That Was No Dream
December 25, 2022 Leave a comment
Ezekiel Evans looked out the front room window. A snow-buried Camry sat dormant under the streetlight. “Still there” Ezekiel said to the glass reflection of Tonya decorating the Christmas tree. He stood there another minute to reassure himself and then returned to his chair. “You never know what will happen next around this doggone place. The city’s gone to hell.”
“Don’t worry, Ez,” Tonya teased, “Chicago has an intersectional mayor. All you have to do is believe in her just like weez all spose to pretend to believe in Santa Claus.”
“I’ll believe in Santa Claus before I believe in her!” Ezekiel replied.
When they moved to the Chicago area several years before, Ezekiel and Tonya overlooked a lot of things. Coming from a Georgia farm, they saw the cosmopolitan city as an upgrade. It was a place to live independently and experience new things. They moved to the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s south side.
The five-bedroom brick bungalow on Wentworth Avenue was big enough for their growing family. It was something they could afford. What they couldn’t afford was a carjacking and what some hoodlums were doing in the neighborhood – robberies, burglaries, thefts, assaults, shootings and sex trafficking.
“We’ve got to get that garage door fixed so we can park the car inside. Then you can have some peace of mind Ez,” Tonya offered.
“Yeah, but my peace of mind needs to cover a lot of ground. The kids need food and clothes and shoes, doctor visits, and . . . a decent place to live.”
When they bought the place, it needed a lot of work. Ezekiel spent what extra money they had to fix the place. But the more things in the neighborhood became unsettling the more unsettled he became. His uncle’s Georgia farm, where he lived after his father died suddenly, was a touchstone that kept coming back to mind.
Uncle Abrams raised grass-fed and pasture-raised beef, lamb, goat, and pork. During his time with his uncle, Ezekiel learned animal husbandry and the ways of the Lord. His uncle was a godly man. But a time came when Ezekiel felt he had to find his own way and be his own man. He saw the farm as restraint holding him back.
After his marriage to Tonya, he headed north to the south side of Chicago. There he opened a butcher shop that sold meats from a local packer and from his uncle’s farm. The enterprise was fairly successful, but also a struggle. Maintaining a decent price for the quality being offered hindered sales. His cousin John drove the Georgia meat up to Chicago once a week. John had to be paid.
And there were substantial losses at one point. Around Christmas last winter the store was broken into. The meats on display were taken. A police report was filed but no suspects arrested. Insurance covered the loss and then raised rates six months later. Ezekiel didn’t like putting window grating on his store windows – the cost and the eyesore -but he did what he had to do to maintain business.
Andre was asleep in his crib. Alana was carried to bed by her father. After a retelling of the Christmas story – the one about shepherds and the stable and of Joseph and Mary and the baby – four-year old Alana asked, “Did baby Jesus cry like baby Andre?”
“The story doesn’t say, Alana,” her father replied. “Babies don’t have words yet to say what they want like you and me. Baby Andre fusses and cries when he is hungry and uncomfortable.”
Alana thought for a moment. “I think baby Jesus cried. But then his mama fed him like mama feeds baby Andre.”
“I think you are right.” Dad gave Alana a kiss on the head and tucked the covers around her.
“I’ll leave the hall light on for you. Mom and I will be right here in the next room.”
Ezekiel and Tonya sat in their kitchen listening to the radio. A local station played Christmas carols. Ezekiel looked through the bills and Tonya her grocery list.
“Do you think your uncle will send us another roast for Christmas?” Tonya asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know Tonya.” Ezekiel replied
“Ask him. He’s a good man, a man of faith.” Tonya pushed.
“Yeah, he is a good man. I’m not so sure I’m a good man for taking off and leaving the way I did.”
“I thought you two had worked that out.”
“I worked out that I wanted to go my own way. And when I told my uncle he offered me my choice of acreage on the farm . . . “to build your own future” he said. Uncle Abrams had no problem offering me the better pastures. I guess he figured that God would keep blessing him. He often talked about following God’s leading. I’ve been thinking ‘bout that for a while now.”
“I’m sure he’d like to hear from you other than about another order,” Tonya urged. “Call him tomorrow.”
Ezekiel got up from his chair and headed to the front room window to check on the car. He looked out and saw the car. And some trouble heading his way.
There was a sudden frantic pounding on the front door. “What the . . .!”
Looking out onto the lighted porch he saw two terrified young men. When they saw Ezekiel, they screamed louder. Ezekiel opened the door.
“Help us mister! They’re coming!”
“Who is coming?” Ezekiel shouted through the storm door.
“Those men!” One of the boys pointed. “Let us in mister please!”
Ezekiel hesitated, not sure if it was a ruse. Then he saw four men running down the sidewalk towards the house. Something didn’t seem right. The boys were only wearing sweatshirts, sweat pants and dirty socks.
“Come in. Let me find out what this is all about.” Ezekiel opened the storm door and the two teenagers bounded in behind Ezekiel. Tonya grabbed some blankets from the hallway closet and handed them to the boys.
“What’s this all about?” Ezekiel looked at the boys and then at the approaching men.
The shorter boy started, speaking as fast as he could. “Those men took us off the street. They said they had plans for us.” He stopped to catch his breath. “We escaped the van when it got stuck in the snow . . . we saw you looking through the window . . .”
“What plans?”
The taller boy spoke. “Something about service jobs for me and him,” he pointed to the other boy chattering his teeth, “we’ve been friends for a while . . . we want nothing to do with them.”
“Where do you live?”
“Mister, we have no home. The street’s our home. These guys came up to us and said we could be warm and have food if we came with them. We thought it would be OK. One of them looked like he was a priest.”
“Go on,” Ezekiel pressed. But now the men were on the front porch. One of them was rattling the storm door by its handle.
“Where are those boys? Bring them out to us so that we can talk to them.”
Ezekiel opened the storm door and the men backed up. He came out and folded his arms. “I’ll do their talking. What do you want with them?”
A large bald man stood in front. Behind and to the left of him stood a squirrelly-looking man with a pockmarked face. He kept looking around. Next to him, on the other side of the bald man, stood a thin goateed man making a solemn look The other man who was out of view down on the sidewalk. The bald man spoke.
“Mister we just want to talk to them. We saw them on the street they looked like they needed shelter and food. We don’t know why they ran . . . these two young boys need our help. We do this all the time – help homeless kids”
“I see. You need their help in a service industry?”
“We wanted to give them jobs . . . you know, . . . helping . . . serving people.”
“I see. Well, these boys want no part of it.”
“Listen mister . . . “, the bald man growled and grabbed Ezekiel by his shirt to pull him away from the door.
At that moment Ezekiel thought he made out the face of his lawyer friend. “Ken . . . Ken! . . . is that you?”
The man on the sidewalk turned and walked away.
The large bald man began to pull harder on Ezekiel. “Listen mister . . . it’s none of your affair.” The two other men tried to open the storm door behind Ezekiel.
The two boys saw this and pulled Ezekiel inside. Ezekiel locked the door. Through the glass he shouted “My wife has called the neighbors. You better not come back here lookin’ for what ain’t yours!”
The men turned and saw porch lights turning on. Neighbors came out to see what was happening.
“Get back in your van and get the hell outta here! NOW!” Ezekiel eyes blazed.
The four men took off down the sidewalk, hiding their faces in their collars as they ran.
Ezekiel watched the van drive off. He stood there for a long time to reassure himself that it was gone.
Tonya had the boys settled at the kitchen table. While talking with the neighbors on the phone Tonya made hot cocoa and oatmeal for the boys. They still shook from the cold under the blankets and their eyes remained wide open.
One of the boys asked “You didn’t call the police?” Tonya stopped what she was doing and replied.
“Even if those four predators were caught and arrested, they would be released without bail. That’s how things go around here. Criminals run free and good people are supposed to put up with it.”
Ezekiel walked into the kitchen for a moment and then turned and walked down the hallway. He returned ten minutes later.
“I’ve made up some bedding for you two in the back room. You don’t go anywhere tonight.”
The boys looked at each other. “Thank you, . . . mister?”
“Ezekiel, and this is my wife, Tonya. In the morning you’ll meet our two little ones.”
****
Baby Andre made the first sound in the morning. His cries woke Tonya. She got him up and nursed him. A while later Alana came into the kitchen rubbing her eyes.
“Alana, we have two guests in our house. They slept overnight in the back room.”
“Who are they mama?”
“Two young men who needed some food and a place to sleep.”
“Were they crying?”
“No Alana. We knew what they needed. I’ll make you oatmeal.”
Ezekiel walked in the front door. He’d been out clearing off the car. Tonya handed him a cup of coffee.
Ezekiel spoke in hushed tones. “Those two . . .,” he nodded to the back room, “let them sleep in. I’ll bring home some extra ground beef for dinner. Find out their names”
That evening Ezekiel, Tonya, Alana, baby Andre, Booker and Darius sat around the table eating a casserole and potato salad. After a blessing they talked about the day. Alana, who couldn’t hold back, started.
She told her father about building a snowman with the two boys. Tonya had given the boys some of Ez’s old coats and gloves and shoes and socks to wear. The boys each said that they had never built a snowman. And though still somewhat pensive about everything, they began to open up.
Each boy talked about living in the projects and taking care of their mother. They talked about people coming around. They talked about their mothers becoming drug addicts. They talked about their baby sisters being taken away. And of not knowing who their father was. And then Booker and Darius stopped talking. Alana began asking questions. Tonya assured Alana that she would tell her what she needed to know later.
Baby Andre’s day, per Tonya, consisted of wide-eyed wonder and giggling when the boys played peek-a-boo with her. The boys helped keep baby Andre occupied while she did what she had to do.
Tonya’s unreported day consisted of changing diapers, laundry, fixing lunch, and neighbor phone calls. After last night, neighbors wanted to know if the Evans family was OK. One neighbor brought over a meal to find out. “This cornbread chicken bake comes from the James family next door,” was Tonya’s update.
After the meal Ezekiel read Psalm 34. Then he repeated these words:
This poor soul cried and was heard by the Lord
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them.
The next morning, Christmas morning, it wasn’t the aroma of a grits and sausage casserole warming in the oven that brought the boys to the kitchen. They had something they wanted to get out. They walked back and forth nervously. Ezekiel had them sit down at the table across from him and Tonya.
With a terrified look Darius blurted out “We had a dream, mister Ezekiel, ma’am.”
“We both did,” Booker interjected.
Darius continued. “We both saw very bad things heading this way. We both heard “Leave this place!”
“What do you think it means Ez?” Tonya asked.
Ezekiel began rubbing his forehead. “It means . . . it means . . . it means we better leave.”
“What?! But my brother and his family live here . . . we can’t just pick up and leave!”
“We will warn them to leave.” Ezekiel came back.
“Ha, good luck with that!” Tonya snapped. She got up and put her hands on her hips.
“Ezekiel, a dream? We’re gonna pick up and leave based on a dream?! What about the store?”
“Tonya, if that isn’t a warning, Ezekiel replied, “nothing is. And look what happened to these boys. That was no dream.”
©Jennifer Ann Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2022, All Rights Reserved
Cindy Wity 
Fourth of July with an Eye on the Horizon
July 4, 2022 Leave a comment
“Good riddance!” That’s what I said leaving the Progressive pothole that is Illinois. I moved to a “less restrictive state” per a co-worker who lives in Indiana. “Enough Already!” of the growing idiocracy with its pagan overlords.
Cook County and Chicago are going to hell under DEI Progressives – the intersectional Lori Lightfoot and Soros-sponsored AG Kim Foxx.
The governor, the multidimensional J.B. “Jelly Belly” Pritzker, put Illinois at the bottom of the economic barrel. Per the Illinois Policy Institute website:
In a new report on America’s 50 governors, Gov. J.B Pritzker was ranked 47th because of the harm he’s done to the state economy. Voters saved him from a lower rank by rejecting his ‘fair tax.’ . . .
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s rankings are in the 2021 report on Economic Freedom: Grading America’s 50 Governors. The report ranked Pritzker overall at No. 47 – fourth from the bottom – by using a combination of Pritzker’s policies and the state’s economic performance under his leadership to form a list of 12 criteria. . ..
Economic performance was mainly held back by Illinoisans moving out of the state. Illinois lost population during 2021 in 81 of 102 counties.
2022 is where I come in . . ., I mean, where I go out! I rejected Jelly Belly’s progressive income tax. I rejected his progressive ways. And, I rejected his tyrannical, unscientific, and unconstitutional COVID mandates.
“All of this was in the pursuit of one goal and one goal only — saving as many lives as possible,” the empathetic poser said of his pandemic restrictions.
One opinion piece comments that [Pritzker] shut down businesses, churches, schools and everything nonessential, except abortion clinics, liquor stores and marijuana shops.
Do the politicians ever consider that losing one’s job may lead to despair, which may possibly lead to suicide? Kids not going to school and seeing their friends may lead to depression.
The left, always worried about abortion being illegal one day, kept the clinics open. I wonder why the governor and health department don’t tell us how many children died from abortion the way they touted the deaths of COVID.
Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot fined churches for defying Jelly Belly’s stay-at-home orders. (The heathen delight in exercising their will on others And, the heathen rage . . . ‘F*** Clarence Thomas!’: Chicago mayor unleashes tirade against SCOTUS justice at Pride Parade | Daily Mail Online)
It took churches going to court to put a stop the ‘empathetic’ Jelly Belly’s draconian ways with Illinois churches:
It is a stunning victory for Elim Romananican Chuch, Pastor Cristian Ionescu, and Logos Baptist Ministries. These two Churches have been fighting alone on behalf of all churches in the state. They’ve been staying steadfast and have endured resistance and harassment from the local and state government. They’ve been given fines, had their church parking blocked by police, had their building surrounded by No ‘Parking’ signs, were publicly excoriated by governmental officials, and most recently were declared a ‘public nuisance‘ by the city and threatened to be locked out of their building, and even having it destroyed.
But hours after the two Romanian churches filed an emergency injunction pending appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the governor backed down and failed to offer a response to the appeal, instead releasing new “guidelines” for churches.
Governor J.B Pritzker, the draconian Governor who has been imposing unconstitutional restrictions on churches in the state by forbidding them from opening, has folded his hand and removed all restrictions on churches that had been previously implemented.
The churches in my area didn’t join in the court fight. They just went along to get along. One church used Romans 13 as the cover for its cowardice. I stopped attending that church because of that attitude.
(The Romans 13 passage is not Paul’s treatise of the church and state. Rather, it is a directive to the Christians in Rome to not be involved in riots and get thrown out of Rome because of them.)
The church submitted believing that submission to a governing authority was required per scripture. Yet, no church should obey these unconstitutional and irrational mandates and especially when a priest preaches that faith in God and not fear is the mandate for a Christian. Bending the knee to the mandates was a show of cowardice and lack of discernment for the sake of going along to get along.
Senators Durbin and Duckworth and representative Lauren Underwood -Democrats all- support the opposite of what is good and right and just. They support Progressive Leftist narratives that do not represent me one iota let alone the kingdom of God. I’ve written to each over time about policy directions they were taking. And that is how I know about their Leftist stance– from their responses. They echo what one would hear on MSNBC and CNN, and even Fox News, these days.
Progressives, like the Illinois snakes, beguile and charm their naïve voters with talk of saving lives, of saving the planet, of absolving you of responsibility by paying off your student loan and of hating people who disagree with them. They will even convince their disciples to hate their own country for the sake of their self-serving vision. They are a destructive bunch who believe that their ends justify their ad hoc social justice means.
They break the rules and cheat. They bully all the educational, medical, entertainment, and all other institutions into oppressing all of us normal people. They rig speech, social media, apps, search browsers, the internet, the work place, the schools, the universities, the movies, tv, the media, the magazines, Hollywood, and the “medical experts” against people like you and me. People are terrified to openly say what they think and dissent because they know that the democrat mob will come after them. And though these snakes talk about saving our democracy, they want nothing to do with democracy. They want their way. They want total control.
They work the agenda of the 45 Goals of Communism, including . . .
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural and healthy.”
Enter Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. She has a “long record” of letting child porn offenders “off the hook” during sentencing.
Durbin pushed through the Supreme Court nomination of this pagan DEI choice. She enters the court with a progressive zeitgeist that keeps her from defining what a woman is or when life begins.
Like Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot, local rep. Lauren Underwood is a token DEI Democrat. She repeats what she is told to repeat on the Democrat plantation.
In March 2020 the so-called COVID “pandemic” became the means for social engineering across the globe and in Illinois. “Public health and “hospital capacity” were given as the reasons to shut down society and rework it. Irrational anti-human COVID mandates – lockdowns, masks, social distancing – were imposed, not in the service of Mankind, but in the service of the state. As a result, life was subverted to such a degree that state media became the voice of an idol telling us how to serve the state, telling us how one should live and move and have their being:
Wear the mask. Don’t question it.
Lock down the church. Don’t question it.
Take the experimental DNA-altering aborted fetal tissue vaccine. Don’t question it.
Accept the election results despite the rampant irregularities. Don’t question it.
Support Congress sending $40 billion to Ukraine. Don’t question it.
Hand over your guns. Don’t question it.
Attack, demonize, and destroy anyone who questions it.
It should be obvious by now that the state wants to re-birth each us to be its offspring. Hence the manipulative talk of paying off student debt and the constant pandemic and climate change fear porn and the gushing DEI/Pride propaganda. Hence the alienation and atomization process of the mandates. You must be separated from the past, from your tradition, from your family, from your property, and from your identity. You are to receive everything from the state as its offspring.
The impetus to move out of Illinois had been growing in me for several years. My workplace is located in Chicago so I stayed. The final straw came during the 2+ years of idiotic and destructive COVID edicts imposed by J.B. “Jelly Belly” Pritzker. My company played along with the mandates, and so it was that started working from home. I continue to work from home in my new home state.
Why move to Indiana? For one thing, Indiana is a less taxing state (marginal tax rate of 3.23%) than Illinois (marginal tax rate 4.95%). Qualified Hoosiers may get a refund if Indiana has enough budget surplus at the end of the fiscal year.
In Ill Annoy, the Illinois Policy Institute notes . . .
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has added more than $5.24 billion in new or higher taxes and fees since taking office. Despite all that new revenue, the nation’s highest taxed state remains a fiscal mess unable to balance a budget for 21 years.
Illinois has the second highest property tax rate behind New Jersey.
Indiana, a “less restricted state”, is # 6 behind New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee and South Dakota according to the overall freedom ranking. It remains to be seen if Indiana will remain less restricted and free or if it will become another Progressive pothole like Illinois. It concerns me that Indiana’s Gov. Holcomb attended the WEF in Davos.
Before my departure, I wrote to the three reps mentioned above: “I am an American. I refuse to be a slave to the Democrat party and to the state and to the World Economic Forum. I refuse to be controlled opposition. I am leaving Illinois for good.”
This message, I have no doubt, fell on deaf ears just like Democrat James Carville’s words to Democrats during an election: “It’s the economy stupid!” The Biden regime is not hard of hearing. It just ignores humanity for the sake of a draconian green agenda. You can’t help noting the destruction the regime is wreaking on the U.S. economy.
While you take in the Fourth, keep watch on the horizon. Look for the pagan hordes coming for your children. See the ghost in the machine coming with AI transplants into your body. See the amassing army of barbarians – globalists – who are bringing about a worldwide famine and chaos in their self-aggrandizing pursuit to “save the planet” and to make you conform to their pagan ways. They are coming for your property and your person.
“Consent of the governed” is a phrase found in the United States Declaration of Independence. J.B. Pritzker and a host of other democrats disregarded the consent of the governed with the mandates. They disregarded democracy when they stole the election. These are intent on making people their dependent offspring.
Being the offspring of God, I do not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination. (Acts 17:28-29) The state is not a divine being, though it acts like one. The globalist state would have you make sacrifices to its image: “you will own nothing and be happy! -Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
So, I say to Illinois Democrats and globalists “July 4th is about liberty stupid!” To the rest I say, “Keep your eyes on the horizon.”
****
God selects those who will do battle for him. In the account recorded in Judges chapter 7, God works with Gideon to select soldiers to do battle against the Midianites.
Starting with 32,000 soldiers,10,000 remain after the “fearful and trembling” are sent packing. Still not the right amount and quality of soldiers. The final number of soldiers, chosen by a water test, is 300. God chose the alert soldiers, ones who drank and kept an eye on the horizon and the enemy. The self-indulgent water drinkers were told to go home. A good explanation of all this is here: Gideon’s Doglike Lappers (israelbiblicalstudies.com)
5 So he brought the troops down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, “All those who lap the water with their tongues, as a dog laps, you shall put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths,[c] you shall put to the other side.” 6 The number of those who lapped was three hundred, but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. 7 Then the Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred who lapped I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all the others go to their homes.”
****
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Steve Bannon with Archbishop Viganò. A Fundamental Interview, Absolutely Must Read. : STILUM CURIAE (marcotosatti.com)
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Informed Dissent:
This 4 min video should be mandatory viewing for all parents considering vaccinating their kids (substack.com)
MSN quietly deleted a story revealing that severe COVID-19 is rarely found in the unvaccinated – NaturalNews.com
Thousands Of Kids Injured, Disabled By COVID Jab | NaturalHealth365
Immune Imprinting, Comirnaty and Omicron (part 1) (substack.com)
The FDA’s proposed “Future Framework” is the worst idea in the history of public health (substack.com)
Testimony and Remarks, Pandemic Response (substack.com)
SHF’s oral public comment at FDA’s meeting on COVID shot strain replacement | Stand for Health Freedom
Marxism: “You Will Own NOTHING and Be Happy” (substack.com)
Failed and Murderous Biden regime Policies:
The Infiltration – Alberto Rivera Explains Jesuit Control in the USA & Communism 1976 (bitchute.com)
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Filed under 2022 current events, Christianity, Communism, cultural Marxism, Fourth of July, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, social engineering, The Great Reset Tagged with Chicago, Dick Durbin, Fourth of July, Governor Pritzker, Illinois, Indiana, Lauren Underwood, Lori Lightfoot, politics, progressivism, Tammy Duckworth