstances. Many immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are doing so for the same reason.
And, there are those illegal immigrants seeking new circumstances for their nefarious deeds. Pedophiles, rapists, drug dealers, MS-13 gang members, and terrorists also want in.
And the sick:
The CDC specifically cites the possibility of the cross-border movement of HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis and syphilis. Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent in South Texas, warned: “What’s coming over into the U.S. could harm everyone. We are starting to see scabies, chickenpox, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and different viruses.” Some of the youngsters illegally entering our country are known to be carrying lice and suffering from various illnesses. Because there have been no medical examinations of undocumented immigrants, we have no idea how many are carrying infectious diseases that might endanger American children when these immigrants enter schools across our nation.
Talking about the realities of illegal immigration is not fear-mongering or xenophobia. Who and what is crossing the border affects everyone (except for a small minority who live in gated communities, e.g., Fort Pelosi, Washington D.C.) The effect of open borders will be coming to a town near you. In fact, the venal thinking behind open borders has already migrated into our lives.
The Democrats passage of H.R. 1 is an assault on humanity. From voting to gender to increased taxes, H.R. 1 imposes a Progressive ideology on America. HR 1 reveals the Hideous Strength underlying “the most progressive bill in U.S. history”.
Along with H.R.1, an open borders policy will bring about a dilution of Judeo-Christian values in America. Values will be then be reconstituted to that which Big Brother Tech ordains and enforces through dependency.
Humanity is threatened by the evil attached to policies. As always, there are government policies which slow the spread of evil and there are policies that rapidly deploy evil. The stolen 2020 election fostered the latter.
With the construction of the wall and a wait-in-Mexico policy among others, the previous administration throttled the flow of illegal immigration. The many deleterious effects of unbridled illegal immigration (e.g., human trafficking) that we are seeing today were held in check.
The current “border crisis”, acknowledged by those involved except for the Biden administration, is growing exponentially. The reason?
The Biden administration, via EOs, canceled the previous administration’s policies. Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki spins the canceling EOs to the world as moral high ground.
What you won’t hear from Press Secretary Jen Psaki is that the massive inflow of illegal immigrants is the low-cost labor force that Globalist’s require. To compete in the world market of consumerism, a cheaper labor force is required to sustain profits and their vision of a techno-utopia.
Allowing an incursion of illegal immigrants is hawked by a mawkish Christianity as compassionate. But what is happening is not humane. It is not Christian. To wit: the hardest hit by lower wages and a massive labor pool are the minorities – Blacks and Hispanics. But that is of no concern to Globalists and the virtue signalers they encourage.
Rather, the open border policy is diabolical, evil. Illegal immigrants are being used by Globalists including the Catholic church Globalists to shore up their Globalist agenda. That agenda first and foremost is the Great Reset – a dehumanized mankind made to service and accommodate centralized power. The Communist Chinese party is a prime example of this agenda in action.
The Globalist Elite need minions – blissfully ignorant and pliable “proles” – to grow the P in their P&L and to sustain a techno-utopia. That is why you will hear Progressives, secular and religious, pushing for open borders and illegal immigration. The Biden regime is now Executive-ordering the takeover and repurposing of humanity.
Biden, called the “Migrant President” by the very concerned president of Mexico, is actually the Human Trafficking President.
The cartels will literally tell these people, ‘If you have a minor with you we’ll give you a lower price of $3,200,’” he told War Room, Friday. “’We’ll give you safe passage.’”
On top of child smuggling, “we have all these pedophiles, rapists, and kidnappers being released into the United States,” Hernadez said. “This is not a Republican issue, not a Democrat issue.
This is an issue of evil.
Cartels Are Selling Children for $3,200 at Biden’s Open Border – Steve Bannon’s War Room: Pandemic
If they don’t pay their debt then the cartel has the information about where they’re going, but more importantly, they have the information on their families in home countries,” Jones said. “From there, they can start the threats and hold them accountable through debt bondage, a form of human trafficking. Either pay or we’re going to come after your family.
Overwhelmed Mexican Alien-Smuggling Cartels Use Wristband System to Bring Order to Business (cis.org)
The Mexican government is concerned that President Biden’s asylum policies are encouraging illegal immigration and providing revenue to drug cartels through human trafficking across the US border.
Mexico says Biden asylum policies boost illegals, cartels (nypost.com)
Should the administration fail to address the weaknesses in U.S. law that serve as a magnet drawing foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally, I will be writing a lot more about recoveries of human remains, rather than rescues of migrants in distress. I don’t want to.
An unnamed Mexican official recently quoted in Reuters stated: “Migrants have become a commodity” for smuggling gangs. “But if a packet of drugs is lost in the sea, it’s gone. If migrants are lost, it’s human beings we’re talking about.” That is eminently self-evident.
Simply telling migrants “[t]hey need — they need to wait”, as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did on March 1, is not a deterrent, or a life-saving strategy. In fact it’s not a strategy at all.
Do Biden’s Border Policies Now Have a ‘Body Count’? (cis.org)
The Migrant Crisis Isn’t Just At The Border, It Stretches To Central America (thefederalist.com)
The Biden Administration Is Releasing COVID Positive Illegal Aliens into the United States by Katie Pavlich (townhall.com)
By Day 48, Biden’s White House Had Made Major Progress in Destroying America. (thenationalpulse.com)
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Filed under 2021 current events, Immigration, Political Commentary, Progressivism, Short Story Tagged with Communism, Globalists, Illegal Immigration, Joe Biden, politics