Christ as King

In ancient times, kings, priests, and prophets were often anointed with oil to signify God’s choice for a special role. The word Christ means ‘the anointed one’ and for Jesus it is a title signifying his divine anointing to redeem humanity, fulfill prophecy, and establish God’s kingdom.* During Jesus’ time you can understand why the King of Rome and Herod, the Roman Jewish king of Judea, were concerned about being overthrown. But God had other plans.

Power over people seems to be infusing our world today with horrific displays of violence spurred on by unrelenting activism. This power grab is intentionally driven by terrorists. And, too often it is the leadership of Western governments who don’t understand the folly of their policies which select winners and losers for their social experiments thereby inflicting pain in other ways.

I’m done with the violence and these experiments! When Jesus was preaching the gospel to his apostles and disciples he was saying this, that God is done with the powerful who actively work to make you surrender your soul to their will. It’s God’s will be done, not an emperor’s will and not a terrorist’s will. Jesus Christ was born to affirm God’s love for all people. The power hungry always ignore this message because it undermines their control.

There is hard terrorism that uses guns and other weapons of violence against unsuspecting people. But there is also a soft terrorism that uses government policies and court systems to unleash inconsistencies that destabilize peaceful environments. Both are used to adopt a message of fear. God would never envision this for his creation. Jesus knew this.

Consider the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples:

The Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 / Luke 11:2-4)

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”: (Praise & God’s Sovereignty)
“Give us today our daily bread.”: (Provision & Daily Dependence)
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”: (Forgiveness & Mercy)
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”: (Guidance & Protection)

Key Themes for Disciples

God-Centered Focus: Start with God’s glory, not just your own needs.
Trust & Dependence: Rely on God daily for everything, like needing “daily bread”.
Forgiveness: Acknowledge your need for forgiveness and extend it to others.
Surrender: Pray for God’s will to be done, showing surrender to His plan.
Spiritual Warfare: Ask for strength to overcome temptation and evil.*

No king of Rome or of the Jewish state needed to be concerned about Jesus assuming their power. Jesus understood that his power was the Word. The only control Jesus had was the ability to ease mankind’s souls. His teachings did this. God anointed him as Jesus Christ. We bow only to God. Is Jesus a king? Perhaps. I would much rather consider him as God’s disciple. This means that each of us can be God’s disciple too.

Happy birthday Jesus. May we understand your love for us all.

*found with the help of Google 🙂

Godly Principle vs Humanism

WHY do humans exist? Humans exist precisely because they can ask THE WHY. The universe is vast and the questions in it are infinite. This realm of infinity is anxiety provoking to most humans which is WHY humans should desire a sincere connection to their Creator.

Jesus preached that we all have the ability to connect directly to God (our Creator). We simply need to practice consistent humility with our words and deeds before Him and to acknowledge that our fellow man should be treated with the same humility (do unto others as you would have them do unto you). Moses received the blueprint for living a humble life by conveying God’s Ten Commandments, and Jesus lived this honest relationship while further relaying the Word of God. Neither man had to fight a war to give the lessons, yet both men suffered greatly to pass the lessons forward. Honoring their suffering is WHY WE EXIST, because without their example our earthly mistakes would be even more tragic. These men used Godly principles to teach effective self governance.

Think about it…No kings of man would personally suffer to that extent. Instead the king would send enforcers to implement the king’s rules and dictates. In the United States this method of governing is no different from a bureaucratic system enforcing dictates that are not specifically voted on by Congress. Who or what gives these bureaucrats their authority? Probably a law set in place by Congress who represent us. However, Congress’s power of oversight has been diminished by an ever expanding bureaucracy. Representation and the unalienable right to the self governance of WE THE PEOPLE is therefore diluted. This diluted representation allows the ideology of humanism to take control.

From Merriam-Webster.com : humanism – a doctrine, attitude, or way of life centered on human interests or values. especially : a philosophy that usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason : secular humanism. humanist.

As you can see from the definition above, an individual’s ability to use reason to actualize self-realization (of one’s worth, dignity and character) is the preferred ideology for a humanist rather than using their inherent belief in God (supernaturalism) and His natural law. The rejection of His natural law, however, makes it difficult to comprehend any unanswerable WHY.

No one can know everything. No one can know themselves completely let alone another person. An understanding of God’s natural law along with God’s commandments and Jesus’ teachings help to provide an anchor for effective self governance and morality. A successful constitutional republic demands that we have this knowledge. Without it, the governed become susceptible to tyranny and oppression because humanists always attempt to impose their created versions of “moral” values.

Our standards for scientific research, education, governance and economic development are anchored in God’s natural law. To dismiss these standards as antiquated is absurd. We must resist the postmodern humanism that relies too heavily on social activism to force its unreliable and shifting standards.

God help us to see THE WHY and THE WAY.

Unexpected Treasures

There is Hope. We have known about This for quite some time! Only, we ignore Its promise. Such a pity.

Look around and witness all the struggle. The hurt that blossoms forth from this struggling empties out into the world as irrational behavior. We turn heads away in pity. Instead, we must lift our hearts in prayer.

God knows this struggle. His physical world made it possible. Struggle involves mind made darkness. Yes! God did not make this darkness, only the human mind can do that. God’s darkness is only in the free and open night sky. He would never want His creation to dwell in the self created mind made darkness. Well, if that is so, why do we suffer so much? There in lies the struggle.

Whether it’s addiction, hate, despair, grievance or covetousness, our mind has made it up and our behavior has made it reality. This reality is what we are witnessing. Those who are in the struggle are intentionally sleeping in their mind made cold, yet comfortable, darkness. What those in the struggle do not understand is that our witness cannot help them. Our efforts cannot help them. Only God can help them out of the struggle.

But, you say, the struggle these people display affects my life! This struggle harms people and it harms themselves. How can we make it go away? We want to help. We care and we need to make it right!

All we can do is be a guide…Show them the way. There is truly more light in this world than there is darkness. Our prayers are only part of our guide to their path for more goodness and light. God gives the enlightenment.

Any religion or ideology that promotes or dwells on struggle as its basis purposefully brings darkness to our world and that is evil. God does not condone this arrangement. The Judeo-Christian model is God’s guide. The Ten Commandments point the way. We know this! Jesus was and is a living guide to open our eyes and in turn our hearts. Pray that you are like Him, a living guide to light us towards the treasures for which this life is worth living.

Struggle is an illusion. Give the gift of light this season. He made you in His image for this reason.

The Gods of Revolution

Why should we have a Constitution and why should our elected leaders swear an oath to abide by it? The easy answer is that the leaders who work in government need rules to govern our republic and they must say out loud that they will abide by those rules. Interestingly, we the citizens who are not elected must put our faith in those whom we elect. But who among us really understands what that faith can and cannot do?

I put faith in the process and not in the elected officials. Process is the rules…Just like a football or baseball game, teams compete and fans pray that their team’s talent along with a little luck can win the game. Rules keep the outcome fair. Yet, politics is another game altogether! The rules are very hard to follow. The DNC and the RNC give off the impression of fairness, but their ultimate goal is the acquisition of power and so the representation of we the people seems to take a back seat. These political “teams” involve many power brokers that offer little transparency to the voters. It is this lack of transparency that removes fairness from the process. Faith therefore is fleeting because personalities have been deemed more important than the rules.

These personalities believe themselves to be as gods. Just like the many gods who were worshipped in ancient times, these personalities consider themselves “gifted” with their own abilities of transformation. Unfortunately for we the people the transformation is not always part of a shared vision. It is as if the ancient war of the gods has returned to modern times as a revolution without a clear cause. How will the war end?

Governing bodies that use loose rules tend to usurp power for their own benefit. It doesn’t matter if the body being governed is a State or your own body. If the practice being used becomes unhealthy then there is a problem. Those being governed know the problem exists but are limited to interventions…It’s easy to see then how the power addiction turns into chaos (war).

Our Judeo-Christian God has the best process from which to draw faith. That which is real and objective, ie those things He created, hold the Truth. Therefore through God all things are possible. Once a person or government is driven by hubris, greed or power their ego thwarts the humility necessary to reveal Truth and to then turn chaos into mature and rational human behavior and actions for the betterment of others.

Be vigilant and pray for our country as well as an honest peace in the world.

When Feelings Don’t Lie

Since the time of Aristotle and no doubt even before, human kind has contemplated our existence. Every individual’s life experience is unique yet we all are conceived, born into existence, live, die and “feel” along that journey.

Where do “feelings” come from? This question is definitely hard to answer. I believe it’s more important to ask what feelings are grounded in. Plato developed more understanding around the latter question. Each individual has their own body/soul linkage…neither are independent from the other because one needs the other to form the basis of the human capacity to feel whether it’s the tangible aspects or the emotional aspects. Yet the body will one day decompose so humans are left with one more question, “What then?”. In this post I will focus only on those feelings that happen while we are alive.

Let’s start with the notion of “world view” which is different for everyone because we all have various family, religious, educational, cultural and geographic situations. This is our immediate experience, our “grounding”. Is the experience (aka grounding) “normal”? Heavens no! There are too many variables to account for. The grounding is the individual’s acceptance of their earthly experiences. It’s all relative to the order that is necessary for procreation of the human race without which we would not exist. This order is actually that which is normal. Societies are meant to thrive by bringing forth life within a structured familiarity (i.e. world view).

Our “world view” experience can expand with the help of modern technology. Travel, communication and media connect us with even more variety, but is this experience “grounding”? Heavens no again! These technological advances are a marvelous tangible distraction, but they do very little to advance our metaphysical sensibilities. The human soul was already a package deal from conception…Life on this planet is a distraction from the soul’s real purpose which is a oneness with God’s love for us. Ultimately He created us and wants us to live our physical lives graciously with each other before returning to Him in the metaphysical world.

As I have pointed out in my previous blogs (see https://shrewview.com/2019/04/03/a-religion-for-our-time/), order is based in the Male Principle (MP). Feelings that are grounded in the MP are orderly and cause no emotional distress. On the other hand, feelings that are grounded in the Female Principle (FP) are chaotic and cause much emotional distress…our metaphysical selves are always trying to balance these two Principles while we live in the physical world. Our feelings are expressions of this dual energy. Hence, our physical capacity to exist in this duality may or may not “fit” into the physical order of earthly circumstances. We see extremely ugly expressions of these dualistic feelings revealed as depression, anxiety, addiction, self harm or harm to others. The oneness with this ugly energy is our satan, our evil. There is no grounding, only physical and metaphysical unrest.

Honor your feelings but learn their value. The awareness they bring is for only you to understand because there is a much deeper duality at play…The middle path is not necessarily the safest and each extreme is not always the only choice. You must comprehend the metaphysical Male (order) and Female (chaos) Principles to actuate a balanced life in the physical world. The lie comes when you shun this reality and exist on a merely physical basis…living life becomes chaotic and difficult in a real sense.

Soon humans will be sold a non-physical experience in order to create a more “perfect” concept of “reality”. This experience is not metaphysical even though the Company logo identifies itself as “meta”. This will be corporate cronyism at its finest. Remember what I said previously, societies are meant to thrive by bringing forth life within a structured familiarity. We are not meant to be used and manipulated by others for a social purpose…The Male Principle and the Female Principle will be replaced with radically formulated principles in this new non-physical experience. This artificial “grounding” will give us everything we want and need for a fulfilling yet manipulated life experience. It “feels” wonderful, but it will cost us our God given free will…just what satan wants.

Lies can be easily sold to you if your feelings are not grounded first and foremost in God’s love for you. Removing the familiarity of God from society IS destructive to your soul.

Unto You Is Born This Day…

We all must bear some burden. What is your burden? Is the weight so heavy that your soul is unable to lift your spirit thereby causing literal physical or emotional pain? It’s okay…a baby told us so.

At Christmas time the daylight increases and metaphysical relief is revealed to us, but we must be present to accept the gift. Three wise kings may have had their physical gifts to give, yet only one King could give the Gift of most value. And so it was revealed!

Jesus needed to live a pretty full life before even he understood the meaning of this Gift. His Jewish brethren were responsible for teaching Jesus many truths about human nature as revealed by God through previous decades and centuries. These truths are the basis for spiritual enlightenment which is why religion must always have its place in our physical world. Why would humans ever remove God from our common understanding? Jesus knew the answer to this riddle, and the government of his time definitely didn’t want the answer known.

Truth: history repeats itself! “This Day” is like “That Day” in ancient times when the Roman king wanted no other king but himself. Today we understand that kings, like governments, wholeheartedly enjoy their “privilege” of giving and removing rights for those they “rule”. However, natural rights are God given which means that no human, no matter their perceived “privilege“, can give or remove them. Jesus didn’t die because the Roman king made it so…He died to show us all that our human suffering is limited to the physical world. God has more for us when we understand our metaphysical nature. AND more importantly, Jesus was born to be the ultimate example of a human life lived in the physical world with the liberty of an individual possessing divine worth that is separate from kings or governments and the happiness as expressed by one’s God given talents.

Let there be no doubt about it, Jesus is the reason for Christmas. His Gift is our Blessing. Let’s fulfill this promise by continuing to live humbly in God’s grace. On This Day He shall lift all darkness!

The New Abolitionist

Identifying with a group or a cause can be a fulfilling experience in some ways. You understand that you are not alone with your thoughts and your emotions. Identifying with other people about an issue can even motivate you to act…These emotionally motivated activists are plentiful in our current politicized culture.

When emotions outweigh rational thinking you can be sure that disaster will follow. The social emotional learning (SEL) tools that are being introduced at K through 12 schools are experimental and require that teachers take on a psychologist persona. SEL helps a child identify into a system of compliance that favors groups over individuals.

From kappanonline.org: “Although SEL has been conceptualized in various ways, it can broadly be understood as the processes through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to manage their emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions (Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013). More specifically, Roger Weissberg and colleagues (2015) have identified a set of five core clusters of social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.”

Sounds nice doesn’t it? However we must understand what their term “broadly” actually means. In the case of SEL I believe the term applies to a broad form of behavior compliance…Individualism is sacrificed for the collective. This spells disaster for our Constitutional Republic. Universities are creating activist teachers who in turn use SEL to reinforce measures of control on vulnerable students.

Many school teachers have given up on their traditional core clusters of reading, writing, math, history and the scientific method. During the pandemic the latest NAEP test results (2019 through 2021) show disappointing drops in academic performance for 4th and 8th grades across the nation. This is not just because of a pandemic! Teachers were failing their students even before then…No Child Left Behind became Common Core which then became Critical Race Theory. SEL is simply the tool now devised to grow student activists who will champion for a government collective. The World Economic forum makes this clear: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/07/what-is-collective-governance/

The ideology of collectivism is slavery. This was wrong in Roman times and it was wrong before the Emancipation.

If you use discrimination in an effort to remove discrimination you achieve nothing meaningful. The new abolitionist is one who maintains a firm action of inclusivity based on the character and merit of the individual. Absolutely no group of people can be thought of as monolithic because the new abolitionist creates space for the individual to learn and thrive objectively rather than subjectively.

The new abolitionist has the emotional maturity to position differing opinions as opportunities for deeper understanding. Parents know this. Sadly the teachers unions have identified teachers as the activist group to develop a society of like minded collectivist slaves.

The new abolitionist is faithful to Godly principles and knows that humankind’s imperfections and ego can harm this faithfulness. Idolatry has no place in a heart that serves God.

Our children are too precious to condemn their lives to government control. Yet this is where we are headed. Enough is enough!

Houston, We Have A God Problem

As we mere mortals reach for the stars and the moons and the galaxies, we must first ground ourselves in Truth for it is this Truth that paved our way to the stars, moons and galaxies.

God’s creation is an orderly approach to what then become the creations of men and women. Notice that there is nothing humankind can create that isn’t from an existing element which only God could create. In nature, only elements up to atomic number 94 exist; to go further, it is necessary to synthesise new elements in the laboratory. All synthetic elements are unstable, but they decay at widely varying rates: the half-lives of their longest-lived isotopes range from microseconds to millions of years.* Scientific methods are human made. We should not consider ourselves as God because only His creations, including you and me, are infinite.

Alternatively, the human mind is much more than a creation of God. Human kind can use the mind to imagine and act out a multitude of scenarios. The mind is chaotic and requires proper guidance. But who’s guidance? I believe it must be guidance by God. Hence the formation of the Torah, the Bible and other religious books and systems. ‘In the beginning was the Word’ means ‘at the beginning of everything, there was the entity we know as God, who embodied, and created, the rational principle on which everything is founded’. Divinely inspired Truth is the fundamental basis of human thought which lead to the natural rights ensconced in the U.S. Constitution. This is what makes us a free people in America.

Beware the man made “systems” that remove God’s meaning and purpose. Secular is non religious yet was never meant to be non God. Religion is a man made system for being with and relating to God as science is a man made system for being with and organizing God’s creation on earth. Likewise government is a man made system for organizing a community of humans. Humans are a creation of God which He saw as good. However humans have the capability of committing acts both good and bad which is why God also created boundaries by handing down The Word through prophets and articles like the 10 Commandments. This is where secularists and atheists always get stuck…The “separation” of church and state is not a clause in the Constitution. Instead the Constitution guarantees no establishment of one religion for the state or states https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/885/establishment-clause-separation-of-church-and-state … Belief in God and the individual’s practice of religion was sacrosanct.

We have taken this freedom for granted. We can witness this in the human chaos that is all around us. The frailty of the human spirit is reflected in the blatant rejection (“revolution”) of the boundaries of scientific methods, man’s laws and the constitutional limits all of which have been traditionalized in our secular world. This rejection has conditioned many people to believe in human made false gods such as climate change, critical race theory and party politics…Modern day golden idols shining as stars and moons and galaxies for those who worship them and attempt to control others through them. Man’s misuse of the military industrial complex is an unfortunate outcome of this Godless control.

Ground yourself by getting real with God. Place importance in objective truths. If your faith in God is weak then you are vulnerable to the evils, the false gods, the golden idols of our material world. You don’t need to follow a church or a preacher, but you do need to educate yourself with The Word by following a kind and humble path with similar seekers. God is Love, Light and the Way.

*from Wikipedia

God is For Giving

Ah the Holidays! Traditions that give our existence in the United States a meaning that goes beyond the words we know as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year. And meaning is so very important to the human species…We all know these dates exist in earthly time, and attached to these dates there are national as well as religious and family traditions, but reverence is definitely the central theme for them all.

Reverence is a showing of deep respect. The Holidays during November through December allow us to set aside time in our lives to dwell on this deep respect. But what or who are we to be respectful of or to? Think about this for a moment, if we secularize these special days then why would respect ever enter into any part of a holiday’s recognition or tradition? The truth is, these are holy days and the secular has no place in them.

Oh sure, Thanksgiving can be about turkey, Christmas and Hanukkah about lights and gifts, Kwanzaa about community, and New Years about starting anew. We can even give a “sinister” new meaning to them as Thanksgiving has unfortunately acquired because of our ability to associate current human progress with past human realities…Hindsight is always 20/20.

But a nation needs its traditions in order to build upon its positive communal spirit. And the best way to build a positive communal spirit is to give joy and love to our gatherings. God as the “Great Creator” is the silver lining of our most profound loss and the essence of everlasting Love. To revere God is to give the greatest gift of all which is compassion. A nation that builds upon Godly traditions is at its most compassionate. Secular traditions eventually become divisive because there is no unifying principle to humble the communal spirit. Turkeys, evergreen trees, presents, candles and ball-drops are not unifying principles!

Because God is forgiving, God is for giving. Our nation’s year-end celebrations are meaningful because God has shown us the way. May we be blessed enough to know this Love, respect it, and share it always.

Where Is My Church?

I left my faith two years ago. Before that time I was very committed to the faith of my birth, Unitarian Universalism. Ever since my children were born I served my church in various roles: teacher, membership chair, governing board member and past president, personnel committee chair, leadership facilitator, and docent of its historic site.

Unitarian Universalism is described as a liberal religion characterized by a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning”, open to all persons, and without a creed. Long before gay marriage became legal, we affirmed this right of passage and performed many of these unions. Born out of the Judeo-Christian traditions, the faith now preaches that Love is their doctrine.

I have come to see that my church has lost its way during this time of racial upheaval and that it is trapped in today’s climate of identity politics. It started after the 2017 presidential election when the Unitarian Universalist Association began to promote the “Resistance”. During that time the Faith in Action Committee became heavily focused on social justice issues like the Black Lives Matter movement and White Privilege re-education. Now they march for the Poor People’s Campaign, everyone’s right for employment, and sustainable living wages.

The members of Unitarian Universalism have a long tradition of being inclusive and justice seeking which aligns well with the faith’s democratic governance structure. This method of “doing church” helped me to ground myself in governance models that are inclusive and sensitive to just action. These models I easily applied to my role as a city councilor, and I was able to create needed change in my community of diverse hearts and minds. However, “doing church” and “creating communities of justice” is not the same as “worship”.

Worship is the feeling and expression of reverence for a deity. One should not worship money, a privilege, or a social cause in place of God…this will cause emotional suffering when one comes to understand that the object replacing the worship of God is fallible. I see this happening in our larger cities…Government is expected to solve all of humanity’s problems. The more troubling thing is that most if not all churches now are misguided in their worship practice.

Like Jesus turning the tables of the greedy and manipulative money changers at the Temple, we must shake ourselves awake to our true purpose as caring individuals spreading the Good News that God wants us all to know; our Creator loves us and our prayerful good deeds lead directly to Him. This would be my church and my proudest affiliation. Does this worship experience exist for me here on earth without racial creeds or social justice dogma? Like Jesus, each of us must find our direct link to The ever loving God.

Peace always.

The Shrew

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