Walking around on Resurrection ground
March 6, 2016 Leave a comment
“…for anyone who is concerned about the survival of culture, there are some important lessons in the armory of cultural instructions accompanying a humble tomato plant. Perhaps the chief lesson has to do with time and continuity, the evolving permanence that cultural animi no less than agricultural cultivation requires if it is to be successful. All those tips, habits, prohibitions, and necessities that have been accumulated from time out of mind and passed down, generation after generation: How much in our society militates against such antidotes to anarchy and decay!” Roger Kimball’s Fortunes of Permanence: Culture in the Age of Amnesia
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“…once we recognize the deep-rooted Epicureanism of much of Western culture, our vocation as Christian thinkers is not to make an easy, compromising peace with it but to discern how to restate and reinhabit a genuinely Christian worldview in its place.” N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Scripture
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“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.”
Banquo, Act 1, Scene 3, Shakespeare’s Macbeth
You can’t help but notice that it is tax time again. If you have any income at all then taxes are due. If you have made more than a little income then you owe, progressively owe, unrelentingly owe. And make sure you pay through the nose for health care so you don’t have to pay through the nose for a tax penalty. Thank you Democrats and SCOTUS for winning Americans “to our harm”. 
I finished my taxes. Again, I find myself supporting that half of the nation that is not paying taxes – you know, the Queer studies students, the #Blacklivesmatter street walkers and so on. Bernie Sanders, an avowed Socialist wants me to be shamed into paying more taxes so he can give away free stuff to more freeloaders. The Millennials are gaga over Bernie. But they should know: formerly socialist countries have already felt the Bern – the fires of riots. See Greece.
My 86-year-old mother is still paying taxes! I volunteered to do her Fed and State returns this year. Now, my mother receives an annuity. To figure her taxes I had to print out reams of IRS publications just to figure the amount due! America is forms on top of forms.
The currently leading candidates from each party are both being investigated. Hillary is being scrutinized by the FBI on felony charges related to her illegal use of a personal computer while in the State Dept. If AG Lynch does her job, then Hillary will be indicted and likely sent to prison. But AG Lynch is an in-the-bag Democrat who thinks in political terms first, the people last.
Trump is being investigated on fraud charges related to Trump U. What are Trump supporters thinking? Didn’t they get enough Bernie Madoff? “Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.” 
So you are aware, I have never have voted for a Democrat in my life. I cannot in good conscience vote for a party platform that supports abortion and the party of the KKK or the party that booed God at their last convention or the party of big government and ever bigger tax increases. It is no lie that Democrats do not support economic growth. They will support redistribution by taxation until your money runs out.
Before you listen to the video of Ted Cruz, let me say that life in a republic requires your attention, your critical thinking and your tender loving care. Your vote must carefully tend the “evolving permanence”. Your vote must militate against “anarchy and decay.”
That is the reason I am voting for Ted Cruz. 
The Supreme Court. The revered Justice Scalia recently passed. An offshoot of the same hardy, resilient, weather resistant genes must be grafted onto the court. And, not only must Scalia’s position be filled but Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s court seat will likely become vacant this next term.
“Sustainability” is an oft heard word these days. If you care about this republic, where freedom grows like nowhere else in the world, then…Ted Cruz is your caretaker.
Sen. Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz, A Personal Look At A Humble Man
Donald Trump’s business disaster is worse than you think
The communist failures that await Obama when he goes to Cuba
February 28, 2016 Leave a comment
“Culture no longer necessarily implies self-cultivation or learning; it is a value neutral term embracing everything and nothing. Its practitioners are largely oblivious of the noble ambition to transcend time and place to discover eternal truths or to create works of enduring beauty.
They are instead transfixed by technologically driven ephemera, guilt-induced humanitarianism, and status-defined identity politics. In such circumstances, culture may lose its autonomy and become instead the mere reflection of society that Marxist and utilitarians of many stripes have always taken it to be.” The Dereliction of Duty by Daniel Johnson
~~~
“The study of the past is the main portal through which culture is acquired.”
“The acquisition of culture requires repose, sitting quietly in a room with a book, or alone with one’s thoughts even in any crowded concert or art museum.”
― Joseph Epstein, A Literary Education and Other Essays
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“Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did.” 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
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“…the gold-standard, which had existed since the Lydian’s first coinage, disappeared forever in the two decades after World War I.
Freed from the obligation of having to exchange paper money for the yellow metal, governments began to print bills, sometimes with abandon…the result was the first great worldwide inflation.” The Four Pillars of Investing by William J. Bernstein
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Pictures at an Exhibition. Teaching students about contemplation…
“Opportunities to unlock the poetry and stories of their surroundings were no longer a given, and skill in doing so was waning.
[Harvard’s Jennifer] Roberts responded by placing one of her assignments, a three-hour “visual analysis” of an artwork, at the center of her teaching to show her charges that learning is not synonymous with access, that knowledge is not available at a glance…
For Roberts, introducing her students to the practice of “naïve observation” as preparatory research has become something more than a simple homework assignment. Time, she seeks to show, is not the enemy but the vehicle of understanding. Slowness is not an obstacle to progress but a key to the practice of knowledge-making. And close looking is preface to the hard-won making of thought. At heart, she is coaxing her students to question what’s beyond surface appearances—of a painting, a frown, a flower, or an idea.” (emphasis added) Catching Our Eye by Maggie Jackson, The State of the American Mind
Beyond the data. Since the days of the Enlightenment there has been a conflict between two truth-seeking modes: the scientific or rational and the intuitive or poetic. The latter is losing ground. The packaging has become more important than the gift. And so…
The little lambs of this generation are lost in self-discovery. The wisdom of the ages, a shepherding influence, has been left far behind. The sheep wander aimlessly, not realizing the danger they are in. Seeing this, the wolves salivate. Think political motivation. Think identity politics. Think liberal colleges. Think race and gender cards.
“Dereliction of Duty”. Christian churches have sought the lost sheep with the cultural gimmickry that deserves only a glance. Worse. The church’s One Foundation has been replaced with a multilayered mosaic of cultural soapstones.
The return to the gold-standard for those of us in the kingdom of God: see the side bar and the N.T. Wright quote.
February 21, 2016 Leave a comment
Envy St. has been the road most travelled from the start. Covetousness and self-deception have been the vehicles of choice. The serpent promised the first couple that they could become like God – their projected 1%.
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.” Genesis 3: 4, 5
And so they believed the lie that having the same quality as God would create equality with God. They believed they could transcend their humanity and become Singularity. They democratically voted “Yes,” and bit off more than mankind could chew.
~~~
Man as Singularity – Freddie Kruger voters: 
“Since the end of the second world war…a new ethic has, astonishingly, come into being, according to which envious man is altogether acceptable. Progressively fewer individuals and groups are ashamed of their envy, but instead make out that its existence in their temperament proves the existence of “social injustice,” which must be eliminated for their benefit. Suddenly it has become possible to say, without loss of public credibility and trust, “I envy you. Give me what you’ve got.” (emphasis added) Helmut Schoeck, sociologist
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The Day Democratic Socialism Died:
In his final semester, Trevor had earned enough credits to graduate. Trevor had worked long and hard. He would graduate in the top 1% of his class. And, as expected, Trevor’s school loan would come due a year from graduation. Trevor would need to find work. But.
Trevor, a student of required Karl Marx readings, was told that 90% of his credits now must be redistributed to other classmates who were lacking credits. Trevor was taught that socialism is the way of the future and that he must submit.
Trevor, now, would need to apply for another student loan to earn more credits to graduate. And though tenured professors did not have to redistribute their years of teaching to create tenure for other teachers (some people being more equal than others), Trevor accepted his plight….by saying, “Hell no!”
~~~ 
The push for equality through Democracy, equality tied to a certain feature of your neighbor’s life, is not unlike an out of control spender charging every purchase to a credit card to keep up with the Joneses or the Kardashians or the Real House Wives of Orange County and then paying the minimum due every month.
~~~
“And it is a good thing that many ideas have a relatively short shelf-life. Some because they are bad, even pernicious ideas: the Master Race, the class struggle, the Oedipus complex, and Socialism are four bad ideas with wretched consequences that come immediately to mind.”
“Being an anti-capitalist and hence being able to blame capitalism—often known more simply as “the system”—for any failure I might encounter through my own lack of talent or absence of energy not only provided me with a fine fallback position, but permitted me to view anyone who labored at a workaday job in the system with a rather lofty contempt.” 
― Joseph Epstein, A Literary Education and Other Essays
~~~
More required reading. Credit applies to graduating with honors in saying “No” to socialism:
“This Presidential election looks more like an election in Europe than one from America. On the Democratic side you have a 74 year old self-avowed socialist and a 68 year old progressive. On the GOP side you have forgotten the message of Reagan where Government was the problem, now it’s just badly managed. At the GOP debate last week you had a debate over whether Obama is incompetent or an ideologue.”
Karl Marx’s 10 Point Checklist to Communism – Where Does America Rank?
“What Keynes succeeded in doing was to provide a rationale for what governments always like to do: spend other people’s money and pander to special interests.”
The Follies and Fallacies of Keynesian Economics
Thomas Sowell – Common sense economist
Socialism: The Force Is Not With You
Added, #FeeltheBern of socialism in Sweden:
“When leftists fantasize about Northern Europe, the first thing they think of is the region’s enormous public spending and its overly generous welfare state. However, as with all dreams, the time is coming to wake up. Along with several other social services, Sweden’s iconic “free” healthcare system’s days are numbered.”
Socialist Paradise of Sweden Reportedly Moving TO PRIVATE HEALTHCARE
This Is How Bad It’s Got In Latin America’s Socialist Utopia
February 20, 2016 Leave a comment
Antonin Scalia died on Saturday, Feb. 13. 2016
Married fifty-five years, nine children, thirty-six grandchildren
A preserver of the permanent
God Rest His Soul
Justice Scalia eulogized as devout believer
Antonin Scalia’s law clerks await his body at the court – photo, Legal Insurrection
February 14, 2016 Leave a comment
“It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God.” Oswald Chambers, Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
News Release • February 11, 2016:
Gravitational Waves Detected 100 Years After Einstein’s Prediction
“For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.” 
Fellow spacetime travelers, as mentioned last time, the game is afoot!
This week, another substantial mind boggling cosmological clue!
Be reminded: Truth-seeking the not-so-obvious five-sigma answers to your questions takes…spacetime, “elbow room” and the right lab equipment (spectrograph, interferometer, Sola Scriptura, to name a few) 
Gravitational waves, Einstein’s ripples in spacetime, spotted for first time (quotes follow)
“…for the first time, physicists detected the waves, fulfilling a 4-decade quest and opening new eyes on the heavens….”
“It is the prospect of the science that might be done with gravitational waves that really excites physicists. For example, says Kamionkowski, the theorist at Johns Hopkins, the first LIGO result shows the power of such radiation to reveal unseen astrophysical objects like the two ill-fated black holes. “This opens a new window on this vast population of stellar remnants that we know are out there but of which we have seen only a tiny fraction,” he says…
With the black hole merger, general relativity has passed the first such test, says Rainer Weiss, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, who came up with the original idea for LIGO. “The things you calculate from Einstein’s theory look exactly like the signal,” he says. “To me, that’s a miracle.”” (emphasis added)
LIGO my Eggo: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) measures waffling gravitational fields created by black holes merging into a dancing embrace. 
“LIGO watches for a minuscule stretching of space with what amounts to ultraprecise rulers: two L-shaped contraptions called interferometers with arms 4 kilometers long. Mirrors at the ends of each arm form a long “resonant cavity,” in which laser light of a precise wavelength bounces back and forth, resonating just as sound of a specific pitch rings in an organ pipe.”
The alpha omega a priori LIGO, the dancing embrace of the Trinity, is aware of every ripple in your spacetime, your prayers, your knocking on His door in the middle of the night, your pinging. Become a “resonant cavity” and you will hear the Trinity moving the universe to answer you. Like Paul…
“I am persuaded, you see, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in King Jesus our Lord.” The apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.
February 7, 2016 Leave a comment
Another in the Quantum Theology and the Dispensation of Synchronicity Series
_____________________________________________________________________________________
As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
From the English Lullaby Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 5
~~~
So you want to know if God is game? It’s elementary dear reader. It’s in the stars and a spectrograph is required. “But I’m into relationships, not science!” Snap out of it, kid! Put on your thinking cap. 
Prism break. In 1814 Joseph von Fraunhofer, a Bavarian lens maker, invented the spectrograph, a device which separates white light into a rainbow of colors. With a lab spectrometer the fingerprints of atoms and their Creator are uncovered.
“The white-hot surface of the sun emits light of all wavelengths, but this light then passes through the relatively cooler gases of the earth’s atmosphere (the “corona”). Here the atoms might absorb just those same wavelengths they like to emit. This absorption accounts for the curious dark lines observed by Faunhofer. Bit by bit, spectroscopy in the post-Fraunhofer era revealed that each element, when heated, produced a characteristic set of “spectral lines,” some prominent (like the brilliant lines of neon gas that are so familiar in neon signs), and some faint (like the dimmer blue of mercury vapor lamps). These lines were the fingerprints of the chemical elements, the first clues to the tiny “tuning forks” within atoms, or whatever the mysterious structures vibrating inside the atom must be.” (emphasis added) from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill
“The game is afoot!”. What game? This game is kind of like Hide and Seek, the kid’s game. But in this game someone hides and the rest must seek out the hider. Like the kid’s game, no one seeking believes that the person hiding is unreal and not there, unless a person enters the game after the person hid. This person then has to believe the other seekers. But this person may think that the others may be tricking him and walk away. That’s his or her choice.
The seekers all must have a well-motivated belief that the hider is there and can be found to win the game. See. I am starting to build relationships.
“Spectroscopy’s second major achievement was a more philosophical. In the sun’s signature of dark lines scientists could read its chemical composition, and lo and behold, they found hydrogen, helium, lithium and the other elements of matter that compose our planet Earth. Since then, we have analyzed the light from the stars in extremely distant galaxies, always finding our own familiar elements: hydrogen, helium and so on. The universe everywhere has the same composition and the same laws of nature, all of which hints at a common origin in some incomprehensible act of physical creation.” from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill
“How I wonder what you are.” Information sourced from a twinkling star spectrum includes: 
Our distance from a star.
The temperature of the star
The size of a star.
The mass of a star.
The elements of a star
The motion of a star.
Using a star’s spectral lines we can measure its gas pressure and the strength of a star’s magnetism at the surface.
And you thought those little white dots in the night sky were there just for romantic reasons? They certainly are! The Creator is engaging his creation. So, “Make a Spectrograph of Yourself”.
[spek-truh-graf, -grahf], noun
1. a spectroscope for photographing or producing a representation of a spectrum.
Like it or not you are taking in the Light of Christ. His Cosmic photons are constantly bombarding us. With it we can see familiar elements and, more closely, the fingerprints of God. And though the Light source seems off hiding somewhere in a distant galaxy there is considerable information for us to take in. We can analyze the Light from Christ and find the familiar incredibly romantic, like the red Valentines rose.
Under light a rose absorbs most colored light of the rainbow and emits red light.
What are you absorbing and what are you emitting? We tend to hunker down with some OTC Christian book that tries to explain God to us in proxy fashion. We ask God about something specific and we expect God to answer us in specific Voodoo-like fashion. “There will be a wet fleece on your doorstep tomorrow. That’s how you will know.” Look around. Adjust your spectrograph and see the full spectrum of answers God has already provided. And, if you ask for wisdom (light), have you used the wisdom God has already given you to find your way?
“The game is on!” Personally and very briefly, I joined the game of Hide and Seek when I started to read and think outside the “Christian” cave. I rid myself of the myopia of single point of light thinking – Sola Scriptura – and I stepped outside. To accomplish the move into the sunlight with a well-motivated belief of greater illumination, over the last several years I began studying science books. This path for me has made all the difference. And this path has shed enormous light back onto Sola Scriptura. God has been found ever since. Yes, he likes to keep hiding and being found. But, is God uncooperative when it comes to me? No!
The Hider is there and His Light is supernal. He wants to be found. Such Light gives itself away!
~~~
When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.” Psalm 27:8
May the light of Christ remain with you always…
February 5, 2016 Leave a comment
Christians should not be feeding on pablum, the processed food given to infants. And, Barack Obama is pablum incarnate.
The finger-pointing and shaming Obama has said that there are Americans who “bitterly cling to guns and Bibles.” But, from his high-sounding lectures we learn of Crusader Obama cleaving to Islam and the Koran and its terror filled ways. He (and his AG Loretta Lynch) berate anyone who would question the ways of Islam. How odd and how evil to promote what is in-your-face evil over what has a history of overwhelming good. But that is the way of Progressivism and the way of “fundamental transformation”. The anti-Bush is much more like the anti-Christ.
In his last (thank you God!) year as president, Obama is desperately trying to create a legacy out of processed political motives, hence the visit to a Baltimore Mosque and the hubristic lectures. Obama is campaigning to become president of the world – UN Secretary General. Don’t eat the pablum.
3 Reasons Obama Visited A Terrorist Mosque — listen to my latest podcast for free here! dailywire.com/podcasts/3157/… https://t.co/Moy247Z0vD—
Andrew Klavan (@andrewklavan) February 05, 2016
Listen:
https://twitter.com/gerfingerpoken/status/696236559146754049
January 31, 2016 Leave a comment
~~~
A brief history of your universe, Hamlets Moderne:
Modern man, what a piece of work. Wired framed with thick strands of Epicureanism, a 3rd century BC philosophy that sees God as remote, man now considers himself the centerpiece of the universe and without need for a Potter’s hands. So what if the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and you are an of late attendee!
The Roman poet Lucretius, a disciple of Epicurus’s teachings and someone who lived about 70 years before Jesus, promoted the “god is angry” meme along with Epicurean atomism, the original theory of evolution. And so today, even when a person finally comes to believe in God, they do so through Epicurus’ eyes and ears. What then do we mean when we say God is silent? Perhaps, “Why, God must be angry.” “God must be off somewhere.” “God is just like us and not easy to get along with.”
Plastered onto modern man’s Epicurean wire frame is chewed-paper papier-mâché reason. The paper, formed into the shape of the Thinker, became The Enlightenment. And, with man in a newly acquired coat of shellac – solipsistic authority – God was no longer deemed incommunicado but rather God was deemed dead. As such modern man would soon decide that truth-seeking should be divided up into natural science and natural science. Faith was sent to purgatory to wait its turn.
“Indeed, the Enlightenment was, as a whole, one long determination to get rid of the big, bad boss upstairs. That is why one of the main drivers was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Had there been a god who was running the show, he certainly wouldn’t have allowed such a thing, on All saint’s Day in particular, when everyone was inside the collapsing churches. So, with Voltaire and others, Europe pushed God upstairs out of sight, and many in America followed suit.” N.T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture.
Then came German psychology: “God must be like your father and you hated your father ergo you will likely trend lesbian.”
And French intellectuals: Michel Foucault (1926-84) “was driven by an intense desire to find a substitute for communion with God.” Foucalt saw truth as a “regime” of beliefs and values linked to systems of political and economic power, a scientific, non-universal apparatus feeding into majority opinions.” For Foucalt truth was never objective and eternal but rather truth was seen as subjective and based on regimes of power (what my friends let me get away with saying) and changeable over time.
Democracy and your mind on self: “Freedom of thought and freedom of speech were proposed in theory, and in the practice of serious political reformers, in order encourage the still small voice of reason in a world that had always been dominated by fanaticism and special interests. How freedom of thought and speech came to mean the special encouragement and protection of fanaticism and interests is another of those miracles connected with the decay of the rational political order. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Then, there’s Deconstructionism in all its chewed-paper on-the-floor glory: Interpreted truth with its suppression of reason through ‘creative means’ has replaced objective truth – more papier-mâché thinking. Subjectivity has become prominent, removing true context or history – and redefines knowing as “I thought it therefore it must be true.”
Speaking of subjectivity: Moral relativism deconstructs truth to form a synthesis of good and evil. Subjectivism now rules. The only thing allowed to be absolute are no absolutes, except as science dictates absolutes.
In bed with the American Dream: Academia has morphed from being a generator of intellectual pursuit into an assembly line for vocation. Student loans have been taken out with the expectation that a job will be handed out (for any area of study) along with a diploma at graduation. But, with no job forthcoming one is ‘left’ with no recourse other than to make others pay for my education. “I was promised one thing and didn’t get it. And, God, if there was a God, would be just like the system.”
Take me to the American Dream on time: Evangelical churches have pushed the gospel of the American dream (education, marriage, children, house, family, success in life, freedom, etc.) and not the Kingdom of God. “Didn’t God promise me success if I played by the rules I voted for?”
That, my friends is a very brief (and not all-inclusive) history of your universe. Hopefully you have begun to see why your modern thoughts might be projected onto God as doubts. Your brain’s debit card has been preloaded with many debits.
“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.” Emily Dickinson
Is God silent? I do not think so. I believe that man has tuned out God on his every channel. Mankind has stopped looking for bread crumbs under the table. The bombarded hints are there. Or, as Oswald Chamber posited:
“Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”’
“Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Leave Room for God
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Is this true? I wonder: the only time, the only time that God has been utterly silent towards a member of the human race was in reply to Jesus when he cried, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.”
~~~
Upcoming post: Quantum Theology and The Dispensation of Synchronicity
Cindy Wity 