Identify American

Source

Something I have often pondered is how does it come about that a nation’s people can come to hate their homeland? Now, I’ve traveled down that road a bit during my regrettable stint as a hippie. But I was not particularly political, I was there primarily for the drugs, as were 98% of that besotted generation. If anything, I hated myself, though blaming America and society became, for many, such a handy excuse for personal failings. But, be that as it may, I completed that journey. The prodigal daughter returned home, as do most prodigal children. That is, they do if they live in a society that allows for the freedom of the so-called personal journey, as America always has.

Americans pride themselves on being seekers of truth, spiritual sojourners. In fact, they treat religions and belief systems rather like hobbies or seasonal wardrobes. Tired? Bored? No problem,a new ‘ism is opening up shop just around the corner. Fill your ideological closet with the newest angst, moral dilemmas and social causes. Joking aside, it is well that it has always been that way. It is by such exploration that one comes to uncover the truth. By searching, experimenting, studying, comparing and finally, vetting one’s conclusions with reality.

But if one can’t openly do so without fear of repercussions, of censorship or imprisonment, the personal journey becomes an underground odyssey, furtive and claustrophobic, and often dangerous. And it doesn’t quite matter what you conclude that the truth is if said truth is not allowed to be uttered, discussed, or practiced. Ask anyone who has once lived in a Communist Bloc country. Or ask a muslim how free he is to test the waters of Buddhism or Christianity.

One would think that no one in this country embarks on personal journeys anymore. That they accept what has been handed them by family and teachers and never come to a point where they question why they believe as they do. Education has become indoctrination and curiosity seems to be extinguished. Introspection is confined to navel gazing emotional orgies or self-aggrandizing practices aimed at building self-esteem.

Yes, at one point I disdained my country and at another point I sat back one day and asked myself, why? Did I own that belief or was it just along for the ride, an unexamined passenger? Why did I have such a knee jerk reaction at the mere mention of Christianity? And, in time, the journey circled back to home. To values, principles and beliefs that have withstood every query, every assault that could be mustered against them. And as far as this country is concerned, I concluded that, indeed, America is exceptional, as nations go. And nations go in the direction their people go. Unfortunately, Americans have fallen into the spiritual and mental gulags carved out by multiculturalism and reinforced by political correctness. Now no one is proud of their country but instead, are proud to hate it.

And we are so damn young. Why the hell would I desire to roam the musty tombs of Europe’s past centuries when I can still romp through the fresh annals and adventures of the Wild West? Why should i eschew our brazen, bold American culture in favor of any other? And of what value is this so-called global citizen if they haven’t the simple grace of maintaining fidelity to the land that birthed them? What support or loyalty can a host country expect of the roaming expat who is, essentially, a rather unfaithful soul?

And for all of America’s transgressions, all evidence weighs in on the preponderance of good that our insane march through the last 300 years has wrought. For no other nation strode more swiftly down the corridors of history. No other nation accrued the multitude of triumphs that we produced in science, medicine, technology, industry and the gifts and bounty our presence and fervid diligence in all of these fields gave this ungrateful globe.

But if you buy into the zero sum nonsense preached by the left, for every resource an American uses, some other poor soul is deprived. If you accept the litany of inhumanities and travesties the left accuses America of and not come away feeling as if you have been subject to some ludicrously tall tale about a cartoon-ish villain, prompting you to do some research and find out the real dirt on this nation, well, then, your education has succeeded in packing your brain into a neat little pod.

Enjoy the box you huddle in but don’t go preaching to me that I need to get out of the box or push some mythical envelope in pursuit of some esoteric but utterly useless profundity found only on other shores or in other cultures. As if only America could author and execute evil. As if no other peoples are beset by that little demon called human nature and thus, do not engage in wars and slavery and all sorts of vile deeds. Yes we have that to our name, but our valor and achievements grossly outweigh our sins. Our efforts to tame the beast within have far exceeded the efforts of our enemies.

I am out of that proverbial box and like those youth in France, I am quite done with loathing my culture or country. And I am quite done with those who do.

Weaponizing Sex: A Luciferian Specialty

It has been my observation that old Lucifer regularly uses gifts God created for man’s good, for evil. A glaringly evident example is sexual desecration. I am not well versed in Scripture, but from what I have ascertained, the union of a man and woman is to serve as a symbol of the union between the church and Christ. Believers, or the church, are portrayed as the bride of Christ. Holy matrimony is just that; holy. Sexuality is merely a component of a far more transcendent experience than orgasm. But that is where humans are content to stop.

My theory is that very few have ever experienced the sexual and spiritual heights for which we were designed. We have been content with the carnal counterfeits, the sensationalized, shallow, brutish sexuality humans seem all too willing to practice. Satan excels in the use of counterfeits, delighting in our natural predilection towards sensuality, sloth and greed, knowing that the typical human being is so easily entrapped where comfort and gratification can be found. Transmogrifying sex into the ravenous beast it becomes when humans are unrestrained by God dovetails beautifully with Satan’s ultimate goal; desecrating, humiliating and devouring the human children God created for Himself.

Sexual depravity is played out in collapsed civilizations throughout time; it seems as soon as wealth allows for ease, the human wanders off the plantation into a world of trouble. And that is a quandary for which I see no answer except that which man keeps rejecting. And that answer is God, the God of Scripture. Because I have been wondering. Let’s just imagine that America manages to save itself, that we pull ourselves from the grip of parasitical socialism and re-boot the Constitution as our operating system and we are on course again. What will keep us on course if we are using the same navigational tools we have employed for decades? We will shipwreck into shoals of our own making. Again.

We are a nation rooted and grown in Judeo-Christian soil. We started out honoring and working with God’s design, adhering to His mandates. Since we are humans, we have accumulated some horrific deeds as a nation, no doubt. But imagine how it might have played out if the restraint that a Judeo-Christian civilization imposed had not been operative. Suppose muslims had discovered America first and their ideology sculpted this nation. How much mercy would islam had extended to the natives? Or what if those child sacrificing Aztecs managed to gain global dominance? Ironically, now that I think about it, Islam still remains a threat and American women have taken child sacrifice and it re-framed it as abortion.

Prior to the the Jews, women were property, subjected to slavery, prostitution. Temple harlot is about where the glass ceiling began prior to Judaism. God raised women from the primordial muck of sexual slavery to figures that were to be revered as wive and mothers. They became protected within the bonds of marriage. In other words, the morality that is now so virulently scorned was a big deal when God rolled it out to the Jews. Your everyday temple prostitute took note of a people who served a God who deemed that a woman’s life was as valuable as a man’s. Women took note of a people where children were considered precious, not subject to be gutted on the temple altar. Marriage, family, and children are foundational for a civilized society to function. Thus they are the prime targets in any and every campaign that the devil has waged against man and God.

So it matters quite a bit what we are witnessing here in America, though it is a global phenomena. And not by accident, but by design, which you can read about if you search “Soros” in my archives. He has spent billions on campaigns promoting abortion, same sex marriage, women’s “rights” along with the purported rights of gays. Sexuality isn’t merely a social issue to be bandied about politically. It is tool that has been weaponized by those seeking to destroy man from the beginning of the human race.

Parades, Boats, Normalcy,God, and America

Though I was never a big Beach Boys fan, their iconic tunes always seemed to herald the lazy, sun splashed days of summer. And now, as shimmering green laces the sea of trees outside my windows I hear in my mind snippets of their songs as memories of sixty years worth of summers assert their nostalgic grip. I can taste the hot dogs, smell the chlorine and Coppertone, hear the jet boats rumbling, see cherry red convertibles as they whip down hot tar, two lane highways, leaving a trail of music streaming behind them through the summer air. Verdant fields, teeming forests, robin blue skies, buzzing lawn mowers, back yard pools, squealing kids… an American summer has always resonated with hard work and hard fun. Sweating under a 100 degree sun and then chilling poolside with a beer and buddies when the long day is done. Hauling boats and campers, Americans used to stream across the country, heartily rewarding themselves for 50 weeks of hard work with two weeks of arduous enjoyment of the fruit of their labor. Back when I was a know-it-all lib I had viewed that life with contempt. That’s what the culture told me and when you are a non-discerning lib, you suck culture down like a ravenous pig at it’s mama’s teats. But, that’s another post…

We are all still living our lives as if this is still America. One commentator calls it “normalcy”. All appears normal, for the most part. The desperate poverty of communism hasn’t yet manifested, though that fast approaches. So we still have ads touting extravagances, national sports teams building arenas, happy-happy commercials where it seems most everybody, strangely enough, is dancing, as if all were well in the land. And today my small village had a parade to celebrate the 4th of July, all of this as we inexorably approach the 2012 elections which I, and many others, wonder if we will ever see.

Now this parade, if viewed by our elitist progressives, would be subject to the usual litany of disdain. Hodgepodge at best with just a smattering of decorations, just trailers that normally haul lumber or feed filled with kids tossing swarms of candy at more kids lining the sidewalk, but damn, those pick up trucks are shiny pretty, and that’s all that’s going down the road; trucks, Jeeps ,festooned golf carts, horses and dogs. . no shiny luxury cars, no gyrating, half-naked cheerleaders. Just Americans marching down their village’s main street in feisty and animated anticipation of a hot summer full of baseball and hot dogs.

This is my fourth summer living next to my peaceful, sweet river. Ten summers ago I wrote about luxury cabin cruisers for a small marine company who sold quite a few along this stretch. I did then, and do now, savor the craftsmanship and power imbued into mere pleasure craft. And though those over-sized cruisers no longer have buyers in a mid-western market ( or any market these days), at least the river is still dotted with smaller speed boats, though not near as many. I guess owning a boat gets kicked back up the food chain to the top tier. What was once a wonderfully affordable family recreation has now become a luxury item. But I am sure commie elites will appreciate a finely crafted boat, just not paying for it. When I did limo work I had a regular who, like the blood sucking tic he was, proudly professed being a communist. His entire boat floated in the sea of capitalism he claimed to despise. The cognitive dissonance in just that very aspect of a commie’s stunning lack of self-awareness boggles my poor, abused, redneck mind.

Anyway, this is a rather aimless post. I wrote very purposeful posts for years. Ripe with warnings about islam, and then, Obama. In fact, if I just start re-posting the stuff I have on Obama in the archives, I’d be perfectly current. The same stuff I and and thousands of other bloggers dug up on him in 2008, is just now seeing the light of day on a broad scale. Rather frustrating. I am not sure that the truth has any more impact now than then. When the president of a country lies with impunity for his entire term in office and the media dutifully repeat his lies, truth loses currency. It’s irrelevant to the left, who now run this blighted country. So I quit blogging after the last election. Not that I imagine my input has any weight at all, but it became too heavy for me to keep rolling up the hill.

A very faithful reader who used to visit tried to tell me that what we see now in America is God’s judgement, pure and simple. The America I love and so heartily want to revive into the nation it once was, is forfeit. I didn’t want to hear that. I still do not want to hear it. But the inevitability of our demise is so painfully evident. Truth be told, it has been for decades. We chose to ignore it. Many of us reveled in the destruction. The foul seeds we allowed to be planted in our soil have born fruit and that malignant harvest is now feeding the masses. And they want more.

And it seems God will give it to them. In fact, it’s a promise:

Romans 1: 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

And I guess that is where I’m headed with this post, this examination of the nature of the curse we are apparently under, well deserved, I hurry to state, much deserved. But it goes to a lot of misconceptions about God that American Christians have had taught to them. And I have been struggling with that, trying to dis-entangle from the easy peasy Christianity we’ve had fed to us. It turns out it ain’t exactly easy peasy. Oh, no doubt that it has been, as we live in the lap of luxury, measuring God’s grace by bank account balances. And I say all of this as someone who has spent most of her life as a heathen. I’m not approaching this as one who has been faithful. Not at all. I am quite seriously trying to find my way back, get back on the road.

Have a big impediment though. I want to annihilate our enemies, domestic and foreign. And my passion for freedom and individualism dangerously approaches idolatry. That’s the problem, I guess, with a God, who will allow you enough rope to hang yourself, though He’d much rather that we didn’t. Nope, not much of what’s in my heart these days lines up with God. And given the times we are in, I’d really much prefer to be fighting in God’s army. Problem is that the only artillery that I know ain’t found in Scripture. These notions of love and forgiveness are just all over the place. Highly annoying. More annoying because I know God doesn’t lie and His word really puts way too much emphasis on this love thing, so, I figure it must be a type of love I have never ever seen, or recognized it when it manifested. Most love humans are accustomed to is impotent, or even malignant, issuing, as it is, out of this heart that the same God also correctly assesses as utterly vile. What’s a human to do?!?!

Well, this human plods along and goes back and forth between two preachers – Voddie Baucham and Paul Washer – who eviscerate American gospel with God’s Word. And that is when the stark and daunting nature of this God, our God, sinks in. When Scripture is correctly taught, one becomes painfully conscious of the God we daily blaspheme. The choice, then, is to dismiss it, as most Christians have done, redefining God into a cuddly benefactor who would never again be like He was in the OT. He’s evolved, don’cha know?

Well, no, He hasn’t. He doesn’t need to. But even if it burns my eyes and soul to get close enough to Him to possibly serve Him, I’ll keep trying. Because I’ve already served Satan. I do not recommend it. Old Lucifer leaves you with an incredibly damaged spirit that is bloody hard to  put back together. Trust me on this.

So, now this post is too long, as are all my bloated posts. Oh well, I have no audience and the stray reader will not have gotten this far.
But writing is what I do to get from A to B. And in the next post we go to the Book of Daniel where one of these fine pastors, Voddie Baucham, describes how it is to be God’s favored people… if you’ve screwed up. Here it is if you are interested. It’s a series, but I have been pondering these two in particular.

September Eleven

Shadows Come

I listen to the voice of the train making it’s way east, a cacophony of whistle and thunder and clattering, muted by distance, but sharp edged as it resonates across the river. Now the whistle blows – but growing quickly fainter… the thundering…the clattering… gone. And now the sounds of the birds gathered at the feeder chatter back into my hearing, the swish of a passing car on the road below, all cocooned by this village’s velvet silence.

These homes.., these slightly tilting, nary-a-plumb-line-to-be-found homes stand as sentinels along the banks of the Ohio. I often wonder who their owners were, that such a small town could boast this avenue of once grand ladies, their grandeur rather forlorn, more so for never having been abandoned. And all these lady’s feet have been washed by the Ohio River, indeed, that river threatened many a time to climb right up their skirts…….but they stood. Their foundations shift, cracks write long lines of narrative across walls that have seen more human lives than can ever be written, all part of a village with roots over two hundred years old, built when the land supported people who were, well, true Americans……

The wind skitters through the branches now, trailing a shawl through early fallen leaves across lawns grown weary of trumpeting summer’s fecundity. Autumn has sent harbingers of her arrival and summer seems eager to bid adieu.

Normally I would snuggle cozily in the anticipation of winter’s cold, but now upon this land march harbingers trumpeting ill winds and evil weather unlike any we have ever known in all of our nation’s history. There may be no warmth to snuggle in and our hands may be stayed from putting food in the larder, and the grandchildren we normally would be buying early Christmas gifts for become the sum and substance of the only reason we live because now…now we can’t see their lives unfolding as ours did, or as our parents and grandparents did. We are realizing that we have to imagine a future where they must learn to fight for their very lives and Christmas, if even allowed to continue, will never be the same ….. Is this what people in the past felt like when the shadow of war and tribulation approached?

They Are Not Going to Let us Hide. They Are Not Going To Stop

(Source)

Ruminations: On Screwtape

I’m re-visiting C.S.Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. For those unfamiliar with the work, Screwtape is a devil mentoring  his novice nephew on the art of leading a human to hell. God is referred to as “the Enemy”. Said nephew is losing control of his charge and Screwtape is exasperated with him.

“And now for your blunders. On your own showing you first of all allowed him to read a book he really enjoyed, because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks to his friends. In the second place, you allowed him to walk down to the old mill and have tea there… In other words, you have allowed him two real, positive Pleasures. Were you not so ignorant as to see the danger of this? … How can you have failed to see that a real pleasure was the last thing you ought to have let him meet? Didn’t you foresee that it would just kill be contrast all the trumpery which you have been so laboriously teaching him to value?… As a preliminary to detaching him from the Enemy, you wanted to detach him from himself… Now, all that is undone.

Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When he talks of their losing their selves, he only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, he really gives them back of their personality, and boasts (I am afraid sincerely) that when they are wholly his they will be more themselves than ever….

The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting point, with which the Enemy has furnished him. To get him away from those is therefore always a point gained…” Source

“He really likes the little vermin…” I love that! Because He apparently does, otherwise, I’d have been turned into a smoking cinder a long time ago, though I have a hard time imagining what about me God might like.

“..and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them..” I always find it edifying to observe the political agenda of the left can usually be distilled down to a pointed attack on an attribute or quality a child of God is endowed with. The left’s hydra-headed monster of multiculturalism and political correctness serve to erase all that is unique and distinct amongst all peoples. I can not imagine why the resulting amorphous blob is appealing. Contrary to the left’s skewed perceptions, America has been the most amazing example of many peoples coming together without violating their hereditary cultural identity. But again, examining the target of the left’s arrows will likely reveal what the enemy fears the most. And the enemy, be they in human or demonic form, reviles the fact that when a human surrenders to God, the uniqueness He has endowed us with individually blossoms into full fruition.

“When he talks of their losing their selves, he only means abandoning the clamour of self-will..”. Aha!  Self-will. Well, as life reveals,  that which can be of great blessing has within it also the capacity of great evil. Self-will is the arena where  my – and I suspect the same is true of most – fiercest battles lie. And I say I battle God, but I only battle this self-will. The individuality that I so covet and vociferously defend becomes an idol if not shaped by God’s hand, sculpted by the wisdom that His instructions impart.

At the risk of crass comparison, God’s gifts are like the free software you can download for 30 days. For the software to function at full capacity it will have to be registered or functionality will be limited. I am going to go with speculating that, in God’s kingdom, repentance constitutes registration. Now, once the software has full functionality, you’ll only benefit from it’s capabilities if you learn it. If you immerse yourself in it’s properties, it will excel. Likewise, what God has given us must be explored, absorbed, imbibed, and drunk daily in order for us to function as the blessed creatures He designed. But we must immerse ourselves in God’s word, per the instructions in God’s version of the “README” file; the Bible.

So, continuing with this analogy, if you fight God, it’s rather like fighting software. I always end up at cross purposes with the various programs I use. I hate reading instructions. By neglecting to do so, I butt heads with the reality of the programming. I have to read the instruction to obtain the desired results, no matter how much I am inclined to regard my own wisdom superior to the programmers. And, bottom line, the same is true with God’s programming. I am a spiritual being clothed in flesh, engaged in a battle that, should I fail to win, my soul is forfeit. The stakes are high. I either accept God’s programming, learn it and yield to His power, or I spend more energy extracting myself from crashes than fulfilling my purpose. And the old devil loves it when we are stuck in a rut.

Here’s the thing…if we take at face value that we are are built to fit God, designed to serve Jesus, our purpose divinely imbued into our very being – if we accept that *** – than to act counter to our design is to invite ultimate failure. A Ferrari will run, even if driven as an off-roader using low grade fuel and cheap oil, but, it will eventually collapse, well short of it’s expected lifetime. Human beings are tantamount – much to Lucifer’s never ending ire and repugnance – to a Ferrari amongst God’s creations. But we refuse to take our design, or Designer, seriously. We don’t use the README file. And much like we curse the programmer of software we can’t get to work, we curse God when our lives crash.

Software crashes are survivable. Soul crashes – not so much.

*** If you do not accept the premise, which is fine by me, don’t attempt rebuttal. We have different realities.