I’m focusing a little harder right now in training as I expect to travel. That is, I am treating my Edgewood like a car and getting used to longer distances wearing more normal clothing and a comfortable pace. Today it was 36 miles, running up Midwest Boulevard to Britton Road, across to Triple X and back home.
Two shots worth sharing without comment. Click to enlarge.
Your heart understands, but your mind may not know what to make of that wisdom.
So the conservatives say they are all about that prosperity for everyone, but that’s just a lie to make sure you sucker up to being robbed by psychopaths. And progressives say they are all about giving you the freedom to make choices but only if your choices fit the orthodoxy de jour. Our hearts tell us that the outcomes are all wrong, but not a single one of those standard policy theories answers all the needs. Instead, our society allows one and then another political manipulator to try to even things up, only to discover they all keep doing the same thing: scraping off our hides to feed their personal wealth.
The question is not liberty or justice as defined by the babblers of our day. The question has nothing to do with wrapping ourselves too deeply in the political affairs of human cattle, as David calls people without a heart-sense in Psalm 68. Rather, the question is taking however much opportunity our Creator offers to seek His glory, because that defines justice in our world. That question is answered by letting your heart rule over your mind.
We don’t need to worry about discerning whether something is conservative or liberal. Both are wrong, as are all the other points on the Western political compass. You won’t get anywhere pushing in any direction defined by that. We have to push up to a higher level.
It’s pretty simple right now. Most activists imagine they can do something, but accomplish nothing that lasts. There are thousands of causes you can join, thousands of different ways to utterly miss the point. The activists aren’t evil, just lost in this lower realm of human mythology. The true divine focus is a matter of communicating through your human presence what you have seen of His glory. But our world is now divided between meat space and virtual space, so the application of that mission varies between the two at a fundamental level. It boils down to acting as just as you can in meat space and promoting free exchange on the Net.
The primary means of meat space evangelism is simply self control. Your heart is wired for that, so let it rule. What we need after that is a clear image of what God intended for this world as redemption, and that’s why all the blather here about the Laws of Noah as the starting point, the foundation on which we build our mental frame of reference for dealing with this world.
On the Net, it’s still the Laws of Noah, but adjusting our expectations to fit the different nature of the virtual world. It’s still a matter of self-control, but on the Net that means controlling the message (your virtual presence), making sure nothing subverts your message along the way. Yes, that means making sure you maintain as much control over the device as possible, but you must decide what that means. I run Debian on my computers because that provides the proper balance between calling and personal skills. I’ll help you run Debian on your computer, but that has nothing to do with some kind of sacred orthodoxy in computing. You have to want it on some level or you can’t use it. I’ll also help you understand as much as you need with the whole gamut of computer technology and networking so that you can make a good mental decision about what your heart demands.
In my own personal calling, there is a strong overlap between the two. My primary ministry outlet in meat space is helping folks with their computers. Where will that take me in the coming days as tribulation deepens? It will take me wherever God intends to use me. I submit to you that my personal vision of that will continue shifting and changing shape as I draw closer to it, and even as I pass through it. That’s because the only real problem is my fleshly expectations, and we rightly start from the assumption they probably don’t match reality. Right now, I tend to think this business of the Zionist backlash will push me often into the company of progressive activists because they will be the ones most likely to suffer from this change. There are precious few “conservative Christians” who don’t support Zionism. Progressives will be the ones more likely to know they need my help and more likely to be open to the gospel I bring in my human presence. Mixing with progressives is hardly a matter of taste, but of opportunity.
My heart must rule over my tastes. My heart has far better taste than my flesh.
While the roots of our current brand of conservative versus progressive politics are grounded in the social mythology of Germanic tribal types — masculine versus feminine — it’s not that simple any more. The Cult has taken advantage of this natural conflict fallacy and used it to their advantage. They have cultivated a social consciousness that swings back and forth between two imaginary agendas to keep the population engaged in total misdirection. The net result of political activity at the upper levels is just a matter of competition between two teams wearing the same uniform. It only seems different because the team colors are reversed, but it’s the same team.
For example, you can accurately predict which group is going to win the elections if you stop pretending that the labels “Republican” and “Democrat” mean anything and simply say that the Zionists will win. Even with Obama’s apparent pulling away from the modern State of Israel, it’s just aimed at provoking the blacklash we are starting to see. It doesn’t matter that polling suggests the majority of Americans want peace with Iran. What matters is that the banker and oil industry constituencies of The Cult will not permit peace with Iran to be more than a bait-n-switch.
So for a time the faux progressives have been pushing their agenda, and now the faux conservative backlash has begun. Not necessarily over the same issues, but give it time and you’ll see the progressive “gains” rolled back in some measure. Meanwhile, a part of the game is fake patriot underground folks are trying to provoke those prone to violence so they’ll come out in the open. It has nothing to do with whether any armed action will succeed either way, but that there is chaos and bloodshed. The Cult thrives on social chaos.
However, it probably won’t happen that way because these PsyOps are not working too well. You may know that most of the KKK groups you hear about are fake, almost entirely run by various government agents. Indeed, it seems the membership of most of them are all different agents of a wide range of federal and private investigating agencies trying to smoke out genuine racists. But all they get is more of the same kind of infiltrator, because their whole model is based on racists being stupid. Here’s the thing: Racist or not, stupid people will get in trouble anyway. A Venus Fly Trap catches insects, not genuine predators. True believers aren’t that stupid.
So it applies to any armed patriot underground. They do their homework and know that those YouTube warriors are fake. Militiamen arresting Senator Stabenow? If it actually appears to happen, it won’t be real; Ritzheimer is a provocateur. So is Drake Bailey, Benjamin Fulford and anyone else of that ilk you care to name. The real guys don’t play it that way. They are waiting to act when it might actually make a difference. The Bundy Ranch was mostly real, as was the defense of the Sugar Pine Mine operation. You notice that no one has been arrested for coming out with their guns because the various government agencies didn’t have enough manpower and equipment to take them down. That is, had agents actually come to enforce BLM edicts, they would not have come out of there alive with all the minutemen pouring into the area behind them.
Just about the only people who believe the fake stuff are average armchair activists. That includes an awful lot of Internet activists whose email traffic makes up for the majority of what passes over the Net. Very few of them would load up their pickups and head out to defend the Bundys of this country, but when the political winds shift to another direction, they are the ones who will make your life miserable in a thousand small ways. These are the folks who will complain about government overstepping its powers, but then call in and snitch on you when it suits their tastes. Such are the folks we have to worry about as the political pendulum swings back again.
The reason I find it worth chattering about is that I am quite certain events will bing the American Empire to an end this time around. I remain convinced God will judge the nations that attack Iran with military force, and I find it highly likely that America will attempt such an attack very soon. We shall tribulate, dear readers.
This was a long, narrow trace that started out from home, straight up Henney Road to Wilshire, east to Indian Meridian and all the way up to NE 150th, and then west back to Hiwasee and straight home for a total of 32 miles.
(Click on any thumbnail image for a larger view.)
The ride to Jones on Henney Road is pure routine, as is the part running east on Wilshire to Indian Meridian. This is where the State Center school sits, so named because it is roughly the geographic center of the Oklahoma. On my way north along Indian Meridian, I passed this farm on my right side, sitting on the second flood bank. The foreground is early-stage alfalfa sliced by a drainage drift (shallow ditch) across the field. Just about Hefner Road is the water shed between the North Canadian Valley and the Deep Fork River. It’s a radical difference in the terrain, and the foliage is different, as well.
If you come up with an active sensory heart, you’ll know this is a gentle place, despite the rough ground. The trees waved at me even when there wasn’t much wind. The county doesn’t actually pave the road up here; it’s what we call tack-n-gravel. A couple of trucks run up the packed dirt spraying hot tar followed by more trucks scattering gravel that is captured by the tar. A couple of times like that and you get a thin layer that resembles asphalt. Patching over the years might be hot asphalt, cold asphalt or just more tack-n-gravel. Some sections are a mixture of all three and it’s pretty rough. Since the hills are rather steep and frequent, a cyclist has to keep a close eye on the surface to avoid damaging his wheels.
Way up on NE 150th is about the same place where Hogback Road wanders across our path. This tiny church, appearing to be almost vacant, indicates this was once a community called Douglas.
Now it’s considered part of the outer edge of Luther, OK. This is where I turned left and entered a narrow gauntlet of trees and deep gorges in series. These are all tributaries to Deep Fork, which runs east and west just a couple of miles north. This one on the left is just a sample of what almost all the creeks look like up here.
This one was shallow on the south side and dropped quickly before it even came out from under the bridge.
Farther along this stretch of NE 150th I ran across a mail box marked only with a large “Conoco” sticker, and matching decorations on the trash cart. I stopped at the driveway because the whole area near the gate was packed with every vintage of gasoline pump I have ever seen.
They were scattered among the trees and wild shrubbery, and behind those two containers acting as a fence is a far larger storage area with buildings and sheds. I caught only the faintest glimpse of vast piles of this kind of stuff.
Finally I got back to Hiwasee Road. It’s just a few yards south of Turner Turnpike. This is easily the oldest controlled access route in the state. Though upgraded several times, the only difference between a toll road and any other Interstate Highway is that these turnpikes don’t have a wide grassy meridian strip. It’s just a single stout concrete wall between opposing lanes of traffic.
Just a short way south of this convergence of paved surfaces I found this nice picnic spot at the entrance to what as named “Roundup T Road” — running straight uphill a short way it forms a T with a few expensive houses out in the woods. Just across Hiwasee was this extravagant piece of property festooned with all sorts of communications towers, being one of the highest points of land in the area.
Back in the trees near the peak is a cluster of houses, barns, etc. Glimpses of the far side of that hill indicated more of such beauty.
This time, coming from the north and later in the day, I got some decent shots of the swimming hole where Hiwasee crosses the North Canadian River about where NE 122nd would be. First is a panorama shot facing southward to show how the river bends sharply and runs fairly deep.
Then I came around to the other end of the bridge and took another shot of the beach.
That sand bar stretches far off to the right before it ends, and people occasionally get stuck in the soft sand, since there is a well worn dirt driveway of sorts alongside the bridge that opens on that sand bar. All of this during a time of low water and it’s still deep enough that kids dive off the bridge into it. Bring your own towel.
Farther south is this odd stile over the front fence of a horse farm. The hedgerows are deceptive from the ground. The satellite view from Google Earth is very old, so I found a newer image and made this copy to show how it looks from above.
So I was standing way down in the SE corner of that thing, and it is huge.
The rest we have already seen in other cycling trips and photologs. It was a long ride back to the house on Hiwasee.
I was wide awake dreaming. I sat up in the bed and there at my feet was a TV. I hate TV. But I dreamed that it was on and I was watching the news. I kept dozing off and woke up to different stories. I swear the newsreader was some annoying fellow I knew from my childhood in Alaska, still sporting his 1970s hairstyle and trendy clothing. Here is a digest of what he told his audience in my dream…
The 2016 Elections swept in a fresh Republican majority, including the White House. It was the ultimate Neocon Tag Team, hard core Zionists. Christian Zionists were dancing in the streets as the atmosphere changed in the US. How do you describe religious fascism? From a thousand pulpits thundered the message that it was God’s work harassing and jailing folks who were insufficiently enthusiastic about the State of Israel. The usual social predators took this as their cue, an excuse to vent their hatred all around. There was bloodshed, the victims accused of being too Pro-Palestinian. News of what was happening to the actual Palestinians feel behind a curtain of silence, with only rumors and jerky video escaping the censorship. The newsreader didn’t offer much about it.
If ever Israel had much influence in the US up to that moment, they were now firmly in control. At the cost of nearly every single social welfare program, the military was spun up with all the newest and latest gadgets, more than the even the Pentagon dreamed they could use. We were treated to the spectacle of Air National Guard units struggling to find pilots for the new F-35s, while recruiting for all the services shot up with enlistment bonuses and pretty sloppy concealment of officially disqualifying factors. When that didn’t bring in enough warm bodies, a new conscription law was passed, and even felons were shipped off for training.
But the biggest clamor of all was for hackers, skilled cyber technicians of any sort. Every branch of government it seemed had instituted a new program for cyber warfare and it was a highly competitive field, in the sense that every agency was fighting over a small pool of willing applicants. You see, every agency was enthusiastically planning to hunt down everyone online who was any flavor of anti-Zionist. The Internet was the one means of communication that most resisted censorship.
First, Israel sold the US government several types of network surveillance devices, but some of the info-guerrillas were using Tor, VPNs and open wifi mesh networking. So various NATO governments presented a united front with Israel and demanded that Microsoft and Apple provide some kind of monitoring data. A short time later they upped the ante and demanded some kind of “front door” access through the standard telemetry mechanisms. But too many savvy users were learning from underground sources how to counteract these measures. So a couple of months later — someone suggested it was Mossad and NSA working together — a virus swept across the Net. It required jumping through all kinds of hoops just to stay online. None of the AV vendors were permitted to block or remove it on pain of being shut down entirely, or at least boycotted from selling inside Western markets. It installed itself on Windows computers, routers, Macs, smartphones, everything.
That is, everything except those few computers running Linux, BSD and other “hobby” operating systems. While they did begin finding ways to break into Linux some, it was too costly because there were too many flavors and high variation in software configurations and so forth. Nothing worked on enough of the different flavors to justify the expense. So it became illegal to install Linux on certain classes of computers, mostly home PCs and laptops. There way too many operations that relied on it for their servers, including lots of government agencies. But such a program worked about as well as gun registration, because detecting and then locating such systems became nearly impossible with any degree of reliability. People kept slipping through the loopholes and new technologies to mask and avoid detection and location proliferated quickly. It was especially difficult to get judges to hammer folks who had been using it from any time before the law was passed.
Meanwhile, people started going to jail just for writing anti-Zionist sentiments in emails, blog posts and comments to any other form of media. Lots of false positives there, but it didn’t matter because the laws said you had to prove your innocence.
But that was all just background to the main event: Israel very publicly demanded the US and NATO attack some alleged nuclear facilities in Iran. It wasn’t just the F-35s, but a whole range of military equipment was just a bunch of junk, so the attack failed in the most mind-blowing cluster f*** you can imagine. A large portion of the troops and equipment never even got that close in the first place. All sorts of electronic sensing devices kept going blind and leaving large transports and attack craft to collide or simply wander off course and run out of fuel. Oh, it was such a huge mess.
Israeli officials screamed in rage as the Iranian defenses had little trouble handling what was left. Yes, it was obvious they had gotten some help with very new and frankly effective missile and radar systems that wiped out almost the entire range of threats to them.
And then almost the entire collection of Western governments simply went flat-out broke. The debt had piled up so high that there was nothing left to loan. Outright confiscation of goods and services only goes so far before it costs more in the life of cops and troops and corruption than it’s worth. As governments fell apart on the TV screen, I woke up.
(Click on any image for a larger view.)
This started out as just the reverse of the previous ride: east on SE 29th from home to Post Road, north to the high school, west across Rhapsody Heights to Douglas Boulevard, north a bit and then west on SE 15th and through the park. The main area is Joe B. Barnes Park featuring this extravagant playground. Inside that wooden corral is a selection of things I’ve used for a workout before I had gym access.
So it’s a couple of miles through the various parks along Soldier Creek using the fitness trail system and greeting all the seniors out for a morning stroll. The trails generally run out at NE 10th and Midwest Boulevard. From here it’s straight north, passing again that heavy construction site on the North Canadian River and that inexplicable new stone wall out in the middle of nowhere. Behind that wall is just a plowed field with late summer crops.
I kept going straight north on Midwest Boulevard until I hit Hefner Road. Along the way I found a couple of interesting items to shoot. On the right is an old barn out behind a rather odd property with more than one house, lots of cars, some decent outdoor entertainment facilities, a few really odd structures like this one, and apparently occupied by more than one family. Next is this antique tractor (22HP!) just about a half-mile north from the barn.
Hefner Road itself is a marked bicycle route and I encountered four different cyclists heading the other way, at different times after I turned east on Hefner.
This is very rural farmland, and my first few miles saw precious little human habitation. What was there was mostly commercial in nature. Eventually I crossed the river but stopped on the bridge for a snack. At this point the river looks like most of the other pictures I’ve already taken. On the other bank, the river receives far less vigorous human attention. In other words, it’s mostly wild and weedy.
That’s not a problem in itself, just natural. However, that means there’s almost nothing to see and it’s the result of folks having little interest in changing it. It’s kind of hilly until I start to approach the river again, which means I’m also approaching Jones and Hiwasee Road. The river itself has never been more than about a mile north of me as I pedaled along Hefner Road, but it starts to curve south so the straight road drops back down into that valley.
This ancient house was on the same spread as the ancient brick silos.
This is where I passed through on the Memorial Road loop and I decided to follow Hefner into the back side of Jones for a change. Surprise! In my previous explorations north of Harrah, I captured the image of a Ukranian Orthodox graveyard and told how the church had burned down twice on that site, so they moved the church off down into Jones and made it essentially fireproof.
I could see stucco but knew from the website it was over brick and concrete, with some steel siding on the steeple. It wasn’t a bad way to see the backside of Jones, and the southerly route passed their newish high school before ending at Wilshire.
From there it was just a short run to Henney, and southward eight miles home. Down near NE 36th in Choctaw I spotted his ancient Farmall tractor sitting back from the road a ways.
This giant rectangular route is ten by six for a total of 32 miles.
The primary topic here is dealing with the wider society that is not close kin. A critical background element is the recognition that some things should stay in your heart and other things belong in the privacy of the home, with yet another level of exposure for general society. It requires discerning what’s proper with any given audience, thus promoting social stability.
1. He that separates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound wisdom. The idea here is a spiteful isolation of self against his fellow humans, as if he is too obviously superior. He isn’t driven out for any valid risen, but can’t stand to be around real people.
2. A fool has no delight in understanding, but only that his heart may lay itself bare. This might better be translated a fool having no interest in discretion, but shamefully exposes his ugly heart to everyone. The idea is recognizing no sane boundaries.
3. When the wicked comes, scorn also comes, and with shame comes reproach. This continues the the thought of the previous verse. The concept of wicked means quite obviously perverse and spiteful of norms. Shameless filth is hardly the same as shameless truth.
4. The words of a man’s mouth are like deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is like a flowing stream. In the semi-desert terrain of Palestine, any source of water is precious beyond words. If the flow of water is sufficient to swim, that’s major security against drought and starvation. So a wise mouth is an incalculable asset to any community.
5. It is not good to favor the person of the wicked, nor to overthrow the righteous in judgment. This concerns the community court system of elderly men who gather near the gate of any city. It’s their duty to hang out there as the means to disseminating information and important community business, each taking the day’s summary back to the important households and neighborhoods they represent. The statement here should seem obvious, but the standard honorarium could become a bride too easily. Never mind what’s in your pocket; this is a matter of social stability.
6. A fool’s lips enter into argument, and his mouth calls for strokes. This and next two verses cover the same basic idea. Someone who starts fights is a fool by definition, because almost anything can be handled diplomatically. Community stability calls for punishing such troublemakers.
7. A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. This one continues from the previous by noting that punishing a fool for making trouble is in his own best interest. Give him a chance to see the need to stop being a mouthy fool.
8. The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. Continuing on the same vein as the previous two verses, we need to remind ourselves that Hebrew culture considered feelings (associated with the belly or bowels) as much more than mere emotion, but something fundamental to one’s physical sense of integrity. Fools seeking to break boredom and entertain themselves by telling twisted lies to provoke social discord don’t realize what a serious problem it creates. Those lies tend to wound that root sense of safety. It’s more than causing a fight between two or more people, but destroys the fundamental sense of peace by stirring up a very powerful sense of angst.
9. Also he who is slack in his work is brother to a great destroyer. Solomon hastens to add that someone who fails due diligence in social responsibilities in any way is actually the ally of those who actively destroy social stability. It’s all the same team.
10. The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. This and the next verse offer a contrast. Here we see the obvious reference to Jehovah whose lordship creates a refuge to any human problem. Trust in God.
11. The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own mind. Connected to the previous verse, this one says that wealthy people tend to trust too much in their own possessions. Walls can be torn down and wealth taken by force or stealth, but nothing can threaten God.
12. Before shattering, the heart of man is proud, and before honor is humility. Discern the end of which path you take. If you start down the path of arrogance, you will end up a forgotten ruin. If genuine honor is your desired destination, take the path of humility.
13. If one answers a matter before he hears, it is folly and shame to him. This is somewhat related to the previous verse, in that it shows arrogance to declare a matter closed without enduring a full hearing by those involved. Even God tends to wait things out with far more patience than humans can muster.
14. The spirit of a man will nourish his sickness, but a wounded spirit who can bear? This one is subtle. Most human illness will run its course and we need only endure through it with grace. People who have suffered from other kinds of problems that tend to destroy faith can’t even handle good health. This demands that we all stop and think about ways to build up faith for others and for ourselves.
15. The heart of the prudent gets knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. This verse is rather precise in a certain sense if we can discern the imagery. The active heart-led life accumulates savvy, and someone who is paying attention can process his experiences to gain that savvy. This is part of the source whence Jesus said that to him who has, more shall be given, because it tends to snowball.
16. A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men. The question here is what kind of gifts you bring to society. Mere tribute and bribes bring you in one door, but honest heart-led commitment to social welfare and stability produces an entirely different audience with human authorities. What kind of power do you want to enhance in your community?
17. The first in his cause seems just, but his neighbor comes and searches him. This is a very ancient saying. It presumes we understand the ancient community courts system. If your opponent gets to go first, he has the advantage of laying out a sob story that could prejudice the judges. They probably have little idea of the bigger picture. The smart move is not to directly counter his narrative, but to tear it apart by cross-examination, making him look like a despicable liar. Bonus points if you can use artistic sarcasm to entertain the judges and make them laugh at your opponent.
18. The lot causes arguments to cease, and divides between the mighty. Hebrew culture assumed that God was in full control of any form of drawing lots. If two or more opponents contest the same indivisible item, don’t let them fight over it. Force them to accept luck of the draw lest it explode into a blood feud. The Hebrew term for “lots” refers to smooth stones of the same size, shape and weight, but different colors. It was common for priests and judges to keep on hand something that served this purpose, something always subject to examination for the sake of fairness.
19. A brother offended is like a strong city; and their disagreements are like the bars of a fortress. The term for “brother” depicts someone with a reasonable expectation of trust and alliance, regardless of actual shared DNA. This is someone who was more open to you on more levels of trust, so betrayal is far more painful, as is the moral implication. Worse, this person knows you all too well to accept anything less than a very painful and sincere penitence.
20. A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; he shall be satisfied with the product of his lips. This would seem ambiguous to Western minds, but it assumes the ancient Hebrew understanding of human nature. The “fruit of lips” is a figure of speech for how you engage the world around you in terms of moral outcomes. While your sense of physical appetite professes no interest in how you get what it demands, your mind and heart do know. Your sense of moral integrity can affect your digestion for that reason. It’s a case of learning to eat whatever you have cooked up.
21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it shall eat the fruit of it. This is closely related to the previous verse. How you talk to others can contribute to an atmosphere of death or life in your community. If you delight in one or the other trend, it will come back to haunt you.
22. Whoever finds a wife finds good and gets favor from the LORD. This has nothing to do with a personal call to celibacy, but the broader social implications of building a world where marriage and children are safe. This actually calls for treating your spouse as a precious treasure from God, not just a convenience.
23. The poor speaks humble requests, but the rich answers roughly. Perhaps this could be as easily translated as, “Can you afford to be rude?” Being wealthy and powerful might let you get away with it, but your friends last only so long as your wealth. Most people won’t notice how this connects to the previous verse, or the one that follows.
24. A man who has friends may be broken up, but there is a Lover who sticks closer than a brother. There is some dispute about the text of this verse in the latter half of the first phrase. However, the net result makes little difference because the whole point is the second phrase. There is some give and take between your associates, but you should always have at least one person in your life who can take you at your worst. That requires a much higher investment than mere friendship.
You won’t get this from the history books because those who write them don’t acknowledge the fundamental truth of our human existence.
Do you get tired of hearing about this heart-led stuff? Then go away, because it is the ever-present assumption of what do here. We have to keep talking about it because the dominant culture is so adamant about denying it. Unlike the West, which assumes the heart is either subjective sentiment or some other quasi-emotional drive, we teach the heart is entirely separate and above the intellect. Your heart has it’s own sensory apparatus and the means for processing what it senses, and your heart-mind is the only way you can connect with God’s revelation. Your heart operates in the moral sphere, the place where the Spirit Realm overlaps on this Fallen Realm. Your intellect remains entirely within the Fallen Realm.
Plenty of ancient societies lacked this understanding of reality. Barbarian tribal hordes did not have a civilization, but may have had a culture. Western Civilization is thus the first and only civilization that has rejected the notion of heart-led existence. This assumes you understand that the root of the West is partly a mixture of Germanic barbarian culture and Greco-Roman Civilization. The latter didn’t aggressively attack the notion of heart-led living, but laid the foundation for denying it through the influence of the ancient philosophers. There is a sense in which reading Greek and Roman classical literature provides a slender slice of elitist thinking, not the bulk of Greco-Roman social existence. By the time we get to Western Civilization in its full flower at the Enlightenment, virtually the whole of society from top to bottom is bereft of the heart-mind.
That means Western historical analysis will always miss that one critical ingredient to understanding every other civilization. Most of them took for granted a heart-led life, and so have very little to say about it. What they do say is easily perverted by a Western reading of it, as we see with the Bible narrative. The heart is mentioned, but the complete absence of heart-mind orientation means both translation and understanding will be crippled.
For someone who was fully engaged in the heart-led religion of the Old Testament, and in part as a reflection of the ambient Ancient Near Eastern culture as a whole, compelling your mind to serve the wisdom of your heart was entirely natural. It pulls in a whole range of shifted motivations that no one in that time felt required much comment. You could fall below the level back down to the Flesh, which is pretty much the meaning of “temptation,” but such people knew already without question that faith and truth could be found only in the heart.
Let’s choose a single item of historical study that is completely changed when you include the understanding of heart-led living: war. Even Western scholars understand that there was a professional cadre, mostly nobles who could afford to train and arm themselves, plus a significant number of folks who were simply talented enough to be hired as professional soldiers by those who had the money for it. These were your combat commanders and troop leaders, while most of the troops were conscripts. That would mean ordinary folks who trained part of the year when they weren’t busy with agricultural tasks. Most of these troops carried into battle limited weaponry with limited training, but enough to do the trick most of the time. The conscripts would gather in mass formations while the professional soldiers took up positions on the flanks, as rearguards and as a substantial forward battle guard. The whole idea was to march your troops into an enemy formation and make them run.
Notice something: The focus wasn’t slaughter. That might happen as a related event, but the primary focus was holding your formation intact while breaking up theirs. Why? Because everyone took for granted that if you held your ground, it could only be because your deity was in your heart leading you to honor him/her. If you lost your heart in battle — if you lost your heart-led focus and fell down into your mind and emotions — your deity had deserted you. Never mind whose fault it was; your god was not with you in the battle. It was not a matter of berserker emotions against berserker emotions. It was heart against heart. Fighting from the heart was fearless because death and injury were not all that important to the individual who faced them. His only real concern was satisfying the moral demands of his heart. Losing that meant losing the battle, because you couldn’t stay in the fray without it.
This is no mere mythology; this is reality. This is how we as believers face things today.
David uses here a collection of images and figures of speech we don’t see anywhere else. While we have no doubt that the bulk of his writing is consistently symbolic and loaded with parables, it serves well to tread carefully to deduce the meaning from the context here. This is in essence a marching song. David celebrates the unspeakable greatness of Israel’s true King of Heaven. Survival in battle as leader was the mark of divine favor for the rulers across the whole Ancient Near East (ANE), but the Creator of all things was Israel’s warlord and king.
We associate the phrase “let God arise” with the initial lifting of the Ark of Covenant in preparation for movement during the Exodus. It’s also the image of any ruler rising to his feet in preparation for some kind of action against his enemies, domestic and foreign. Wherever Israel moved under the command of God, no force on earth, nor even all the forces on earth combined, could hinder His people from their ancestral inheritance. Therefore, while marching it only makes sense to sing His praises. He rides not just any white horse, but the billowing white clouds in the sky. Shout His name to bring fear to all those who oppose this march!
Some of His virtues include being the very Father to those with no father, and He welcomes widows into His domestic care. No one is alone in His domain. He sets prisoners and debtors free, loading them with prosperity. Meanwhile, those who reject His reign will be driven out into the desert wastes.
David lavishly praises God as the One who made the earth shake under their feet, a reference to Jericho at the least. When the people needed rain, it came in good supply. He describes how Mount Sinai convulsed at the divine Presence meeting with Moses on the heights. When the people were hungry it rained bread or water or whatever they needed. No one lacked who embraced His authority.
Indeed, on that sacred mountain, God gave to Moses His revelation, the greatest treasure any nation could receive. It was a massive army of people who published it by living its power. Thus, a whole range of powerful nations fled away before them. Back in the camp, the women divided the plunder of those nations. How do you describe such a great God? Had He laid Himself among the stinking herd animals at night to sleep, He would arise with the light of the dawn itself fluttering around His being, twinkling like flakes of precious metals on white wings. By the time the battles of conquest in Canaan Land were over, it looked like snow fresh fallen on Mount Zalmon (AKA Mount Ebal).
Speaking of mountains, God could have chosen any of the greatest peaks in the land for His Temple. Bashan with lofty Mount Hermon? It was His personal property. Don’t be envious, you mountains of Bashan that He chose Zion instead. The thundering chariots of God are innumerable, rumbling like those days when Moses was up on Sinai — the clouds of smoke and quaking ground were frightening. The Hebrew verbiage is a little ambiguous here, but the image of some mighty warrior king riding His chariots off into the heavens is obvious. What most people mistake is that such a mighty One would both receive tribute and then distribute it to those He favors for whatever reason. In Ephesians 4:8, Paul quotes this in the sense of the distribution of gifts (in the form of divine callings). But the image of both collecting treasures from the wealthy and mighty (grateful or otherwise), then tossing out trinkets from this tribute out to the crowds cheering along the side of the road as He passes through is common from ANE times and cultures.
But David notes Jehovah does this every day (verse 19). The God of Israel is one who saves, and David offers two different words that both translate as “salvation” in English. First is the idea of becoming a part of God’s plunder from His enemies; the second denotes being rescued from bondage. He is the God who rescues from death in both literal and figurative senses.
The image of wounding the enemy’s head is drawn from the arrogance of one who tosses his pampered hair and sticks his nose in the air. Thus, the image of blatant defiance will be turned on its head, as God brings back every dead soldier of Israel, from the Golan Heights (Bashan) to the depths of the two seas (Gulf of Aqaba and Mediterranean Sea) that touched land under David’s dominion, to bathe their feet in the blood of the high and mighty. Then when everyone has left, the feral dogs of the land will finish what’s left. Birds of the field ate soldiers’ bodies, but traitors were thrown to the dogs. It’s hard to imagine a more ignoble end on their remains.
David then describes a holy procession into the place of worship (a tent of meeting during David’s reign). It’s glorious beyond words, including just about everyone capable of joining in — choirs, orchestras, lovely young women in the flower of their beauty with something like tambourines, the small warrior tribe of Benjamin, the royal tribe of Judah, Zebulun as the tribe famous for marshaling the hosts, and Naphthali symbolized as the most effective border defense tribe having the most difficult journey to join the throng.
Then David discusses the future Temple that his son will erect in Jerusalem. This would help to unify the nation, and become a shrine to which kings would make pilgrimage. David characterizes those who might resist such an invitation as wild beasts, such as water buffaloes, wandering herds of cattle and skipping calves. It’s not a bad image for the bulk of humanity having no clue about God’s character and the moral fabric of Creation. They’ll be herded by events they hardly comprehend. So let it be, says David, until they are ready to bring God a just tribute, symbolized by silver. Meanwhile, make it hard for marauding nations to engage in raiding on Israel. From as far away as North Africa, let foreign kings come with their tribute to God, not to David and his heirs. So let all the nations of the earth celebrate their Maker.
The final verses are one long benediction of dedication to a king so great as to ride the clouds like horses. Let Israel be sure the whole world knows what a mighty God she serves.
You can’t teach a society; you can teach yourself.
I suppose it’s one of the biggest jobs we face in our ministry here at Kiln of the Soul: We strive to help people understand that the prevailing social mythology is wrong. Western Civilization will fight harder and more viciously in these final death throes than at any other time, striving to keep all the captive souls enthralled. I wish I could make it easier for you, but even if I had your full attention face to face, you would struggle. I have to trust God that you and He can work it out on His timetable.
God is coming to visit — that’s the biblical language for it. Other applicable phrases include: His wrath is falling, this is a time of tribulation, the earth will be shaken, stars in the sky will fall, etc. The literal meaning inherent in the wording is not important. The idea is to awaken a moral awareness that this is a rich opportunity for those who are able to sense it. But such truth by its nature cannot easily fit into words, so we have to rely on God to touch hearts and enlighten folks whom He intends to use for His work. In general terms, a visit from God is a time of judgment, not merely for punishment, but for correcting and provoking people to open up their hearts to His merciful divine justice. So a visitation from God is both wrath and blessing at the same time, and your human logic cannot readily unravel the tightly woven fabric of moral truth for rational analysis.
To help you, God speaks in ways your mind cannot possibly comprehend. It’s a chance for you to become aware that this stuff really is outside reason. Faith makes quite unreasonable demands, so get used to it. Part of this visitation of God is a whole range of experiences that you cannot explain on the human level.
You’ll experience stuff that makes people snicker at you when you try to describe it. Or perhaps they’ll try to push into that woo-woo land of superstition. Dreams, visions, unexplainable phenomena — no, you aren’t going crazy. This is your chance to become sane, because the reality God created includes those things. Maybe you lack the social skills to defend yourself from attempts to force you back into conformity with the mythology, but I tell you in all seriousness that if God is going to work in your life, it must include such things in times like this. How you process those things is really between you and God, but we do offer a chance here for you to talk about it. We will take you seriously. That doesn’t mean we can offer simple explanations, but we have spent some time with these things and are more comfortable than the general run of Western society when faced with inexplicable stuff like that.
The biggest danger is that you will allow someone to steer your life, even through these ineffable experiences, trying to take advantage of your for personal gain. That’s not us. This is not a cult about getting you to join our little imaginary world in exchange for the big wide imaginary world. Our pitch, if you will, is helping you see the chains and bars and walls, and then the doorways to escape. We won’t attempt to tell you what you should find on the other side, but we will help you build your own senses for such things by describing what we believe we have found.
Then maybe you can find that inner structure that God planted there when He made you, so that you can figure out for yourself what He demands of you. We’ll offer as much help as we can, but we refuse to give you the answers. It’s confusing, in part because our world has made you believe it’s all just emotion. So harshly has that lie been pressed that, in some ways, it becomes partially true. Some of what you may think it means will be obscured by deceptive emotions, so it takes awhile to detangle it all. You’ll get there; we believe in you.
But the bottom line is you have to find your own way and teach yourself.
