Holmes' pathodicy was so hardened that she didn't even know how deceitful and destructive her actions were. She fooled thousands of investors into dropping millions of dollars into her lie. Her deception resulted in false diagnoses and false hopes for treating conditions that could have been addressed with proper attention. It was all fully rationalized by adherence to that splendid inventor's creed: "Fake it 'til you make it." As this nightmare unfolded there on the screen, you could kind of tell that Holmes really didn't seem to grasp the magnitude of her duplicity. If she did and continued to perpetuate it, then how much more evil was that. Either way, why did she behave this way? What are the key elements involved that move anyone to do these things? While there are indeed so many aspects to this question, and while this treatise is merely a rough sketch, I've come to the realization that it has a lot to do with this concept pathodicy. I'm introducing this idea as a particular thing, although some have already given it brief consideration — at least from what I've found. What I share here may also be more regularly classified in the psychological literature as something else, and that is fine too. This is more of a philosophical, even a theological consideration, just as important part of human existence as anything else. Pathodicy is the principle of the rationalization of fixing someone else's suffering with all means necessary for the implicit purpose of fixing one's own suffering. It is founded on the emotional dysfunction of being unable to maturely distinguish particular evils occurring within one's purview and one's own painful insecurities. A calcified pathodicy leads to the effort of gaining relief by committing any questionable, even savage act necessary, or enlisting a powerful entity to do it instead (mostly a government agency, often a criminal racket) — so driven is he or she to end their codependent agony. If I believe you are hurting, you must let me fix you or I myself cannot stop hurting. If you prevent me from doing that you are just as much a part of the problem, and it is too painful to put off doing something. Often times you'll hear it bleated like a mantra, "At least do something!" The trick is if you are not doing that something they think you should be doing then you're more a problem. This entire body of death is ruthlessly exploited by World Operatives all the time to rally the faithful. Pathodicy comes from the Greek pathos (feeling) and the suffix -dicy (justification). The concept doesn't mean we don't feel deeply or love deeply or minister to others deeply. It doesn't mean we don't have some self-interest related to doing things to make others' lives better — that's a very good thing that moves us to labor and invent and build and maintain a decent society. Yet because we are fallen beings tempted frequently out of our typical abandonment fears, we are all extraordinarily susceptible to the power of the pathodicy. Ultimately it has to do with motives, it is about how we act out of our plausibility structures. It definitively involves the System's certified shakedown offices exploiting the insecurities of those without Christ and viciously afraid of death, manipulating their sentiments with the interminable desire to shout to the world "Look at me and how caring I am to others!" It never goes away no matter how much good you have done. Activating the pathodicy is a habitual routine for so many richly living by the seductive things the authorized World Ops tell them. Just look on the lawns of many homes, particularly those in entrenched ideologically liberal enclaves. When you see a "Black Lives Matter" sign out front, the "privileged" resident is saying to you "I'm a white person who is racist just like you other white people are and you should join me in acting on my guilt by doing extra nice and special things for black people." They may care about black people, I'm not going to say they don't, but the only reason they have that sign up or do any lobbying for or rallying in or contributing to the cause is only to energize their pathodicy. In a number of places I've now seen this sign: "When I wear a mask that means I care about you." These people have been browbeat with the grand metastasized lie that there is some monster disease out there that will kill you if you don't wear a mask, so they are convinced if they do their part in what they're told to do they will be commended as the best kind of good people. Look at these pronouncements. Not only are they based on heavily disseminated propaganda, but they say little about anybody but themselves. Jesus said a lot about this. "Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven." (Matthew 6:1) Here's a particularly sobering one: "Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets." (Luke 6:26) Are you in good with the System? Are you sure? No worries, you may be, you may be incessantly paying the proper tribute and that's fine. Caesar needs his cut. Everyone has at least some desire to be seen as a good person, that in and of itself is not a bad thing. Then there is what Cain did. Remember how much he thought of his brother? Wasn't as much as he thought of himself and how he demanded God approve of his offering. This is why the pathodicy is indeed the animating force behind the human sacrifice required for Cain's current governing apparatus to do its job. It is best to make any prosecutorial action look really good and wholesome to serve the purposes of the required seven-fold vengeance strength. Then I can be seen as my brother's keeper and be justified. It is mind-blowing to look out on the horizon of humankind and see so many people in lock step with the pathodicy, and it is so exceptionally administered people don't even know it is consuming them.
In The Inventor was a fascinating presentation by behavioral economist Dan Ariely. I have been extraordinarily critical of behavioral economics because of the brazen and often completely silly assumptions made (even as the behavioral economists' whole enterprise is railing against brazenly silly assumptions — go figure). But Ariely is truly on-point with this one.
Interestingly Ariely did a couple more things. First, while doing all this he gave a lie detector test to the subjects, and he discovered that they did indeed lie quite a bit. But the second thing he did was the most telling, and damning. He did it again but told the subjects that the money they were awarded would be going to charity. He found that not only did they lie even more about their die roll predictions, but the lie detector failed to detect their lies. It is perfectly fine if it is for a good cause.
The massive benefits of being a non-profit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) racket.
Non-profits are exceptional ways to manifest the pathodicy. Everyone wants to feel justified, really that's what most people want. It is natural. In the Kingdom one is justified by Christ's blood, that's the only way it can happen actually. The World showcases any number of ways to look like it can happen and one of the best is smothered in the unassailable virtue of fighting for social justice. What a terrific way to distend the pathodicy. Be zealously fighting for justice in a social way. It should be noted that the idea of social justice was invented by a Jesuit, Luigi Taparelli, back in the 1840s, and he did it because observing his contemporary world he desperately wanted those in the Catholic Church to prove they could be their brother's keeper in newer, more innovative ways. The Company has fastidiously and ingeniously expanded it until today it has taken on its present form, as Eddie Scarry notes in a Washington Examiner piece:
Joel Kotkin in his "The Pandemic Road to Serfdom" calls it the clerisy. Great term, I want to use it more often — the dutiful SJW leadership as it were. Like the clergy in the Middle Ages, the ordained hypnotists today are "the media, academia, upper bureaucracy, and the ever-expanding 'non-profit' sector... this new middle class [enjoying] something of a symbiosis with the oligarchic elites who mainly finance non-governmental organizations and the universities." This vigilant pinpointing still neglects to include the most significant part of the clerisy initiating the whole thing: the Society of Jesus, the organization with the actual divine mandate in the service of Cain's agency to inform all of them about what they're supposed to say and do and bilge into ill-equipped minds. They're the only ones capable of spreading the spirit of the pathodicy in so many brilliantly blinding ways. The coronavirus hysteria: "If I can contribute to saving that one life it is worth destroying thousands of livelihoods by shutting down the economy." The racialist hysteria: "If I can make one victim of racism feel better it is worth accusing all white people of committing the worst discrimination." The socialist revolutionary hysteria: "If I can rally enough people to enlist government in expropriating wealth to make sure no one has any less than anyone else it is worth making everyone equally destitute except for the oligarchs who look really good doing all this." Think it is just the Elizabeth Holmes of the world who're the sociopaths? The narcissists? The whatever epithet we can use to blap the proper excuses? This added remark from Dan Ariely about the power of the pathodicy is quite appropriate: "She was basically doing what everyone else was doing."
What about Jesus, I mean, didn't He have a desire to save people, you know, offering salvation to others and all that? Yes, certainly, except He didn't make many friends doing it. Remember what happened to Him only because He was blisteringly honest about His intentions? Do you know what happened when He told people about Who He really was? There in the sixth chapter of John? Huh. That we're closing this writing with another gospel's chapter six. Wonder if that means anything. There are only six sides to the die... anyway... And that as much as Elizabeth Holmes dealt with blood (that was the way she did her fake diagnostics), Jesus there in this featured Scripture speaks of blood. As in... "You must drink my blood if you want to live."
There were a few who stayed. The words of Peter were so simple, yet so awesome, indeed shared after Jesus earnestly asked, "So, what about you?" "Where else would we go?" Peter replied, "You have the words of eternal life." As Jesus pointed out so profoundly, you can only have life if you give up the life you feverishly clutch, the pathodicy you bite and devour to feed. Identifying the pathodicy is a start to seeing the stunning distinction between the World that wants to serve you for dinner, and the Kingdom that awaits your attendance at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
No, the Lamb is already the Guest of Honor. He already gave His life for you, and you just happen to be the other guest of honor.
Just make sure you're wearing the wedding clothes He gives you.
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We're not only replicating what happened in Rome but what has happened in many other places over the course of this marvelous six-to-ten millennia-long history of humankind. 1794 Reign of Terror, 1917 Russian Revolution — these come to my mind only because they're the ones with which I personally have become acquainted. Historians may cite any of a dozen others, all featuring exactly the same dynamic: powers and principalities doing their supernatural work through the perpetually convulsive interactions of the sanguinely imperious governors and the brashly impotent governed. It's as if they get the guiltiest pleasure in their rudimentary task of culling large chunks of the human population every once in a while. But that Rome thing, very well taken. Victor Davis Hanson added this in light of the present absurdity playing out right here in the once generally calm and stable United States:
The tension and furor are reminiscent of the last generations of the Roman Republic. In its last century, Romans began to adjudicate politics by obsequious partisan town criers (their version of our media), mass demonstrations, and freelance street gangs. Looters, arsonists, and demonstrators did pretty much as they pleased in the streets of Rome without fear of legal consequences.
Very few know much about how all that happened in Rome, because they can't hold down the profound religious dynamic involved. Many shrug about Hanson's remarks because they think it ends there, The Conflagration merely the most convoluted trash-talk and street-fighting, not much more. But people don't behave that way in a vacuum. They are intractably influenced by someone. In Rome the main influencers were the priests, and sure enough duly ordained institutionally obligated clerics do that very same work today. Back in Rome the top priest was Pontifex Maximus, the most renowned of them Augustus Caesar. He was the first to make sure the "crises" Hanson cites do not go to waste. As all top religious and political potentates, Augustus didn't want to have to do much yet still ensure things didn't get unnecessarily difficult, so he hired the best to advance his newly minted autocracy for the simple purpose of moving people into a deep abiding worship of the state. His executive chief-of-staff was the very capable Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, but it was his personal counselor and extraordinarily proficient PR manager who managed The Simulacra. That would be Caius Maecenas, regulating the flow of information to the masses with the grandest spectacle he could produce. One of his most significant tasks was the promotion of new draconian laws related to rearrangement of the traditional family structure — the idea was to generate more childbearing but in the long run only contributed to the empire's quite ostentatious demise. The problem was the moral decay had already set in too deeply even by the time Augustus took the reigns. Enacting the Rex Julia only made things more convoluted, establishing all kinds of perverse disincentives and entrenching the quasi-codified immorality even more.
It'd do you well to openly practice signifying your exuberant enthusiasm for the authoritatively accepted LGBT+ items or face prosecution in some form. The complete reenvisionment of the family is the most significant thing that will destroy the United States, and it isn't even Joe Biden, he's just a widely showcased spokeshole. It is far more the vast academia-media infected technocracy whose fiercely intractable sentiments are richly informed by The Society. That cat is already out of the bag. In fact, the whole barnyard has fled — indeed now the animals have taken up comfortable residence in quite a few homes.
The Great Reset nuke is already traveling at warp speed toward ground zero. The power players worshipping at Davos have already assured us of that. This piece at Off-Guardian articulates the mandarins' objectives and implementation, but stops short of illuminating the recurring truth about what eventuates from these efforts: dramatically stunted agricultural production leading to widespread food shortages, if not full-on mass starvation. Already the pandemic hysteria over the mythological coronavirus boogie monster will result in a United Nations estimated 270 million famine casualties.
But it doesn't matter. Either way the ecclesiastically empowered technocrats win. And they must, God told them they would when He expressly gave the first instructions for World System dominion to Cain. See the fourth chapter of Genesis for more. As much as people continue to hypnotically trust in their provocateur potentates and the abundantly broadcast promotions of whatever Rex Julia spectacles capture the imagination, they will be subject to the most demonic dissolution of their nation, their communities, and most harrowing, their families. What am I saying. It's already happening. Just as it has hundreds of times before around the globe. Go ahead, read the history of Rome and how deftly its operatives instituted a more metastasized version employing the services of the most ferocious primordial Catholicists misapprehending that they'd triumphantly stalled it. Look back at the delightful wonders of “Égalité liberté fraternité!” and see how Robespierre entranced by the philosophical auspices of "people power" champion Rousseau chopped off the heads of anyone who simply wasn't kind enough. Rediscover how Lenin educated in the finest humanism-propelled universities painstakingly got just enough people to form a critical mass to overthrow his country's Caesar so he could manage every-single-person's economic livelihood and establish the worst lasting misery in Russia — as well in all the places who eagerly wanted to replicate that splendid dystopia. The Jesuits gleefully win every time —
Unless you have Christ.
And an eternal perspective helps. I've come to realize that, really, Adam and Eve happened yesterday. Everything about what they did has happened in the lives of every individual anyway. It is no use sloughing off the affair as some pointless mythology from some benighted time a gazillion years ago. A wise individual once said to me "We are all in Adam, we need the Holy Spirit to make us less dangerous." Furthermore, we are all passing away in the very next minute. Waiting a minute? Go ahead, I can wait. Annnd now insisting you haven't died? Just wait one more minute. How foolish we are to believe the entertaining visible machinations can save us from that immediate eventuality. The horrifically retrogressive things of the World System's now expansively social media enabled soap opera are derived from deep operative designs you'll never identify unless you see with Christ's eyes and listen with His ears. Today? This one last moment we are all experiencing right now? I happened to pick this up from a piece on Biden's budding technocracy about an organization that will simply be the executive branch, note the name, "WestExec." On their website is a map that displays a "straight line which runs between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Building." From the website itself: "It is, quite literally, the road to the Situation Room, and it is the road everyone associated with WestExec advisors has crossed many times en route to meetings of the highest national security consequence." These people are not lobbyists, oh no, for shame to think such a thing. They're instead "strategic advisors." Since we are all supposed to trust them so buoyantly, the piece itself mentions, "No need to disclose their highly secretive client lists, whom they work for, or from where those dollars seep." The even more penetrating question is, who is informing those clients about what they will reliably do as ministers of Rome's current hegemony?
Don't know? Please, there are quite a few who claim to know. Many think they've got a firm grasp on all the rotten entanglements between the political and the corporate, the deep state and their darkweb crowdfunders. Many pride themselves on going deeper and risk being tarred with the ugliest epithet "conspiracy theory kook." Indeed many others in centuries past have been severely persecuted for pointing out that there is indeed a straight line that runs from the West Wing right to Rome, no matter who holds the title of most revered US administrator. Most modern-day muckrakers, however, are just posers ultimately hooking up with The Great Reset ("Let's work together on shaping that global paradise!") or The Kraken ("Let's fight tooth and nail against The Power!") And one of the most significant reasons they don't get it is because they confuse Rome with The Kingdom.
When the very next day the Pope names a few more cardinals at a ceremony replete with the proudest mask-wearing and social distancing protocols featuring an impassioned plea that these newbie authoritarians refrain from using their office for political advantage, personal gain, or stepping on the little people, he is dutifully on the job in the very necessary position of managing the universal, as such catholic, sinfulness of a reprobate populace. The Great Resets throughout history succeed because so many are seduced by the interminably rampaging and sensationally multi-faceted narrative hammered into them by Rome. They obsequiously lurch right into, as C.S. Lewis once gave as the title of a book about this very thing, "that hideous strength." From impassioned devotees to zealous rebels, all of them are being basted for placement on the altar. The Kingdom is waaay over there, small rickety gate at the end of a slim windy path, but right there is a beautiful shepherd with nail-scarred hands smiling upon any and all comers. Should anyone dare to look at Scripture and consider it seriously they'd confidently and joyously find solace in the truest most meaningful resolution of the whole thing. Take a good long look at the one seminal moment in that history book about the one intersection of the eternal and temporal, of genuine justice and abiding mercy — the most important singularity in the universe. What happened on the cross at Calvary. Your life depends on it. Otherwise — Kraken, Great Reset, whatever Rome's latest boffo extravaganza is, it doesn't matter. However thrilling it is to be right in the middle of The Conflagration — You're dead meat.
*** Let a righteous man strike me - that is kindness. Let him rebuke me - that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it for my prayer will still be against the deeds of evildoers. - From the 141st Psalm
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But the anointing you have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie - just as it has taught you, abide in Him. (ESV) - From the first letter of John, second chapter
Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations. - George Orwell
The fires of Hell are lapping up everywhere, higher and higher. The heat can get a bit uncomfortable at times, what is with that? It'd be nice to seriously consider how to slide away from them, but sadly I believe too many just like warming themselves at its hearth.
He could not share openly for the record the extent of his relationship with Hell, things anyone with any conscience already know extraordinarily well. The second major blast came from the House of Representatives, which passed a bill that if enacted into law would require everyone to assent to the previous gentleman's folly or face stiff federal penalties. The intentions of the inordinate number of "Equality" Act supporters are to completely obliterate the distinction between male and female by government dictate, and if the absurdity of that idea doesn't resound loudly enough then yes, this country as a whole is in dire peril. Understandable. Many believe quite insightfully that God's judgment on the US has already been established. It is definitely further fulfillment of the prophecy in the third chapter of the second letter to Timothy. "In the last days people will be lovers of themselves..." This conception has already exploded in the still-raging Covid hysteria. Authorities continue to pound their chests and boast about how much they are doing to protect the simpering masses, that everyone must acknowledge how magnificent they are in destroying the livelihoods of so many in the name of heroically stopping dead in its tracks a bug that is for the most part laughing at them. This is what Cain does, however, so no worries. The extended reaction from a dread-injected populace much of which now sporting two or three facial diapers is what devout Catholicists also do — they like it when Cain commits acts of human sacrifice against others to ensure they have another few years of a mostly besotted existence to plod through. I once thought this Covid thing was really bad. But it was only the undercard for the main event... The Equality Thing. Well, it is actually The Equity Thing, which today is merely institutionalized codependency — in other words, powerful people virtue-signaling out of their rear ends by covering for the irresponsible decisions made by some selected "victimized" class of people, and perpetually propelling that forward by exploiting them and in turn lethally destabilizing everything else. It is running ramrod through everything anyone once held dear. Many see it forming as "The Great Reset," and they aren't wrong, its progression accelerating quite well. I enjoy seeing observant posts that call it things like "The Plutocratic Oligarchy," not bad — or one of my favorites, "The Techno-Feudalism," that's a fine one as well, always with a good dose of Neo—Marxist—Alinskyite—Thingamanarchy in there. The left's favorite is something of a Heteroschmeteropatriarchidarchy—Fasciwappadism hybrid. Whichever one is the trendiest ugliest epithet for the current hegemony, World Devotees have always been under the hypnotic powers of what is best called simply the Ecclesiocracy. Starting with Babylon and carrying its authoritative strength through any number of political entities including most recently the "iron and clay mixture" of Britain and the United States, Rome has faithfully administered the World System for the past 2,000 years — still does today. The Vatican may be the most visible seat of government in this divinely ordained arrangement, but it is really the Church of the Gesu from which everyone is issued their lifestyle instructions. Please note that the Latin ecclesia does not exactly mean "church" but is better rendered "discursive community." Thus the contrast between the World and Kingdom may be summarized in this way. Kingdom dwellers live by the words of the Theocracy, which the World interprets as government by state-approved religious leaders. To the genuine follower of Christ the term simply means living under God's bountifully manifest love and enthusiastically expressed purposes. He is obedient to God and His ways because he worships God and honors his neighbor from the depths of his heart. Jesus is the Water of Life, and often water in Scripture refers to The Word.
It is all still the Ecclesiocracy, and as the World's discursive power it utilizes all sorts of Narrative Mythologies about the way things are supposed to be considered. Modern forms of media and communication technology make the propaganda spectacular and compelling. Remember, the World devotee lives by the principle of pathodicy, or in other words "justification by Psyche." Everything truth and rightness comes from one's feelings. The Kingdom, on the other hand, is about the theodicy, or "justification by God." Anything that happens in life is because God is working great wonders in the lives of people. Even in suffering and death, if one is giving his or her life in His service because of love of Father, friend, and even enemy, he or she will experience resurrection into eternal life not because of anything done but because Christ already justified one by His saving work on the cross.
On this particular excursion I came across a small pond and in and around it were mallard ducks, about twenty of them. As I gazed upon their beauty for a moment, I thought, hmm, the distinction between the male (the one with the bright green head) and the female (with the speckled brown pattern) is pretty obvious. It should also be quite obvious as to which human is which also. But again, what of the microphone-drop response the progressive persuasion always has to that position, "People should be free to decide for themselves so back off!" It is simple. It is one of the simplest logical truths around, and when employed it cannot be rejected except by a simpleton or lunatic — yet sadly we know so well how many of them have been shoving their way into positions of major public decision-making. Here is it. When they question the male/female distinction is true by saying "Nothing is really true unless the individual says it is (and any given individual should be able to choose their gender)," merely ask, Is that true? The point is people who "choose their gender" are appealing to subjectivism, that they may determine truth. If that is the case, then they themselves are making a truth claim. Put more simply, they are saying "It is true you must believe my truth that there is no truth binding on all." Obviously this is nonsense, they are logically violating their own claim. The truth (ouch) is no one lives by the precepts of subjectivism. It is impossible, even though the excuse is bleated any time someone wants to squirm out of their logical predicament. Another way you'll hear it is the stupendously ubiquitous, "Don't judge me!" Wow, yeah, that's harsh. But the fact is we all judge. We can't help it. For someone to say in the name of some goddess named Tolerancia that I must concur with what they say about a thing — many times that they are some gender identity of some sort — is to make a judgment. Against me! A pretty severe one too! Now the government is involved in some pretty fierce judgments about, about... What things actually? This is significant because anyone saying anything is making a truth claim. The real question is whether or not that claim is actually really truly objectively transcendently teleologically True. To simply concede the point is wisdom. To interminably continue the discussion as if it is still in question is folly. Yet this is the way of the World, and more specifically of the Hegelian discursive propaganda that animates the Ecclesiocracy's designs. It doesn't mean we can't have the conversation, the follower of Christ is willing to give his life to share the Living Word. In contrast Rome must have its way with people who refuse to see Christ for Who He Truthfully Is, and how ironic that its conception of truth is as draconian and oppressive as it is. I can't wait to experience the legal requirements for demonstrating how certifiably "anti-racist" one must be.
Those enjoying a richly enraged life under the Ecclesiocracy will be enslaved endlessly to the discursive edicts they've been hypnotized to follow. This is a right and proper thing, Cain's legacy can do nothing else. Real freedom comes by Christ and humbly acceding to truth — well, Truth, as well as Grace. It is about knowing one is in His embrace and thus never having to worry about the things man, his princes, his chariots, or anything else under Heaven can do to him. People do see, very clearly, the wounded duplicity of a hifalutin man trying to be a woman and then rallying his cohorts in academia and media to enlist Caesar to coerce us into affirming that. But what to do? The concluding paragraph of a recent book review of a tome titled Escape from Rome is worth citing here: Americans are always fretting: Are we Rome? [The author's] response would be: Who cares?... The famous quote by Gibbon about the period of the "good emperors," Nerva to Lucius Verus, being the happiest in human history. Nonsense. Marcus Aurelius may have been a philosopher, ...but he was also capable of extraordinary violence in the name of the state. Statists gonna state—and Rome was the biggest and most statist of them all. The main thing is to move past empire and get back to human freedom. Don't emulate Rome. Escape from it. Thuh end. That's his final word. Really? Escape how? How exactly? In fact the Ecclesiocracy's "escape" is merely a trap door that goes right into another part of the World System, like one of those nightmarishly dark multi-dimensional labyrinths in the worst fantasy horror movies. One place may look like Candy Cake & Colorful Sprinkles Land but it is really just rotten through and through. The next room at the end of another foreboding passage looks spectacular and novel, but it too is grotesquely decrepit when the embroidered tapestry is pulled up. Oh but how much I can be still be shrill in the loud pathodic discourse! It is so invigorating! No, the only escape is to stay, accept Rome for what it is, yet do one simple thing. Put hearts on your knees. Whut? You see, when I was out on another long walk, I happened upon a girl, about seven years old, who tumbled out of the back seat of her vehicle parked there on the curb in front of her house. I noticed she had hearts on her knees. Little hearts there, just the size of her kneecaps, sown on to her jeans. She had hearts on her knees. Just a very small observation, but one that made me think deeply, that I could richly ponder of the love I may share with my Lord as I enter His courts and kneel before Him simply out of Who He Is — His character and His sacrificial love for each one of us. He died for me and my sinfulness, as well as for the man who thinks he is a woman and anyone who thinks that's just fine. How awesome is that. At that point we may fully be far away from the hellfires the World System stokes and enter into His joy forever. As for now, I just want anyone and everyone I encounter to have that too. We must reside for a bit somewhere in the Ecclesiocracy labyrinth. The eternal Kingdom may still be our home.
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Man in his splendor will not endure, he is like the animals that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish, and of those after them who approve their words. - From the 49th Psalm (NASB)
[Good generals] know how to make generous gifts when appropriate, even to those they wish to conquer. - Sun-Tzu
All of it, horrifically deadly, implemented in the name of safety and security and protection of human life — of human life... that's rich. It has actually only been metastasized animated death. All of it. Most reasonable people gave them all that extensive amount of time to figure it out, we all were gracious enough to afford them just a bit of a cushion in case the originally promised two weeks was not enough. Coincidentally it turned out May 12 was the date the medical authorities ceased issuing any further information beyond what we already knew, because there was none — nothing other than thoughtfully advance the standard of compassionately addressing specific targeted populations with directed attention and sound treatments, just as we should any time there is some anomalous public health concern. Except that, the totalitarianists who like these kinds of things because they can flex their muscles didn't let up. A nation full of dread-gorged Catholicists who adore their authoritarian environs all the while bleating about their "freedom" and their "democracy" were dead meat. I share this because just a couple days after the fine anniversary that should-have-been, my daily devotional featured a Psalm that is the absolute best thing I've read that so profoundly speaks to this world here today. It illuminated one of the most striking Truth Rules there is — I've been blogging recently on some Truth Rules that are simply incomprehensible to so many, this one in particular bears repeating:
Everyone dies in the next minute.
Failure to fully realize this Truth Rule in the depths of the soul is so phenomenally destructive — and not just for one's own remaining minute of life but for an entire community, nation, even a family. Indeed dismissing the immense value of self-sacrificial love within a family is the flashpoint for the protracted dissolution of the greater. Think about this Covid thing. So many adults have told children, "You must sacrifice your livelihood so I may have a better chance [even one as miniscule as the Covid threat] to live a bit longer." What kind of wretched human sacrifice is that. What ever happened to the World War II mentality that was grounded in Scriptural truth [saying nothing about whether any geopolitical action was justified or not], "I will give my life so my children may have their futures and their livelihoods protected and secured and established." This isn't rocket science: from the eighth chapter of Mark, "For what can it profit a man to gain the whole world, but forfeit his soul?" That elucidating Psalm is the 49th. Sad that so many treat Psalms as merely pithy encouragements, and indeed some are very important in that vein. But the Psalms pour out much truth, including the substance of this Truth Rule. What on earth are you doing? What are you doing — yes, with this earthly existence — that makes you believe you are not transformed into a limp wad of, ahem, earth much sooner than you think? Doesn't matter who you are, how much you have, what you think about anything — it will be over for you at some point. Then what? Think you've got some time? That's cool, it isn't a bad thing to take the time you have to plan things out, to labor at some wholesome thing, to earn a living, to enjoy discursive interaction with others as much as you can... Then what? Go ahead and read the Psalm, please do, right now. You'll note it opens with something you don't see much even in Scripture. The Psalmist essentially says, "Listen up because this here is one of the most important things you will ever read, ever, ever ever ever." Then, the Truth Rule. In fact, Scripture elaborates on this, particularly in the New Testament, Jesus' very words that everyone seems to enjoy so much because it isn't that mean, cruel Old Testament. But Jesus makes it very clear. You're not only dying in the next minute, that's just your physical destiny... You're dead right now. You are dead in the muck of your own lifestyle choices, condemned by virtue of the clear precepts of the law. Don't even try harder, it won't do you any good. You need a deliverer, The Deliverer. Don't want Him? That's okay too, though, because God in His mercy sent Cain out into the wilderness, far away from His presence, so He could build a city and continue his human sacrifice practices for all those who don't want to mess with this God business. They may have their own righteousness and their own precepts and their own institutions of law enforcement and adjudication and sophistication and all the rest of the hypnotic mantras that make people feel so good in spite of their reprobation. So then what am I saying? I can't say a single thing against the COVID LOCKDOWN. It is indeed what people want, what they need, what they yearn for — it has been Caesar's job for millennia to industriously oblige.
But the Inferno. Now there's where the real drama happens. That's where you get to see what happens to people who've eff'ed you up. How many times has it been confessed there is a perverse pleasure in this. The sobering reality though, at least for those who choose to behold it, is how likely it is the people there are us. Couple items I'd just like to riff on here, if you'll indulge me. The first is mention of offenses you may have to Google to define. "Simony" is one, the selling of church offices. That certainly isn't an issue today — or is it? Anyone with a position of authority who provides any kind of favor or privilege for a price is guilty of simony. How many legislators manipulate stock values with their regulatory policy and then make a killing by trading on the inside? I'd seen a report about a particular member of Congress — and I'm sure she's not an exception — that after a number of years in the position she is now worth $7 million. I can't say she is not worth it, I simply think about her significant role as Cain's dutiful administrator holding the divinely bestowed seven-fold vengeance strength against any challengers to her rule. The seven-million seems about right then, doesn't it? Alchemy is a fun one, the laborious attempts at playing God with the elements. Reading about this I'm reminded Isaac Newton was really into to it, all in the name of best scientific practices, of course. But the essence of alchemy was to find a way to manufacture precious metals established as value assignments for the purpose of artificially propping up one's personal value. In the Middle Ages committed Catholics could certainly hope for success convinced once digested, the bread miraculously turns to body — how hard could it be to turn lead into gold? Is this any different than the feverish bitcoin miners pumping a zillion gigawatts into heaving computers solving preposterously elaborate puzzles to squeeze out a liiitle more crypto value? Or even more pandemic, the hifalutin money suppliers at any stratospheric level of influence messing with the measure to the detriment of the millions they've fleeced — or, excuse me, extracted their due tribute? One of the striking things about Dante is the places he has imaginatively put these people based on their crimes. Those convicted of deviously elevating their stature for mammon? They are stuck upside-down deep in the filthy mire, with both legs exposed and feet interminably singed by flames. Eventually we reach Lucifer, who resides in the very last location of Hell and is also stuck, there in a river of ice, his body just a hulk with gruesome bat wings, his head having three faces each named "Hatred," "Impotence," "Ignorance." Let's see, you don't have vibrant relationships with anyone, you can't actually do anything, and you don't know anything of value — even though you think you do. Hmm, sounds like eternal loneliness, boredom, and despair — and the deceiving of oneself. Sounds like Hell on earth for millions of lost souls right now. What Lucifer does do is gnaw, that's right, gnaws. With each mouth he endlessly gnaws on the bodies of arguably the three most notorious traitors in history, Judas, Brutus, and Cassius. Ah, two of them are the ones who assassinated Caesar, quite interesting. Might be worth some modest rumination when preparing to leap into the midst of the Great Glorious Rebellion against the present System ruling elite...
Or worse, the wealthy dinner guest waiting for the cook to put you in the oven. It's worth a mention that Dante wrote with the idea that the Roman Catholic Church was "The City of God," as depicted in Augustine's notorious dichotomy. I mean, who was the assigned guide as they traversed the Inferno? Virgil, none other than the one who penned the heroically epic paean to Roman Catholic dominion. In his personal life Dante openly railed against the abuses of the church leadership — throughout history who hasn't? It is so perverse, this grand tour of the worst Rome has to offer. It isn't as if all of this hasn't been widely observed by so many through the ages, man has always betrayed his own humanist and materialist blitherings by insisting he is a god, but shackled to his own fetid libertinism it is all he has. In some aspect every one of those people in their Inferno dungeons were doing things they thought were true and proper but were only heeding the dictates of Rome — in rebellion, remonstration, or reverence, doesn't matter. Prelate, professor, praetor, prognosticator on the major news network — their service is extraordinarily necessary for prosecuting evildoing, in every one of the farthest reaches of the System, and they do it quite admirably I might add. Then what? We're back to the truths in that 49th Psalm. This is why the best part about that Scripture is the 15th verse. God doesn't leave us hanging there. He doesn't leave us to a destiny of our own little corner of Hell. He never does.
He shares with us His freedom right now.
There it is in the verse: "God will redeem me." You're already in line for gnawing by some Inferno minion, perhaps you already have several teeth marks on your soul. No, you've got to be bought back, redeemed. The Redemption is Christ. The price is huge, His blood shed at Calvary. The price is paid for by Him — for you. It has been said Hell is the greatest testament to man's freedom. You may still choose. While all the occupants of Dante's Hell exhibit at least some measure of discomfort in their eternal predicament, or some measure of a desire to get out if they could, or some expletive related to the injustice they feel — none of them ever truly get it. Once there, any remote conception of mercy, grace, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, agape-based salvation has been completely obliterated. They may blither some worldly conception of those things, but in their now perpetually benighted state they will never understand. And that is what makes Hell the worst. Their enslavement is to themselves, never understanding, never knowing with no fellowship with The Word — in a sense The Understanding, The Knowing, The Wisdom. The Joy of interacting with The One who gave His life by His love to revel in all that with you, as well as with all the others who took up that cross and loved with His love. I'm not sure Dante even fully apprehended that, to be honest. Amazing literary work, a deserved classic, I've enthusiastically dived into it. I get the whole Beatrice thing, I get that she was that glimpse of the divine — we get ever-so slight ones every once in a while, they're very good, and often they come in the form of those self-sacrificing individuals we know authentically love. Because the contrast is so stark you may get a bit of it from The Divine Comedy, but it comes only from worshipping Him in Spirit and in Truth, doing so through vibrant interaction with those who are walking words, sagely acknowledging the reality that they are truly sheep awaiting slaughter — little logos following The Big Logos. Only in those communities can we really experience The Kingdom.
One final note, as I peruse my work here for this season. I can't help a reader who may be convinced I fatalistically don't care about dying people, who refuses to see this is entirely about the eternal perspective. Sharing in quite stark terms that the grim reaper is always hovering does not mean proper diet, regular exercise, and wise choices are not good things. At a church service I attended Sunday a woman celebrating her 100th birthday was honored. She had a smile on her face a mile wide, but it wasn't because of the wonderful attention. It was because you could easily tell she had a resolute peace and overflowing joy that only came from being filled with the Holy Spirit. She looked like she could live another 100 years. Good for her. But in the eternal? She'll be gone from here in the next moment. The truth is that doesn't matter to her, because really, the eternal is what counts. We may then be privileged to eat from the Tree of Life, but only because of Christ and His invitation to join Him in the Kingdom. What I'm sharing may be redundant as anything, sorry, but I will add that if you are a reader struggling to grasp this, first, thank you for taking the time, and second, I will always pray for you. I do have a moment to do that.
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*** Scripture | Homepage | Site Map #
All photographs inserted were taken from the web. Forgive me for not including attributions. I make no money directly from this web effort. Thanks nonetheless to those who posted them so I may reproduce them here. Thank you. This page was originally posted by David Beck at yourownjesus.net on November 29 2020 |
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Saw a film the other day on the streaming film service, I forget
which one, entitled The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon
Valley. It was the one about Elizabeth Holmes and her
impassioned desire to make a diagnostic test that would contribute
to eliminating all known diseases because she's just that kind of a
person and it never really matters how much you must lie to show how
stunningly magnanimous you really are.
He did an experiment in which a subject would roll a die, but before
rolling they had to note "top" or "bottom." If whichever number came
up that's the amount of money they'd get. For instance if the die
roll was a 6 and the subject noted "top," they'd get $6. But if they
noted bottom, they'd get $1. The trick is they didn't tell the
researcher which one they picked. They were, of course, expected to
be honest about it. Would the subject admit they put "bottom" if the
die roll was a 6? Turns out the subjects made a bit more money than
the odds would merit. Not a surprise.
Ee-yep. Everyone did it — they left.
Everyone in their pathodicy took off — they
weren't getting any miraculously generated free
meals this time. He's simply not doing
things the way I think he should so I can feel good. Who is this Jesus fool anyway?
"Drink his blood"? What does that mean?
In a review of a Netflix series set during the Roman Empire, the writer
mentioned that one of his professors once said, "There is nothing in
the modern world that has not already happened in Rome." 
This dynamic is playing out precisely the same way today, with Joe
Biden saying on the campaign trail that eight year-olds who feel
like transitioning should do so. This bold affirmation not only
demonstrates how calcified is its hold on all of society, but will certainly lead to a
Rex Julia for the
current "Pax
Americana."
Hey, the Kindness is Everything train is moving out of the
station and you'd better be on it, or else! 
This regurgitated progressive hellscape has thus unleashed
The
Kraken, this idea that the truth justice and American way
of Donald Trumpism will avert this
catastrophe. A record ballot dump of both 140 million legitimate
votes and some 10 to 20 million fraudulent ones (promptly inspiring
The New York Times to stridently confirm Joe Biden's claim
to the US presidency) means there are plenty of people who
revel in The Conflagration. It does seem the culture war consists only of
those for Trumpism
and those against it, and the Always-Trumpers have felt secure that Trump has been at least a bit of a
firewall against the Sanctified Immorality.
They refuse to discern when the Pope puts an op-ed in
The New
York Times that begins with eloquently juicy plap about the
best bestest kinds of kindness yet concludes to be
the change! you must buy into the peremptorily overbearing attempts to prevent climate change
and obediently heed whatever the lockdown plutocrats tell you,
he is doing the work of a top World System operative.
A couple of huge blasts emerged from the Infernal
Cottage this past Thursday. A gentleman pretending
to be a woman and insisting everyone else celebrate
his folly sat in a US Senate hearing room fielding
questions about his qualifications to be a top
public health official. When a senator asked about
the breadth of his unique policy considerations, the gentleman simply offered
to hold a consultation about those things in his
office sometime.
The World devotee is under the power of the Ecclesiocracy,
which is merely the ultimate rule though the deepest channels of sin
management authority showing itself through any number of
storefronts: ingratiated non-profit church, ministry, and community
organizations, chartered financial institutions and commercial enterprises,
the robust university networks, the ferociously strident
journalistic behemoths, and
of course formally registered government offices at every strata.
In
thinking about how to respond to the rampaging
sodomist dominion, I ponder what to say when someone
says, "I should be free to decide my own ___ (fill
in the blank with whatever insane identity
pronouncement the profoundly insecure must clench to
try to get people to tell them how courageous they
are)." The answer came to me when on my long walk.
We
now cannot help but confront this sodomist law the
Ecclesiocracy has passed — and whether it is
ultimately enacted, the idea is still quite
metastasized in the mainstream. We must believe
that a man is a woman and a woman is a man. And
war is peace and freedom is slavery and ignorance is
strength.
May 12 of last year was the date I'd considered
everyone should have been back to work, to play,
to life. At my work they shut us down March 13,
a Friday no less. Two months
to see what happened, then after looking carefully
at the evidence we could then once again fully enjoy no
mandated masks, shields, gloves, aprons, forced
distancing, Plexiglas dividers, "flex" schedules,
segregated areas, shuttered business establishments,
"non-essential" discriminations,
lengthy quarantines, contact tracing investigations, Zoom meetings,
testing requirements, vaccination requirements,
medical/health/immunity passports, color-coded tier
case threshold systems or any other "mandated
precautions against Covid spread" — all of it
unnecessary, unreasonable, unscientific,
unconstitutional, even counterproductive, dangerous,
destructive, and lethal.
I've recently been fascinated by Dante's The
Divine Comedy and have been getting into it a
bit. It seems the most compelling part to many is his first
of the three narratives, "Inferno." The others are
nice, I mean "Paradiso" has some nice parades
and colorful banners and
robust cheers, and you get to hang out with the
simulacrum of your amorata, that's pretty special.
Of course you get to see God
at the end — very much not a bad thing. To Dante's
credit, however, our woefully temporal impressions
can never grasp the amazing expanse of Heaven's
glories.
What strikes me is how this delightful little scene
represents considerably the worst condition of
existence at all: no freedom whatsoever. That's it,
can you see it. While arguing that Lucifer may be
the most free of all — free from the law
and free from the rules and free from
The Man how splendid to follow him and feel
so free! — he is actually the least free of
all. Freedom only means anything when genuinely
connecting with who God made you to be and redeemed
you to be. To assume you can "create yourself" in
the name of freedom is to actually subject yourself
to the lies others are so deft at telling only so
they can elevate themselves as your
slavemaster.