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The concept of God as a Father did not originate with Jesus, Even so, any effort to study his life and teachings will reveal that he exalted and elevated the idea while advancing a more meaningful revelation of God and by proclaiming that every one of us is a child of this Father of love, truly a son of God.

While Jesus experienced all the natural difficulties and contradictions of human existence, he also enjoyed the peace that accompany’s unquestioned trust in God. He knew the thrill of living, by faith, in the presence of our heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual spirit attainment. The great contribution Jesus made was that he demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God.

His was not a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world. To him faith was not merely a consolation prize for human sorrows. The religion of Jesus was also not a mystic meditation. It was not merely an intellectual reflection. It was, rather, based on a personal spiritual relationship with our Father. It was validated by genuine personal experience. 

The faith of Jesus was living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. This faith was not reverence for a sacred creed, but it was firmly rooted in a profound conviction. It was so real that any spiritual doubts and conflicting desires vanished. He was undaunted, steadfast, and completely free from fear. His consciousness of spiritual invincibility was evidenced by unflinching faith and unquestioning loyalty to the Father and his will.

Jesus highlighted the loyalty aspects of faith that wholly dominated his thoughts, his feelings, his beliefs, his prayers, his teaching, and his preaching. The life and teachings of Jesus are of greatest value to those who are sincere in their quest for truth. To find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose, is to “follow Jesus.” To personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of unselfish service for a great humanity is “to love one another” just as he commanded us to do.

The facts, ideas, and relationships that are the essential elements of universal reality are the corollaries of science, philosophy, and truth. Our progressive comprehension of reality greatly facilitates the approach to God. It is, after all, his creation we are seeking to comprehend. Appreciating the creation is a necessary part of appreciating Our Creator. Experiencing self-completion, self-entirety, and self-totality is understood as the consciousness of identity with reality. The full realization of God, the God-knowing experience, is dependent on some appreciation for total reality. It is, in essence as well as substance, the finding of God.

Our most effective witness is, for the most part, a wholly unconscious and spontaneous expression of the soul. Our personal experience with God is best revealed through the consecration and dedication, of our own wills, through the service of doing the divine will. This spiritual attitude, this personal faith, is the greatest of all offerings. Jesus consistently interpreted religion in the context of the Father’s will.

Of all the knowledge we may acquire, to know the religious life of Jesus will be of the greatest value in this short lifetime and throughout eternity. To Jesus, prayer was always intended as a truly spiritual expression of loyalty, sincerity, thanksgiving, and personal devotion. It was also, at times, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties and the mobilization of soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin.

Jesus was consistently motivated by such living faith. His was a sublime religious experience. The secret of his unparalleled religious life was his consciousness of the abiding presence of God. He attained and maintained it by unbroken communion through intelligent prayer and sincere worship. 

If the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion about Jesus, all of humanity would soon realize he truly belongs to us and we to him. Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, evidence of humanity’s value to an entire universe. The Master ascended on high as a man, as well as God. He led a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of our Father’s will and ended his mortal life triumphantly.

In light of his origins, and his desire to be close to us as a part of his creation, discussions concerning the humanity or the divinity of the Christ have long obscured the saving truth that Jesus of Nazareth lived a full mortal life as a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God. He led by example and taught us that the full summation of human life is revealed as we are educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved — justified — by faith.

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Sir Francis Galton introduced the term “eugenics,” meaning well-born, in 1883. His emphasis was on encouraging healthy and capable people, of above-average intelligence, to bear more children, with the idea of building an “improved” human race. The eugenics ideologies that are typically associated with the first half of the twentieth century are much older though they persist, even today. Now they are simply manifest in a different way.

While an individual may reasonably consider what their children might look like upon choosing a mate, a couple would likely be ostracized for using abortion for purposes of selecting a child based upon, say, hair color. In May of 2019, a Supreme Court opinion described abortion as a potential “tool of eugenic manipulation.” The opining Justice was referring to an Indiana abortion law that bans abortion motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus. He used the history of the eugenics movement to explain why “the use of abortion to achieve eugenic goals is not merely hypothetical.”

Societies have long engaged in what is sometimes termed positive eugenics, the improvement of the human race by better breeding. Plato suggested applying the principles of selective breeding to humans around 400 BC. He went on to suggest selective mating to produce a guardian class. Negative eugenics also emerged long ago when, in Sparta, every child was inspected by the council of elders to determine if the child was fit to live. In Rome, Table IV within the Laws of the Twelve Tables required that: “A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.”

North American colonists practiced race warfare through the gifting of blankets and linens contaminated with smallpox to the Ottawa tribe’s Chief Pontiac. In his 1922 book Race Decadence, William Samuel Sadler, addressing problems within a given race, argued that alcoholism, feeblemindedness, insanity, and delinquency” were hereditary traits and that those who possessed them were breeding at a much faster rate than “superior human beings.” By 1933, California had subjected more people to forceful sterilization than all other U.S. states combined.

Early in the CoVid 19 pandemic, one Antioch planning commission member wrote on his Facebook page that “the World has been introduced to a new phrase “Herd Immunity.” 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.” 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.”

The forced sterilization program engineered by the Nazis was partly inspired by that of 1930s California. National Socialist racial hygiene, the German variation on eugenics, was at the center of Nazi ideology. It’s prominence rose sharply as wealthy Nazi supporters started heavily investing in it under Adolf Hitler’s leadership.

Now, in 2020, a wealthy and largely hidden network of ideologues, advances eugenics in a highly effective ways that also support plausible deniability. This same oligarchy uses a variety of sophistries to engineer poverty, to complicate access to healthcare for people that are in many other ways marginalized due to their age, their race, their ethnicity, or their economic status.

The oligarchy is cloaked in a thin veneer of religiosity as it surrounds itself with excessively prominent, integrity challenged, mammon serving evangelicals. No matter how injudicious the judicial act, how reckless the executive behavior, how negligent the legislative inaction, it all maps back to the depraved heart indifference and unmitigated selfishness of these, the most condescending.

It has been said that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose. We have seen them campaign in bigotry as moral depravity flows. Such groups cannot win without cheating, and therefore focus much attention on rewriting the rules of the game. Wielding disproportionate political influence to mislead, spam, purge, suppress, intimidate, gerrymander, and otherwise corrupt elections is not new to the game. The exploitation of crisis events, that was once associated with a small group of war-profiteering industrialists, now appears to be in vogue to benefit career politicians together with their donor owners personally, and on a global scale.

As the United States surpassed the grim milestone of a half million pandemic related deaths, we should all recall the former guy’s early efforts to minimize the severity of the outbreak. Vanity Fair quoted one public health expert who said a member of the Corona Virus Task Force offered the view: Because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. Beto O’ Rourke later said the Texas GOP is a ‘death cult’ that wants you to do the dying.

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What happens when you combine an embarrassment of riches with managerial incompetence? You get opportunity squandered and systemic failures together with prevarications and blame-shifting. If only the Electric Reliability Council of Texas could somehow convert the prevarications and blame-shifting of state officials into useful current, citizens could use it to heat their homes. Unfortunately, the electric companies and the state’s elected representatives are now passing the cost of their malfeasance on to customers while the high profile politicians have proven even less reliable than the wind.

Without wisdom, energy riches don’t transmute to power for the people. Texas ranks #1 for total energy production in the United States. It’s #1 in crude oil, #1 in natural gas, and #1 in electricity. It is also ranked #1 in carbon dioxide emissions. As the largest energy-producing and energy-consuming state in the nation, its industrial sector, including its refineries and petrochemical plants, account for half of the energy consumed in the state.

Texas also leads the nation in wind power and produced about 28% of all the electricity generated in the USA, during 2019, from wind alone. Its wind turbines have produced more electricity than both of the state’s nuclear power plants since 2014. In light of these facts, one might wonder why Texas Governor Greg Abbott told one media outlet that his state’s power problems were an indictment of the Green New Deal. The state’s Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, wrote on Facebook that appointees to the state’s Public Utility Commission should be fired and that more coal and oil infrastructure should be built.

It was the Public Utility Commission that, after the ice storm of 2011, recommended several actions to prepare power plants for extreme weather. These recommendations were largely informed by a joint report in August of 2011 by the non-profit North American Reliability Corporation and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The report identified 210 power generating units under the jurisdiction of ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that failed during the 2011 ice storm.

When, during a media call, the President and CEO of ERCOT Bill Magness was asked why recommendations from the 2011 report weren’t followed, he claimed he didn’t know which report they were referring to. Feigned ignorance concerning causes for the failures of 1989, 2011, and now 2021 is not masking the intellectual and moral defects of politicians for whom unmitigated selfishness is a point of pride. When authorities advised citizens to boil water they didn’t have, with power they didn’t have it simply underscored the managerial ineptitude.

Upon closer examination it was revealed that these politicians, who are now tilting at windmills, failed to acknowledge their penny wise – pound foolish approach to managing the critical infrastructure of Texas. The reason windmills work more reliably in places like Antarctica, Canada, Norway, and Denmark is because planners in those regions exercise a scarce commodity known as forethought. Properly designed wind turbines include appropriate lubricants, air conditioning, and heating. It would appear the state of denial didn’t plan for climate change.

The wind is always blowing somewhere. That is why a continental energy grid is more resilient than one limited to a single state. The decision by Texas politicians, to go it alone, has resulted in some citizens paying with their lives while others were endangered unnecessarily. The state that refused to either benefit from or support the national energy grid is now receiving emergency assistance from the same nation.

Years ago, Walter Gretzky taught his son Wayne, “Skate to where the puck is going to be!” As major manufacturers are planning to convert their entire range of product offerings and roll out electric cars exclusively, as efficiencies of lighting systems, appliances, storage systems, and generators continue to increase, Commissioner Miller and Governor Abbott are working hard to sustain the last gasp of an outmoded economy. Texas needs leaders that are instead working smart towards the next economy.

The future will, hopefully, leave integrity challenged politicians and other retardant forces in the dust. The promise of grid dynamics will extend the day by utilizing rooftop photovoltaics from coast to coast. It will take advantage of a widely dispersed array of wind turbines together with devices that can resonate with smaller convection currents. It will incorporate vehicle to grid innovations whereby the most efficient parts of the fleet can help to power the grid once their batteries are topped off.

The Texas experience should serve to accelerate the kind of interconnectivity that will insure no single point of failure can cause wide-spread outages. Cord cutters should take note. The potential to sell excess energy to the grid while, at the same time reducing one’s own dependence on the grid can help to pay for any and all energy efficiencies that can be adopted on a homestead scale. While cutting the public umbilical may seem like the thing to do, generating as much energy as possible at home while maintaining all the advantages of wide area grid system may be a better solution in the long run.

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While binge watching a TV series called Numbers, I was enjoying the sibling rivalry of the two brothers that are the main characters. One is a mathematics professor and the other is a kind of swashbuckling FBI agent. As the swashbuckler enters the professor’s office, a paper airplane falls at his feet. He picks it up and says “Wings are a little thin here buddy.”

The Mathematics Professor fires back with: “Forgive me if all my years of applied mathematics take issue with that assessment.” To that, the swashbuckler replies: “Well, you’ll forgive me if all my years of high school detention say I’m right.”

Some, especially law enforcement officers, would likely say a big part of their education was quite literally through the School of Hard Knocks. Those actually, or just perceived as being, on the wrong side of the law would likely attribute their education to the same school.Billy Holliday paid a big price for singing about Strange Fruit and of course we all know Jesus was also in the “perceived as” category by those who wanted to squelch his message about Spiritual Fruit.

Our Sovereign Lord came to earth to personally experience the joys as well as the injustices that are a part of the human experience. In his Gospel narrative, John quotes Jesus as saying: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” Jesus held that the personal experience of faith is one in which challenges are a central feature.

For us, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are practical strivings. Potential evil serves to highlight the good by contrast. Grappling with hardships, reacting to disappointments, facing situations of social inequality, coping with our insecurities, knowing less than we can believe, sorting and sifting through error and falsehood, are all recurring and stimulating challenges to the person of faith.

The irrepressible reach for better things is a powerful witness. You’ve probably seen the popular bumpersticker that reads “It’s All Good.” While, in light of the foregoing list of stimulative challenges, this may be to some extent true. It certainly doesn’t apply to unwise choices, Paul said it best in his epistle to the Romans when he wrote: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

We are seemingly immersed in a dysfunctional world, where prevaricating politicians want us to take a hard stance on either the left wing or the right wing. And yet, as any native American can tell you, the left wing and the right wing belong to the same bird. Overcoming the gravity of our current geopolitical situation will not happen with the paltry amount of lift that is produced at the wingtips. In other words, no bird can soar except by outstretched wings.

We are pummeled with messaging that prevents us from righting the ship, getting on an even keel, regaining our balance, and maintaining equilibrium. We were told through Proverbs that “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The political operatives of our day have offered no inspiring vision for the planet as a whole. They have instead sought, often in the name of God, to advance their own clubs of self-righteous exclusivity. They have exhibited few of the statesman-like qualities that will move us forward in the knowledge that God divinely loves his people, all of them.

Jesus sent us a Spirit Helper, the Spirit of Truth. He said this Spirit would lead us into all truth. And yet, for this to occur, we must be responsive to Divine Leading. If we are, the Spirit can lead us far beyond the elemental and fundamental religions of our mortal existence into an experiential relationship with the God of all Creation, the First Source and Center, the Cause of Causes, the one and only Uncaused Cause, and the most intimate friendship we will ever know.

Every true teacher acknowledges that experience is the best teacher. When we experience the realization of the Divine Indwelling, our human experience becomes one of perpetual life enrichment, ever progressing reality, a closer walk with Thee, and a relationship with Him that transcends all human controversy. Paul also observed that “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” Indeed it is the experience with Him and in Him that qualifies us for eternal live. The experience acquired in this short lifetime will also serve us throughout all of Eternity.

We have choices before us that will insure our extinction or survival. Our planet will become either an orgy of darkness and death or a world of light and life. This is not a time to land somewhere between wishy and washy or to be proactively straddling the fence.

Jesus said: “This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The experience of loving is in direct response to the experience of being loved. It is not enough that the Spirit be poured out upon us; the Divine Spirit must dominate and control every phase of human experience.

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On February 13th 2021, a pathetic minority of United States Senators landed decisively somewhere between wishy and washy on the question of autocracy versus democracy. As they were feigning reverence for the Constitution of the United States, they inadvertently highlighted the most fundamental problem facing the USA. It is a problem that has plagued civilization from the time of its inception and, from the looks of things, it’s not going away anytime soon.

When a democratic republic tolerates a reckless indifference to the truth by people occupying positions of honor and trust, it is hardly authentic. When we value government of, by, and for the people does it make sense to retain elected representatives who routinely engage in barratry, deceptive practices? Would an honest person take an oath as a juror and, while the trial proceeds, act as co-counsel for one side in the controversy? Would a judiciary willfully convert a whirlpool of information into a cesspool of disinformation through its lack of forethought and intellectual rigor? Would a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shrink from his constitutional obligation to preside over an impeachment trial?

In the United States elected and appointed officials often get a pass for integrity deficits. Then, when these same officials are called upon to pass judgement upon the behavior of others, and when in so doing they would be effectively implicating themselves by rendering an honest verdict, such a judgement is rendered meaningless. Why should we be surprised when such a long history of Supreme Court case law has effectively immunized the most dishonest political operatives from any consequence for deceiving and vexing the electorate.

To admit personal complicity, to admit hostility towards authentic democracy, and to admit just how unprincipled one is while simultaneously working to deceive one’s own constituency is more than can be expected from a prevaricating politician. Not serving the highest and best interests of an elected representative’s constituency should be enough to disqualify one from high office and yet, such unrepresentative politicians enjoy squatter’s rights to their form fitting seats.

While campaign finance, through dark money, has long been seen as having a distorting influence upon representative democracy, it persists. While corporations wield outsized influence that renders the “one man, one vote” principle meaningless, recent decisions by some corporations have highlighted the ability of such companies to disrupt the system of political patronage.

If a corporation can, by withholding campaign contributions from those politicians who actively deceive the public concerning election results, that corporation’s clients can also stop doing business with any company that contributes to the campaigns of politicians that lie about other things.

One popular meme on social media reads: “Universal healthcare is such a complex beast that only 32 of the world’s 33 developed nations have been able to make it work.” Why is our developed nation unable to make universal healthcare available to its citizens? Could it be the BS artistry and all the dark money? Could it be due to the House or Senate decorum that prohibits the questioning of a colleague’s motives and why one may be entirely subservient not to their constituency, but to the money brokers?

The U.S. electorate is not bound by such “decorum,” and one thing that became abundantly clear during the 2020 election cycle was the extent to which this country’s various forms of voter suppression had just one purpose. It was to make sure the Constitutional Convention formula, that would insure a black man or woman could never count as more that three-fifths of a person, would remain in force.

The racist riot of January 6th, 2021 happened because the gamesmanship that involved gerrymandering, the purging of voter rolls, the closing of polling places in marginalized neighborhoods, the voter intimidation, the vandalizing of the Post Office, the unmeritorious legal challenges to a great number of ballots, and the highly selective pandemic response didn’t work for the gaggle of bigots that assembled on the national mall that day.

The forty three Senators that voted against disqualifying an anti-democracy demagogue, from ever holding office again, have no plausible deniability with respect to their racism. They are unfit to hold any position of honor and trust. Any business that contributes to their campaigns for re-election, should be subjected to the most robust technologically advanced boycott in the history of boycotts.

It is not enough for elected representatives to pay lip service to constitutional imperatives. It is not enough for Supreme Court Justices to masquerade as originalists and textualists while ignoring the Declaration of Intent, the Mission Statement, the Value Proposition; the Cardinal Precepts as they were so carefully articulated in the Preamble to the United States Constitution. It is not enough to display the words “Equal Justice Under Law” above the doors to the Supreme Court building. Either make it real or take it down, because right now its only effect is to perpetrate a fraud upon the citizens of the United States and the rest of the world.

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In her 2013 book, Farmacology, Daphne Miller, MD makes a compelling case that gut flora is linked to soil tilth. In one chapter she describes her encounter with a rodeo ridin’ Missouri cattle rancher and his conversion from all things antithetical to tree hugging. Cody Holmes, owner of Rockin’ H Ranch picks up the story himself with:

“What’s funny is that my wife Dawnell and I have morphed into rancher, foodie, tree-hugger, worm lovers.” He goes on to describe their realization that “to be more economical, we need to be holistically minded conservationists.” According to Cody, the pivotal decision occurred because, in his words: “We used to run the cattle through the squeeze chute and use Ralgro hormone implants.” He continues. “For years we were running the cows and doing the injections of antibiotics and growth hormones, and I was keeping one out to be injection free for the kids.”

Dr. Miller’s impression was that Dawnell served as the catalyst for radical change on the farm when she and Cody decided enough was enough. Why was it okay to feed these cows to other people’s kids and not their own? They quit using soil amendments and animal feed. Cody said they also “quit injecting everything into our cattle.”

As the couple embraced the practice of holistic farming, they realized they had to redesign their entire farming system. Cody said “That way I could employ the only free labor I had at my disposal, those billions of bacteria and other microbes in the soil. My goal was to have their collective weight underground be greater than [that of] livestock above, and for them to give me healthy soil and plenty of grass to feed my animals twelve months a year.”

The experience of Dawnell and Cody is shared by many that are exercising a more comprehensive approach and an intentional consumerism as they procure the ingredients necessary to produce something of value. Those who engage in holistic farming practices know that if the cow pie, that was dropped yesterday, remains on top of the ground a week later, it is likely because the soil lacks sufficient microbial biomass to properly digest it.

If the pile of manure only disappears after being pounded by the rain, fissured by the freeze, dried by the sun, and scattered by the wind, the soil beneath it is most likely dead. Within healthy active soil is an intricate web of life. If you can count pretty high, while using a microscope, you will likely find, in just one gram of natural soil; from 100 million – 1 billion bacteria, 100 thousand – 1 million fungi, 1 thousand – 1 million algae & cyanobacteria, 1 thousand – 100 thousand protozoa , and just shy of 100 Nematodes .

These soil microorganisms are key to the decomposition of organic materials. Mineralization (the conversion of organic materials into forms the plants and other soil organisms can use), the degradation of soil pollutants, the generation of oxygen, the suppression of plant diseases by competing with or feeding on pathogens, nitrogen fixation by converting it to ammonium and making it available to plants, the transportation of soil nutrients to the plant’s root zone, and the binding of soil particles into aggregates all help with soil composition, structure, and water dynamics.

Active soils help plants extract the nutrients they need for basic function and growth. The biochemical interactions in the soil-plant system involve a form of biochemical signaling that occurs among the microorganisms and also between such microorganisms within the rhizosphere surrounding the roots of plants.

The microbial community functions are essential for soil tilth, plant growth, and our own health. The Minerals, Vitamins and Phyto-chemicals that are the MVPs, the Most Valuable Players necessary for the optimal performance of our human machinery, are each traceable to the soil.

The number and variety of biochemical compounds that are produced during the lifecycle of a typical microbe affect soil, plant and animal health. These design elements are essential components within each living cell . They include hormones, amino acids, organic acids, sugars, enzymes, and more.

The enzymes that break down organic matter, the proteins that signal changes in microbe response, the chelators that mobilize nutrients, the antibiotics that reduce competition; together with the compounds that induce plant rooting while changing physiological functions, inducing immune responses, and increasing salt tolerance each perform their functions perfectly. They form a trustworthy system unless someone or something upsets the balance.

Holistic agriculture is intelligent agriculture. Wisdom is always mindful of the situation on the ground. For growers, it is also mindful of the situation underground. Unless we want to be at war with life on earth, we should be on the lookout for ways to complement it rather than compete with it.

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I remember watching cartoons during my early childhood. One character in particular made a lasting impression on me due to the confused look he had on his face as an angel was whispering in one ear and the devil was whispering in the other. Decades later, when my son was in middle school, he was describing someone that had gotten into some trouble and said: “Yeah, she has the devil on both shoulders.”

Today, as we habitually cram the talking buds further into both ears, people who lean slightly to the left are pushed further to the left while people who lean slightly to the right are pushed further to the right. As a result, we live our lives on an uneven keel, in a filter bubble that makes it very difficult to relate in a world with competing ideas or to productively engage with anyone that has a contrasting point of view. The spiritual idealism that has the power to take our planet from one level of true attainment to the next is seriously diminished because, as any aviation enthusiast can tell you, very little lift is produced at the wingtips.

Throughout the history of our planet, there have been people, at the commanding heights, who are unable to differentiate between true and false liberty. The bully pulpit is, as often as not, occupied by people that can’t seem to balance freedom with self-control. Many of us, as parents, have had to contend with one or more children that don’t think the rules apply to them.

Sooo, just what is this thing that we call liberty? Is it permissible, in the name of free speech, to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire? Does self-expression on the dance floor mean that you, with your eyes closed, can flail your arms in such a manner that, while you have indeed become the center of attention, it is only because you have become a hazard to others on the floor? And what about truthfulness? Is it ok to mislead someone who may rely upon your word to their detriment?

Liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled is a cruel deception that invariably leads to abject bondage for someone. It may be you; if you should decide to go wilding with the hordes through the hallowed halls of representative government. You could lose your freedom, for life, in accordance with the felony murder rule. You could lose your cherished 2nd Amendment right to own a gun. You could find yourself on a list that forever bars you from boarding a commercial flight. And, you may even end up complementing your mobile phone with an even more trackable ankle bracelet.

There is a delicate balance between true freedom and self-control. And, while good parents teach it, bad-faith pastors do not. The counterfeit wisdom that flows from many in authority, who are often enjoying excessive prominence, is leading us not into an era of light and life, but into an orgy of darkness and death. They often seem ignorant of the fact that, in Our Lord’s Universe, diminishing external restraints are always contingent upon augmenting internal restraints.

The Incarnation of Christ was about the achievement of God seeking us and finding us, together with the phenomenon of our seeking God and finding him. He did that to our mutual satisfaction, and during one brief lifetime in the flesh. The Bestowal was not about giving us license to presume upon Divine Mercy. When we act selfishly, we are behaving in ways that are antithetical to all that Jesus taught and exemplified. When we accumulate wealth, power, and prestige for self-aggrandizement, in ways that work to the detriment of others, we are like a cancer within the Body of Christ. We are modeling a depraved heart indifference.

If humanity chooses survival over extinction, we must turn our attention to those purpose driven leaders that are advancing us towardsan era of light and life. They are easy to recognize because their values proposition is crystal clear. There is no subterfuge. They focus us, as Jesus did, not upon themselves but on our own highest and best understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness as we give creative expression to these qualities. They encourage us to consider just how we can contribute, in an active and spiritually pragmatic way, toward the healing and elevation of life on our planet.

We must learn to recognize any sophistry that has the effect of corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. Long ago, Edmund Burke, in referring to the American colonists, described our ancestors as “able to snuff the approach of tyranny with every tainted breeze.” Today the tainted breezes are delivered by means of powerful airwaves that Burke probably never imagined. And, right now, the most deceptive practices, ones that leverage fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear are generating howling winds in contrast to the gentle breezes of true benevolence. The most refreshing breezes are the ones that are spiritually fragrant, the ones where truth, beauty, and goodness are clearly in evidence.

It is my fervent hope that you will learn to recognize the folly of succumbing to self-serving temptation and instead come to enjoy knowing Jesus, having an inspirational chorus of better angels and tutors on both shoulders.

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Intentional Consumerism is, first and foremost, about expressing consumer preferences that are informed by the behaviors of those with whom we do business. It is how we vote every day with every dollar we spend. It is how we move towards a promising future, with each and every transaction. It emphasizes free trade together with fair trade. It demonstrates the power of a more proactive variation with respect to the doctrine Buyer Beware.

There is real potential in such an exercise of ethical consumerism, sometimes called consumer sovereignty; from the super- charged data driven boycott, to the casual expression of preferences. Intentional Consumerism is, to some extent, rooted in the indignation of thinking men and women.

How long have you been on hold? Does the company that wants your business pay its CEO what a thousand customer service workers make? Is the company providing your mobile phone service an enemy of net-neutrality and thereby the First Amendment? Is the nearby store limiting employee compensation to poverty wages? Does a politician, taking campaign contributions from big finance, have your best interests at heart? Should the person behind a corporate policy, that could be foreseen as having the effect of sickening, injuring or killing people, somehow be immune from criminal liability?

When an integrity challenged official doesn’t enforce anti-trust regulations, it may mean consumers should exercise their right to avoid patronizing those businesses that also cheat by ignoring such guidelines, by skirting the regulations, or by flaunting their lawlessness disregard. To what extent does a business, vying for your patronage, offload expenses and potential liabilities to the taxpayer and future generations? Rather than letting bad actors calibrate our thinking through relentless messaging, you and I, as educated consumers, are certainly under no obligation to support such unconscionable practices. In fact, we shouldn’t.

Ultimately, the only way to serve the national security interests of the United States in the long run is through the proliferation of authentic democracies worldwide. This authenticity must begin at home by bringing intentional consumerism to bear in curbing the wildly disproportionate corporate influence. If the business community is serious about balancing the interests of all stakeholders, it will keep pace with evolution and transition to a new corporate model whereby the influence of self-centered speculators is diminished and true augmentation is achieved through increased employee ownership and a benevolent corporate culture.

What if the consent of the governed were expressed through our preferences within the open arenas of commerce? What if the authoritarian powerhouses had no place to peddle their wares thus breaking the stranglehold the oligarchy has on our country? There are numerous obstacles to building a benevolent corporate culture. There are also ways to power past the often detrimental influence of the shareholder rights movement. For now, suffice it to say, if you are an entrepreneur that is service as well as profit motivated, there are options for building a company culture that fulfills both requirements. If your state does not proactively provide for the formation of benefit corporations, then seriously consider incorporating elsewhere.

Consumers also have tremendous power to effect this type of change. We may engage in traditional boycotts or simply act in accordance with a preference. How we direct our spending is at the heart of intentional consumerism. All leverage depends largely on where we decide to place the fulcrum. Is the frictionless buying experience most important to us? For example, do we value the one-click path of least resistance over the support of a local business? What about the human interaction?

We can effect lasting change simply by asking: “Is this business employee owned?” We need to understand that deep discounts and high dividends are not brought about through the generosity of a company. They are most often provided at the expense of over-tasked employees that are trying to make ends meet on poverty wages. We should always be mindful of this dynamic. Always ask yourself: “Does the company culture placate the few or benefit a larger humanity?”

An Employee Owned Benefit Corporation (EOBC) is one in which the employees and retirees hold a supermajority interest of at least two-thirds, thus limiting the holdings and influence of outside investors to a maximum of one third. The employees and retirees have the exclusive right to express their collective preference, with respect to local, national, and global priorities, by committing at least ten percent of their company’s profits for a clearly articulated public benefit.

They function corporately to support, rather than exploit the commonwealth. They pay their fair share into the public treasury. They build authentic community through their dedication to enhancing a quality of mind that reflects a science (the domain of facts), a philosophy (the domain of meanings), and a religion (the domain of values) that is truly commensurate with the spiritual, intellectual, and societal development of a greater humanity.

We, as consumers, can make it happen. We can use our purchasing power to put our enterprises on the right path. It will take concerted effort, alternative networks, and skillful coordination. It will take Intentional Consumerism.

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When I first read about KickStart International’s Money Maker Hip Pump. The dance floor chant “Shake your money maker” immediately came to my adolescent mind. Although, once I got beyond the amusing imagery, I soon realized just how important a human powered pump would be to a farmer trying to scratch out a living in certain parts of the world.

The Berlin Air Lift style food drops that were once seen as the best way to alleviate poverty have since been replaced with missions that are more nuanced. Well intentioned efforts to make lots of food available quickly are now seen as a way to instantly ruin the market for the local farmer. True sustainability is dependent upon a deep understanding of the dynamics on the ground.

As a non-profit social enterprise, KickStart International is on a mission to lift millions of people out of poverty quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably. If, as a farmer, you were engaged in what often amounts to puddle management and trying to move limited amounts of water to irrigate your field, you would appreciate the value of a ten pound pump that can move water to a height of 46 feet or 14 meters. If the Money Maker can spray 10 gallons per minute to cover 1.25 acres per day in the field, imagine what you could do within a hoop house, with hydroponics, or with irrigation that’s even more targeted.

The founders of KickStart International determined that the number one need of the poor is a way to make more money and that, with income security, individuals would prioritize and address their remaining needs for themselves. They saw that an estimated 20 million small-scale farmers in Africa have access to sufficient renewable water resources on their farms. They also possess an untapped entrepreneurial drive that often characterizes many of the the world’s poorest people.

Dr. Martin Fisher and Nick Moon sought ways to harness this potential for massive change and to help struggling farmers turn a profit. Such profitable businesses could then generate food and income year-round. KickStart’s vision of success is to take millions of people out of poverty sustainably, and in doing so, to change the way the world fights poverty.

By relying on the rain, sub-Saharan African nations get only 1-2 harvests per year. 1 in 9 children die before the age of five. 165 million children under 5 suffer from stunted growth due to poor nutrition during their first 1,000 days of life. When the 1-2 harvests occur in sync, the entire region cycles between abundance and scarcity. When a whole nation is planting and harvesting at the same time, farming families all end up attempting to sell their crops in over-saturated markets for low prices where supply is high, but demand is low.

KickStart says that up to 65% of the food grown in the rainy season spoils before it is eaten or sold. Then, just months later, when the rain stops, farming families are left without an income and nothing to eat. Only 4% of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Unless this changes, farmers are unable to escape from their dependence on the unreliable rains and crops. Irrigation pumps are an essential tool that can help break the vicious cycle of subsistence farming while lifting millions out of poverty.

When farmers can make their own rain, when they can effectively access water resources such as wells, ponds, rivers, and streams, they can grow high-value crops throughout the year. A transition from the whims of nature to irrigated farming has far-reaching implications with respect to sustainability. To this end,, KickStart is engaged in supporting and promoting small-scale irrigation across Africa.

According to Fisher and Moon, “The poor are extremely hardworking and entrepreneurial – they must be just to survive. They don’t want or need to be rescued. They want an opportunity to create a better life for their families. When you look past the poverty, you see abilities, resources, and desires.”

KickStart is a business looking to expand its partnership-based pump distribution model in 16 target countries in Africa. It works with NGOs, government agencies, and corporations to help promote irrigation products to their own networks of small-scale farmers. The Innovations Hub in Kenya, will help the enterprise form partnerships to develop and test high impact irrigation systems that will help millions of additional farmers to irrigate.

Within EAST AFRICA, the team maintains an innovations hub. It is also focused on Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, and Rwanda. In SOUTHERN AFRICA, they are engaged in Zambia, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. In WEST AFRICA you will find KickStarter pumps in Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Senegal.

KickStart estimates that the sale of 270,000 additional pumps will lift 1 million more people out of poverty. The company sees its initiative as transformative, one in which people will increase their income by 400% on average. In parts of Africa, this can mean families will be able to send their children to school and afford medical care.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

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Our mind endowing, Spirit bestowing and personality bequeathing God is always aware of our limitations as well as our potential. We are judged fairly in light of our origin, nature and purpose. And, because mercy is inherent in Divine justice, we can always be assured of its availability.

It was Samuel who, at the Spirit’s urging, revived the Mosaic tradition of making comforting proclamations to the humble and the less fortunate. He said: “The Lord enriches and impoverishes; he debases and exalts. He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggars; setting them among princes to make them inherit the throne of glory.” Samuel also linked a merciful and forgiving attitude with such benefits through this statement: “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and actions are weighed by him. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, showing mercy to the merciful, and with the upright man he will also be upright.”

Jesus specifically underscored this teaching with the words “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” He also reinforced such linkages when He told us that the merciful shall obtain mercy. He taught us to pray saying “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

And so, while it would appear from these passages that there is some reciprocal association in that you must be merciful to obtain mercy or be forgiving to obtain forgiveness, many of us are reminded of how we secured our own salvation under a circumstance where we were less than deserving. When Samuel’s people felt they were undeserving, he exhorted them: “Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies are great.”

God’s tender mercies may indeed temper His justice, but any presumption of Divine mercy while willfully missing the mark, is likely to bring harsh consequences. Of course it is not our place, or consistent with our calling, to sit in judgment on the hearts of others. That having been said, we should also be mindful of the fact that mercy is precious and dearly bestowed. It is not a gift to be trampled under foot by the unappreciative or those who would thoughtlessly make a mockery of God’s saving grace.

God inspires the higher impulses and holier emotions of men and angels and it is clearly within His purview to overshadow justice with mercy. So how do we engage in a ministry of mercy that does not run counter to His discipline? If we are to exercise wisdom, the relationship between justice and mercy may sometimes give us pause as we don’t want to thwart God’s purpose in any given situation. When we’re told “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” how exactly does that define our role with respect to mercy? Does the act of forgiveness presuppose some shortcoming on the part of those we forgive? We certainly have a biblical and historical basis for this question. After all Hosea preached forgiveness through repentance.

Now if we were to condition our forgiveness on repentance, we would find ourselves judging someone else’s sincerity or the quality of their repentance. Clearly this is not within our purview. But there is an easy way to avoid the whole minefield. We can simply adopt the attitude of Jesus as he was put to death. As his executioners were nailing his hands to the crossbeam, Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

As for forgiveness and mercy in the absence of repentance, the big answers are, of course, found in prayer. And yet part of the answer is to be found in the definition and nurture components of mercy, for it is more than the forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one’s power. It goes beyond the discretionary power of a civil magistrate to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment. Mercy can also be a simple act of compassion, or something that gives evidence of divine favor; merited or unmerited. It is truly a blessing and entirely consistent with Our Lord’s Gospel of loving-kindness.

As Jesus demonstrated on the cross, there is a higher quality of righteousness than justice. Jesus told us to minister to the sick, the fainthearted, and those bound by fear. As we share the Gospel, we help free those enslaved by evil. And we can do all of this unencumbered by any analysis paralysis or concern over judgment for excessive kindness because of the grace factor. Grace is, by definition, unmerited favor. Consider the words of Jesus: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

Consider also, the example Jesus gave about the man who steals your coat. By the Master’s admonition, in our time we would likely give the thief a set of matching gloves and perhaps even a scarf for a dash of color. Now would we do this simply to keep from getting shot or is there a larger principle involved? I believe our act of kindness in the face of such evil is the Peacemaker’s equivalent of shock and awe. It would serve to challenge the righteousness of the self-centered thief. And even though it may not spur in him an instant conversion to altruistic hero, it also won’t support his notion that everyone’s in it for themselves. He has, at least, one unsettling example of a fellow human being acting unselfishly. Until he grows to understand your motivation, the unusual experience will be hard to reconcile in his mind.