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It was the 90s, a new decade. The cold war had ended and the highly contentious relationship, between the United States and the Soviet Union, was no longer being played out in a high profile way, on the United Nations Security Council. Even China was behaving well, as it was dabbling in the global market economy. It appeared, for a time, that the world had become a more friendly place for people reclaiming their right to be the arbiters of their own destiny while expressing themselves through their fledgeling democracies.

Mikhail Gorbachev had relaxed restrictions on private property and introduced initial market reforms. The privatization of Russia’s state-owned assets had begun as Boris Yeltsin, the first President of post-Soviet Russia set a goal to sell state controlled assets to the Russian public. To facilitate wide participation, vouchers were issued so all Russian citizens, including minors could buy shares.

Vladimir Putin had commanded the FSB, a successor to the KGB, as Director. He was later appointed as Prime Minister and uniquely positioned, early on, to manipulate markets and benefit personally from the rise of the oligarchs that had by then captured most of the equities intended for Russian citizens. Putin attached himself to the Russian oligarchy in such a way as to receive a piece of their action that, according to some, amounted to as much as fifty percent.

The oligarchs and Putin had not only redirected the new equities, they also stole the emergent democracy out from under that country’s citizenry. Putin became president in 2012. It would appear that he could hold that position for as long as he wants it. In 2018, China also removed the term limit on their presidency giving Xi Jinping that power for life. These factors, coupled with the diminishing authenticity of democracy within the United States, makes the five member United Nation’s Security Council about equally divided between the forces of Autocracy versus Democracy.

The United Nations was never a federation of democracies nor was it ever intended to be. It was formed and informed by experience gained; from a failure of the League of Nations to the hard fought victories of World War Two. The primary consideration for the Allies then, was to insure there would be no backsliding into the conditions that fomented that devastating war. And so, they gave themselves veto power over any UN initiative.

It is that veto power that stands in the way of humanity’s greatness, of self government, of world peace. The people of Russia, of China, and of other so-called rogue nations are not the enemies of representative government. It is, rather, their egomaniacal leaders, together with others who possess an exaggerated sense of self-importance. 

Why is it that the most animalistic savages continue to terrorize the people of Afghanistan? Why do developed nations have immigration problems? Why are there no safe-havens in Central America where people from strife-torn countries can gather to strategize on how best to regain control of their respective homelands? The United Nations, as presently constituted, is largely impotent.

On April 5^th in 2000, The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations published a report titled United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and Their Proliferation. In that report it was revealed that “since 1995 U.S. participation globally in U.N. peacekeeping missions has generally numbered 500 to 1,000 troops, less than 5% of the total, and today’s total includes primarily U.S. civilians (not soldiers) at that.”

Even when it does mount peacekeeping missions, it is so internally conflicted as to render those missions ineffective. Why else would UN Peacekeepers be on standby in Rwanda while the Hutu slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis? In May of 2019, The American Foreign Service Association published an article titled Why Peacekeeping Fails. That article included the statement: “. . . U.N. peacekeeping has become a way for rich countries to send the soldiers of poor countries to deal with conflicts the rich countries do not care all that much about.”

It is clear, that the International governing body that our world looks up to, is a politically stymied debating society first and foremost. That having been said, there have been positive developments within the World Court. But, even in that venue, the Security Council members have given themselves the kind of absolute immunity that stems from the supposed infallibility of popes and kings. 

The world needs a true federation of democracies with all that implies including most favored nation status for the most authentic of the democracies. For that to occur, the UN must be re-chartered to protect the world from the tyranny of the most self-serving minority. What would incentivize the authoritarian members of the Security Council to agree to such an arrangement? Money!

If the UN fails to evolve into a world federation of democracies, one of the regional federations will undoubtedly succeed. If most favored nation status is then keyed to the authenticity of each constitutionally grounded democratic republic, the business community and the consumers will notice, while the three flows of commerce; capitol, goods, and information will be directed to the most deserving of those entrepreneurial nations.

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We possess free will. With this endowment comes responsibility and the potential for error, evil, sin and iniquity. Though we are the final arbiters of our own destiny; pre-destination and fore-ordination are reality factors with which we must contend. To put it another way, each child of destiny has the power to accept or reject the divine plan. Whether we achieve our first, best destiny is entirely up to us.

Within our wide range of choices are perfection and imperfection, the mature and the immature, the complete and the incomplete. Between life and death stand the committed and the uncommitted. To every person across a far-flung universe of universes, Our Creator’s message is consistent; “I set before you life and death, therefore choose life.”

The first point of law is life. We are, first and foremost, commanded to live. Evil is more than just a reverse spelling. It runs contrary to survival. Now we often have problems thrust upon us or difficulty letting go of certain things, attitudes, and patterns of thought that tend to eclipse or impair a full and fruitful life. Figuring out what’s good and what’s evil is part of the growth process, right? Is experience a necessary part of life? Yes! Is there the potential for error? Yes! Are you responsible for your decisions? Of course! Are you unjustly held accountable for the sins of your forebears or everything that goes wrong in your life? Hardly!

Our ultimate survival is not so much about the things beyond our control or programmed responses, as it is about gaining control through our free will choices. You’ve heard or read that all have sinned. You’ve also learned that the wages of sin is death. So why aren’t we all dead? If justice reigned supreme throughout this universe, we probably would be. Fortunately, for all of us, true justice is tempered with mercy, and divine justice will not destroy what God’s mercy can save. Mercy takes into account the fact of our weaknesses as growing, imperfect beings.

Our Father did not create evil, although he did create the gift of free will. In so doing he created the potential for evil. At our stage of growth, learning to prove all things and adhering to that which is good is an essential part of life. There will undoubtedly be errors, bad habits and perhaps even compulsion to overcome. But once we’ve identified actual or potential evil and continue to choose it, or refuse to let go of it, well, that is what we call sin.

Where the term ‘sin’ traces its roots to archery and missing the mark, iniquity is wholehearted rebellion against the Divine will. It is not something we mistakenly choose, stumble into, get goaded into, or lured into. It’s not something we reluctantly choose or are forced to accept in a time of weakness or out of ignorance. It is not an attempt at choosing the lesser of two evils. Iniquity is willful defiance. It is when evil or sin is deliberate, because it is contrary to Divine law.

Iniquity is a direct assault on the organizing principle of the universes, an attack on the unifying and coordinating qualities we’ve come to know as truth, beauty and goodness. Our rightful inheritance is family unity. Jesus told us: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Where Our Father sows love, our enemies sow hatred. Where we would reap love, the forces of evil would advance chaos and have us fully immersed in ill will.

Some believe that unity is obtained through uniformity. Others hold that unity is only achieved at the expense of honest deliberation. And so, I put these questions to you in light of these historical considerations: Was the Lucifer Rebellion quashed? No! Was any effort made to suppress? No! From the start of the Lucifer rebellion each individual was left free in his or her choice.

The rebellion was permitted to run its full course. Or, as John wrote in the Book of Revelations, “The dragon was loosed for awhile.”

Why is that? It is precisely because we are a family. And Our Father is dealing with a universe full of free-willed individuals who must be afforded every opportunity to make an informed, deliberate, wholehearted and final choice. There is no enduring value in corralling individuals into a superficial allegiance through fear and intimidation, through the hellfire and brimstone imagery of ages past. Those who simply go along to get along are not likely to exude the quality of loyalty when tested. 

We must each get to that place in our own spiritual journey where we can, with depth of conviction and in all sincerely, pray to God saying; “It is my will that your will be done.” For after all is said and done, Our Father desires only the devotion that is voluntary and sophistry proof.

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There is nothing uglier than a lack of appreciation. And American news viewers can see it every day in the faces of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, and Jim Jordan. In contrast, the police officers that put their lives on the line to protect these scoundrels would do it again because, unlike their ungrateful protectees, the officers sworn to protect the capitol and its inhabitants are principled. January the 6^th in 2021 revealed the extent to which almost a third of our national adult population has been snookered.

Most of us can see the difference between an elected representative acting in ways true to their oath, and one that would sink our constitutionally grounded democratic republic to hold on to their form-fitting seats. The participants in the racist riot were chanting many of the right words, while also failing to recognize just how far afoul they had strayed from the principles to which they payed lip service. Their emotion driven pastors believe in their own supposed subject matter expertise within each and every discipline.

Many of these are the same people that railed against moral relativism just a few short years ago. Now they champion it. They thump the King James Bible while justifying their attitudes of white supremacy. They traded their Christian witness for a masquerade long ago. Atheists and secularists point to the pseudo-religious hucksterism together with the way its practitioners parade hypocrisy as a point of pride.

The Trumpeters shouted “Jesus is Lord” while dishonoring almost everything about his exemplary life and teachings. The Jesusonian observation that “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” is altogether ignored by the fearful hoards that place their faith in kinetic weapons. Love your enemies is hardly apparent in the videos of police being beaten with flagpoles on the capitol steps.

While counterfeit Christians would likely agree, on some cosmetic level, with a Top-40 playlist within the about Jesus genre, they exhibit a reckless indifference to the truth as exemplified by The Way, The Truth, and The Life. And, it appears to those secularists, who would minimize the Jesusonian influence, that people chanting his name have very little regard for the religion of Jesus. A couple of decades ago people within the churches were asking themselves “What would Jesus do.” Now, it seems, such questions are avoided as if they are masks and vaccines.

Modern day deceivers work by selectively amplifying, filtering, and contextualizing facts. And it’s much easier for those intent on building a religion about Jesus to place emphasis on whatever suits them. The militant Jesus is depicted as an out-of-control maniac, ranting in the temple courtyard, while flipping over the money tables. The true Jesus was exhibiting a fatherly affection and was protecting his children from those who made a habit of exploiting the poor while turning the Father’s temple into a den of thieves.

The religion of Jesus is not quite so malleable as the religion about Jesus. Jesus is motivated by true love, not a lust for power. As the Creator Son, he placed high value on our right to be the true arbiters of our own destiny. When he said “I stand at the door and knock,” he also made it clear that he would honor our individual decisions with respect to whether or not we open that door to let him come in.

In contrast, the whited sepulchers of today would usurp the authority of each of us as individuals and our collective will as a great humanity. They have no intention of delivering anything close to fidelity of representation as they prostitute themselves for the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth. And they have put their peculiar form of blasphemy center stage as they make a mockery of all things sacred. They have sullied the name of Jesus, as well as The Way, The Truth, and The Light.

The Goebbelian doctrine holds that the truth is the enemy of the big lie and is, therefore, the enemy of the state. Of course our state is not fully persuaded that it should wholeheartedly embrace the lie. There are still sentient beings walking among us. There are those who still hope for a glimmer of statesmanship as they try to see past the political sophistries.

The problem for McConnell, McCarthy, Graham, and Jordan is that the truth never suffers from close examination whereas the lie always gets exposed eventually. While their boisterous constituencies are addicted to the self aggrandizement that always accompanies an exaggerated sense of self importance, there are still people of good will working quietly to improve the human condition. There are two kinds of churches, the ones that lean Luciferian and the ones that are decidedly Jesusonian.

There are also two kinds of democratic republics. There are the ones that are inauthentic and there are the ones that are decidedly authentic. The authentic ones don’t like the kind of politics where “poli” means many and “tics”: means blood sucking parasites. Authentic democracies place a premium on true statesmanship.

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In the seventeenth chapter of Genesis it is written: “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said; I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” Although we can hardly hope to attain perfection in the infinite sense, it is entirely possible for us to fit perfectly into our highest and best destiny, to attain all that God has set before us. When we achieve this, in accordance with His will, we will be just as replete in our finite domain as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. We may not be universal, unlimited in intellectual insight, or final in any spiritual sense, but God is working right now to perfect our motivation, and our understanding of his will for us.

We live in a strife-torn world. And honing our effectiveness when the situation demands articulation in matters of faith and a world of competing ideas, is essential if we are to fulfill our ministerial obligations. Perfection in life temporal is a progressive attainment; and this applies to discernment and perception. God reveals himself to us in accordance with our capacity to behold him. Because we each minister within our own sphere of influence, it is important to see that world and its proper context within God’s Universe of Universes.

As we blow through our circumscribed world view and challenge each other’s assumptions, we become better positioned to explore the notion of adjusting to Infinity and Eternity. We are ambassadors of an Infinite and Eternal Heavenly Kingdom operating on an isolated, temporal, finite, rebellion torn world. Our understanding of this world and its people is crucial to our success. 

In what became known as his Whit Sunday Sermon, C.S. Lewis discussed “transposition.” His treatise is not so much about modulating from the key of C to D but rather taking Truth from a higher plane to a lower plane or from a higher to a lower language. Lewis illustrated the problem of portraying Spiritual realities this way:

“If you are to translate from a language which has a large vocabulary, into a language that has a small vocabulary, then you must be allowed to use several words in more than one sense. If you are to write a language with twenty two vowel sounds in an alphabet with only five vowel characters then you must be allowed to give each of those five characters more than one value. If you are making a piano version of a piece originally scored for an orchestra, then the same piano notes which represent flutes in one passage must also represent violins in another.”

He continued: “As the examples show we are all quite familiar with this kind of transposition or adaptation from a richer to a poorer medium. The most familiar example of all is the art of drawing. The problem here is to represent a three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper. The solution is perspective, and perspective means that we must give more than one value to a two-dimensional shape. Thus in a drawing of a cube we use an acute angle to represent what is a right angle in the real world. But elsewhere an acute angle on the paper may represent what was already an acute angle in the real world: for example, the point of a spear on the gable of a house. The very same shape which you must draw to give the illusion of a straight road receding from the spectator is also the shape you draw for a dunces’ cap.”

In summary, Lewis said: “It is clear that in each case what is happening in the lower medium can be understood only if we know the higher medium. The instance where this knowledge is most commonly lacking is the musical one. The piano version means one thing to the musician who knows the original orchestral score and another thing to the man who hears it simply as a piano piece. But the second man would be at an even greater disadvantage if he had never heard any instrument but a piano and even doubted the existence of other instruments. Even more, we understand pictures only because we know and inhabit the three-dimensional world.”

Jesus routinely shared concepts that were foreign to many of his followers. The mysteries of the kingdom were presented in what he called parables. To his enemies such parables were not understood and thus would not arouse antagonisms. The parabolic analogy, whereby the story has a directing arc and a principle focus, is also an ingenious way to convey meaning that gracefully transcends gender, culture, and time. When you are working with masses, individuals, or groups of varying intellects and temperaments, you cannot speak different words for each class of hearers. You can however tell a story to convey meaning and each individual, will be able to make his or her own interpretation of your parable in accordance with their own intellectual and spiritual endowments.

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When they arrived on the scene, Adolf Hitler wasted no time in making the pronouncement: “This is a God-given signal.” He continued: “If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.” The scene was the parliamentary building in Berlin, the Reichstag, that went up in flames from an arson attack. The date was February 27^th in 1933.

It was a flashpoint event that made it possible for Adolf Hitler to play upon public and political fears and thereby consolidate power, setting the stage for the rise of Nazi Germany. The competing narratives and revisionist history only added to the national chaos, while also facilitating power grabs. To some, it was a Communist plot, to others the staging of Antifascism. It is certain that Hitler played upon the FIBS of Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear to consolidate power, thus setting the stage for the rise of Nazi Germany. Today, the “Reichstag Fire” is a powerful political metaphor that serves as a cautionary tale.

Germany’s liberal democracy was first established at the conclusion of World War I. The 1919 Weimar Constitution called for the president to be elected by direct ballot. The legislators that comprised the Reichstag were also elected by popular vote, while the president would appoint a chancellor to introduce legislation. The president held the power to dismiss his cabinet, the chancellor, and even to dissolve an ineffective Reichstag. In cases of national emergency, the president could invoke Article 48, which gave him dictatorial powers and the right to intervene directly in the governance of Germany’s 19 territorial states.

The economic and political unrest of the early 1930s meant that no single political party had a majority in the Reichstag, so the nation was held together by fragile coalitions. The political chaos prompted President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag over and over again. With each dissolution came new elections. Hitler rose to the head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Nazis. By 1928 the group’s membership exceeded 100,000. The Nazis denounced the Weimar Republic and what they called the “November criminals,” that had signed the Treaty of Versailles. That treaty had forced Germany to accept responsibility for World War I, pay reparations, transfer territory to their neighbors, and limit the size of the military.

When the Great Depression hit, sending the U.S. and Europe into an economic tailspin, the number of unemployed in Germany rose to about 30 percent of the adult population. As one might imagine, with 6 million unemployed, there was massive social upheaval. This the Nazis exploited. By 1930, they won 18.3 percent of the Reichstag vote and became the second largest party after the Social Democrats. The Communist party gained about ten percent of the vote.

The Nazis, by attracting voters from other right-leaning factions, then garnered 33 percent of the vote. In January of 1933, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor in the desperate hope that the other conservative parties would join with the Nazis to keep the Communists out of power. The Nazis infiltrated the police. Hitler also used his powers as chancellor to enroll 50,000 Nazi SA men, known as the brown shirts, as auxiliary police.

On February 28, Hindenburg invoked Article 48. The cabinet drew up the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press. It legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence. And, it suspended the autonomy of federated states. That night around 4,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured by the SA.

The SA was founded out of various emotionally charged and intellectually stunted elements that had attached themselves to the fledgling Nazi movement. Its early membership was drawn largely from armed freebooter groups. These were mainly ex-soldiers, that battled leftists in the streets in the early days of the Weimar Republic. Outfitted in brown uniforms after the fashion of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Blackshirts in Italy, the SA men protected party meetings, marched in Nazi rallies, and physically assaulted political opponents. 

In the United States today, the former president has repeatedly characterized those protesting the systemic murder of black citizens as “thugs,” “terrorists,” and “anarchists.” He has also praised individuals who participated in the insurrection of January 6^th in 2021 as “great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” Trump empathized with those who had violently stormed the Capitol, saying, “I know your pain, I know your hurt.” He then said, “We love you.” 

Former White House chief of staff General John Kelly recently wrote that, during a 2018 visit to Europe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, then president Donald J. Trump said: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.” Many have since compared the Reichstag’s Fire to the White House deceptions that were architected by Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Miller, a protege of Joseph Goebbels. During his stint as the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels the defined truth as “The enemy of the state.”

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When realities are meaningful, we develop an appreciative consciousness of values. When relationships are recognized and appreciated, we grow individually, socially, and spiritually. Our most closely held values are ideally cultivated within the context of personal experience thriough relationships.

William Glasser was an American psychiatrist. His theories were arrayed largely in opposition to conventional mainstream psychiatry. Where the prevailing tradition was to focus on classifying psychiatric syndromes as “illnesses” and prescribe psychotropic medications to treat mental disorders, Glasser believed that people sometimes process their frustrations in unhealthy ways, acting out due to a lack of any meaningful personal connection with the most important people in their lives.

Glasser’s emphasis was on education and in developing frameworks for finding and following healthy therapeutic direction. After being thrown off the staff at a VA hospital due to his anti-Freudian beliefs, He worked as a staff psychiatrist at a school for delinquent youth. There he developed many of the ideas that became the basis for what he called reality therapy. He authored and co-authored many influential books on mental health, counseling, school improvement, and teaching.

At the heart of Reality Therapy is Control Theory, and the latter is how Glasser often referred to his body of work. By 1996, the theoretical structure evolved into a more comprehensive methodology and it was renamed Choice Theory. From the very beginning, reality therapy, emphasized the present. The goals are to change current behavior, improve relationships, and thereby address the prevailing mental health conditions. Glasser believed that disconnects, from others, are at the core of the unhappiness that ensues, a person’s general dissatisfaction with life, and sometimes a variety of physical symptoms, including chemical imbalances.

His critics, are quick to point out, it is the legacy issues and resulting internal states that may be causing a person’s troubles. In reality therapy, the process begins by guiding a person’s attention away from past behaviors in order to focus on those that occur in the present. Practitioners hold that present needs are what’s most relevant, as they are the needs that can be satisfied.

From a philosophical perspective, the “here and now” focus on choice dovetails nicely with the alternative scenarios that were described long ago, in the Book of Deuteronomy, wherein God said: “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.” Choice Theory emphasizes responsibility, commitment, and a willingness to change. The counseling process starts with assessing the state of relationships and any unmet needs, exploring what behaviors clients are manifesting that either help or prevent them from meeting their needs. It then aims to help them find better ways to improve relationships and fulfill their needs.

The unified mind of Jesus is our greatest example of what can be achieved through self-mastery. Successful living is built upon superior habits and dependable techniques for solving common problems. The solution to any problem often becomes obvious when the reason for such difficulty is first located and isolated. Impediments may include an inability to recognize our problems due to our failure to grapple with and overcome our most profound fears. Add to this our other common human foibles such as envy, deep-seated prejudices, clinging to illusions of safety and false feelings of security and the nature and gravity of our situation can be obscured. 

The abandonment of fear, comforting illusions, and our long-cherished conceit is prerequisite to any real understanding of what a sincere and logical mind discovers. Within us is a powerful conspiracy of spiritual forces that can effect our final deliverance from the bondage of fear and the handicaps of time. We are, in purpose and ideals, empowered increasingly to subject the animal nature to the mastery of the Spirit. Evidence of character and the true measure of self-mastery stem from our trustworthiness.

The world presents plenty of evil, real and potential. This contrastive perfection and imperfection is stimulative of the choosing between truth and error, good and evil, righteousness or missing the mark. Prayer effects positive and enduring change within the individual who prays with sincere faith and confident expectation. It is the forerunner for peace of mind, cheerfulness, calmness, courage, fair-mindedness, and self-mastery.

Jesus told us it is by our love, for one another, that we will convince the world it is truly possible to pass from bondage to liberty, from darkness and death into light and life everlasting. To become the living channel of spiritual light to the person who sits in spiritual darkness is an ennobling experience. In the effectual working of God’s power, we are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth, strengthened in our inner souls by the constant spiritual renewing of our minds, and thus endowed with the power of the certain and joyous performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God. 

When we are born of the spirit, we are inducted to the joyous kingdom of the spirit. We produce the fruits of the spirit in our daily lives. The fruits of the spirit are best produced through the highest type of joyful and ennobling self-control, true self-mastery.

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The death cult, that is working so hard to misinform people about the CoVid Vaccine, has promoted a variety of novel conspiracy theories. Among them is the notion that what gets injected is some sort of interface that interacts with all of the 5G towers. Of course, just about any technology can be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Really, if Vladimir wanted to broil your brain with a directed energy weapon mounted on a cell tower, triangulating on the cell phone you’re holding next to your ear would probably get him close enough.

One alleged doctor, continuing in the tradition of Dr. Strangelove, testified in 2021 before the Ohio legislature saying this: “I’m sure you’ve seen these pictures all over the Internet, of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized. You can put a key on their forehead and it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think there’s a metal piece to that.”

Maybe this so-called doctor thinks it’s better to have iron poor blood. We oxygenate our tissues by the action of iron within the red blood cells. These carry oxygen to our living cells while also removing the carbon dioxide. Those that insist on thinking like a sea squirts anyway, could probably use an alternative like vanadium to oxygenate and deoxygenate themselves. In any event, most keys are made out of nickel and silver, or brass. Sooo, even if you’re a bit slow due to your iron-deficiency anemia, the chances of someone turning you into a magnetic key rack are pretty low.

One thing is certain. There are excessively prominent politicians that have made the calculation that their constituency is composed mostly of simpletons. These emotionally charged – intellectually stunted hoards are dangerous to any civilized society. But, when their anger and grievance are stoked, while prevaricating politicians cater to their every indulgence, their out of proportion sense of entitlement metastasizes. 

There will always be some part of the general population that remains unteachable. They embrace a counterfeit liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. Most of us began to balance freedom with responsibility as toddlers. Else we confuse fundamental liberty with taking license. Some never outgrow the childish notion that the rules don’t apply to them. In the context of a pandemic, they are the anti-mask / anti-vax factions that are thwarting any effort to contain a deadly virus. They will not inconvenience themselves to protect the children, their parents, or their grandparents.

Early in the CoVid pandemic, the decision criteria used by public officials to prioritize services spoke volumes. On May 3^rd in 2020, Newsweek reported that a California official was ousted after lauding the coronavirus, saying ‘it allows the sick, the old, the injured to die naturally.” According to the Washington Times, this Antioch planning commission member, Ken Tournage II, wrote on his Facebook page that “the World has been introduced to a new phrase “Herd Immunity” which is a good one.” He wrote “In my opinion we need to adopt a Herd Mentality. A herd gathers its ranks, it allows the sick, the old, the injured to meet their natural course in nature.”

In this unguarded moment, Tournage had revealed the values of those sharing his affinity for selective depopulation. He went on to write “Coronovirus is like a forest fire – Burns old trees, fallen brush, shrub sucklings.” According to Fox News, he went on to add, the “homeless and other people who just defile themselves by either choice or mental issues” should also be allowed to perish. This, he said, “would fix what is a significant burden on our society and resources.”

Tournage characterized people with weak immune systems as a drain on society saying they too should be left to meet their “natural course in nature.” The San Francisco Chronicle quoted him as suggesting “we as a species need to move forward with our place on Earth, by reopening society and accepting that the coronavirus will run its course, killing the older and weak.” He added that the deaths would “reduce burdens” on Social Security, health care, jobs and housing

Although Tournage later deleted the post, he refused to resign or back down from his comments. He said “targeting me with repercussion for this is a direct violation of my First Amendment rights. He lamented “It’s not like it used to be, when you could have an opinion, talk about it and then sit down and have a beer together and talk about football.”

The natural world has always achieved its balance through war, famine, and pestilence. But we are not limited to a nature that is, at times beautiful, and at other times brutal. A great humanity should aspire to something higher. Some have proposed renaming the Delta Variant, calling it the Darwin Variant. Perhaps, if people are to slow to reach for life saving vaccines and too selfish to protect others, they should be allowed to reach for some sort of Darwin award. The problem is, they’re taking some of our best and brightest out with them.

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There are those among us that have been unable to tell the difference between that liberty, as enjoyed by the truly faithful, and the license that is sometimes sold as liberty. To be sure, any so-called liberty that is exercised in ways that works to the detriment of others is not genuine and contrary to what Jesus taught and exemplified. Stoking anger, resentment, and a sense of entitlement is easy. Backbiting, while offering no clearly articulated vision for a future of light and life is also easy.

Leveraging the FIBS of Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear as used by integrity challenged politicians is only an effective technique when the consumer is unquestioning. Fear is an unworthy motivator for a person of faith. There is no excuse for ignorance with such diversity in the way information is gathered and delivered. Bigotry has always been rooted in delusions of superiority and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. And smear? What excuse is there for someone who professes love and an allegiance to the things our Heavenly Father holds dear?

We must ask ourselves, just what is it that any true parent holds dear? It is that we all cherish our children’s future. The likelihood that anything resembling a bright future will be brought about by militant factions is just about zilch. Jesus made it clear that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Even so, those cherrypicking the words of his followers can usually find some phrasing, in some interpretation, through some translation of the bible, to justify leading with an AR-15. Are such people faithful representatives of the good news? Or are they selfishly setting themselves up as the arbiters of your destiny?

Jesus said: “This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus loved all of humanity. Those who would convert the flock into their own club of self-righteous exclusivity, those who aim to do a makeover and thereby shrink the Kingdom of God to fit their nationalist, sexist, and racist ideology, and those who think hate mongering is somehow compatible with our rebirth into the Family of God, are indeed fortunate that Our Father is a Person who bestows unmerited favor upon all of his children.

Jesus is quoted in Matthew as saying “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” And, in the Book of Numbers we are told “Now the man Moses was very meek above all men.” In his 1828 Dictionary, Noah Webster defined meekness as “Mild of temper; soft; gentle; not easily provoked or irritated; yielding; given to forbearance under injuries.” Dictionary-dot-com offers this phrasing in its contemporary definition for the word meek “Humbly patient, or quiet in nature; as under provocation from others.”

To be appropriately humble means to be submissive to the Divine will. Jesus was also quoted in Matthew as saying: “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” From these examples we can understand that genuine meekness has no relation to fear. It refers to an attitude. It portrays a scenario whereby an individual human being is co-operating with God. “Your will be done” is not an utterance to be given up grudgingly. It can be stated enthusiastically and fervently as in “It is my will that your will be done.”

Those inheriting the earth actively embrace patience and forbearance. They are motivated by an unshakable faith in a lawful and friendly universe. Faith is, first and foremost, defined by loyalty. It masters the self and is therefore impervious to any and all temptations that would lead to rebellion against the divine leading. Jesus was the ideal meek man and he illuminated the way to faithfully administer our true inheritance.

There are those who believe “When the trumpet blows” the game will be over, that Jesus will fix everything and the faithful will receive their reward. They seem to forget that when Jesus delivered the Parable of the Talents, he described a scenario where one servant was given five talents to invest, another two, and another was entrusted with one. While the first two wisely invested the funds entrusted to them, the third servant buried his. When they were called to account, the first two had produced twice what they had been given while the third servant returned only the original amount he was given, no return or increase on the investment.

The wealthy man praised the first two servants while to the third he said: “You are an indolent and slothful steward.” When the trumpet does blow, we too will be called to an accounting, and God will remember what we were admonished to do in the Book of Genesis wherein he said: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” Will we qualify as good stewards of all that has been entrusted to us?

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An act of charity is traditionally defined as generosity that would include donations to aid those in physical or financial distress. It is usually characterized by leniency in judging the acts of others, and forbearance when such others fail to act on a timely basis. It might be the benevolent feeling that wells up inside of us, especially toward those in desperate need or in societal disfavor. The Greco-Christian term Agape refers to an unconditional, even selfless love that, while sometimes seen as synonymous with charity, looks beyond any dysfunction to the highest and best interests of all.

The term welfare is generally understood as referring to the greatest good for a person, group, or organization. Etymologically the word was derived from the middle english phrase composed of the terms wel and fare while expressing the sentiment that others would fare well. It is in this sense that the Preamble to the United States Constitution includes the phrase “promote the general Welfare.”

Some would argue, and have argued, that the adoption of any social program constitutes “socialism.” By such an overly simplistic definition, if you carry a Social Security card, you are a card carrying socialist. Other people are simply perplexed asking: “Why would anyone want to kill Social Security and Medicare when we see payroll deductions, throughout our entire working lives, for these so-called entitlements?” After a little research, we are reminded that employers are required to make matching contributions of 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. Upon further investigation, we learn that, for employees making $200k or more, employers have to kick in an additional .9% for Medicare.”

In light of these numbers, the motivations of those wanting to kill Social Security and MediCare are clear. Others, fearing a loss of choice while stressing the value and security of employer provided private insurance, should also acknowledge how quickly high seniority Walgreen’s employees lost theirs. In early 2019, Walgreens employees, many with almost a quarter century of service received a letter. It read, in part, as follows:

“According to our records, you do not meet these requirements because you will be under age 64 and/or have less than 24 years of service as of March 31, 2019. Therefore, you will not be eligible for retiree healthcare benefits described above for yourself or your family members.”

Any elected representative, advancing the fiction that employer based health insurance is the answer, is either deliberately misleading their constituency or exhibiting a reckless indifference to the truth. It is fundamentally dishonest to claim that single payer will inevitability result in a reduction in the quality of care. There will undoubtedly be a market response to any single payer proposal, one that is likely to include numerous competing wrap-a-round plans from the private sector, similar to the current Medicare Supplement offerings.

The Internal Revenue Service treats donations to Nonprofit 501(c) 4 Social Welfare Organizations as charitable tax deductions. Such organizations are often referred to as Super PACs and, while some would deny they are actually Political Action Committees, Crossroads GPS qualifies as a Social Welfare Organization according to the IRS. On its website, Crossroads GPS consistently refers to the Affordable Care Act as ObamaCare precisely because anything associated with former president Obama is likely to be hated by the PAC’s supporters.

The CrossRoads GPS website asserts the following: “Obamacare has set in motion a government takeover of American health care. Among other things, the federal government will decide: what is and is not covered by insurance; where people must go to get their insurance; the prices insurers can charge for coverage; how doctors and hospitals should be organized for delivering services to patients; and what kind of care is “effective” and therefore should be paid for by insurance.”

Crossroads fails to show how any insurance industry run healthcare is better. They continue: “Inevitably, the federal government will set up large and unresponsive bureaucracies to make these decisions, which is already happening, and the decisions will be made for budgetary reasons, not based on the needs of patients. How can anyone believe the “budgetary” considerations behind a for-profit financial services business do not serve the shareholders first and foremost? 

CrossRoads also claimed: “There a better way forward on health care.” They said: “Once Obamacare is fully repealed, Congress can begin work on reforms. . . “ Begin work ??? Begin work ??? The Insurance Industry has thwarted every effort for meaningful reform since President Truman proposed a “universal” national health insurance program. Politicians wholly owned and operated by the health insurance industry defeated the universal health care package proposed in 1993 by assuring the public they would come up with their own plan. Where is it? We are still waiting! Where is it? They’ve had plenty of time to produce something. The fact is the financial services industry caters only to the indulgence of its shareholders. Politicians prostituting their offices for dark money contributions from the insurance industry have zero credibility on healthcare.

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n his second epistle to the various Churches in Asia Minor, Peter writes: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” In Genesis we read: On the first day He said “Let there be light,” and there was light. On the second day God separated the water under the vault from the water above it. On the third say he let the ground appear and the land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit, with seed in it, according to their kinds.

On the fourth day God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. On the fifth day God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

On the sixth day God created mankind in his own image, male and female. He said “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.”

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Now I’ve summarized these passages to underscore that there was a sequence, these were “days” of epochal significance, Genesis was prose for creativity over time.

Now in light of this I must say that it frosts my petunias whenever I hear any debate, between believers and non-believers framed as one of Creation versus Evolution. That clearly suggests a misunderstanding of just what is meant by the word ‘evolution’. In Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, evolution was defined as a noun stemming from the Latin term evolutio, which meant “The act of unfolding or unrolling.” In the very first definition offered, he wrote “A series of things unrolled or unfolded; as the evolution of ages.”

So where’s the controversy? The definition and etymology of evolution dovetails precisely with the Genesis account. What’s really at issue here is the idea of intelligent design and implementation versus mindless causation. Now anyone reading and accepting the Genesis account already understands something of the intelligence behind creation. We may even see it as God exerting evolutionary over-control.

The use of terms such as mindless causation may be an unfamiliar way of framing the debate, so I will borrow a theme from a popular comedian. Jeff Foxworthy became famous for his “You might be a redneck if . . .” jokes. Sooo, I’m going to ask you a question in that same Foxworthy style. Here goes: If you had an infinite number of rednecks riding around in an infinite number of pickup trucks, with an infinite number of shotguns, and shooting an infinite number of stop signs, would they eventually spell out all of the world’s great literature in braille? That, my friends, is what we mean when we say mindless causation.

Most of the arguments made by secularists are oversimplifications. They like to refer to the authoritarian church, that existed prior to the Enlightenment, in making their case. But the faithful of today recognize and embrace a Science, a Philosophy, and a Religion that are commensurate with the intellectual, societal, and cultural development of human kind. We believe Science is to facts, what Philosophy is to meanings, and what Religion is to Values. These essential parts within the intellectual disciplines are not mutually exclusive.

These are undisputed facts. In 1859, some 31 years after Webster’s 1828 dictionary was published, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species. On the Galapagos islands, he discovered several species of birds. He discovered that the different species of birds varied from island to island as did the food supply. What does this mean? Because some birds have ratchet like jaws that can break the shells of nuts, while others have long needle like beaks that can extract nectar from a delicate flower without crushing it; “every winged bird according to its kind” is what he witnessed. Point is, there is an ingenious food distribution system that supports a wide variety of wildlife on a small island.

What is the value proposition? God makes provision, that is more than adequate, for “everything that has the breath of life in it.”