The “Anything Goes” Flood

June 11, 2017 Leave a comment

 

“This is the lie that is at the heart of our society, the lie that encourages every form of destructive self-indulgence to flourish: for while we ascribe our conduct to pressures from without, we obey the whims that well up from within, thereby awarding ourselves carte blanche to behave as we choose. Thus we feel good about behaving badly.” ― Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

~~~

Warning! Mixed Metaphors Ahead!

So last night I had a dream…

The past several days I was made hyper aware of the inundation of God’s world with a flood of “the world, the flesh and the Devil.” We know from Scripture that God promised to never flood the world again. His promise would be signified by a rainbow for all to see. God will keep his promise even as the level of man’s inhumanity and depravity rises again.

This last Friday in particular, I sensed the overwhelming “Anything Goes” flood waters of a world system that detests Jesus as Lord. I decided to take Friday off from work, as my workload had slowed. As usual I went to the fitness club to work out first thing in the morning. Inside, the background noise turned foreground noise – a percussive sound – was so loud and so overwhelming and so meaningless in content that I had to use ear plugs and listen to the TV on the elliptical machine to drown out its convulsive effects.

After working out I ventured over to my favorite breakfast restaurant, the one I visit every weekend. The waitresses know me. The service and the food are good. The background music, not so much. And then there is Liz. Liz has waited on me many times. When Liz fills out the check it is impossible for me not to notice the creeping scrawl of tattoos that cover her arms. Liz asks me if I want the usual (what I’ve ordered over and over for three years, now). I say yes. Liz repeats the order to me and gets it wrong. Every time, she gets it wrong. “OK”, I said to myself again, “life is hard”.

After breakfast I went to a large grocery store, a store like Target. I needed to pick up a few things before heading home. Again, the background pop music is flooding forward into the large cavernous room bringing with it cultural rot –lyrics (not the right descriptor) that slither around an accelerating tribal dance beat.

I go home to rest. I turn on the TV to check the stock market news and sure enough commercials flood the room with their raised volume level and carnival barker announcements of products that will fix whatever ails your modern life. Everything is for sale in our culture.

Later in the day, I decided to go out for dinner. The temperature outside was 90 degrees. And, I cook every day, so I tell myself, “Why not go out for a change?” I check out a new “Modern Japanese Cuisine” restaurant in town. I enter and see the hostess looking deeply into her Smartphone. Out of the corner of her eye she notices me at the door and picks up a menu while looking at her phone. She throws the menu onto a table that is between the only two tables in the restaurant where people are eating.  There are about hundred open seats elsewhere. No matter. I pick up the menu and move to a table I like.

Minnie, the tattooed waitress who looked barely 21, came to my table. I asked about a certain Sake. She couldn’t answer. So, I asked based on the pricing, “It looks like the smaller price is for a glass and the larger price is for a Sake carafe?” She couldn’t answer. I then said that I wanted to try a small (I used my fingers to show her small!) glass of sake. Five minutes later and she’s back at my table to ask me what size I wanted, of the two sizes. I go along and tell again, using sign language and words.

Minnie brings the Sake and takes my food order: a Bento box with teriyaki beef. (I like sushi, but I haven’t had teriyaki in a while and besides, I saw that the Sushi chef had tattoos.) Fifteen minutes later Minnie returns with my Bento box. She uncovers the box. The meat portion looks teriyaki-ish so I don’t think there is an issue. But then I pull off some of the meat with my chopsticks and realize that she brought me teriyaki salmon instead.

It took several attempts, in the almost empty restaurant, to flag Minnie down. When I told her my dinner order was wrong it was like I slapped her out of a trance. I was starting to see a pattern develop.

~~~

Last Friday I experienced only some of the effects of what I see as the flood waters “of man’s inhumanity and depravity rising again”. Look around, carefully. You will see TV shows called “Real Housewives of…” which depict mostly women clawing and fighting to be top cat. You will see TV shows of the Kardashians where women preen and fawn over themselves before you, the mirror. You will see sitcoms which trivialize God and exalt man (and his social science). If you watch such things, how will you transform your mind?

You will see movies of fantasies – superheroes who save mankind within two or so hours and who need to be recycled to save the world again and again (for profit). There is also the trio of leave-nothing-to-the-imagination-PC-approved characters who presume to speak for God in The Shack fantasy (see my previous post). If you watch such things, how will you transform your mind?

There is the upcoming Chicago Gay pride parade on June 25th with its flood of manmade rainbows meant to stave off judgment for its celebration of inhuman behavior. If you watch such things, how will you transform your mind?

Christians are so inundated by the world system that it is easy for them to take it in and accept its sashaying flirtations with evil as just “fun and peace and love”, to accept gays as being “differently ordered” instead of “objectively disordered” (a change in terms for the Catholic Church as directed by Pope Francis)

I could write a whole lot more about the rising level of inhumanity, about abortions, euthanasia, homosexuality, about Disney’s social justice animation, about climate change population control, etc. Suffice it to say, if the Spirit of God is living in you, you will experience the dissonance: the unrelenting and pummeling sounds of this world system demanding submission and the voice of God asking you to follow here and now.

 

One example of a response to the latter:

 

Important Note: In writing these things, I am not judging these people. I am observing that this world is hurting. I and all believers are a royal priesthood who stand between earth and heaven to intercede for a world that is hurting. When I see the tattoos, I pray for the person. When I hear commercials, I pray for those who are in pain, in need, who seek relief for the struggle of everyday life. When I tweet debate a homosexual I pray for their emotional and psychological needs and for the seed of the Word to be planted and to take root. Within every situation I encounter I am learning to pray in the Spirit for the person before me.

~~~

Keep in mind the words (and mandate) of those around the throne:

 

“With your own blood you purchased a people for God and made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth.” Revelation 5

 

Keep in mind this warning from the Apostle Paul in his circular letter to the churches around Ephesus (Chap. 5):

“So don’t get involved in the works of darkness, which all come to nothing. Instead, expose them! The things they do in secret, you see, are shameful even to talk about. But everything becomes visible when it’s exposed to the light, since everything that is visible is light. That’s why it says:

Wake up, you sleeper!

Rise from the dead!

The Messiah will shine on you!

So take special care how you conduct yourselves. Don’t be unwise, but be wise. Make use of every opportunity you have, because these are wicked times we live in. So don’t be foolish; rather, understand what the will of the Lord is. And don’t be drunk with wine; that way lies in dissipation. Rather, be filled with the spirit! Speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for everything to God the father in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

Note:  the “Wake up, you sleeper! quote Paul uses is likely from an early Christian poem or song.

~~~

So, last night I had a dream: I am sitting in the backyard of what I perceive to be my house. I am sitting next to someone I perceive to be my spouse. I look up and in the kitchen window of my house are two men in dark suits with guns. I perceive they have taken over the house. Next, I see them tearing up our passports. My spouse says to me, “You need to take care of this.” So, I get up and go look for my handgun which is in my car in the driveway, but then I sense that my car is parked at the train station. I then felt helpless against the two men. I wake up.

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Write the Other Way

March 11, 2017 Leave a comment

 

 

“Dover Beach”, Matthew Arnold’s lyric poem, describes the shore at the narrowest part of the English Channel. Dover, on the southeast coast of England in the county of Kent, is famous for its white cliffs and its popular ferry port. The ferry crosses the Strait of Dover to Calais, France. Dover Beach is where Arnold honeymooned. His poem reveals that he also thought about life in the mid 1800’s. dover beach 2

“Dover Beach”, with imagery of the restless sea and allusions to Ancient Greek Figures, is a metaphor for the ebbing of Christian faith and the surge of the industrial age sensed by Arnold. Mankind is moving away from the community and the collective experience which fosters faith and finds itself left behind “as on a darkling plain” without solace.  The poem was written around 1850.

Further Context:  T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, also filled with allusions to the collective past, was published in 1922. Eliot is considered the first true modernist in English literature. Eliot’s spiritual quest ended when he embraced the Anglican Church.

(On the right-hand side bar is the sound file where you can listen to Thomas Hampson, world-renowned baritone, sing Dover Beach.)

 

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back,and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

 

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

 

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

~~~

A world of “neither joy, nor love, nor light” …
The character Montag, in the novel Fahrenheit 451, reads the last two stanzas of Arnold’s poem to Mildred, his wife, and her female friends. He attempts to expose their shallow nature. Mildred cautions him not to do so:

Mildred: “Montag, hold on, don’t …”

Montag: “Did you hear them, did you hear these monsters talking about monsters? Oh God, the way they jabber about people and their own children and themselves and the way they talk about their husbands and the way they talk about war, dammit, I stand here and I can’t believe it!”

After much resistance, Montag goes on to read the last two stanzas, finishing with

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Mrs. Phelps was crying.

~~~

To those who have ears to hear…

Fahrenheit 451 (1966), at 58 minutes, Montag quotes another book’s passage out loud to the unwilling (and yes, the acting is atrocious):

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I Spy Meaning

January 22, 2017 Leave a comment

 

“As you get older, ideas go and come. Questions, answers, loss of the answer again and more questions, and this is what really interests me. Yes, the cinema and the people in my life and my family are most important, but ultimately as you get older, there’s got to be more. Much, much more.

The very nature of secularism right now is really fascinating to me, but at the same time do you wipe away what could be more enriching in your life, which is an appreciation or some sort of search for that which is spiritual and transcends? That’s one of the reasons why I made the George Harrison documentary. Silence is just something that I’m drawn to in that way. It’s been an obsession, it has to be done… it’s a strong, wonderful true story, a thriller in a way, but it deals with those questions.” silence-poster-700x1092

–Martin Scorsese

~~~~

The above recent quote of director Martin Scorsese regarding his passion project the film Silence underscores the human need for meaning. Pre-Enlightenment, that meaning had been intuited in a common culture taking in the aesthetic. Contemplation of nature and high culture pointed us away from ourselves and our situation to that which transcends and to the sacred. Fine art, classical music, drama, architecture and classical literature prodded our imagination, our consciousness. Value and virtue could be envisioned and then acted out and gained. Meaning so derived offered a way to rise above our daily existence and provided hope. But today, in the days of the Post-Enlightenment’s reductionism of everything to science-truth and of deconstructionism’s relentless push to zero out meaning and the never-ending consumption that offers only temporary fulfillment in its quest, we are left with that which does not relate to the subjective within us: fake art, pop art, pop music, the desecration of the sacred, fantasy, cynicism, sentimentality and secularism’s clichés. We take in rubber chicken soup for our souls.

Instead of seeking meaning which transcends, many find comfort and community with others in a complicit collaborative deception – the lies of the secular and the fake that are “inviting us into a realm where we deceive each other into thinking that we are thinking when we are not.” -philosopher Roger Scruton (on recognizing fake philosophy)

~~~~

More from philosopher Scruton:

“People need beauty. They need the sense of being at home in their world, and being in communication with other souls,” – philosopher Roger Scruton.

“In so many areas of modern life – in pop music, in television and cinema, in language and literature – beauty is being displaced by raucous and attention-grabbing clichés,” laments Scruton. “We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud and insolent gestures of people who want to seize our attention but to give nothing in return for it.” Roger Scruton On Beauty

“Music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.” ― Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World

~~~

Once in a blue moon a movie offers the public something of value. Last night I watched The Lives of Others.  the-lives-of-others-1

Here is what the back of the DVD says:

“This critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning film (Best Foreign Language Film, 2006) is the erotic, emotionally-charged experience…

Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany’s population was closely monitored by the State Secret Police or Stasi. Only a few citizens above suspicion, like renowned pro-Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman, were permitted to lead private lives. But when a corrupt government official falls for Georg’s stunning actress-girlfriend, Christa, an ambitious Stasi policeman is ordered to bug the writer’s apartment to gain incriminating evidence against the rival. Now, what the officer discovers is about to dramatically change their lives – as well as his – in this seductive political thriller…”

the-lives-of-others

This write-up is sensationalist-weird (“erotic”; “seductive”) and does not do the film justice. Having watched this film several times in the past, and again last night, I came to see, within the historical-political-power-over-others context, that Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler was in desperate need of meaning in his drab German Democratic Republic (GDR) socialist life. Wiesler becomes obsessed with playwright Georg Dreyman’s life, a life which included drama, literature, music and the art on the walls of his apartment. Dreyman found meaning in aesthetics and in his close relationships. That’s all I am going to say about that, so you can watch the film. Note: the movie is rated R “For some sexuality/nudity”. I did not find the “sexuality/nudity” gratuitous. Rather, the brief sexuality/nudity scenes were in keeping with the story.

The story takes place in 1984. The fall of the Berlin Wall began November 1989.

Footnote:

Born during the days of the Harry S. Truman presidency, I have seen a lot of history in the making, including the collapse of socialist states such as the GDR. History matters when making new decisions. History matters in your quest for meaning. Fill your life with high culture music, art, literature, drama as provided by the lives of others throughout history. Do your own surveillance on meaning.

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The Disconnected

December 10, 2016 Leave a comment

 

Another day and the same dream:  I am driving a compact car and I’m trying to park in a space meant for compact cars. On each side of the parking space is a monster vehicle – a Sierra Massive Madre and a Himalayan Mountain All Terrain I-Drive-a Ram-cuz-I’m-a-Man-In-Your-Face Pick-up.  I finally park my car and then try to get out. But the vehicle next to me is so space -staking large that I can only open the door but a pinch. That is when I wake up.

The same day and, as usual, I went to the local health club to do my cardio routine.  And, as usual, thunderous testosterone overdosed music was there to assault me.  The large fitness club has two floors. The resistance weights are located upstairs and the cardio, yoga classes, etc. are located on the main floor. The upstairs looks down onto the main floor; the floors are open to each other. This arrangement means that the screaming hellish heavy metal music is inescapable. Not having a toggle switch on the side of my head to turn off outside noise, I put on headphones, and once again, I hear my own blood pumping.

Workout complete, I head to the women’s locker room wishing there was something to take my mind off of the music that comes from the bottomless pit.  Yet, when I enter the women’s locker room there are six large screen TVs blaring out the local news. In Chicago, the local news is mostly about the west and south sides of Chicago and about who is killing whom over gym shoes or for a gang initiation or just because they feel welcomed in Chicago by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and IL Representative (D) Luis Gutierrez. Shooting off guns is what they do to celebrate in third world countries.

To find relief from the harmful drug-like effects of constant and pervasive packaged noise, I choose a locker near the showers, away from the din. Further away, in the sauna, I believe that I can find a quiet place. But that occurs until a young girl in head-to-toe sweats comes in. Bypassing the body, her brain is plugged into a Smartphone which dispenses her self-image – the latest sweet-bad-girl-nymph chirping infantile sexuality. I then move to the shower where there is sure to be a respite from… But wait! What is that I hear?

Lately, on Tuesday, 4:30 AM, a young black girl shows up and uses the shower across from me.  Her ambience is set with the wailing ecstasy of bowel-wrenching R & B music, music which plays out of speakers of some device impervious to shower water and to others.

 

Noise exhaustion cannot break my contract. My contracted membership with this health club cannot be voided except if I die or suffer a physical disability, such as severe stroke. 

Touché!

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Intrinsic, Not Extrinsic

December 4, 2016 Leave a comment

 

“God has committed himself, ever since creation, to working through his creatures–in particular, through his image-bearing human beings–but they have all let Him down.”
― N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity makes Sense

~~~

The waitress who brought me my order of eggs and bacon this morning at the Sweetened Sacks of Flour caught my attention as did another waitress last Saturday – their arms were covered in graphic cartoon-like black scrawl that seemed to slither up their arms toward some nether region of their bodies. My heart sank again this morning at the sight.

This young waitress – a twentyish woman with a beautiful smile and bright black eyes – had defaced herself and the Lord only knows why. Perhaps it’s the enticing effects of the reality TV culture, aka Pop culture, aka Cartoon Culture that we live in.  Donald Trump was elected president in such a culture – and that makes perfect sense. “Winning” the Presidency has become a cartoon choice award.

Found on many cable channels, reality TV programming reveals people participating in all manner of human folly including the ritual of “inking”.  To a great extent, The Media – the televised “news” programs, the newsfeed websites, the print and blog formatted- is also reality programming meant to arouse consumer’s attention and to provide a common denominator of baseness where one-upmanship is pulling one man’s pants down to use to pull your readers/viewers up out of the same swamp they are all in. Did we really need to be reminded of our broken humanness and subscribe to folly? But then again, watching the latest version of Sodom and Gomorrah in action may cause some to repent – but I doubt it. Just walk away and don’t look back.

Yes, my heart sank again this morning at the sight of this young woman who submitted herself to a pagan ritual. Tattooing is not adornment. That butterfly on the back of your neck is not adornment. You are telling the world that you belong to the ruler of this world and he – the Satan – has been kicked out. Anyone can be The Satan’s hands and feet, just as any Christian can be the hands and feet of the Lord.

At the health club, I see dozens of women who have “adorned” their bodies with graphic comic-like tattoos. Many have knowingly given themselves over to paganism with the “tat” being the sign that they are part of a death-Goth community which exists within a milieu of despair. They have thereby shown their allegiance to the former ruler of this world. As viewers of The Media, these who have dehumanized themselves with tattoos may have thought that God had given up on them and the world. Or, maybe they do not want anything to do with God and do not want to be a human who was created in God’s image. Paganism throughout human history has sought to destroy God’s image in our humanness. It has sought to make a god of man’s own image. Inking injects dye and idolatry into the skin.

Paganism is dehumanization. Paganism converts a person’s thinking so that they only live out their lives at a skin-deep level. Ultimately, paganism’s goal to make their supplicants into the image of The Satan. Before that point, one will look a lot like Gollum.

Paganism’s devotees find all sorts of religious ways to be rid of the indelible image of God. Some paganist’s devotion may be pantheistic in nature (diluting God in a solution of everything, thereby watering down any notion of a personal God) and some devotion may be populist in nature (watching TV), though the two are closely connected at the hip (pun intended).

Paganism’s alter ego is “enlightened Epicureanism. Both “religions” preach the same lie: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Both “religions” cultivate fools.

A fool will say in his heart “there is no god…and if there was I don’t want him anyway or to reflect his image. I will tattoo myself and shed any claim God may have on me”. In the end, when this fellow stands before God, he will say “I spent my entire life divesting myself of you. Get me out of here now!” And so, God will give him the desire of his heart.

 

Those of us who desire to be in the Kingdom of God, who desire the same true humanity as our Lord put on…we do not need to be in abeyance – the position of being without, or waiting for, an owner or claimant. God laid claim on us when we were sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” (BCP, 380).

~~~

The DIY short list of how to become less human and deface the image of God (i.e., how to dehumanize yourself and others):

 

Murdering

Aborting

Euthanizing

Committing Adultery

Fornicating

Viewing pornography

Practicing homosexuality

Involving yourself with bestiality

Lying

Stealing

Being unjust

Gossiping

Being sentimental

Worshipping the creature and not the creator

Dishonoring your mother and father

Watching and paying for fantasy-ridden movies and cable shows which glorify the above

Watching cartoonish “animated” movies a la Disney, DreamWorks

Taking drugs

Crucifying someone

~~~~

“When human beings give their heartfelt allegiance to and worship that which is not God, they progressively cease to reflect the image of God. One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers rather than as human beings. Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sex objects. Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns. These and many other forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways, all of them damaging to the image-bearing quality of the people concerned and of those whose lives they touch.”
― N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope:  Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

~~~~

Do you want a POV from a well-read prison psychiatrist who’s also an atheist?

“The correspondent asked me: what was wrong with tattooing, if that was how people wanted to adorn themselves?

I asked him whether he would have himself tattooed—whether he would be happy if his teenaged children had themselves tattooed—and if not, why not? After all, if he would not like it, he must have some inner objection to tattooing.

True, he said, but tattooing was not illegal. And since even I, who deprecated it, did not think that it should be illegal, there was nothing further to say about it. If tattooing was legal, it was thus of no social, moral, or cultural significance.

I tried to point out some of the cultural meanings of the vogue for tattooing. First, it was aesthetically worse than worthless. Tattoos were always kitsch, implying not only the absence of taste but the presence of dishonest emotion.

Second, the vogue represented a desperate (and rather sad) attempt on a mass scale to achieve individuality and character by means of mere adornment, which implied both intellectual vacuity and unhealthy self-absorption.

And third, it represented mass downward cultural and social aspiration, since everyone understood that tattooing had a traditional association with low social class and, above all, with aggression and criminality. It was, in effect, a visible symbol of the greatest, though totally ersatz, virtue of our time: an inclusive unwillingness to make judgments of morality or value.”

-Theodore Dalrymple’s Law Isn’t Enough

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Whole Lotta Searchin’ Goin’ On

November 25, 2016 Leave a comment

 

2016 Proverbs (Observations, generally speaking.):

 

Astronomers search the universe for cosmic origins.

Physicists seek to understand the behavior of systems at atomic length scales and smaller using quantum mechanics.

Geneticists, in search of disease prevention and cures, scan the genetic code for the secret of life.

Archeologists search fossil and radiometric dating records for what has gone on before.

Anthropologists search for “missing links” and the ways and means of the past.

Nurses sonogram pregnant bellies for signs of life.

Philosophers search for why there is something rather than nothing.

Nihilists search for meaning in nothing and come up empty-handed and nauseous.

Wise men searched the night sky for kingdom beginnings.

Mathematicians seek solutions in our design-inherent universe.

Social scientists seek to nudge a human’s free will toward a “proper” response.

Capitalists seek value.

Socialists seek other people’s money.

Traders seek to buy low and sell high.

Long term stock and bond holders look for a return on their investment at some point in the future.

Investors seek the highest returns while shouldering prudent risk.

Psychologists, asking “how do you feel about that”, seek to redefine consequences away from morality.

Psychiatrists seek out the next tranquilizer to medicate “the problem.”.

Political scientists seek to define the perfect social order with or without property rights.

Attorneys seek favorable jurors and favorable verdicts.

Politicians seek power.

Progressives seek unicorns with your tax dollars.

The Ruling Class seeks to rule by fiat, making us serfs.

The ignorant seek to be reaffirmed in their ignorance.

Media conglomerates seek to capture our attention and our budget.

Homosexuals seek pride in their love of the creature rather than their Creator.

The transgendered seek to be ‘normalized’.

The lazy, self-absorbed and intolerant, but “diverse,” want something for nothing and call their demand “a right.”

Conservatives seek to preserve longstanding meaning, community and high culture.

Millennials, in this Age of Feelings, seek protectionism in safe spaces.

Blue-collar workers, who have not learned new skills, seek trade protectionism.

College students seek affirmation rather than the meaning of life.

Athletes seek trophies and endorsements.

The Good Shepherd searches for the Lost Sheep.

The son of man came to seek and to save the lost.

A woman searches for a lost coin, finds it, and rejoices.

Joseph and Mary searched for the boy Jesus and find him at the Temple, where God dwelt with men.

Christians seek and find faith as small as a mustard seed.

The House of Islam seeks to bring the whole world under submission to a supreme caliphate by any jihad necessary.

Buddhists seek enlightenment within themselves by numbing their consciousness with mantras.

TV preachers and faith-healers seek to wrench filthy lucre from wrenched bodies and souls.

The addicted seek a “fix” and so share a needle with others.

The contented seek to share life’s bounty with others.

High culture seeks to deepen our common religious/ethical community bonds.

Fiction writers seek to tweak our imaginations with universal questions posed by imaginary beings.

Architects seek to place function before form, denouncing the sublime in the process.

Art, high culture art, seeks to give the viewer laudable content in laudable form, evoking old and new sympathies.

Modern art seeks to give the viewer content in shock form, in order to deny meaning its value.

Climatologists seek anthropocentric fault in weather changes and “find” data to say it’s your fault.

“Enlightened” Epicureans seek godless pleasure and find a “way which seems right”.

Abortionists search the womb for “tissue” to suck out beginnings.

Euthanasians search for a vein to end beginnings.

Atheists, with a God-given consciousness, seek for nothing and find it and then credit themselves.

Fortune tellers search horoscopes, crystal balls and tarot cards for the almighty dollar.

Agnostics and Deists seek for a way around God.

And the search continues…

~~~

 

“At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.” –Flannery O’Connor

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“Attention Must Be Paid”

August 18, 2016 Leave a comment

Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman and “82,000” has been on my mind lately.

Here is a brief intro video. No comment will be necessary. The video following is where “Attention must be paid” to 63-year-old Willy Loman [2:50]

“We were almost free and clear.” I suggest watching the entire play.

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Good to the Last Drop?

May 10, 2016 Leave a comment

 

That Terry thought he was a vampire didn’t seem to faze Teresa.  It did faze his parents and friends.

…

A mother tugged a small boy through the outside door.  A teenage girl came out the inner door, crossed the room and left behind the mother and son.  A therapist stuck his head out of the inner door and looked around the room and saw his next client, a thirteen year-old boy.  “Hi, come on in.”  The boy dutifully followed the therapist.  A fiftyish woman came in the outside door and proceeded over to the glass window to check in with the clinic’s receptionist. Terry no longer paid attention to the ebb and flow of people in the clinic’s lobby.  Waiting for psychologist Teresa to claim him, Terry sat in the lobby as he had ninety-nine times before and always dressed in black.

“Hi, Terry, come on in.”

Carrying his dog-eared Virtual Gamer magazine Terry shuffled through the held door.

At the beginning Teresa was made aware of his parent’s concerns, their disbelief. When Terry had started to cut his arms and stomach to collect and consume his own fluids, they called N.B. Clinic.  They hoped for some reparative therapy that would bring back their child from the “grave.”  So, Terry’s parents sat down with Teresa.

They wanted to know what triggered Terry’s transformation:  “Was it us?  And what makes Terry sleep walk every night?  And why did he only want play outside at night?”

Terry’s parents related how they would wake in the middle of the night, every night now, to find that Terry had left the house.  He would roam the neighborhood in his black pajamas hissing.  It had to be more than simple parasomnia.

When they did find Terry his face would be covered in blood and the remains of dead cats and dogs were scattered about. The sight and smell of blood gagged them. Terrified by Terry’s manifestation, Terry’ parents wanted to do anything to bring their son back to from this state. He used to play so gently with his stuffed animals.

But after ninety-nine sessions, Terry’s parents were now told to accept their son’s “vampirism”.  As Teresa had explained it on the phone, vampirism was becoming an accepted behavior and that Terry’s self-image and his dignity depended on his being a vampire.  “It is something that he cannot control and it makes him feel human.  Besides,” she said, “it’s likely genetic – Terry’s need for plasma.  He believes that has the ability to extract some kind of energy from living things to strengthen him. I see this kind of thing all the time at N.B. Clinic.”

 

“I wish my parents would accept me the way I am.”

“They are trying, Terry. I met with them recently.  Give them time.”

“I wish everyone would accept me the way I am.  I was born this way, you know, and it’s not what they think.  I know who I am now.  You can see that.   Why can’t others?”

“Well, Terry, the world is not always friendly to minorities.  But there are social justice warriors who are advocating for you right now.  They are making a difference.  Still, there are so many fundamentalists who reject the notion of nocturnal plasma-sucking activities that it is an uphill fight.  Give it time.”

Teresa continued, “But you need to be secure in yourself, Terry.  Last week I gave you information about a local Vampire Community support meeting.  Did you go?”

“Yeah, it was alright.  I got to be myself without having to hide my feelings.  A lot of the kids said they came out of their coffins to their parents.  I just wish my parents and friends… I just wish the whole world was a safe place for me and my friends.”

“You and I both wish that Terry.”

 

 

 

© Sally Paradise, 2016, All Rights Reserved

…

“And what we must not do, what we must never do, is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans for something that they cannot control and deny what makes them human,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch

“This is about the dignity and the respect that we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we as a people and as a country have enacted to protect them, indeed, to protect all of us,” Lynch said

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Authoritarians at the Gate

April 29, 2016 Leave a comment

Obama finger gun

Authoritarian Fundamentalist

The honoring of power over reason is that which makes one an authoritarian.

For the Authoritarian, power is more important than laws. Laws become whatever Authoritarians impose on others.

Authoritarians are far more likely to exhibit “sloppy reasoning, highly-compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and — to top it all off — a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.” The Authoritarians, p75; Dr. Bob Altemeyer, University of Manitoba

Dr. Altemeyer proposes that Authoritarians are products of strict parenting, “strict fundamentalist parenting”.  His non-scientific proposal, used as a form of projection, targets Christians and Christian homes. But strict fundamentalism is native to the Authoritarians at the Gate.

These Authoritarians are the Ruling Class and their minions on steroids.  As such, they will lecture you to death with their Authoritarian Fundamentalism.

Consider the authoritarian lecturing of “the science is settled” and “you are a denier if you don’t agree with our confident knowledge.”  The “settled science” fundamentalists are dogmatic, believing that they have all knowledge.  So they will impose climate change on you.  In authoritarian Ruling Class minds, their might makes it “right.”

Truly, it is the “settled science” Authoritarian Fundamentalists who employ “sloppy reasoning, highly-compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and — to top it all off — a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic.”

Consider also, the settled social science dogmatism of the teeny-tiny LGBTQ+ cabal.  These Authoritarian Fundamentalists demand that you submit to their belief system:   “We of LGBTQ+ convictions determine what is right and wrong. Christians should not.” “We have rights.” “Christian rights are to be subordinated to our rights.” “Christian convictions are too rigid, too fundamentalist.” And so again, we see the “highly-compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness,” and profound egocentrism that characterizes Authoritarian Fundamentalists.

 

To wit, recent Authoritarian Fundamentalism case history:

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Food for Trough

April 17, 2016 22 Comments

 

“The ruling class’s appetite for deference, power and perks grows.” From Angelo M. Codevilla’s America’s Ruling Class –And the Perils of Revolution

…

nancy-pelosiWho are these Ruling Class Orcs?  Who are these aggressive scavengers and opportunistic Kulakovores?  They are Ruling Class America and the minions who do their hunter-gatherer bidding.  They are the Democrats and Republicans who accrue power unto themselves; they are the political parties that refuse to elect a person of principle. They are the un-elected:  the bureaucrats, the administrative state, the regulators, the social engineers, the ones whose careers are dependent on the government.   They are the ones who have no boundaries but will set boundaries for you. They are the ones with secret servers, the ones who call themselves “saviors of the planet” and those in the confident “know”.

sebelius3They are the Progressives, the elitists, the “living Constitutionalists” and those who are a law unto themselves, the “settled science” purveyors, the “green agenda” evangelists, the followers of the Scientism cult, the denigrators of religious convictions as “irrational”, the high priests of secularization, the climate change Inquisitors,  the #SJW, #BlackLivesMatter, the LGBT, the gerrymandering, the feminists, the abortionists, the eminent domain Dishonest Johns, the Democratic Socialists, the diviners of what is best for you, the Barbara Boxers, the union bosses, the public school educators, the “It takes a village” people, those offended by “Merry Christmas”, the ones who come between you and your children, the ones who tell your kids what to eat in school, the establishmentarians, the deniers of viewpoints other than their own, the ones who say “Are you kidding?” when questioned about a Constitutional basis for their enacted laws, those who  deem “this is for your own good”, those of the Unconstrained Vision, the initiators of unintended consequences, the federal workers, the EPA and DE, the Lois Lerners, the Commissar State, the Saurons, the Sarumans…all those bent over and feeding from the government trough.mccarthy

Elizabeth.Warren

 

 

Agitate the masses

 

What is in said trough? Kulaks. Heaps of Kulaks.

“They called us kulaks because we had a house with a galvanized iron roof and four horses, three cows, and a fine orchard by the house.  The first thing in the orchard was a spreading apricot tree, and there would be heaps of apricots on it every year.”  From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short story Apricot Jam

 

Kulaks? We have property. Some of us have mansions but most have enough to call home.  We marry, have children, raise children, have grandchildren and bury (and not discard) loved ones. We are Pro-life even knowing that life is hard.  We push and prod ourselves and our charges to excel, succeed, to grow out of adolescence into maturity. We pray and prepare. We worship our God and we rejoice with others when a sheep is found. We sweat, blister and toil. We provide and protect. We shoot bows and arrows and guns but not at each other. We take off our hats when we see our nation’s flag in a parade. We tear up when America the Beautiful is sung.  We thank veterans for their service. We appreciate. We have dignity and values that were not handed down to us from government. We base our decisions on right and wrong and not on what our friends let us get away with saying.

Many of us believe that there are God-given laws and precepts that define our responsibilities and our freedoms. We sing “Amazing Grace” not for money or show but because we know sinning first hand and will admit it in a song and on our knees. Many of us are in the Kingdom of God and some of us are in the Fellowship of the Ring seeking to overthrow the world view of this age. We give thanks. Gratitude defines us. Whining is abhorred by us. We help out neighbor. We utterly detest government’s intrusion into our lives. Aspirations and love move us, not government mandates. We kulaks are the country class.

 

“Describing America’s country class is problematic because it is so heterogeneous. It has no privileged podiums, and speaks with many voices, often inharmonious. It shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards inept and haughty. It defines itself practically in terms of reflexive reaction against the rulers’ defining ideas and proclivities — e.g., ever higher taxes and expanding government, subsidizing political favorites, social engineering, approval of abortion, etc. Many want to restore a way of life largely superseded. Demographically, the country class is the other side of the ruling class’s coin: its most distinguishing characteristics are marriage, children, and religious practice. While the country class, like the ruling class, includes the professionally accomplished and the mediocre, geniuses and dolts, it is different because of its non-orientation to government and its members’ yearning to rule themselves rather than be ruled by others…

Nothing has set the country class apart, defined it, made it conscious of itself, given it whatever coherence it has, so much as the ruling class’s insistence that people other than themselves are intellectually and hence otherwise humanly inferior. Persons who were brought up to believe themselves as worthy as anyone, who manage their own lives to their own satisfaction, naturally resent politicians of both parties who say that the issues of modern life are too complex for any but themselves. Most are insulted by the ruling class’s dismissal of opposition as mere “anger and frustration” — an imputation of stupidity — while others just scoff at the claim that the ruling class’s bureaucratic language demonstrates superior intelligence. A few ask the fundamental question: Since when and by what right does intelligence trump human equality? Moreover, if the politicians are so smart, why have they made life worse?” (emphasis added) From Angelo M. Codevilla’s America’s Ruling Class –And the Perils of Revolution.  Read it and weep, kulaks.

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kulak family

“As long as anyone can remember, our family lived in the village of Lebyazhy Usad in Kursk Province. But then they put an end to the way we thought to live. They called us kulaks because we had a house with a galvanized iron roof and four horses, three cows, and a fine orchard by the house.  The first thing in the orchard was a spreading apricot tree, and there would be heaps of apricots on it every year.” …Before they deported us as kulaks, they tried to make us tell them where we had hidden our goods.  Otherwise, they said, we’ll chop down your apricot tree. And they chopped it down.” From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short story Apricot Jamkulaks_news

 

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Here’s government overreaching to binge on you.  Chomp, chomp, chomp…

High School Demands End to Off-Campus Christian Lunch Group

Six million perish

#FeeltheBern

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