Don’t Lie to Yourself

Posted on February 1, 2017 by ehurst

The greatest folly is believing lies about your threats. Satan loves to inflate our imagination about his powers. His powers are great, but not what popular mythology suggests he can do. But the same goes for just about anyone who is a problem for you. I have said Trump’s presidency will bring us problems, but if you keep blindly buying into the media crap about him, after you already know that they despise him with passionate hatred, you will not understand how to handle the real problems he brings. I suggest you take a look at this analysis by Scott Adams to understand how Trump operates. This is not meant to glorify Trump, but to help us clarify what we should expect.

For example, his travel ban was not on Muslims. Lots of Muslim from other countries are still coming into the US. It was a ban on seven countries already identified as sources of trouble under Obama. In fact, many of the people making the loudest noise in Congress have already promoted, even signed bills with the same exact ban in the recent years. The only difference is that Trump is making it stick, whereas the others were just making noise. It’s a stupid ban, but let’s evaluate it for what is really wrong with it, not scream and yell about something it isn’t.

This is the propaganda war I warned about. This is why Trump’s noisiest opponents are going to fail: They keep criticizing a ghost who doesn’t exist, a mythological Trump they imagine and one they want to hate. None of their noise will have any effect on him, but it will eventually make them out to be lying scoundrels. Meanwhile, as nearly as anyone can tell, the majority-in-effect is happy about the ban. And we surely know the enforcers are feeling vindicated by Trump’s generous support. Get real folks, and let’s discuss what’s actually going on here. Otherwise the Father cannot guide us to His glory.

At the same time, let’s recognize another issue of moral blindness: Islam has distinct advantages in the culture wars. First, they remain in a largely tribal social structure. They are fairly close to the original human default of ANE feudalism. Further, without even using the terminology, they tend to operate in heart-led mode. We might not agree with their convictions, but they are more likely to act on theirs than most Westerners do. Their odd approach to religious and social law does at times reflect parts of Noah. However, some of what you see is often too close to Talmudic legalism, but we see that mostly on fringe elements among the extremists. The vast majority of Muslim believers aren’t literal Jihadists.

So your average randomly chosen Muslim in general is closer to Noah’s Law than almost anyone in Western society. Their real problem is that they don’t know God; their version of Deity is taken mostly from an ancient Arabic Moon god. Thus, He still herds them like cattle, but they do have some advantages. You’ll notice their instincts for tribal occupation is rather close to the Bible. They understand instinctively the tribal domain boundaries and the obligation to protect them. This is why the military destruction of their cities and economic infrastructure doesn’t defeat them. No Western army will ever change their way of life. Their convictions are stronger than death.

You can wipe them out or you can enslave them, but you cannot change them wholesale. Only God can do that. Would that our own faith were that strong.

As I’ve said recently, our only problem with Muslims is letting Israel run our foreign policy in the Middle East. Those seven countries Trump banned are typically places where Israel has demanded we intervene on their behalf to generate instability. While the finer points of Trump’s game have yet to be seen, it’s not quite fair to say he’s slavish about pampering Israel. But he is far, far too solicitous.

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Cycling: Little More Poking Draper

Posted on January 31, 2017 by ehurst

mapIt was pretty warm by the time I got out on my bike — 70°F (21C). Somehow I knew this wouldn’t be much of an adventure, and I didn’t run across a single place that called my name. Still, I wanted to see for myself so I’d know what was there. You might want to click on the map and see it full-sized, because this was a three-pronged sally down from the north end of Draper Lake Drive.

01washoutflatComing in on the Sooner Road corridor, the starting point is the new defacto horse trailer parking area. That’s where I see them most often these days. They can pulling into that big gravel circle on the upper left corner of the map image and enter the trail system. The first thing we encounter south of that loop is a very large flat washout area. The peculiar thing was the how flat it was; you could see where the water from heavy rains gets pushed out wide as it slowly runs down into the gully on the west side. I tramped down a couple of trails just a short ways.02pt9lagoon Lovely single track, but it’s not really for bikes.

I went back out and dropped into the valley, then turned right at the top of the next ridge. This entire ridge is called Point 9 and it’s the only part of the entire recreation area with signs insisting on a no-wheels policy off the pavement. Only feet, hooves, and paws are allowed because Parks and Rec is trying to restore the area from abusive damage.03rockyshore Oddly, this place is shot through with well-used foot paths. I locked my bike to one of the signs about no wheels at the end of that long paved road and poked around the trails. The first and best used trail ended in a dangerous drop over the shore bluff. So I poked around a bit and found out how to get out on the east side of that lagoon you can see on the satellite image. Today the water was up, so it was just a sheltered cove. The most picturesque thing was the exposed rock facing above that lagoon.

04lagoonelmcrkBack to the bike and back out again to the main road. Turning right once more I headed down to the actual East Elm Creek valley alongside the Douglas Boulevard entrance to the recreation area. I picked out the old track running along the east bank of the creek. I really wasn’t all that interested in riding out too far, but I wanted to see the flood pond on the east side of the creek bed. It was quiet and showed signs of fisherman all around it, but today it was just hot and felt desolate. I could have easily ridden farther along that track, but it didn’t seem too inviting. It runs up to an inlet that separates the fancy accommodations farther south from the wild stuff.

So I ground my way along the sandy bumpy trail back out and took Douglas Boulevard northward all the way to SE 15th. The traffic was just light enough to be tolerable.

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Heathen Religious Wars

Posted on January 31, 2017 by ehurst

Let’s understand things in terms of what will actually work. Keep in mind that anyone who adheres from the heart to God’s Law will harvest a blessing of shalom. The difference is academic between God’s direct personal intervention and Creation’s standard response by design. Either way, the whole business of shalom rests entirely upon embracing the divine moral character of God; this moral character is the fabric of reality itself. We can state it in other terms: If you obey the Law of Noah from the heart, you will gain God’s support for what you do.

That support includes a grant of dominion over some aspects of your daily existence. You will have a better savvy about how Creation responds and you will exercise an authority denied the vast majority of humanity. In biblical terms, you will “occupy the land” on which you live. This assumes that you truly know where God wants you to abide geographically. This is all within the imagery of ancient nomadic tent-dwellers who occupied a certain amount of real estate in pursuing God’s glory.

This all holds true despite the Westphalian Treaty law of the modern secular state and its boundaries.

The whole picture requires that you assert in your domain, granted by God, the manner of life and heart-led existence that He requires of you as His feudal servant. It comes in a form that includes your customs and culture. This is part of our teaching that you have a duty before God to build and maintain your own way of life. There is no “one holy and righteous” culture. There is only you and God working out what your culture shall be where you are.

In the Ancient Near East (ANE) you would be presumed to adopt the culture of your extended family-clan-tribe (or nation) in terms of what we today would regard as ethnic identity. Some of it would be genetically determined, as science is now finally discovering, but much of it would be a matter of the context into which you were born. Nothing hindered you from taking that culture and adapting it to fit changes in the wider context. So, for example, Hebrew musicians adopted musical instruments and styles of music from neighbors, conquerors, etc. There was nothing wrong with this, so long as the result didn’t confuse the issue of who was their God and the boundaries of their covenant with Him.

So if you like socialist economic policies in your tribe/nation, that’s between you and God. If you prefer a libertarian leaning, that’s equally okay. So long as your choices are not some kind of civic religion that competes with God’s Law and calling on your life, it really doesn’t matter. As long as that form of economic policy does not hinder obedience to Noah, it doesn’t make any difference. The whole point is that you all pretty much agree and adapt to what it requires. It’s not as good as a conscious obedience to Noah, but it does work out in practical terms.

When your governing leadership in your local or national secular state transgresses Noah, it’s not going to work. There may be some kind of equilibrium because the local population has adapted to it, but God will not protect it from disturbances except as it suits His whim. You are not under any covenant protection at all.

When your secular governing authorities invite immigrants, it is a requirement in Noah that these immigrants understand they can bring their culture with them, but they cannot afflict the local culture with demands for change that suits them. There will naturally be a certain amount of negotiation, but a violent demand for change is not going to work unless these immigrants are powerful enough to invade and take over as conquerors.

If Europe wants to welcome invading hordes that refuse to adopt the local culture, then they have surrendered their land and people. You can talk about “cultural enrichment” all you like, but the facts say otherwise. It becomes some kind of Orwellian lie that you can absorb refugees, but if they bring their culture and assert it over yours, then you haven’t absorbed anything at all. You’ve simply abdicated to invaders.

Nobody should have a problem with Mexicans or Muslims or any other group who accept the Noahic terms of coming in and finding their place in the existing social structure. We tell them: You can stick to your religion and culture within your enclaves as long as you don’t provoke the residents who were there before you. You should recognize that those differences will lead to your folks not fully participating in the economic system because the economy always rests on the dominant culture. If you learn to exploit the differences without predatory abuses, that’s just dandy. If those Mexicans, Muslims, etc., take advantage of the differences in a predatory way, they are invaders deserving of whatever forceful means of enforcement they encounter.

If the resident culture can’t defend itself, the invaders win. If the residents start shooting invaders who won’t behave themselves, nobody has any damned business complaining. Learn to negotiate. The incumbent hosts have zero obligation to bend more than they find comfortable. There is no moral high ground by which you can criticize them within their domain, unless you can cite a prophetic warning based on God’s Law. Don’t assume your blindness to your own cultural bias is an excuse to pontificate from an imaginary moral high ground. But by the same token, the host nation cannot sucker the immigrants in with their own predatory intent.

The biggest problem we face is when the resident host population has no firm idea what their culture actually is. Right now, Americans have no clue. They have consistently failed to consider this consciously. Here in the US, we have a long standing feud between two different brands of prissy frauds arguing past each other, with neither of the two dominant sides openly acknowledging the real issues. It’s not that there is no such fundamental cultural milieu, but that the issue is highly confused in the minds of too may folks. And it turns out that the minority is the one that fights dirtiest by intentionally obfuscating the issue and keeping it from conscious consideration. They simply assert their bias in the final result, refusing to discuss anything about the path to that result.

If Trump and his supporters go about this in a forthright manner, establishing a consciously considered cultural identity for America, and if they also manage to assert that culture through occupying dominance, then they win and everyone else has to find a way to negotiate their presence as resident immigrants. That is God’s Law; that’s how reality works and reality will back it.

There are still a host of other problems that we at Kiln of Soul can address prophetically, but we must prepare ourselves to live in the US as resident immigrants among heathens-in-effect. This is not our turf; we are not fighting off invaders in the guise of Trumpian nationalists. They are the hosts. The lefties who so hate him and his supporters are living in a fantasy world if they imagine that their cultural myth was ever the dominant host. They have always been a hated invader in this land. They never did us believers much good, either. They have hijacked a lot of things we like, but those things have become captive slaves to a much wider satanic agenda.

You and I can characterize this as the same old battle between the latter day Westernized Cult of Odin versus the Cult of Oester. We are not a party to this dispute; the whole thing is heathen through and through. But it is our duty to understand consciously where this thing is going. Given that most of American Christianity participates to varying degrees in that Cult of Odin, by imagining Jehovah in terms of that sort of grouchy and capricious Nordic sonuvabitch deity, we really don’t share much with them. Nonetheless, they are winning right now in their Crusade. We don’t justify what they do, but had better understand it and see that God is behind it as He herds the cattle of human politics.

The one thing we can defend in all of this is the increased trend toward decentralizing social controls. The lefties are welcome to their SJW enclaves, but they had damned well better not try to throw that shit on the rest of America. Meanwhile, the shit from the righties represents the stink of the the majority-in-effect. And while it’s just a few foolish lefty thugs who press their complaints with violence on the majority-in-effect, the failure of the other lefties to condemn the violence means they encourage it, and it will most certainly come back on them and anyone who fails to put some distance between themselves and the mainstream lefty leadership. I fully understand the anger, but I cannot condone the nasty rhetoric and violence that follows behind it.

Carp if you feel the need, but don’t expect God to turn this around for your convenience. Our duty to God under the Law of Noah is to find a place to stand and assert His divine dominion in whatever way is left to us. This way you can put away the carping and present a strong prophetic warning about how the dominant Odinites are chasing heathen dreams, same as the Oesterites. And by exercising divine moral character over our limited domain, we prove the justice of our message.

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An Epistle for Our Times

Posted on January 31, 2017 by ehurst

In terms of missions — addressing the world around us — we stand in the gateway of Noah. That is, we use the framework of Noah’s Covenant to address the broader needs of humanity. Sure, it complicates things when we are talking to Christian believers, but our general approach remains the same. To the world at large, our religion is more or less the Law of Noah.

On the one hand, the Law of Noah lays out all the basic provisions for living in our world. We’ve discussed the discrete provisions plenty of times under the heading of a call to repent. It includes the traditional Seven Noachide Laws as found in the Talmud. We take that listing with a grain of salt simply because the Talmud is a mixture of corrupt Jewish traditions and just a little bit of ancient lore that didn’t make it into Scripture. However, the more important elements of this does show up in Acts 15. In my study of Acts I describe how some of the seven laws aren’t mentioned specifically because they were already covered under what was then the current legal framework of Roman Law. What’s left is this word from James:

“Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:19-20 NKJV)

This leaves us explaining just what it means for something to be polluted with idols, or what constitutes sexual immorality, but we probably won’t have much trouble with folks wanting to eat meat that was strangled or hasn’t been properly bled. Instead, we have a substantial job explaining why these things matter.

Thus, we come to the monumental prerequisites for actually observing the Law of Noah. This is where we mention the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) feudal government, for that is precisely what was required in Genesis 9 where the Covenant is announced. Further, the context of that covenant assumes a heart-led culture and way of life (AKA, ANE Mysticism). This is where we spend so very much time explaining what that business in Acts 15 summarizes, because Gentiles in that time and place were usually familiar with all of the ANE heritage as a part of their cultural background. Quite significant was that those Gentiles had already sampled a wide array of varying civilizations and had an instinctive awareness that their own culture was not the default way of looking at things.

The Western lack of such awareness is our primary burden. This peculiar blindness is the mountain we must move by faith. It’s not as if we can’t package the external requirements for ready consumption, but the last thing we need is a bunch of folks hardened in their misunderstanding of everything behind those requirements. The Apostles didn’t have to wade through that, so going out and preaching in the town square was the simplest way to get the message out. For us, it’s more like shouting across a thousand miles of distance, even as we stand among the people who need to hear. We have to invest the effort to establish our weirdness visually and with power before speaking does much good.

All the more so is the burden upon us as we have already crossed the threshold into a new world, a changed reality. This is the time to invest the effort to see what our faith demands of us simply living a heart-led existence. I have this burning zeal to help you discover the fullness of shalom, the calm assurance that things will work out if we simply seize upon the heart-led necessities. When your convictions speak, that is your Voice of God for the current context, so learn to listen. And then learn to see with moral eyes what may never be apparent to mere mechanical vision. Learn to hear the song of Creation praising the Lord, the bubbly celebration of Life in the natural world around you. Let it feed your soul and keep that vivid existence burning brightly in the world around you.

This is not a time to affix labels in the way Western minds do, where the label is the identity of a thing. If it seems our function is apostolic, it would still be misleading to label ourselves “Apostle So-n-so.” Let’s be happy with Brother and Sister, and then later we can talk about vested roles. I’m on the verge of introducing a new and younger male elder to the virtual staff here in our online parish. All it means is that I trust his ability to lead the way we lead, which is rather like a shepherd calling out to the sheep who might hear, but otherwise letting them follow as they will. If the sheep are not bound by trust, there is no leadership.

So we progress as a virtual parish. We are building a network of voices who share a common vision for how to handle a world about to be shaken to the very foundations. Tribulation has come; we are a tribulation church. God has come on an inspection tour, and He is worthy of our best. We are His living epistles.

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Photography: Urban Landscape

Posted on January 30, 2017 by ehurst

01rrducksToday’s ride was more about the pictures and just poking around a few areas I’ve not seen in years. I headed out through Del City to Eagle Lake and stopped for a while on the bridge over Crooked Oak Creek. It remains one of the best places for prayer and meditation. Once I got down onto the River Trails, I caught this image where the Watco engines were idling on the bridge above some waterfowl. I’m just around the bend above the rowing area, looking back NNW toward downtown.

02panoramaAfter stopping again at the chapel under the pines on the north bank of the River Trail, I decided today would be a good time to catch some urban terrain I don’t often see.03littleflowerschool This is a panorama standing on the south side of the Little Flower Church, one of the few growing Catholic churches in the Metro. Their new facility is on the left, just a few years old. This thing is ancient in Okie terms.04littleflowerchurch Their school over on the north side of the campus was built ages ago when this was a thriving neighborhood in the shadow of Downtown OKC. Finally, I went around the front side and across Walker Avenue to capture the old front of the church house.

05skydancerBack when they decided to move I-40 off the crumbling elevated structure and plant it on/in the ground, it meant changing the route into this area just south of downtown. Part of this big project was a massive sculpture standing on a foot/bike bridge over the interstate. It’s supposed to represent our state bird, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.06oldrailstation At night it’s lit up varying colors, and I seem to recall they change slowly, shifting different hues on each arm. On the other side is a huge open space, mud and gravel left after plowing down numerous historic buildings and removing the concrete slabs. It’s ugly, but they did save the old Union Rail Station, because it’s now the HQ for our local transit authority (think buses and paid parking).07chesapeakecenter The only passenger rail line runs from here to Ft. Worth and the station is almost impossible to access because there is no free parking; you enter through a paid parking lot operated by some other outfit. It sits astride the western boundary of Bricktown and it’s ugly. Instead I shot this picture of the much nicer Chesapeake Arena (above left), home court of the OKC Thunder basketball team. I cleverly captured some weeds in the edge of the picture, because that’s what you’d see from the bare earth section on the south side.

08bricktowncanalMy last shot was the Bricktown Canal. This is the far western edge with my back to the elevated railway, a concrete monstrosity with holes punched through for cross streets. As you can see, the canal is empty for cleaning and maintenance. Where I’m standing is a confluence between two long feeder troughs, all concrete and somewhat ornamented. This was about the only shot that turned out. As I rode eastward through Bricktown, I rolled through a long alley several blocks. I had to oddest sense that this was a comfortable place to be. I can’t even afford to buy a glass of water in these places, but it felt okay just rolling through the backsides of those high priced restaurants and clubs. Oh, and I passed the back fence of the baseball diamond, but there’s really nothing to see. It was a quiet and peaceful ride back east on NE 4th Street.

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Of Cattle and Sheep

Posted on January 29, 2017 by ehurst

Does it require an explanation so long and detailed that nobody will read it?

The US health care system is a time bomb in the first place. It is broken and the fix is not what everyone imagines. If you put it all under charity, it won’t be big enough to do the specialized research to advance medical treatment. If you make the government pay for everything, the government must then set all the prices that they will pay, and folks who don’t like the price won’t cooperate with the government. It would then be like the worst of the old Soviet brand of medical care. On top of that, you will still have crony corruption. If you make medical care profit-based (as we have), you are equally guaranteed corruption because of simple human greed. Running the financing through insurance plans only adds a higher price to the corruption.

That’s because a root error is the American culture, on top of basic fallen human nature. It’s not like this in the rest of the world. That is, the corruption is not at all the same. Part of the problem is our prissy Victorian attitude that says it shouldn’t exist, so we don’t normalize it. We try to pretend it’s not human nature, that there are things we can do to make it go away, that we can write rules to make it impossible. But the rules always fail, either directly or by creating a newer and worse problem. That’s American culture, denying that man is fallen while wallowing in sin. So this thing will eventually blow up and any efforts to clean up the mess of Obamacare may succeed only in kicking the can down the road a while.

This is how our economy will grind down, though it will never completely halt. We still won’t have an apocalypse, but it will be rough. On top of that, we still have the Federal Reserve, a central bank that can and likely will fight Trump for purely partisan reasons. The Federal Reserve is a globalist political agency; everyone knows that. The only way to beat some of the problem is dissolve it altogether. That leaves us with other issues, but we still have this damned awful American political culture to deal with.

It’s this damned pretense; we have a powerful centralizing elite force that publicly denies its own agenda. It denies its elite position. An honest elite would be far more bearable, but this fakery is what kills everything. We have to keep that damned lie — “of the people, by the people, for the people” — going, when it was a dastardly lie the day Lincoln wrote that speech. This is the nature of centralizing oppression.

And it’s present in all kinds of other problems. For example, Microsoft has created a new class of trouble for Windows 10 users. For those who use the Home version (the vast majority of Windows 10 machines) there is the new forced update. That is, no matter what settings you have, when the machine decides to update, you cannot say “wait.” It will spontaneously reboot right in the big middle of whatever you are doing. It won’t matter if you are using your computer for a life-saving medical procedure, either.

I’m waiting to see if they introduce that policy to Win7 and Win8 systems, as they have back-ported other changes that way. There is only the most cynical pretense of caring about the end-users. It’s the forced dependency required by the globalist elite.

This is what has shaped the American culture. Unless and until we make some changes, this will only get worse. And the only way we can begin to back out of this crap is for a lot of people to face untimely deaths. It has gone that far, folks. You cannot clean up the mess without making a bigger one first, because the change will not be voluntary.

America is in a civil war. We are experiencing serious winds of change right now, and it will result in bloodshed. But instead of military formations marching against each other, it’s almost entirely done through political maneuvering and propaganda, with changes in the flow of money in the background. But those things will mean violence when they play out fully. Please get used to this idea, because even under ideal conditions, it would still be like this to some degree.

Your best answer is to become as self-reliant as possible. You’ll still see a lot trouble; we shall tribulate. But it won’t be apocalyptic in degree. Do you understand that the corporate media is your enemy? Not just unreliable, but it is dangerous and willfully intending to destroy your life. They are entrenched and fighting a defensive war, but if we do not destroy them, it most certainly will become an apocalypse. The MSM is globalist. This is not merely a political and cultural problem. Globalists are also the single biggest Antichrist we face right now; this is the face of Satan opposing the gospel. On the one hand, we should expect that human political activity will fight them, but we must fight globalism, too.

However, we do not war against flesh and blood, but against forces of Darkness (Hebrews 6:10-20) and we do not use weapons of the flesh (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). We find the nationalist political movement beneficial, but we are not in alliance with it. Our chief aim is to live the heart-led truth and speak about it as we progress in divine moral power. What men see in political terms is a manifestation of major moves by God to shape things by His wisdom, according to His divine moral character. We must see beyond the immediate manifestations and follow His hands on the moral plane. We are not the cattle God is herding, but the sheep of His pasture. We see this thing on both levels.

Addenda: Just a reminder that I am called to prophesy to the US. You’ll have to decide whether any of it is applicable to other countries. As noted in the comments, I promote decentralization as the first step toward obeying the Covenant of Noah. That applies across the board; almost nothing requires huge conglomerates to work properly. And I would hope it becomes clear that my spite for the corporate media is largely because it is so monolithic and centrally controlled. There are lots of decent journalists, editors and local news outlets. Let them do their job without having to march to the globalist agenda. Finally, American globalists are my target here, as I consider them by far one of the greatest threats to humanity as a whole.

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Psalm 119: Qoph 145-152

Posted on January 28, 2017 by ehurst

Here we have the Song of Assurance. Prayer works.

As the psalmist notes, genuine effective prayer requires a fully committed heart first, but the heart knows what to ask because the heart knows what God wants to do. And it is from the heart that we are loyal to the revelation of what God has appointed in Creation. So he cries out, ever renewing his personal covenant of loyalty, not calling on any other power. He knows that Jehovah is his salvation and the power to obey.

Even before dawn, his heart awakens him to spend time in the divine Presence. He cries out for the freedom that comes only from enslavement to God. He knows the precious promises of God’s Word. When something keeps him awake at night, when his soul is churning without sleep, he knows this is the call to ponder the revelation of Jehovah.

His experience thus far trusting in God has taught him that God is merciful when we call on Him, and that it is the nature of His justice to restore a vivid life. Such is the moral character of Jehovah. He makes a play on words: The wicked are too close to him and too far from God’s truth at the same time.

Yet God is also near at hand, in his own soul. With His divine Presence comes all of His truth burned into our souls. As he takes a fresh look at the record of God’s revelation, he recognizes that same ancient power that spoke to his heart long ago. So ancient and yet forever fresh is the Word of God.

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Cycling: Another Draper Adventure

Posted on January 28, 2017 by ehurst

mapThe other day, when I was revisiting the canyon (near “A” on the map), the trail leading farther called my name. After a few cold days, I knew where I wanted to go today. It still required sweat pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt on top, but it was plenty comfortable for exploring something I hadn’t already seen. The lavender numbers should serve well to mark the path I took. Just click any image to get a closer view.

01washoutJust beyond the canyon was another, less dramatic washout. However, the water course that cuts such a very deep trough through this area invites this kind of washout. Just beyond this point the trail crested the rise and descended slowly into the woods. As noted previous, this area has seen some equestrian traffic, so it was passable at this point, hugging the shore around the western side of the point.02shoreline This is the arm of the lake where that deep trough runs out. The shore remains pretty high all the way around to the point. There was no soft sandy patches, so the trail through the woods was pretty fast.03woodlandtrail Once or twice I had to dismount and jump over a log or two, but I felt like the gravel was the roughest part. You see, this was once long ago a road out to the point and lots of heavy crushed granite was dumped on the road bed, along with whole clay bricks and chunks of rubble. In some places these fist-sized obstacles were hidden in the grass, so it was pretty rough.04outonpoint The image above right is looking back up the trail behind me; you may have trouble seeing it, but there is a slender track there.

So it was otherwise fast rolling and took rather little time to get out onto the point. There were quite a few “decorative” slabs of broken red sandstone around the place, and quite a few abandoned tires. 05otherpointsThe point wasn’t all that beautiful down on the shore, but I was amused at how close I was to the main park facilities on one point east of me, and just south was a covered boat dock on another point. This one was numbered 7, as I discovered when I got there.

06abovepointBut back up the slope was a lovely high stone tableland with a grand view and this turned out to be the chapel for today. It was also the point where I began feeling the wind fully. On the way out, the NW wind was behind me all the way down the Sooner Road corridor and along the bike trail. Once I dropped off down into the woods, I had to remove the long-sleeved over shirt, leaving my short-sleeved undershirt. Now I was just starting to lose all that heat.

07cascadingbluffI strove mightily to take the middle trail instead of continuing around the shore trail, but there were too many places where it was blocked by regrowth. Eventually I came across a sort of cascading bluff that was just about passable carrying the bike. This image doesn’t do it justice, but there were about eight or ten terraces, each at least half my height. Along the edges I found places I could step up with the load. From up on top, it was a lovely view. 08highspotFarther upland was yet another large flat tableland and I could have stayed there all day. It was just a place of beauty, the wind smelling clean and it spoke my name. This was the eventual goal of the ride today. It would be a great place for cool weather camping.

09exittrailGetting out of there was pretty tough. Heading back down in the general direction of the canyon, I ran into a place where the trail was blocked by deadfall and I had to spend some time breaking old dead limbs and pushing stuff out of the way. Down a bit into some woods and then up another rise, I ran into a place where the trail was totally overgrown with saplings sprouting thickly, thorns all around their roots and lots of little thorny plum bushes. I prayed, then asked the plants to show me the path I knew they had to offer. It was twisting and winding, but it was there and nothing shredded my clothes. Eventually I got back out into the open grass. This last image shows what the final exit trail looked like. I had been part way out in that area long ago and knew what to expect. It brought me out onto the northern section of Draper Lake Drive. I put my long-sleeved shirt back on and rode home against the wind, which was even stiffer now than when I came out.

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Trump Will (Accidentally) Destroy Israel

Posted on January 28, 2017 by ehurst

I’ve said that The Cult thrives on tension. You might imagine that some day it would hope to actually take over the world, but that’s not how it works. Since The Cult is a demonic presence so the whole purpose is torment. It suffers no human ambition. While a single global tyranny could do torment as policy, it’s too much work and not necessary. Rather, that one-world government goal is dangled as a carrot to get foolish humans to serve the demonic agenda. The whole point is terror for its own sake, and precious few human agents grasp that.

Thus, it’s the ultimate perversion of God’s Law, which Law is living justly for its own sake. For you and I, divine justice is its own reward. Terror is the satanic perversion of that. Humans are deceived into chasing some imaginary result instead of simply living as the passage to something far beyond. God’s Word says that there is no final reward in this world; we are taught to perceive it as a taste of what’s to come. True heart-led communion is not the end, but a sample of Eternity. The heart-led life is where we belong until His glory is finished with us here. It is this emphasis on the otherworldly end that keeps us from the clutches of the Devil. Satan’s whole gambit rests on convincing us that this world is all there is, in effect if not in doctrine. Holiness means not getting entangled in worldly results.

If you imagine that peace in Palestine/Israel is the goal, you really do not understand Zionism. The day that the Zionists actually push out the Palestinians, and grab chunks of land from their neighbors to establish their Greater Israel, that is the day Zionism dies. And without Zionism, there is simply no point in having a State of Israel. Even if all the various governments and entities of the world buy into this grand state of Greater Israel and make it happen, at that moment Israel will be dead. The nature of its very existence is creating everlasting tension; the Jewish State has no identity without that essential element of persecution.

Israel needs the Palestinian as a whipping boy. But the real Palestinians aren’t playing by the rules, so Mossad and friends have to keep creating fake terrorists to launch harmless missiles from Palestinian territory to explode in the desert. Tormenting the Arabs is essential. She has to provoke Islamic extremism to ensure a steady supply of enemies. She has to maintain a constant threat for things that she could never actually do, because winning is not the point.

If you have time to read a long article explaining that, I recommend this piece filled with lesser known historical data backed up by original sources.

There is one major problem to this permanent terror agenda: God has other plans. I am convinced that God has placed in power certain figures who will bring all of this to a head. Trump, as the biggest friend of Israel/Zionism, will in all likelihood destroy it. I am utterly certain he is not on board with the permanent torment agenda, but has plans to push the apparent agenda to its final conclusion. He intends to get things done, and he won’t tolerate Zionists who refuse his offer of help to make this tension end.

CUFI is in on this, too, in the same way. While it’s quite possible some of the less well-known leaders of Christian Zionism are consciously aware of the real agenda, they can’t transmit that agenda to the foot soldiers. If they told the truth, there would be no foot soldiers. In the end, we can discount the possibility of full awareness on the grounds that there’s no way to make it work. If the lords of Zionism ever admit to their true aim, the whole show comes apart. The whole thing stands four-square on the big lie.

This is in part why I remain convinced that, at some point in the near future, the Zionists will be forced to alienate a major portion of their Christian supporters. God is going to cleanse His true followers from this idolatry. The problem is that way too many current Christian organizations, the leaders in particular, will not be able to abandon Zionism even when it becomes clear just how evil this whole thing is. So there will be an exodus from these organizations when believers in the pews seeking a good conscience realize they can’t stay.

As always, I have no time table. If not Trump this time around, it will be someone else who walks the same path with the same brand of vigor; their time has come. And I could be totally wrong, so feel free to discount my message here. But if this pulls at your heart, watch and be ready to take redemptive action when the time comes.

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Just a Short Ride

Posted on January 27, 2017 by ehurst

01clearwaterAfter two days too frosty and windy to ride, today was no less windy, but warm enough to handle it. It was about 45°F (7C) with stiff breezes from the northwest, carrying air that was cooler than the ambient temperatures indicated.

02stoneflowI went only as far as Barnes Park to look at Soldier Creek. It was pretty clear today, as visible in the first shot. For the second shot I clambered down the steep bank to that big flat stone formation that creates a small fall in the creek.

03prayerchapelAs previously noted, most of the time I ride now I’m just looking for a suitable prayer chapel for the day. This spot in Pecan Park called to me. I’m working over a couple of prayer requests from our online parish. At least my head is no longer exploding with stuff. But I still have no great interest in long challenging rides. I’m much more interested in quiet places and a little exercise.

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