Passages 5

Posted on June 27, 2013 by ehurst

I write because the sewer system can’t handle all of my crap.

Somehow, I stumbled on the idea people might be entertained by some of it. That was because during a few times when I was required to write, it somehow turned out well. In fact, it turned out a whole lot better than my talking, which I dearly loved more. Not that I was a lousy talker, but I tended to let stuff escape my lips without reflection. Engaging my fingers somehow demanded I think about it first. Eventually my talking got better, in part because I now do a lot less of it. Writing seems to be better because I do more of it.

Nowadays I write because I can’t stop. If my computer never connected to anything but itself, I’d write at least as much. I had a couple of books scattered among stacks of papers before I ever got a computer. My first use of it was reducing those notes to a unified electronic document (eventually published under the title Ancient Truth: Old Testament History). I’d have been fine with DOS had I never wanted to read stuff on the Internet. I couldn’t get my DOS computer to connect with what little I understood of things, so I had to get Windows or something.

But it was always with a focused purpose, that overwhelming sense of calling that has haunted my consciousness since around age 8. It took a year for my child’s mind to grasp what was going on inside me. My spirit was alive and fighting all the garbage in my conscious intellect. It nearly drove me nuts; I was often suicidal in my youth. Part of the madness was refusing to tell anyone. I’m still nuts, but I’m not suicidal.

One of the provisions of the peace treaty between my warring parts is that I write. Mostly it’s various expressions and implications of my encounters with that divine Presence, that huge and massive something that has always hung over my soul, looming like a giant planet in the sky while I’m on the moon. What complicates that is how most of the people I encounter don’t see it. That’s what drove me crazy for so long. Never mind whether it’s really there — I have profound doubts anyone actually grasps reality, whatever that is. But I saw that thing and it pulled at me with a gravity well too powerful to ignore, interfering in everything, even walking, and most people denied it was there.

You can’t read my stuff much unless you are willing to humor me. As always, you don’t have to take me seriously. I don’t. But this is the theme of all my thinking and writing, and it bothers you, stay away. But if you can swallow at least the notion that I see it and feel it, you might make some sense of what I write, or at least be entertained.

If you can turn my verbal crap into fertilizer, then we can get along just fine.

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Low Flight of Angels in the Benelux Published

Posted on June 26, 2013 by ehurst

cover art for the novel

cover art for the novel

Finally got it formatted for publication. There may be some errors but I’m posting the link anyway: Low Flight of Angels in the Benelux, and it’s free. Get your copy now. The cover art depicts the Muese River bank in the Belgian City of Dinant, where some of the action takes place.

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Biblical Patriarchy

Posted on June 26, 2013 by ehurst

Patriarchy is God’s idea, but by no means can we confuse that with Western patriarchal traditions.

In the Bible Wisdom is portrayed as a woman. She would never seek to rule, but does invite every man to take her as his spouse. The scandal in those first few chapters of Proverbs is how she almost has to act like a prostitute because few men really want what she has to offer. Fundamental in the context is that never rules, but she is a helpmate who supports him in his mission and calling from God. She cannot make him hear God, but she can help him make sense of how to obey God.

To portray her as a goddess herself is serious blasphemy. Few things were more repulsive in the Old Testament than a female deity. The feminine nature is wholly incapable of ruling to good result. Paul explains it best: “Adam was formed first and then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, because she was fully deceived, fell into transgression.” (1 Timothy 2:13-14 NET)

It’s not as if women cannot be spiritually enlightened; that was not the question. Women are not wired to make the ultimate decisions in morality. She is designed to be flexible so that she can serve on her husband’s team as he hears from God. If she senses a conflict, she never pushes her own demands. Never. It’s not a question of who is right and who is wrong on a particular issue. It’s a question of how the team will move forward on God’s moral imperatives. The two shall become one.

She knows she has no way separate from the marriage covenant and teamwork. That is, the man is wired to play the shepherd of God; the woman is to focus on motherhood as a role in the broadest terms. The man desperately needs her input, her perspective on building the nest. He needs to be reminded of why she does what she does, but he must get off his lazy duff, break away from his boyish self-occupation, and do the work of the shepherd.

European mythology portrays men as overgrown boys. They can range between excitable and childish to grouchy and self-centered, but it’s all a reflection of the man who never grew up. He simply became big enough to be dangerous. Virtually everything arising over the course of Western Civilization reflects the woman’s basic demand for a better nest. She uses the men to get it. Men are not natively interested in such things. Even the noble codes of honor reflect the feminine touch, the feminine concept of what men ought to do, be and want. She’ll pretend an interest in whatever the over-sized little boy pursues, but always with an eye to manipulating him.

So the first culture of what we think of as “civilization” was that of Cain, wholly materialistic. It’s not as if men can’t be hung up on stuff; they love their toys. But the type and shape of some stuff reflects a heavy interest in placating the peculiar nest-building instinct of women. In European culture, it always she who is serious, civilized, and morally superior. Her demands started with skin tents from Cain’s cattle raising, which also served to assert control over a richer food supply. It progressed to castles and political organization that raised the standard of living for a select few. These are not masculine pursuits, but men can be convinced this is all about their duty to “man up.”

Meanwhile, the shepherd culture of Seth and his kin leaves no mark on the earth. It is not characterized at all, but we gain a sense that Cainites really were driven to pursue stuff while Sethites simply used it. The materialistic drive to gain maximum control over the environment arises from a lack of trust in God, a badly broken relationship to His revelation. So, yes, Cain and his kin were inventors and innovators — movers and shakers — but Seth and his kin were otherworldly, calling on the name of the Lord.

Later in Scripture, when men are seized by God’s calling as shepherds, they are able to balance the materials demands of their wives and mothers while maintaining a faithful adherence to the moral imperatives of God. Men knew to evaluate everything in light of God’s demands and means for social stability. Women are not permitted to shepherd, to take up the ceremonial and religious roles of leadership. They are permitted to lead as senior mothers under the covering of their shepherd husbands. They can assist in leading in organizational matters in the church; every family needs a mother. The senior elder will always be a man, as she must always work under a moral covering.

This is not merely cultural; it is eternal in nature. Do things this way and God will pour out the blessings He promised from the very beginning. Defy it and everything you build will eventually wash away in the storms of His wrath.

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Ancient Justice

Posted on June 25, 2013 by ehurst

God’s Justice bears little resemblance to the moral assumptions of most Westerners.

Western justice is a hodgepodge of Roman, Greek and Tribal German morals. There is a semblance of tempering it with cold logic. However, the fundamental world outlook — the basic assumptions about reality — are mostly German Tribal mythology. The emphasis changes a bit from country to country; here in the US it’s mostly Anglo-Saxon traditional justice with a lot progressive gobbledygook and psychobabble thrown in the mix.

All the unspoken assumptions of what it means to be moral or just come from a known history and culture that excluded the God of the Bible until very late in the game. It was simply assumed without question it all had His stamp of approval.

It does not.

The very most basic Western assumptions about what is, what can be, and therefore what ought to be, are completely foreign to the Bible. Those of the Bible are so foreign to that of the US that most Americans can’t even recognize it. There is some visceral revulsion to what God said is His idea of justice.

I’m going to pick out one single issue: human life. This will be more comparative than simply descriptive.

In the Bible, life isn’t sacred in the sense that we claim it is for us. We act instinctively as if this life and this universe is all there is, and our sense of what is just depends on that notion. In the Bible, life is sacred only in the sense God is supremely sovereign in how it is used and ended. It belongs to God; no human owns his own life. God alone has a claim to it.

This alone is why the language of human rights is so blasphemous; it’s a direct attack on God’s Person and authority. You do not have a right to your life.

Further, God has delegated a measure of authority over human lives to a certain class of people He said He appointed to represent Him in certain contexts. It is generally role-based. From conception up through weaning, the life of the child is under the mother’s sole authority. Her role assumes a protective authority in the father of the child, but she is the final executive. She is directly accountable to God for executing His justice in regards to the life of that child within the social context. There is an assumption the father of the child will be involved; from there it includes some limited authority in the immediate kin whose blood runs in the veins of that child. Still, the ultimate decision is the mother’s. (Youth is not worshiped in the Bible — shock!)

You’ll notice right away it is complex and personal; it is blasphemous to attempt depersonalizing or objectifying this whole thing. It is all about persons and roles. God discusses how others can take a limited proxy for certain roles, but it’s all about people and we are moving on here.

During childhood, the rest of the immediate blood kin take a greater authority in the child’s life. No outside agency is permitted in any way to hold them accountable until that child is roughly nine years old, the age of concrete logic. It is the age at which symbolic learning (literacy) becomes genuinely possible, and there is a reasonable expectation that logic and intelligence has been developed functionally. Yes, most kids enter that stage at age eight, but need to use it awhile first. That is, they need to be able read and discuss what they read — presumably the simpler narratives of the Bible. This calls for them to begin forming the fundamental mythology of the culture. We use the term “mythology” here as the collective basic assumptions about reality, what is good and bad, etc.

After age nine, the child becomes a ward of the wider community in the sense they can participate in social life. The sexes are increasingly separated socially. At around age twelve, boys become apprentices of adulthood as symbolized in the Bar Mitzvah ceremony. Girls become apprentices of adulthood in preparation for marriage and domestic arts. The girls are generally kept away from all non-family males after age twelve or so. The emphasis is on removing temptation from the girls.

In adulthood, everyone is responsible to someone. There will always be someone who holds power over your life, someone delegated to the role by God’s revealed Laws. That someone must inevitably be kin by blood or marriage. Outsiders would seek to notify the perpetrator’s family if there is some crime. The family household is sacred to God. Your life becomes forfeit in quite a few ways, but someone in your family must have tried to teach you before age twelve, and certain reinforce it after that.

Certain kinds of major injustices you commit can forfeit your life to other families, clans, tribes, nations, etc. Lesser punishments are always possible, but there can be no precise and objective rules for this. It has to be fuzzy and flexible because people and contexts vary too much. Every family unit at every level is obliged to have at least one elder capable of judging most things. Taking the life of another will always follow prescribed reasoning under His Justice, and it is variable.

If you happen to include a spiritual awareness in this context, you begin to see life as a prison. It is something you hope to work through and depart at God’s earliest convenience. He remains the ultimate authority. Your human life is not a gift, but a burden. There are blessings from God in that life; a consciousness of calling defines your life and is the whole of whatever value it could have. There are some really fine moments, mostly consisting of insights into God’s character. This is how you see everything: a challenge for you to make sense of in light of what God has revealed to you. By no means do you regard your own life as precious and worthy of significant effort to preserve for its own sake. Rather, you hold it as a trust from God, to use for His glory in accordance with His instructions. You maintain it, or don’t, in the measure God reveals to you in your individual spiritual awareness. You don’t aim for a long life, but a just life, allowing God to decide a wide range of things typically referred to as “fate” in English. The idea is to seek insight into what that fate is coming from God’s hand today.

In God’s Justice, the value of a human life is whatever He says it is, and that definition fluctuates wildly by context over any given period of life. You presume blasphemously when you attempt to formalize it beyond what God revealed.

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Trumpets of Deception

Posted on June 24, 2013 by ehurst

Jesus offered a warning about trying to be noticed by people. When you attempt to fulfill moral obligations solely for how it looks to others, you have failed. Their notice is the whole of your blessing; God will not pay attention to such things. Jesus’ message is the source of our saying, “Don’t blow your own horn.”

So we have a raft of nifty slogans to encourage people to “be genuine” or “sincere” and it still serves that empty purpose. People who live those slogans don’t use them. When you are being your true self, you don’t have to tell anyone. Maybe they don’t notice you at all, but a dry soul can smell the water of sincerity from miles away. When you are genuinely giving to God, He’s the only one who has to notice. Whether He shows it to anyone else is His business.

People who feel compelled to live in the spotlight are not actually alive. They are fictitious in themselves, actors and fakes. You see it in government officials who make the most ridiculous pronouncements with a straight face. These are not normal humans. You see them at all levels.

I once had a complaint with the bus monitors when my son was attending school at AFCENT HQ. The allied military powers divided up the various bureaucratic responsibilities in the mixed school system. The Brits had the bus system. My son was roughed up by a kid twice his size and much older, right in front of a bus monitor who saw no need to intervene. The injuries did require medical intervention. As you might expect, the British bureaucracy resisted all efforts, refusing to even discuss accountability. You might reasonably ask what the bus monitors were for — apparently only to satisfy regulations and bureaucratic necessities, not to actually protect any kids from the misbehavior of others. They stated bluntly that they took their responsibilities seriously and denied any possibility of failure. I made it police matter to take it out of their hands, filing a report with the local Dutch authorities. The Dutch police acted on my complaint and the offending bully was forced to change his ways.

That was hardly the only time I experienced such Orwellian use of language. Orwell’s book described a world where the government created a propaganda “reality” that stood in some alternate universe. You realized you weren’t privileged to live in that other universe, but there was nothing you could do. The system was utterly closed unless you were lucky enough to find some voice they actually respected. Yours meant nothing. If you dared to avail yourself of that leverage, your punishment was typically worse than putting up with the original abuse. You had to decide it was worth persecution on some principle or another.

I was able to find champions often enough. Could I persuade you to believe it was because I didn’t abuse the alternative routing? That it was because I exhibited some effort toward being sincere and not working the system for some personal advantage? I won’t pretend I never lied, never faked it. Somehow I was able to convince a few folks that I wasn’t gaming the system.

You might take my word for it here as they did there. It’s unlikely anyone would investigate by interviewing all the folks involved some twenty-five years ago. It’s not worth that much effort against what I’m seeking to gain here. I’m not trying to build a reputation for myself, only for what I write. What I write is most certainly aimed often enough at destroying whatever reputation some liars may have gotten. Seriously: Who doesn’t see Nancy Pelosi and others lying through their teeth about Snowden? He uncovers spying and they have the gall to say he’s a spy? The only way it could be true is if Snowden were a PsyOp himself, in which case he would be Pelosi’s PsyOp (she makes herself part owner of the story), another lie.

Jesus referred to His government officials as mostly actors, using the term often translated into English as “hypocrite.” Near as we can tell, passing from His native Aramaic through Greek writings, it was meant to carry the connotation of acting as something they were not, claiming something with a straight face that could not possibly be so. I’m not claiming to be Jesus, much as I might strive at bringing Him to life in my own person, but I do claim my government is no better than His. My government hardly hesitates to abuse people with worse tortures than primitive crucifixion. At least Rome didn’t deny her brutality, though one particularly murderous emperor liked to brag about the sword in his hands being idle. Everyone figured he was being sarcastic. When the US blows a trumpet, you can guarantee it’s the ugliest lie possible, and you damn sure better echo it with all sincerity.

Our officials are mixed: some are cold and psychopathic in their brutality; others enjoy it with a lust that you can’t imagine. The notion there might be any significant number of decent people in the federal government is simply Orwellian nonsense. The US Empire makes the Romans look like a Sunday School class. If anything breathes life into John’s apocalyptic “Beat,” it’s the US government. Most all governments are bad enough, but it’s hard be less noble than the US government. If you can find a safe haven in almost any other jurisdiction on earth, take it.

I suspect the US assassins will eventually get you if they really want to, since our government officials take nothing so seriously as themselves. It’s hard to speak evil of US federal government without the risk of minimizing the severity, since we are unlikely to ever know the real truth of just how evil those folks can be. God knows.

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Moral Echoes of the Times

Posted on June 23, 2013 by ehurst

Anyone who feels the urge can be a prophet.

There is a certain sense anyone with moral intelligence is a prophet. If your goal is moral intelligence, you can’t avoid prophesying. It’s hard to keep it inside unless you utterly fail to discover the moral necessity of caring for others. In a challenge to our Western mythology, I offer biblical symbols: men are shepherds and women are mothers, particularly as prophets. Neither will stand by and watch their charges be trampled by evil, unless those charges have adamantly chosen evil. Then we stand waiting to take them back when they come running, torn by evil. We always bear the means to heal, even as we are torn by sorrows ourselves.

That’s what it feels like when you develop a divine moral intelligence. You recognize the limits of your calling and bear the awful duty to stand by and watch people destroy their own world. That’s because, at the same time, we recognize this world means mostly nothing more than an opportunity to expose that moral fabric of the universe. We see it all around us; we see all things in terms of that divine moral imperative.

Today I see a crushing weight of sorrow coming upon the US, though surely others will suffer with us. It will be our fault at least as much as theirs, for our government has placed her hands on so very many whom God did not give her to rule, and in areas of life she was never supposed to rule. You would be deeply mistaken to think the Devil will win. That’s not the reason God allows Satan room to operate. God is there; He has not been silent and He is hardly inactive. However, His work is hardly what most people expect. That’s because most people reject His revelation. So God does what He does, and those who choose to see will recognize His hand.

What’s coming is not what most people expect. The forces of oppression are hardly united, but they are ferociously active. Their ravenous appetites have been set loose from all restraints. Moral restraint must be conscious to work; rip through that fabric and in due time it will return to strangle you. But it works far more slowly than most people can grasp. It’s been a long time coming. Antichrist is a spirit of destruction, not a single person in history. He comes again and again, only to pass for a time until some society calls him back.

We have in very real terms a large collection of plutocrats. Each wants their own thing. Many of them presume they can work together, but when you push too far beyond the moral boundaries, you lose all sense of proportion. That is, the genius becomes stupid — that’s how it works. As their lust rises, their craft and intelligence withers. That’s Satan’s real job and his demons are not idle. Their competence will decline rapidly and they’ll get far more than they can handle. The evil they pour out on others will overwhelm them because they lose their ability to measure things. Choosing immorality takes you farther and farther from reality. There comes a critical point where you can’t even see what’s plain before your eyes. You are so sure you have won, you cannot see the complete failure.

What we see coming, even in the next few months, will manifest this moral truth. Stand by and watch. Sharpen your own moral understanding so you can appreciate what’s coming. You’ll see with your own eyes. Yes, it will hurt us in our own flesh. That’s the reality of living in this fallen realm. Moral wisdom will mitigate things only so God can show who is His. He decides what it takes to glorify His own name. Our calling is to see with His eyes what He is doing. We will not leave as with the Exodus, but we are to exodus in place, removing our loyalty to a domain above. If our hearts belong to Heaven, we know the flesh is of little importance. This life is a temporary resource for a short-term mission of His glory, then is cast aside as a tool worn and broken.

When you see that, you are on the path to truth and will be in a position to speak that truth.

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Ecclesiastes 7

Posted on June 22, 2013 by ehurst

In Hebrew culture, the ultimate symbol of manhood was the shepherd. It was a lonely work and required a quiet and watchful temperament. You learned not to expect much from sheep. While there is a place for the artistic exploration and wandering of the soul, it is for rebuilding the commitment of the shepherd to face the ugly reality of this fallen world. The greatest danger is the foolish young man clinging to his childhood and silly dreams of what might be. Grow up; it’s time to see clearly what is and understand it fully. Solomon was hoping to quiet the boisterous folly of young men in royal service by shooting holes in their boyhood games.

More than mere Hebrew parallelism, the first four verses here wander around a common theme. The first line sounds almost cute in Hebrew, as the words reverse similar sounds. The symbolism is very complex: a good reputation versus expensive perfumed ointment. Both have multiple associations that can be contrasted. Being considered wise and decent is better than being rich. The former is actually much harder to get and keep than the latter. If you die with friends who miss you, it’s worth more than an expensive funeral. More than echoing the sentiments of the previous chapter — that it’s a blessing to die at birth compared to living on this cursed fallen plane of existence — the symbols of birth versus death fill out the meaning of having a good name. People who live through adversity and face it with endurance get a good reputation, while simple worldly possessions have no reflection on your moral qualities. Newborns, wealthy or poor, aren’t remarkable for anything yet, despite the social ritual of talking nice about babies.

Children need a lot of careful education. Boredom is the mark of an empty soul. Frequent boredom indicates someone who is so empty they are utterly dependent on others even for their emotions. Cultivate a sense of contemplation, of paying attention and always seeking improvement. If you waste too much time seeking relief for boredom, you are no better than the silly fools who waste their lives in moral depravity. Don’t hang out with people like that. Don’t be consumed with ambition, because it is a symptom of moral depravity; at best it is a little boy building sand castles in his mind. Avoid developing the habit of oppressing others or taking bribes. Wait your turn, lest your foolish mouth offer the hardest lessons of life. Don’t fantasize about the old days that never were.

The best inheritance is moral wisdom. It allows you to shepherd those who don’t have so much. Money might protect your hide, but wisdom protects your soul. It allows you to make the most of both wealth and poverty. You can’t change what God has established in this world, so stop trying. Learn to deal with what this world throws at you, because your plans mean nothing against God’s. Sure, wisdom may not give a long life and plenty of evil folks live way too long. Long life by itself means nothing. Don’t pick too hard over the external details of orthodoxy and ritual purity. At the same time, don’t act like the Law means nothing. Don’t place too much emphasis on mere conduct or your life will be pointless and your death will come unexpectedly. Avoid the extremes. Focus on understanding your calling from God, not trying to organize reality for Him.

You can’t trust yourself, so don’t expect too much from even the highest ranking in the kingdom. Righteousness is a very elusive quality among humans. Let people vent; pay more attention to what they do than what they say. You’ve said plenty of things yourself that you couldn’t back up. Do you think God honors every blessing or curse that falls from human lips? Even with all his vast wisdom, Solomon could not understand this world completely. Some things will always be out of our reach.

Solomon was rather surprised to discover that among royalty and nobles you are likely to see more of the worst than much of the best of humanity. While good men were seemingly more rare in the upper stratus of society than among the peasants, it was well nigh impossible to find a good woman in high society. Plenty were crafty and dangerous, grasping at power and luxury like demons. In his massive harem Solomon found not a single good woman. It was almost enough to make him abdicate.

God made us for better things, but we waste no time in chasing down the worst.

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ACCM: Proposed Intro

Posted on June 22, 2013 by ehurst

For those of you following the project, A Course in Christian Mysticism, I got inspired mostly in terms of a spiritual slap upside the head. That led me to consider perhaps passing it on to those who check out the project. While the exact wording will have to change some, what follows is pretty much the content I expect to use:

********

Everything you believe is wrong, so most of what you do is equally immoral.

That is, if you are a Western Christian, you do not understand morality as God revealed it. Christianity is an Eastern religion. Jesus was a Hebrew man and the Bible is a Hebrew book. Parts of it were written in Greek, but it is all Hebrew thought. Anyone with an education knows the Hebrew people of the Bible were part of the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures and languages, possessed of an intellectual background quite alien to anyone raised and educated in the West.

The critical element in understanding the difference is found in the word “mysticism.” For most Westerners, this term carries a lot of luggage in the form of broad negative connotations. Western rationalism arrogantly dismisses what it cannot understand and control. Sad news for all the Christians who insist their religion must be rational: God is in control and the rational West is not His creation.

It’s not that our Lord simply chose the Hebrew people with their intellectual culture, as if He needed an extra challenge to His redemption. God created the Hebrew culture, including it’s intellectual background. Ancient Hebrew Mysticism was God’s idea, His chosen means to revelation. You don’t have to read Hebrew; you have to think in Hebrew mystical terms or you cannot possibly understand His Word.

The perception that God somehow changed His habits and morals between the Old and New Testaments is the arrogance of Western rationalism sneaking into the picture. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They didn’t misunderstand Him; we do.

Western morals are not moral at all. They arise from two heathen sources, and Christianity was simply a word thrown in to give it legitimacy. Ancient Hebrew morals are those of God, chosen as the only proper understanding for mankind after the Fall. Our departure from it is a blasphemous rejection of God’s Word itself.

Strong words? Not strong enough. God is destroying Western Civilization, and it can’t come quick enough for those of us who understand His Word. “Come out her, My people,” Our Lord warns. This course is designed to make that departure possible.

Be saved from this evil generation.

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Insecurity and Faith

Posted on June 21, 2013 by ehurst

The implications of human insecurity loom so large, there is at least one whole school of psychology that builds every therapy on the basis of it.

In a way, that’s not far from the truth. I disagree with most of the therapies, but I do agree with the underlying theme. Insecurity is very much the opposite of faith. Insecurity generates fear, anger, despair and a host of other soul-eating emotions. In many ways, almost all dysfunction and maladaptive behavior can be traced to insecurity. Your vulnerability to the control of others is keyed to your insecurities.

The path to peace and security is inside you. Nothing external can answer that need. God knows, the world has tried and is still trying every possible external remedy anyone can imagine. No one has ever been satisfied because no one has ever found peace in that route. It’s inside you. You could easily copy from the old Serenity Prayer because serenity in that context is analogous to security.

In our minds, it boils down to exploring our own personal limits. With patience examine the things in your world you handle well enough to be happy with it. Do not refer to whether others are pleased with it, but whether you are happy with the results. If others find your results useful, then share this thing with them. Be aware of the difference, though. Always be ready to share, but never presume.

At the same time, you simply trust in a higher power for the things you cannot handle. That is, handle the lack of control itself. Don’t frantically search for a control mechanism. Be glad if you find some leverage eventually, but learn early, and consider advice on the matter from those who are serene, on things not really worth pursuing.

All of which is news to no one who gave it any thought. The question of how and what we search for in terms of what we can control is the serious failure of Western Civilization. You cannot build on the West and expect to find serenity because, while the word is recognized with a certain pool of meaning, that meaning is at war with what God has revealed. You cannot ignore God’s revelation and expect to understand reality. That’s because God has revealed most of the answers in broad terms, and has amply explained how to go about discerning the details for yourself.

The primary failure of the West is demanding to know the outcomes and measurements, wasting vast resources on plumbing the depths of things not worth our short time on this plane of existence. God portrays a sense of peace that ignores failure as humans perceive it; that sort of failure has no bearing on whether you did the right thing. The standard of measure is His Justice.

Funny how it all boils down to something so simple: “Do this and you shall live” — where “live” is roughly equivalent to serenity.

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Otherworldly Treasures

Posted on June 21, 2013 by ehurst

“Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If then your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life? Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith? So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:19-34)

It’s too easy to read this out of context. This is part of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount passage. Jesus teaches the Law from the original Hebrew mystical intellectual assumptions, pointedly contrary to the contemporary Hellenized thinking of His opponents. To a Westerner, this sounds like promoting a listless “the world owes me a living” with God thrown in as the supplier. They miss the part about the eye as the lamp for the soul. What you see is determined by how you see.

Already men are planning how they will take everything you own. Here in the US, the government reserves the right to confiscate all worldly possessions on the whim of any armed agent of the state. More, these agents can confiscate your entire future on this earth via the absolute right to arrest and confine on the same empty whims. They can kill you simply for arguing, though most of the time torturing you is more fun. With each passing day, we see mounting evidence of declining accountability for these acts. You can frame it verbally any way you like, but these are the conditions under which we live. Consider this: Imagine the US government deciding there is a crisis because the world loses confidence in the dollar. So they reinstate a gold standard. Naturally it will match the newly inflated dollar value in price and you’ll face a “windfall tax” amounting to — oh, let me guess — 75% of the value of your gold in the new dollars. Payable in gold, of course. The reality will likely be worse. No matter what direction you take it, people at the top are determined to rip you off.

Such conditions are hardly much different from the oppression in Jesus’ day. Notice how He never counseled resistance. He pointedly said your middle class apprehensions about guarding your children’s future is tantamount to arguing with Him. Obey God and let Him worry about your children’s future. Because of the Fall, human liberty is not the default condition of mankind. Oppression is the norm. However much liberty and rights you could possibly have after the Fall are limited to a particular form of government and a social regime all Westerners reject without conscious consideration. So all this talk of liberty and rights is evil, a blasphemous rejection of what Jesus Himself said you should expect in this life.

If it belongs to this world, it stays here when you leave. Leaving is the whole objective, working through the calling God has placed on your life. You go home when He’s satisfied, or when He can no longer make use of you because you have fought His plans tooth and nail. That’s just for those He redeems; the rest of the world follows His plans as slaves do, knowing nothing at all of the Master’s plans. For them, it seems totally random, so they fight and scratch to get what little they believe is for their own comfort. We who are Spirit-born cannot act like that, cannot think like that.

Our treasures are in Heaven. We use everything and anything in this world to build up the Kingdom as a family trust. We participate in the greater bounty of God’s blessings. Whatever earthly blessings we receive here merely symbolize what we already have in Heaven. Yet American Christianity has damned itself by refusing to think and operate on that level. The worship of Mammon comes in all flavors in the American churches, showing up in the very willingness to accept the state’s strictures for tax exempt status. They have some silly notion those strictures are somehow under their control because they get to vote on which filthy psychopath we shall have over us making the rules.

I can take you to a very large evangelical church right now in my area where you can quickly discover God is a Republican. There’s a richer but smaller church just a few miles away that proves He’s a Democrat. That day Jesus first manifested His prophetic message by cleansing the Court of Gentiles of the Bazaars of the Sons of Annas, because they blocked the Gentiles from worshiping His Father, the crowd had seen His miracles and were ready to make Him their earthly king. They thought His actions heralded the new Messianic Kingdom everyone was expecting any day.

Now while Jesus was in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, many people believed in his name because they saw the miraculous signs he was doing. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people. He did not need anyone to testify about man, for he knew what was in man. (John 2:23-25)

Go ahead and squander your time chasing political winds of fortune; save up your guns and gold and long-shelf-life food. Pretend it makes any difference at all. Meanwhile, you know nothing of God’s plans because you prove by your actions you cannot understand His Word. Go ahead; cling to your fake Western Christianity, which is precisely what the Pharisees and Judaizers were hoping it would turn out to be. This should be entertaining.

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