Sharpening the Sword

Can you imagine someone like me wishing we could do without the Internet?

There are two issues here. One is that a computer is by far the best way to write, and to store what you write. Two is that the Internet has been the best way to distribute that writing. That computers and the Internet do so many other things is actually a problem for me.

Lately I’ve redoubled my efforts to reduce the information clutter. I use Links from Twibright Labs as my main browser. It does text and graphics, and very little else. When even graphics are more than I want, I still use Lynx browser (text only) running in the Cygwin environment. Third most often I run Kmeleon browser when I simply cannot get things done with the other two browsers. Kmeleon allows me to block lots of stuff on-the-fly with buttons in the interface. When all else fails, I use Waterfox with several extensions that protect the system and itself from most threats.

I also like the Tor Browser bundle for some purposes. I don’t like Chrome except to access Google’s own services. Even then, it tends to crash on YouTube. For transactions that involve money, I use Vivaldi just to firewall those accounts from other Internet activity. Regular Firefox is for my actual work on this blog and our forum. Yes, I’m a real Internet grouch and I took the time to learn my way around these tools to get what I want.

And if various coalitions of countries get their way, the Internet may well be firewalled off into regional sections. I have no idea whether I’ll miss much should that really take hold, but the one thing that makes me unhappy about it is that our current means of outreach is pretty much the Internet. On the other hand, only a small portion of the world’s population can be touched that way. So far, it’s a pretty thin group of folks scattered around the world who even so much as subscribe to this blog. As it is, the most active folks are scattered across the US, and none of us have ever met face to face. There aren’t that many folks in this world capable of processing this different approach to faith from such a feeble means of transmission.

Which brings me to the point of this post: I am convinced we have reached the point where any further penetration must come via a more vivid expression of faith person to person. It’s okay to reference Radix Fidem via the Internet, but the doing isn’t going to happen online. The whole idea behind Radix Fidem is restoring the divine inheritance of God’s children. That means embracing the Covenants and building up the presence of shalom in the real world. And that naturally means touching other people with that shalom. That’s what it means to shine the Lord’s glory in this world.

Granted, this rests on a move of the Spirit. If you can swallow the other stuff I write about faith and practice, then you shouldn’t balk at the idea that the Lord has revealed to me and others in different ways that He is about ready to move. It will likely start slow, but part of that movement of God will be clothed in His wrath. And His wrath always includes people who don’t know Him going crazy and doing crazy things as part of His wrath pouring out in natural disasters. According to Scripture, mass insanity is part of those natural disasters, since our human flesh is part of nature.

There is a very high probability that part of the madness will be the Internet becoming more difficult in some ways. Personally, I’m content with text browsing and email communications. I don’t need to see some of the nonsense people post in imagery. And I’m okay with text messages if you keep in mind that I use a flip phone, so my texting response will be a little slow. But I suspect some of those members of our virtual parish living outside the US, and especially outside the Western world, may soon experience trouble accessing things like our forum or this blog. This is why I wrote the Radix Fidem curriculum [PDF] as an outline to how we can share our fundamental approach with other Christians. Get your copies now, folks, or come up with your own approach. Either way, be ready for some big changes coming any day now.

A critical element in that madness will be both physical and cyber warfare. Access may become spotty at best. Be ready to handle this without so much support from this online contact point. The heart-led way of faith is too important to keep to ourselves. This is the glory of the Lord, so get on the ball and make yourself ready. This will be the only island of sanity as the rest of the world comes apart. Sharpen your sword of truth to turn on yourself afresh.