Leech or Lizard?
November 21, 2018 Leave a comment
When you think of Thanksgiving you of think family, food and football. Let me suggest a fourth focus: creature features.
The Book of Proverbs, found in the wisdom literature of the Bible, offers insight into the human condition. From my youth on I have asked God for wisdom, knowledge and a good understanding. I have not always used the wisdom, knowledge and understanding given me. Much of my younger life can attest to Proverb’s description of fools and folly.
Proverbs contrasts fools and folly with those who gain wisdom and avoid imprudence. Proverbs gives us examples of what one should not be like and what one should be like. Leeches and lizards are among the examples. Let’s start with leeches.
The leech has two daughters. ‘Give! Give!’ they cry. Prov. 3:15
How would you characterize a leech? The picture that first comes to mind is that of a bloodsucker that extracts what it wants and then goes on to the next source to extract again. Personified as above, do you see them as never satisfied? As never contented? As always craving more? Are they greedy and covetous? Are they insatiable in their appetite? Do they see themselves as deserving and therefore warranted in entering your space and presenting their unending demands? What about another space intruder, the lizard?
a lizard can be caught with the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces. Prov. 30:28
Lizards, the proverb says, can be easily controlled but they show up in highly respectable places, places like lavish Caribbean hotels. Lizards like to come indoors for a meal. They are attracted by an insect infestation. Due to their small size, tiny gaps or cracks around doors and windows can be enough for geckos to let themselves in. Some owners may allow a few innocuous lizards to come and take care of the greater insect problem. And, insects are not as ‘cute’ as Geckos. The GEICO commercials invite us to let them into our lives to solve insurance problems.
The creeping and crawling Lizards can be held in check but they show up anyway in king’s palaces looking for insects hiding in dark places and likely feasting on the crumbs dropped from the royal table.
The Gospels provide with us with human examples of these creature’s features:
A recent review of a first century survey (Luke 17) found that nine out ten lepers do not give thanks. Apparently, nine lepers saw Jesus, latched on to his presence and demanded ‘Give! Give! And one leper, the out of place Samaritan, saw Jesus, creeped up slowly and waited for the crumbs to fall from the Master’s table. When Jesus healed all ten of the lepers, the nine leeches went on their way feeling they got what they deserved. But the once dried, scaling, atrophic, depigmented-skinned lizard returned and gave thanks for being allowed into the royal court and receiving a new skin on life.
As we learned, one can live their life as a leech: show up, latch on, cry ‘Give! Give!’, take and feel deserving and ungrateful. Or, one can live life as the lowly out of place lizard who shows up in our King’s palace looking for the means to go on. The latter provides us with a prime example of grace – that easily controlled lowly lizards like us are even allowed a notice and a few bread crumbs that fall from the King’s table. Thanks be to God.
Ask Yourself …
November 13, 2020 Leave a comment
Ask yourself …
Did the media just elect Geritol-ad Joe Biden as president-elect of their sock puppet theater?
Does the media care whether your one vote is disenfranchised by two illegal/invalid votes?
Did illegal votes pour in just like illegal aliens poured in at the behest of Democrats?
Are you buying the narrative that by not conceding to the main stream media/Democrats and by demanding a thorough investigation into alleged election corruption you are delegitimizing Democracy?
Was the NYT headline of Nov. 11, 2020 American Democracy DEMANDS every legal vote to be counted and the rest tossed? Or, was it Election Officials Nationwide Find no Fraud?
Should we just get on with our lives and assume that what the NYT and the media tells us (“Nothing to see here.”) is “good enough for me”?
During the takeover of a country by the forces of a dictatorship, does the media ‘cooperate’ with the power they are in cahoots with?
Do you believe that the media has your best interest at heart?
Are you aware that the media and social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.,) pose the greatest threats to democracy?
Are you OK with and feel secure in Groupthink?
Are you Ok with the shadow government of Democrats/media operating to take down President Trump the last four years?
Is the Democrat/Progressive party the party of Bolshevism?
Are you OK with submitting your income, your rights, yourself and your country to Bernie Sanders, BLM and the Socialist spice girls (Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar)?
Are you OK with the intolerance of the Democrats/Progressives/media and their desire to cancel you (your thoughts, your words, your religion) out?
Are you OK with being reduced to the lowest common denominator of life because socialism/Marxism says it must be so for equality?
Are you OK with Biden rescinding, through executive order, the immigration policies put in place to protect the country?
Have you heard of any terrorist attack on U.S. soil during the last four years?
Have you heard of the U.S. starting wars the last four years?
Are you OK with Biden placing America – its resources, its tax revenue and its people – at the behest of the self-serving token Paris Accord (a Tower of Babel) while the American private sector, the last four years, has produced alternative green energy sources and has made America energy independent?
What really matters: numbers of cases and positivity OR deaths directly and solely related to COVID-19?
Are you OK with a state government that shuts down your business and your livelihood as it plays God seeking to control a virus?
Will state government shut down communities and businesses for climate change and racism and “gun control” calling each a “public health crisis?
Who is the “public” in “public health”?
Is the “greater good” proffered by the state as the reason for its coercive and overbearing control of your life really the greater good?
Do you agree with a member of Biden’s new coronavirus task force and lockdown enthusiast, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, that life is not worth living past 75?
Who should have the say about your health: the state or you?
Do you believe the state is the answer to healthcare and not yourself?
Are we to obey all laws?
Am I ready for civil disobedience?
Are you OK with increased cases of depression, drug use, suicides, and child and spousal abuse that the lockdowns have produced?
Are you ready to disobey all state orders that hinder human flourishing, that are antisocial and inhuman and, that produce the negative effects as mentioned above?
Should we obey stay-at home advisories and orders? And, why?
Should we “cancel Thanksgiving” as Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot has strongly advised?
Who should be quarantined?
Who should not be quarantined?
Should you be quarantined?
Who should not be forced to stay at home and to cancel Thanksgiving?
When Democrats propose policies do you challenge them and ask economist Thomas Sowell’s questions: “Compared to what?” and “At what cost?” and “What hard evidence do you have?”
Are you able to challenge them or are you cut off because you are not making them look good and they don’t have the answers to your questions?
Do Progressives care more about their vision than about humans they want to impose their vision on?
Are you able to think for yourself or do you need the state/media to tell you what to think?
Do you operate out of a sense of fear that has been relentlessly generated by the media and the state?
Should casinos operate with greater freedom and flexibility than houses of worship?
Should Illinois restauranteurs defy state mandates that drive them out of business and create massive unemployment?
Should parents of school-age children in Illinois rally and protest to reopen schools?
Are the U.S. (and world) public health officials joined at the hip with China?
Are the U.S. public health policies driven by China, as are Hollywood and pro-sports?
Will compulsory vaccines, contact tracing and vaccine cards become the means to separate who’s in and who’s out of the New Globalist World Order in the coming days?
Are you OK with abuse of power and a Stalinist type enemies list and another Great Purge?
Do you rant and rave, calling America “racist” and society “systemically racist”, because you grew up in a single parent home without a father and never learned how to succeed in the world?
Are you OK with the individual being crushed, worn down, and reduced to powder in the mortar and pestle of the totalitarian Progressive Left?
Are you concerned about and afraid of firearms because the TV has relentlessly told you that you should be concerned about and afraid of firearms, as it has with Covid-19 and climate change and healthcare and a host of other socialist initiatives to get you feeding from the same trough?
Ask yourself: Am I still in America?
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Filed under 2020 current events, 2020 election, cultural Marxism, Culture, Current Events 2020, humanism, pandemic, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, socialism Tagged with 202 election, Chicago, Civil Disobedience, COVID-19, cultural Marxism, democrats, Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, Joe Biden, Lorie Lightfoot, mainstream media, politics, progressives, stay-at-home-orders, Thanksgiving, Trump