Mike Pence Booed and Lectured

When Mike Pence was booed and lectured to at Hamilton, he gracefully smiled and told his children "that's the sound of freedom."  But even though he is a public servant, shouldn't he be granted freedom to take his family to a play without being lectured or booed? Doesn't he deserve to be respected, especially in the presence of his children? When we are "in your face" with what we are free to do, freedom morphs into something I'm not proud to send my son off to war to defend and protect. This "freedom" is arrogant, impolite, entitled. It's the "freedom" that sows seeds of hostility and conflict--the stuff that makes freedom untenable. And there are certainly more extreme examples of this arrogance in recent American history. The freedom that we love, the freedom that enhances the quality of human life, is freedom that is self-restrained. It is restrained by love, mutual respect and humility. It is bold when necessary, like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s version. But we see in the Civil Rights movement, that tension between restrained and unrestrained freedom. Oppression builds up an energy that takes great discipline to restrain, and great courage to confront. Freedom requires both that courage and that restraint. Also, prosperity tends to breed entitlement and immaturity; traits that have historically preceded societal decline. Democracy is a fragile state of human existence. It is an out-of-balance condition when looked at from the worldwide historical perspective. It is somewhat of a glorious anomaly. And it can only be maintained by a psycho-spiritually mature populace. Our Founding Fathers, though imperfect as all men, seemed to realize this fragility, setting up a system with balanced power--a form of self-restraint. And not only providing freedom from state oppression of religion, but encouraging religion [the primary venue of psycho-spiritual maturity]. In fact, democracy is arguably a corollary of [result of] the psycho-spiritual maturity of a people who were willing to fight for religious liberty and who were determined enough  to endure grave hardships to flee religious oppression.  Let us hope that this stamina still exists in the prosperity and obesity of our democratic republic.  The most important foundation of democracy is  healthy religion; the Christian Faith of our Founding Fathers. This Faith must never be imposed, but its repression is a grave symptom of the decline of all freedoms, and the rise of authoritarianism.

Persevere

Let us not become weary in doing good, for in the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Gal 6:9
And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold, but he who endures to the end will be saved. Jesus Mt. 24:12-13

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to all my brothers and sisters in Christ (those who have received Him, recognizing that He is the Messiah) who are prayerfully seeking to be the Light in this world that He has ordained us to be.  In our time there are many Christian voices warning us of spiritual decline, just as in the days of Israel's decline before she was taken into captivity.  And, as then, most seem to be ignoring these prophetic warnings.  We should pray for discernment, for evil is deceptive and insidious, like unnoticed cancer cells growing in the physical body. Jesus says evil is so deceptive that, if God did not shorten the time of its rise, even the very "elect" (all of us sincere Christians) would be deceived (Mt. 24:22,24).  None of us is above reproach or immune to the deceptions of evil except as we diligently abide in Christ--in His Spirit, being careful, watchful, sober-minded; for Satan, like a roaring lion, roams to and fro throughout the earth seeking to devour those who stray from the safety of the flock of God's children--the Kingdom introduced by Christ, which is comparable to the Ark of Noah's day.  We should try to remain in the very center of the Kingdom; not out on the periphery, barely saved but not practicing our Faith. We must not make ourselves vulnerable to the subtle deceptions of the world,  which can slowly and imperceptibly lure us farther and farther into eternal darkness. We should not fear evil, but we should be very aware of  its deceptive and destructive powers. How many family members or friends do you know who have fallen into one of Satan's sticky traps? Some of them have not been able to get out. And how many Christians do you know who don't seem to take their walk seriously, as if were a nice option, but not crucial to life? Even though the effects of evil glare boldly at us through our media and everyday human interactions--perhaps because it does--we can become dull and desensitized to its devastation, and unknowingly allow ourselves to be pulled by its subtle currents farther and farther out into the sea of endless darkness. The Bible, and Jesus Himself, warn us to stay awake to the lurking horrors of evil. If you want to know how bad things can get in a Godless culture read Deuteronomy 28:15-68. There seems to be no end to the difficulties and gut-wrenching sorrows that beset a nation or culture that drifts from the Truth of Christ. God has given us freedom; and the responsibilities that naturally accrue to it. If we ignore the responsibilities that God has commanded, revealed and generously given to us in Christ, we should expect our lives to become progressively more difficult, fruitless and void. But if we will diligently seek Him and walk in the Light of the Love of Christ, He will not fail to bless us with eternal blessings, like the dawning of the sun, growing brighter and brighter to the full light of day (see Deut. 28:1-14).

Darkness/Light

Out of what kind of darkness has come the living specter of  technically advanced nations harboring weapons powerful enough to annihilate civilization and destroy the earth--nations with men  on alert twenty-four hours of every day, perpetually going through training designed to enable them to know how. when. and under what circumstances these fiery demons would be released upon the earth, demons that would scorch the earth, blacken the sky and pollute the oceans, destroying the balance that sustains life on this planet? What level of responsibility does this call forth from humankind?  How can we exercise this responsibility?
My answer: Do all you can to propagate the teachings of Jesus the Christ. He commanded His followers to love their enemies; and He demonstrated this Love in His own life. He is the Light that shines into the darkness from which those demon-weapons have come. He is our best hope of keeping these demons from being released; and He will protect His followers, even if they are.

Wisdom

The intelligence that garners wisdom was not born in this generation, and this generation does not exclusively possess it. And if you get lost in what has manifested in this generation--the bells and whistles, Facebook postings, movies and tweets, etc--you may miss something much deeper and sweeter for your soul; something that is ancient, ageless, liberating, and fresh as the morning dew. When you seek this ageless Truth, you will begin to see it everywhere. You will see the good and evil currents flowing through all your Facebook postings and tweets; and through your self. You will eventually come to sit at the feet of the One Who said, "I am the ...Truth..." And you will know that He is. Or you will remain in the anchor-less drifting darkness.

Quite A Moment

Startled by my motorcycle, rolling slowly through wide pools of four inch deep “High Water” (as the sign had warned) hundreds of tightly aligned purple martins peeled off the power line above me to join hundreds more circling, circling in the wide expanse of blue windy sky on this September day, the coolest after two months of summer heat, while, to my right, waves on the rain swollen Tchefuncta glistened in the sun as it poured its way the short distance remaining to Lake Pontchartrain. It was, I would say, quite a moment. 

The Real Battle

One of the countless amazing truths revealed in the Bible is that humans are not our enemy. Ephesians 6:12 asserts We do not contend against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
When Jesus prayed from the Cross, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing",  He was bringing this truth into focus. He knew that Judas, the Pharisees, and Roman soldiers were not his enemy. He knew that they had been deceived by the evil Prince of this World, Satan. They were victims--like we all have been, and to some degree still are. The "spiritual forces of evil" continue to use our human differences to deceive us into believing that those who are different from us are our enemies. Evil is indeed real. But those who practice it are deceived because it can never have a positive outcome. Evil is, by definition, destructive to both the perpetrator and the victim, but especially to the perpetrator. Jesus made it very clear to His followers that He was not a victim. "No man takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord." "I have overcome the world." He won the spiritual war because He was not overcome by fear or hatred. He loved to the end.
This is a very good way to understand life, even if you are an atheist. We war not against humans, but against aspects of our individual and collective personalities, false and destructive beliefs,  delusions, hatred of persons, greed, selfishness, avarice, malice, etc.  These are manifestations of our enemy. When we work to rid our own personalities of all that is not kind, faithful, and true; free, courageous and motivated by good will toward all, then we are fighting the right battles.
From the Christian perspective, we have Christ Himself, His very Holy Spirit, with us always to empower us on toward victory.
God please hasten the day when evil is eradicated from the new heavens and the new earth. And please keep on keeping my heart free from evil invasions; as You have designed my body to fight off the perpetual invasions of harmful organisms.

The Mind and God

Most of us are not even aware,  most of the time, that we have a mind. A mind. A mind!
It filters every life experience more thoroughly than the liver filters the blood. It determines the very quality of our everyday lives. And we tend to ignore it and let it do whatever it's doing.
But we can pay attention to it; and learn to control it somewhat. I can notice how my mind interprets and handles things. The "you" that can notice how your mind operates is a very, very important aspect of "you". It's the "you" that shapes the will.  It's the you that has the ability to connect with the God of this universe (or with the "Universe" if you're an atheist.) Or more correctly, it's the "you" that can discover your unending, inescapable connection to the Universe--to God. Where can one go to escape God/Universe? To ask the question "Is God, or is God Not?" issues from a place that is outside  what we might call the run-of-the-mill mind: what the zen master called the "Monkey Mind", only focused, as it swings through the forest, on the next vine or the next limb. When you realize that you have a mind you can do something with it. Otherwise, you are flowing in the river of your thoughts with no outside awareness of what is carrying you along---or where!

Meditate for a moment on the fact that we did not create, nor do we even understand our minds. Our mind is a gift that has been given to us. Think of all that has come out of the mind of man, the evil and the good. Think of all that is being manifested in the world because of where we focus, knowingly or unknowingly, our minds. What if we focused our minds on loving each other, as Christ has commanded us? What if this became a conscious process, transcending impulse and instinct? What if we came to understand that our enemy is not a human or group of humans, but rather certain aspects of our individual personalities; that, as one man said "The line that separates good from evil runs through the heart of every human being?" And that our main work in life is to overcome the darkness within our own self--that part of us that is not loving, and therefore not good?  What if we made that goal--loving people, being thankful, graceful, kind and generous, fair and responsible--our primary devotion in life? And then we were careful not to let ourselves get distracted for too long from that goal--that way of being.  Could we not then, at the end of our days on this earth, have a deep sense of peace about how we spent our lives? Could we not, indeed, walk in peace every day, knowing that we have found the true Pathway of Life? That there is absolutely no better way that we could be spending our life energy?
This is exactly what Jesus has commanded us. And He even promised to give us His Spirit--the Holy Spirit--to empower us to attain that goal; to transform not only our minds, but our hearts. If you can find a  better way of being in the world, for God's sake live it! But if you can not, in order to be truly honest, you should bow to Jesus, because He accomplished this.