Psalm 62

Posted on August 8, 2015 by ehurst

David dedicates this song to Jeduthun, a man who served him as leader of a choir of musical priests with prophetic gifts. This psalm is built on the image of faithful retainer, a warlord serving some mighty sovereign. Whatever David might have been in the eyes of men, he was just a servant of Jehovah.

He stands quietly in courts of his Lord, waiting until his master should take a notion to call him. David asserts no one else is worthy of that level of devotion. But instead of the Lord needing his battle hardened experience, it is the Lord who protects David. For this reason, David does not tremble at even the most shocking threats in this world.

And there are threats aplenty against David. Will they never learn, these fools who plot ceaselessly against God’s anointed? He would outlive them all. Their petty maneuvering reminds David of a stone wall that has begun to sag; it’s just a matter of time before it collapses under its own weight. In David’s court he never lacked for yes-men who gave mere lip service while seeking any opportunity to betray him.

So David repeats his first refrain with but slight modification in the wording. David is serves at God’s whim, and God is the only One able to guard him against human foes. It’s like standing on a high rocky cliff looking down on his enemies. David calls out to all who hear his voice: Trust in God alone! Place no trust in human power and authority.

From the lowest to the highest in social status, they are all still mere humans. Pile them on a scale against God and a brief morning vapor outweighs them. Could a man assert violent power over others and confiscate everything they own, piling up all the things men value, he would still have nothing. It could all be gone with the dawn, like that vapor.

Turn your heart to trust in the revelation of God. All power comes from Him and He decides anything and everything that matters. But the Almighty is also merciful. He sees and knows the hearts of men and their moral commitments. So He responds to them, for they can hide nothing.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Psalm 62

Brief: Politics and Moral Perception

Posted on August 8, 2015 by ehurst

Just a short explanation to help you think for yourself…

On the one hand, we are pretty sure that previous political theatrics were scripted by the global elites. We also understood that it doesn’t mean every detail was foreordained as some kind of complex plot all written out beforehand. Rather, it has always been a matter of the system itself. Don’t be distracted by the nitty gritty of tactics and battles, but try to see the broader war of keeping us in our place so we don’t hinder the elite enjoying their “entitlements.”

It’s never been so simple as having the elite inside a clear boundary, another boundary for their servants, and then the rest of us. The most sinister part of all this is how it all blends and feathers out. See it as a dynamic role-play. The servants of the elite aren’t always knowing and willing to serve in every detail of their consciousness. It’s not a question of identity. That’s the wrong question. A proper understanding is to see the moral influences that keep the system alive, with people as tools in an infinite variety, featuring multiple gradations of usefulness in different ways. They don’t see the higher moral interplay of demonic influence that steers their lives. The ultimate control is not people and the interplay of concrete decisions, but demons and their influences. Even referring to the elite is misleading in the sense that we tend to think it’s a coherent discrete collection of persons. The term is best used as a handle for the net effects of some moral evil that lurks in the background of human existence on this planet. It’s not a question of recognizing this person as this or that kind of thing, but seeing their actions as manifesting the moral winds of demonic pressure mocking them.

The whole thing boils down to Satan keeping us in bondage to him, which means at the same time keeping us from the blessings God promised if we live by His moral character. When we miss out on the blessings, we miss out on God’s glory. Keep your eyes on this higher moral interplay.

We live in a time when the old system has run its course and is coming apart. Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the harvest is ripening for Western Civilization. A primary manifestation of that is the means of that destruction: the Internet. While the content presented on the Net can be just as confusing as any other medium, there is the additional factor of genuine truth sneaking out, something that TPTB could previously hinder. The key to discernment is your own sense of divine calling and moral consciousness. If your heart is awakened to moral consciousness and your mind has begun to learn how to serve that higher awareness, then you are in a position to begin filtering out the lies.

It’s not a question of factual accuracy. That’s the wrong question. We are wired to perceive from a higher level where facts are fungible and broader moral truth is the hard reality. Put the details in perspective. Furthermore, put the reporting of the details in perspective the same way. See the moral fabric of God’s character as you watch the various stories unfold. All of human existence is a collection of narratives, each told by someone who can’t possibly see it all.

As you watch the political noise reported in varying narratives, there is something to watch for that does matter: The winds of change are blowing at gale strength already. Assess the people from that higher moral perception. For example, there is no good candidate for the US presidency. Keep your holy cynicism strong. However, some candidates represent a shift, a break in the dreary pattern of elite control. Not because the elite are losing control, but the elite are at war internally. The single greatest sign of serious change in our human condition is when the elite can no longer cooperate as before. Their system is breaking down. Some of the elite are tired of the same old game, and are ready to see things break. Don’t get lost in their motives, as if we could ever get an honest report of that. Look at how the structure for deception and control is breaking down.

Don’t see the political contest as good versus evil; it’s all evil. Rather, see the contest for what it is in moral terms. Ditch the mythology of some individual or small group chosen by Satan to bring about his Dark Kingdom on the earth. That ain’t happening, at least in the popular Western mythology about such things. Satan is consuming their life energy same as ours, but they are blind enough to think they stand to gain by working from the top of what humans imagine to be “ruling.” In that sense, they are more deceived than you and I. Sooner or later their value to Satan ends; sometimes it’s a simple matter that God still pulls all the strings. What we see before us is not just the end of this or that individual or group, but the end of a whole system. This is a cycle ordained by God and easily explained in Scripture if you’ll stop reading it with a Western bias.

In the political campaigns, watch to see if the loose canons are tossed overboard, or if they are lashed back down into place. If they manage to fire off a few rounds, this can get quite entertaining. God may even allow for the sinking of the ship; that will come sooner or later.

Posted in sanity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Brief: Politics and Moral Perception

Foul Winds

Posted on August 8, 2015 by ehurst

The fundamental concept of sin is arguing with God. In terms of the Law Covenants, God places a very high priority on social stability (shalom). His revelation obliges us to act consistent with His character, which is woven into the very fabric of reality. When we seek that, we will naturally build shalom and reap it’s blessings. In our Western society, there seems to be two primary areas in which people most often disagree with revelation and destroy shalom: persons and dominion.

We’ve already noted that the West depersonalizes Creation as a whole. Reality itself bears the stamp of God’s character. The Bible says we should treat reality as a living thing and include it in our society. Indeed, Western intellectual assumptions typically depersonalize God by raising the myth of objective truth as a separate entity, and Westerners make arguments as if holding Him accountable to this imaginary body of truth. Folks, there is no truth outside of God. While that Western fallacy is bad enough, a primary manifestation of this is dehumanizing people. The Bible consistently uses the language of people as made in God’s image, and this is what makes the Fall so tragic. In fallen arrogance, many become self-centered, treating others as less worthy.

Jesus made a big deal of loving your neighbor as yourself, then went on to define “neighbor” in terms of morality. Notice that this isn’t about mere prejudice, which misses the point. Rather, Jesus was saying that if someone does you no harm, you have to assume they are your neighbor, deserving of all the inclusive social stability efforts. It’s not about the people and their identity. The Samaritans were a mixed bag of heathens imported back when God permitted the Assyrian Empire to destroy the Northern Ten Tribes. The Israelis were dispersed Mesopotamia and a bunch of other folks were brought in to occupy their place, starting around the old capital of Samaria. These imports adopted a highly corrupted version of the Books of Moses on the grounds of simply placating the local deity. Without wasting pages recounting the whole sordid tale, we note that these Samaritans had a long-standing antagonism with the Southern Tribes (Judea). Jesus’ point was that none of it mattered — religion, nationality, history, etc. God has revealed Himself in the fabric of all Creation, and He can touch heathen hearts without the Bible. When you see someone walking in some measure of conformance with the moral character of God, they are your neighbor.

The standard is God’s moral character. If someone acts the part of your enemy, pay attention to the moral failure and deal with that, but don’t hate the person. Commit your whole loyalty to the moral character of God, not any lesser thing cooked up by mankind’s fallen imagination. Let your religion be your very best personal response, being faithful to the God who calls you, but never treat your religion as a definition of God that constrains Him.

The other issue is dominion: What does God say is your business? What does His Law indicate are the limits of your control in this plane of existence? We can be sure that Westerners seldom come even close on this one. The whole question presumes you have sought an awareness of your divine calling from God. There is no waste in God; if He made you, there is a reason and He’s the One you ask to discover that reason. You would think Western Christianity should have a clue, but most Christians are just about as perverted in their understanding as were the Hellenized Pharisees. Westerners are worse than Hellenized, because they also have embraced the heathen Germanic mythology to mix with Greek rationalism. That’s the definition of Western Civilization. Westerners are clueless about dominion, and only by accident do they ever come close. A primary manifestation of Western failure is a false sense of entitlement or elitism. Westerners virtually always stick their nose in someone else’s domain. Your divine calling comes with a limited dominion granted by God, and it is a critical element in divine moral consciousness.

If we can just understand these two fundamental elements, virtually everything else wrong with Western Civilization fades away to insignificance. Put your life in the same basket as all human life — indeed, all Creation. Hold it all as a unified consideration in pursuing divine justice. Yet do not presume on things God did not place in your hands.

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Foul Winds

Fresh Winds

Posted on August 7, 2015 by ehurst

Working on this Project Foul Winds, it helps if we first establish a norm. What’s the good stuff we could have from God? What is the difference between fresh and foul?

Let’s outline, because the details are already in my books. Jesus is the final revelation of God’s moral character. He was the Living Law of God in the sense that a sovereign’s law was his way of doing things, an expression of his character. Jesus was born under the Law of Moses; He lived and taught that Law as it was meant to be. All His miracles were an expression of the shalom blessings God had promised under the Law. Jesus worked to restore the divine justice of that Covenant.

He did that because the nation had abandoned it. Read that sentence again. The Law did not fail Israel; Israel failed the Law. Jesus came to call them back to the Law as it was meant to be. Whatever He said the Law meant is what God meant in the Law. He fulfilled the Law’s purpose and its conditions. The Covenant ended with His death on the Cross. He didn’t end the Law in the sense that it was no longer applicable to life, in the sense that the blessings of shalom would no longer be offered to anyone. The Covenant was conditional between two parties and one of those parties violated it. He ended it by declaring it null and void for the nation that had refused to obey it.

Indeed, they had refused to understand it aright. It’s a matter of established historical record that sometime between the capitulation of the rump nation of Israel to Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the birth of Jesus, that the Jewish scholars had Hellenized and completely buried their Hebraic intellectual background. They traded their mystical heritage for Greek-styled rational analysis. At least some of the things Jesus said in His public disputes with the Jewish leadership was to call them back to their ancient Hebrew mystical heritage. Without that, they could not understand the Law properly, which meant that they could not understand their God. Instead, they reasoned to a false law and constructed a false image of God. They worshiped their own reason and human wisdom, a form of idolatry worse than any that had seduced the nation up to that time.

While the ministry of Jesus did include a great deal of revelation about the final eternal end of human souls, what most Christians today fail to understand is that Jesus also resurrected the purpose of the Law as the revelation of His Father’s character in His own character. Paul flatly said that human decisions could not possibly change their eternal destiny. The linkage is not of direct consequence, as if we could steer the hand of God, but such a destiny does correlate to embracing and walking in the Covenant of Christ in this world. Paul also wrote that it was a Christian obligation to read the Old Testament, and to understand it from that ancient Hebrew mystical perspective that Jesus restored. Paul flatly said that this would make us what Israel should have been, that in Christ we would be the New Israel.

So the Law remains valid in terms of what it tells us of God’s character. And if you can understand Jesus’ teaching well enough to implement that Law’s purpose in your life, you can recover all the blessings of shalom that Old Israel threw away. Let me assure you that if any nation, or any political entity at all for that matter, were to embrace the Law as Jesus taught it, we should line up to immigrate there and be a part of that. In fact, if they would just make a clean and firm commitment to the Covenant of Noah, we should still support them with all we can give. Short of that, not a single political entity in this world is morally valid, in that sense. We have been taught to try to get along with them, but not take any of their various moral claims seriously. They have no moral claims on so much as a single speck of sand blowing in the wind so long as they come up short of a public and visible commitment to the God’s Laws.

If Modern Israel were to take seriously the Law of Moses as Jesus taught it, we should ask permission to convert and become a citizen. So far as I can determine, there is not so much as a single group there that meets that requirement. I have no problem with biblical Israel going back and reclaiming their ancient homeland, but not this Israel. This Israel denies the Covenant; the nation is officially secular. The religious citizens are all over the map of Judaism, but none of them has embraced the Covenant of Moses. You want proof? I’ve got massive volumes of excruciating detail in how they have moved even farther from God’s Word than they were in Jesus’ time. Supporting Modern Israel as she is now is blasphemy; it’s poking God in the eye and spitting on His Son’s blood.

You and I are left with only one choice right now: We must learn how to claim so much of shalom as conditions permit as individuals and households. Through us, God will restore His divine justice by the same power as He gave Jesus, but it will be somewhat limited by the context in which He places each of us. All that we can hope for in this life under His divine justice is wrapped up in reflecting His glory by walking in His character in His Creation. Insofar as we must contend with Satan, the whole issue is in reclaiming that heritage in this life. Satan can do nothing about our eternal destiny, but he can sure as Hell steal the glory of God from our hands if we let him.

Satan’s breath is the Foul Winds we have to recognize.

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fresh Winds

Photolog: Settling a Mystery

Posted on August 6, 2015 by ehurst

MysteryRoad For a very long time, the maps all showed the snaking road along the flood bank of the North Canadian River connecting NE 63rd and Indian Meridian as private land and no thoroughfare. Then, a couple of years ago, the Internet mapping services began indicating there was a through road of sorts (squiggly line in the image on the right). Which was it?

Stop for a moment: I realize “flood bank” is not an official geographical term. That’s what the farmers call it around here. It’s the edge of a flood plain well above the normal water channel. You can farm below it, but you know it’s more risky than up on the flood plain. But if the water ever gets that high, it’s definitely in flood-stage, because it crosses over the flood bank onto the flood plain.

Viewed across the flood plain from either Wilshire or Triple X, it looks like some houses are over amongst the trees along the flood bank, but some mapping services show a long break between two ends of a road, as if some of it is actually a private drive.IndianMeridSfromWilshire Today I was taking the Harrah-Jones Loop, but with deviations to entertain myself. Running counterclockwise, I headed up Harrah Road and took NE 50th to Dobbs Road. North to NE 63rd, I humped over the hills to Luther Road, again turning north until Wilshire, and then across the ridge and down toward Triple X. That washout repair between Peebly and Triple X is coming along, but it’s not camera-worthy just yet. But instead of zig-zagging my way into Jones and Henney Road, I decided to explore this oddity and see what it was.

Above left is a view south down Indian Meridian from across Wilshire, taken in part just to capture the intersection sign. The Jones State Center school is behind to my left. The pavement ends just about where the road disappears from view there. It becomes a highly cratered caliche surface, which tends to look like it was a private drive not so long ago. The route follows the flood bank (image on the right). IndianMeridbankroad There are some decent houses, but most of them appear to suffer from some inattention. It’s what you might expect from land occupied by folks who want to be left in peace but still close enough to get to the store quickly. Scattered along the entire mile of gravel were these nifty reed huts (left). The walls let some light in and they appear to be fairly old, though well maintained. This added to my impression that this was once something like a summer camp facility of sorts. ReedHut

So eventually the route wound back to connect to NE 63rd. At the far end I turned and captured the view with the “Dead End” sign that was obviously false (right). The road does go through, but you would be unlikely to drive on it much faster than I pedaled, which was about half-speed for me. NE63rdWnrTripleX

I won’t pretend to explain it, but I was struck by a powerful sense of joy out there in the valley. It left me almost giddy for a mile or so. The wind in my face, the rich smell of ruminant manure being spread on the fields — it was just beautiful. As previously noted, one of the best things about riding is talking aloud to God and sensing Creation without distraction. I decided to stop on the Triple X bridge over the North Canadian for lunch — sardines, German style genuine rye bread and an apple. TripleXPicnic There was no shade, but the wind was strong enough to justify it. It’s like the breath of God to me sometimes. The river is pretty low and what you can see in the far background is a very high cut bank which is also the flood bank. In the foreground down below is the active bank in a stretch that has not shifted course in decades. Just to the left beyond the foliage someone has been pasturing cattle for quite some years, though the spring floods did put a few inches of water up there for a day or so.

And just a quarter-mile downstream (behind me from the camera angle) is that spot where the spring flooding cut awfully close to the roadbed. No work has been done to restore the bank, which just shows how bureaucratically slow and useless is the US Army Corps of Engineers. Until they give the city and county permission, no work can proceed on a major river course like that, despite having the equipment and fill material ready and waiting.

The ride still turned out to be 31 miles, but we are in a heat wave for at least the next two weeks. We expect to see triple-digit temperatures (Fahrenheit), so I’m being judicious with my timing and distances.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Photolog: Settling a Mystery

Weapons of Our Warfare

Posted on August 6, 2015 by ehurst

We pursue inhuman objectives.

For though walking about in flesh, we do not war according to flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, pulling down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 MKJV)

Paul is talking about himself and his associates. He goes on to note that he was sort of waiting on the Corinthian Christians to bring their thoughts into captivity of Jesus. He was in no position to exercise divine moral authority until they had that ability to see past their own intellectual biases and submit to the Laws of God. It’s a nice lyrical phrasing that helps us realize that our minds are unruly about having to serve the heart-mind, unruly about relying on moral consciousness for executive decisions. If your heart doesn’t rule your mind, you’ll never understand what really matters in God’s eyes.

While I write about these things in bite-sized posts, in my own heart they are all united in one grand vision of divine justice. My books all come from the same place, and the unifying influence that prevents compartmentalization is the moral outlook through which I see all Creation. I can only tell the story that courses through my soul. You have to write your own.

Do you see that? I’m not interested in political wrangling except as a form of entertainment. I’ll never be a direct participant. Just getting me to obey God’s Laws is a monumental effort; how could I pretend to direct the life of anyone else?

It applies in the virtual realm just the same. The real issue is not trying to leverage controls on what passes across the wires, but to simply assert my Lord’s dominion over my own computer and the activities I pursue on the Net. Some company named Automattic grants me a limited dominion on this blog, not enough to block the advertising, but to decide what does and does not appear in the content of the writing itself. That’s the way covenants work, engaging two moral entities in limited sharing of dominion. All dominion is under God’s sovereign authority, and He parcels out according to His whims and inscrutable plans. However, the ultimate responsibility for my computer security is with me in reliance on His power, not some other human power. That’s the nature of the Net; attempts to govern by meat space dominion typically fails. I have no business demanding other computers follow my code of conduct; the protocols exist independent of my will. The Net is.

As I pray and meditate on this burning message in my soul that brings me to this Project Foul Winds, a critical element is seeing how the Net has served as a radical game changer in meat space. A lot of very old efforts by ruling elites to exercise dominion is crumbling to dust before our eyes. The edifice of meat-space control means nothing on the Net, and I sense that a great many powers in this world are scrambling to find some way — any way at all — to regain their power, but it’s running between their fingers like sand.

Given enough time, we’ll face a new elite with their own evolved methods to meet the capabilities of the Net. The same demonic influences that have always been around will manifest through those new methods, so it’s important that we learn to recognize the signature by looking past the people and machinery used in service of those influences. That’s because we need to understand them as they are on the moral plane and respond in the power and authority of the Creator, not some imaginary power of human hands. We have to exercise that same authority in every space to reclaim the blessings of our Lord’s mercy and divine justice.

We use the weapons He provides in the moral sphere to accomplish moral objectives.

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Weapons of Our Warfare

Project: Foul Winds

Posted on August 5, 2015 by ehurst

The people who cause us the most trouble are victims, too, driven by forces they seldom recognize.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world’s rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take to yourselves the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6:12-13 MKJV)

The Hebrew mind personified the entire universe. Everything that had a name was not a thing, but a being in some sense. This was not a matter of cerebral fact, but a characterization that was far more practical than the objectivist mythology that came later. While I don’t subscribe to the fully subjectivist approach preferred by many, I can appreciate these comments about the common Western “scientific” concept of reality:

1) The universe is like a machine.

2) Matter is unconscious.

3) The laws of nature are fixed.

4)The total amount of matter and energy is fixed except at the moment of the Big Bang.

5) Nature is purposeless. Evolution has no purpose or direction.

6) Biological heredity is material.

7) Memories are stored inside your brain.

8) Your mind is inside your head.

9) Psychic phenomenon are impossible. This follows from dogma 8.

10) Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.

It’s not that we take issue with every detail in this list, but that we make ourselves aware of the fundamental approach so that we can better understand the implications we all face every day. The biblical approach is that facts don’t matter too much, since God can remake reality at His whim, and also decide whether or not to let us be aware of those changes. All we need to know is the appearance of these things in our lives, not as a stream of historical events, but as a record of awareness. Our lives are a story, each of us with our own, and the story has a life of its own.

Thus, our pursuit of things like history and the social sciences is not viewed as dry records of facts, but as a living narrative. The narrative itself takes surprising turns as God allows various influences to alter our impression of things. I can be an analyst of the highest caliber, but if I ignore something for which God wants my attention, I’ll be telling lies. The bottom line is that existence is His story told for ineffable reasons, and we are in the story. It’s not a question of whether reality is “real” in any ultimate sense, but that we do our best to understand the part of the story God wants us to hear.

So our awareness need only be sufficient to our divine calling; we need to focus on what it takes to draw His favor in our unique contexts. This approach is highly functional. We can toss out an ocean of obsessions that plague our world because they aren’t part of our individual narrative as told by God. We are accountable directly to Him, not to some imaginary objective reality. Hint: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was a fat lie of Satan meant to distract you from moral responsibility to your Creator.

We don’t have to understand God’s nature or all the particulars of what the various other labels signify. We need only know our responsibilities. It doesn’t matter where your mind and consciousness physically reside — as if we could know — but only that we come up with a common characterization of such things that reflect the revelation of God. Whatever gets you on the right moral path is fine with me.

And a lot of folks are convinced in various ways they are on that path, so what are we to do when their actions impinge on what God called us to do? We seek His face on a regular basis so that when that moment comes, our convictions speak loudly enough that we know what fits the context. Maybe you’ll just turn and walk away, surrendering a bit of metaphorical turf because God is relieving you of that burden. Maybe you’ll need to kill the damned fool on the spot. You won’t catch me insisting there are no cases where violence is appropriate. We can generalize up the wazoo, but I can’t decide what’s right for you, only what’s right for me in that moment. Even if I later regret what I did, that’s my problem. Life is full of risk. But it’s far better to think in terms, not of the individuals involved, but of what kind of moral forces drove them.

Take a moment to note: We operate on multiple levels. The world is worldly — by definition — so we have no trouble recognizing the worldly viewpoint. What we do at the same time is realize how that viewpoint is quite limited. That’s the whole point here; we endeavor to understand things from a moral level, too. Not the world’s impression of morality, but God’s moral character as the fabric of Creation. The worldly approach is valid in a very limited sense, but hardly answers the question of just what it is God wants us to do about the things our flesh can discern and process with mere reasoning. We need that higher moral logic of the heart-mind or we cannot possibly please Our Father.

There are all kinds of names and labels used in the social sciences, but virtually the entire field arises from the list of ten false assumptions quoted above. I use my experience studying what various people have written in pursuit of social science knowledge, but I don’t trust their conclusions most of the time. Trying to objectify these things leaves it wide open to manipulation and distraction from the individual divine calling on the moral plane. It’s better to recognize influences and personify them.

Here we run into another perverted imagery hijacked from the Bible by a bunch of flakes who serve some foul purpose. Talking of the demon of this and the demon of that makes us sound too much like some folks I’ve dealt with extensively and I want no part of their delusions. So prepare yourself for something a little different. While tacitly recognizing we are talking about demonic powers of moral darkness, I’ll tend to avoid that language and simply characterize the various influences as if they were living entities: This or that Influence leads people to act this or that way.

Sometimes I’ll use commonly accepted labels for the various influences, but sometimes I’ll have to be more creative. I’m trying to tread the fine line between wallowing in contemporary popular delusions while not wandering off into incomprehensible babble.

This will eventually turn into a book, but what gets posted here will include the usual background chatter that helps me form the frame of reference. The title of this post is the name I’ve given the project, and suggests a possible name for the resulting book.

Addenda: This proposed series turned into a much shorter work now title The Cult.

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Project: Foul Winds

Some Missed Opportunities

Posted on August 4, 2015 by ehurst

We knew some years ago that the US government had planned to destroy, or at least disrupt, the governments of seven countries, with Iran the last link in the chain. We know this because the Brookings Institute published Which Path to Persia in which they openly stated these goals.

To be honest, I doubt the US could ever have afforded it in the first place. The amount of effort and money would have been considerable, even had the people involved been highly efficient in the task. They were not. There was a far more considerable sum wasted along the way on all kinds of impertinent pursuits — we call that “corruption.” So here we sit with much of this task unfinished, and now the windows of opportunity have closed. This probably has something to do with the recent deal with Iran, and now there is deal-making with other intended victims of this grand plan.

That much is discussed here. But there’s more, and it is that “more” that we need to think about. The author mentions that the US is near bankruptcy. While we’ve heard a lot of that already from all kinds of “alternative” economists, investment gurus, and other assorted cranks (try reading Zero Hedge for awhile) that it starts to sound like crying wolf. I won’t say it’s all bogus, but too many of them have set dates now long past. That’s not very smart if you want to gain credibility. However, there are a few writers more cautious about that. So I also recommend this story that seems to avoid date-setting and simply explaining some concepts that should be obvious, along with the trends that indicate impending trouble.

Meanwhile, a surprising number of date-setters are pointing to September or October this year. At least one author claims to have an inside source in the Federal Reserve. I suppose the timing of all this deal-making and background maneuvering between ostensible enemies does seem to add a little weight to that time frame. It now becomes just barely plausible in my estimation. I’m not telling you it’s true or that I totally believe it, but it’s more than a mere possibility.

How much difference will it make for you and I? For those of us near poverty already: not much. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, we note that the poor were largely unaffected. That is, there was nothing new for them and they went along as before. Nor was it so much the rich that suffered, but those who were well off primarily because of their paper wealth. That is, they didn’t really hold all that much property, but had a clash flow — a big mortgage and some other debts, a life style kept afloat by risky investments that had been paying quite well. But given the way things have diversified since then, the net effect of a currency collapse, or margin call or whatever, would hit more folks in unexpected ways. Please note that banks confiscating your accounts has been legal for quite some time in Western countries. In the US, the Supreme Court has ruled that your deposit is technically an investment in the bank.

What else? Lots of survivalists talk up living off the grid. One of the primary items they list is loss of electrical power. I don’t know about where you live, but our electric monopoly is very tight with the state government. It might as well be part of the government. OG&E might be okay with a limited reduction in revenue, but they’ll fight to keep their customers using significant political clout. I don’t think they’ll much tolerate a general reduction in availability of electrical service unless the government intends to pay well to consume the power itself. The whole point is that governments (both official and defacto) will be hurting and will be first in line to demand their cut of whatever is available. Government officials can be awfully stupid about demanding resources that aren’t even there simply because they got them in the past. “Hey, we can’t go changing government activities and reducing our consumption, so you better wave a magic wand or something and cough it up.”

I doubt anyone knows for certain all that can or will happen when stuff starts to really change. Will the US dollar collapse or will we face some kind of perverse deflation? The system is so cockamamie in the first place that I’m not sure anyone knows. However, things are about to change one way or another, and our current discomfort will intensify. The saints of God will tribulate.

Still, certain nefarious plans by the elite didn’t pan out. Right now, we seem to face a nexus of things that point to some of the elite preparing to abandon ship. And there aren’t enough lifeboats. I’ve already noted that there are many factions and agendas among the plutocrats. When things work, they can get along well enough, but when stuff starts to break, the knives come out. The impending changes will set off hidden triggers and we can hardly guess what is coming. We are already seeing alliances dissolving. Secret agreements will go out the window and we will see plenty of drama, fakery and public posturing. What you should look for is anyone acting like a jilted lover. Whole governments will do things you never would have imagined. If it was simply me guessing, I’d say the neocons and their whole Zionist game will be thrown under the bus. The Christian Zionist constituency will be loose cannons on the heaving deck of the US ship of state.

If you can afford the popcorn and cold beverages, have them ready. This will be sooooo entertaining. At the same time, keep your eyes open for the opportunity to bless the name of the Lord.

Addenda: The author of the Video Rebel blog alerted me to his separate religion blog: You and I are the only Reality. It’s not quite my cup of tea, but I wanted readers to be aware of the bigger picture.

Posted in globalism | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Some Missed Opportunities

Stop That Thief

Posted on August 3, 2015 by ehurst

Satan cannot create; he can only pervert what God has created.

Let’s get down to business: We are fallen. Until we embrace that painful truth in the fullness of what it means and how far it goes, we cannot hope to grasp reality. It matters not one whit how or why, but we do know the Devil is the one who directed us on a path to the Fall. The ultimate Lord of Perverts has perverted each one of us. Look in the mirror — what kind of pervert are you?

Don’t minimize or paint it with pretty colors. You are a pervert of some kind. So am I. We all have an appetite for things that would harm Creation and cause a grave insult to our Creator. We all want things contrary to God’s revealed reality. The mercy of the Law is first awakening our awareness of that perversion, so that we’ll know we need redemption.

A critical element of that redemption is embracing the revealed Laws of God. Surely you realize it’s not so much the letter of the Law Covenants, but the moral imperatives revealed within a specific context. You aren’t learning abstract principles, but a Person. The Laws are a manifestation of God’s character, a revelation of the fabric of Creation. One of the most consistent characterizations we can make of those Laws is in the Hebrew term shalom. In our context today, I feel safe suggesting it could be summarized as social stability, particularly the stability that comes from seeking God’s favor. When you strive to conform yourself to His character as best you can discern it, Creation itself is programmed to respond by providing some measure of things God promised His people under the Law of Moses. But then God steps up and adds to it in various ways, typically with a timing that is meant to trigger your gratitude and a constant emphasis on penitence. These things are what make for social stability.

That you may sometimes still see social turmoil is not a failure of the Laws, but of society itself. God holds each of us accountable for finding His path for us whereby we manage to balance between some abstract vision of perfect conduct and something that doesn’t stir up unnecessary strife. I can’t tell you where that balance point is for you, but I can tell you where mine is. I can also tell you something about the scars of my failure. More importantly, I can tell you about all the times I failed and God granted me His mercy and blessings. Things work out for me that way.

A critical manifestation of your unique calling from the Lord is your sense of humor. I’ve said quite often that a proper biblical rule for humor is that you don’t apologize for what makes you laugh. Our society despises that rule, so sometimes I don’t laugh out loud. That’s a way of balancing things. But I still find things funny that others do not, and the difference can be quite traumatic for some. The practical answer is that you have to earn the right to know what amuses me. If my sense of humor in small things upsets you, find someone else to hang out with, because I’m not changing on your personal whim. If you can tolerate my whimsy, then you will likely be there when the privacy guard comes down. I have to drop my guard once in awhile or I can’t dress the small wounds of this life. If you convince me I can trust you, you’ll get to see the “real me” that’s under the armor, including my peculiar sense of humor.

Indeed, there is an element of perversion in my sense of humor. You’ve got some, too. Don’t trust me to see until I’ve proven myself. Online, the rules are different, of course. What works in meat space won’t fit in the virtual, and vice versa. Still, the fundamental necessity of promoting social stability is the basis for your choices either way. But as soon as you forget that some parts of your human nature are perverted, you will surely make mistakes you could easily avoid.

Those are the mistakes that can grant Satan access to your life and to steal away your blessings.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Stop That Thief

Invest in Eternity

Posted on August 3, 2015 by ehurst

It’s revolutionary, and I am hardly the first to suggest it: Don’t invest with a material calculus, but in moral terms.

Literally, not merely as a figure of speech — switch to an entirely different form of reckoning. Put that spreadsheet away. Let God handle the results; trust His promises in accordance with His Laws. Measure value in terms of the moral fabric of God’s character. It’s not sinful to be aware of the monetary price tag, but it’s wrong to make it significant. It should count as nothing more than awareness of what you have to invest.

I suppose I should note here that I do not at all support the Western Christian teaching about tithing. In the Bible, tithing was restricted entirely to agricultural products. If it grew from natural processes, then you tithed it directly as Firstfruits. There were lots of straight wage-earners in ancient Israel and they did not pay a tithe. It would be regarded as an error, an insult to God because it would tend to make the priests avaricious. Let them count only on their share of what God allows to grow with each season. Everything else was waiting on God to move in the hearts of men to make freewill offerings. In all seriousness, brothers and sisters, do not tithe anything you didn’t grow from natural processes. If you ain’t a farmer or herder, everything and anything you give is a freewill offering.

(Note: In response to an offline query, let me add one thing. Tithing is generally necessary for Western churches, but not essential to holiness.)

Still, the whole idea is that you offer tribute to your Sovereign. Insofar as people in ancient times thought about investments, it was in terms of the koinonia, a fancy word we stole from Greek to describe a tribal enterprise. By whatever means, you intended to enrich your own extended household. Their wealth was yours, and yours theirs. Not like communism where some committee with no real bond to you can rape your household, but genuine family that kept you alive when things were tough. There was no material calculus at the core of things. If you were catastrophically disabled, you had nothing to fear. Your family loved you and would count it their divine duty to take care of your needs and to keep your life meaningful. Your sovereign was your head of household, your own family point-man.

I’ll give you a startling concrete example of how it works out. Let’s look at ancient warfare, with the assumption that a particular battle was entirely morally necessary for defense. The battle began with the warlord rushing off to meet the enemy physically himself, and all the other warriors following behind him. That’s a serious investment of the self. Could a leading man not make himself do that, he was no longer your actual leader, just an adviser at most. The kind of ethics that allows a commander to hide behind his troops is a shocking immorality as God views things. If he’s not all in, he is unfit to command. Think about how that applies to investment of more mundane resources.

You and I will never persuade many in our world to buy into such a value system. But we also know this is fundamental to how God designed Creation. So we have the mass hypnosis of the human race that it can be handled by the calculus of investment and loss on a spreadsheet. It seems to work that way as far as they can tell. But in the long term, it does not. You can’t take that spreadsheet with you when you stand before God to account for your life under His Laws. While that has the effect in human psychology of pushing off accountability to some future point, some consideration that is practically infinite in terms of emotional impact, it simply shows how utterly fallen is our modern society.

And it also shows how the whole thing rests on a miracle of God. If you don’t feel a daily sense of intense accountability to God, nothing I say or do can make it happen. The only thing I can offer here is an exercise in conscious awareness, an attempt to help you train your mind to serve the heart. This is our revolution, the one that most of the world will hardly notice. When people mock your moral considerations, just smile and laugh with them, because they wouldn’t understand if you wept at their moral blindness. Their hearts are asleep. But you keep your loyalty to the unseen koinonia, the divine economy and financing of His Heavenly Tribe. We belong to an economic system that can’t fit on a spreadsheet.

I can testify that it works well in concrete reality, but that in itself rests on whether God makes you believe it.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Invest in Eternity