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 🙂

Throwing Stones

Violent acts should never be an option. This is as true now as it was at the dawn of human existence. The trouble is that we humans never learn our lessons. Why is this? Not even Buddha, Moses or Jesus could rid us of this scourge. To be human is to suffer. God needs us to understand the relationship of ignorance and insecurity in order to reduce any and all societal brutality.

Consumerism has contributed to our misunderstanding of this relationship. While it’s true that money and stuff cannot create happiness, it is also true that money and stuff build walls between us. Clearly defining our needs and wants can release our society from the suffering that leads us to violence. But should it be the individual or the collective that defines these needs and wants?

During Covid-19 we saw what happened to the supply chain. The unintended consequences of “shutting down” to reduce virus spread limited certain industries from doing business as usual. Needs for personal protective equipment, medicine and paper products were limited. Certain in-patient and out-patient services were postponed or cancelled. Many events and ceremonies were postponed or cancelled too. During this time we were all stuck in our homes consuming all sorts of things: food, alcohol, drugs, social media, news and online goods. Where was the happiness?

In the above example we can see that individual needs were determined by the collective…Everyone had to go along to get along. If you didn’t follow the rules that were set by politicians then you were considered an outcast. It didn’t matter if you needed to run your in-person business, visit a dying relative or have an outpatient health screening because these normal needs were now considered selfish wants set by a narrative of fear. A collective ignorance associated with denying these individual needs was allowed to develop. A person could be shamed and even shunned based upon many unreasonable factors. I believe that the Covid 19 experience also damaged our emotional maturity resulting in a collective insecurity.

Insecurity arises when ignorance is allowed to grow. Effective communication and information help to dissipate ignorance. When one party will not converse with another other party, the insecurity of that non-communicative party develops into activism which can lead to violent acts. This is true when the ignorance and insecurity is between two individuals, between an individual and a group or between groups.

But the worst violence that occurs is within an individual’s own heart and mind…When this happens, no person or community is spared from the consequences. It takes a deeply disciplined Godly approach to solve one’s own ignorance and insecurity. Emotional maturity depends on this discipline. The true sin is to never understand or comprehend one’s own shortcomings.

Activism that exhibits violence is an injustice to all. We need to look inward before wanting to cast that stone. This is true for all things happening in our liberty minded society today. Oppression is a collectivist scapegoat used to mask ignorance and insecurity. God does not want us to fall pray to it!

Stop the Insanity

An addiction of hate has been allowed to permeate this country. I cannot believe the media attention of the past twenty years given to “unjust” causes. Are these causes really unmerited, undeserved, biased, prejudiced, unfair, inequitable or are they a symptom of something else?

I consider myself to be a very happy and positive person. Mine was a typical middle class (in the 60’s/70’s) home with parents who each struggled through the Depression Era yet were ultimately able to journey together through an improving economy ever mindful of their values. My generation benefited greatly from the experience of the previous generation. The ten year gap between me and my older siblings brought an even greater understanding to my cultural awareness…They were participants in Woodstock and Vietnam, me and my younger sister were participants in neighborhood “white flight” and school busing. I believe my happiness and positivity is grounded in both family and religious values for which I am eternally grateful.

Values are important for discerning the good and bad of this world. I have witnessed the substance abuse of a loved one come on slowly and seemingly innocently. A grueling schedule and hard work lead to a dependence on time off with copious amounts of alcohol. This behavior was the easy part of addiction for me to see and call out. However, it was the secrecy of drug use that mattered most. I could tell something just wasn’t right, but my ignorance around the issue of drug abuse limited my ability to confront it competently. Secrets allowed the substance abuser to control the values of the relationship. No matter how much I tried to talk with him about what didn’t seem right with our situation, it was plain to see that I was on my own. His secrets kept us in separate worlds. Our immediate family and close friends were only helpful once the secret was in the open.

This experience for me has revealed something very troubling about our society today. There is a definite manipulation by the media and government elites to create two different worlds in our country. Their secrets are abusive to our relationship with each other and our shared values of transparency, kindness and independent thought. Their addiction to power has allowed a division between them and us. Do we the people have the insight to recognize their abuse of our necessary relationship to them?

My experience with addiction taught me that anger was the root cause of his substance abuse. Anger? Yes. This emotion can be easily suppressed and then ultimately expressed through addictive behaviors. I am witnessing this now in the context of our politics.

Think about the cycle of anger enveloping some people. What are the political implications? Whether it is about race, gender, a woman’s right to choose, inflation or climate change, we the people are being pushed to the brink! But it’s worse than this because the media and political elites are fueling the anger with their secretive collusion of incomplete or false narratives along with leadership that doesn’t seem to create a real solution. Put simply, clueless angry people will become addicts in need of the next “fix”. It is plain to me that each “fix” is another government handout or a manic act of resistance. STOP THE INSANITY!! Well, this is exactly what the elites want in order to control our existence.

Do not give in to the anger. Let go and let God. Practice the mindfulness that will lead you back to what matters most: transparency, kindness and independent thought regarding yourself and your neighbor. You see the man made manipulation and you must not ignore it or enable it. Take a deep breath in and exhale the anger while saying, “I will follow the will of God and value His blessings above all else.” True moral behavior is grounded in acknowledgement of a Higher Power, not human power.

Transparency, kindness and independent thought are easiest to practice with a clear mind and open heart. May it be so.

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.

Shrewd Awakenings: Don’t Shoot The Messenger

Relax! The economy is fine, the border is secure, Social Security is solvent and crime is down…So say the Democrats in charge. Okay, okay. It’s not just the Democrats. FINALLY WE CAN UNDERSTAND IT’S THE DEEP STATE! Yes, that is correct.

When only a few of our representatives care to check on the functions of our government systems, then we all have a deep seated issue. For too long the federal bureaucracy has been allowed to grow without constraints. Why has this happened? Laziness perhaps, but more likely it’s covetousness. Coveting is an ungodly desire for something that belongs to another. It can lead to greed, stealing, jealousy, envy—even murder. God wants us to be grateful for those things we have and to work for what we desire, rejoicing with others in what they possess. Our federal DEEP STATE is committing a sin against each citizen of this nation by rejoicing in what the DEEP STATE possesses in stead of rejoicing in what each individual has worked for.

Greed can be seen in the rising federal debt. Stealing has occurred with inflation. Jealousy is apparent when our leadership taxes our wealth. Envy leads to this taxation. Murder is then the intentional destruction of our liberties in order for the DEEP STATE to survive.

The big cover-up is insidious. Corporate media conspires with DEEP STATE actors to manipulate outcomes so that it seems to those watching from the outside that “nothing can be done” to change course. Meanwhile, courageous voices are cancelled to help perpetuate the manipulation. Heaven help us!

It’s not enough for you and I to throw up our hands in defeat or to ignore the coming consequences. We must find and follow the canceled voices. We must become the voice of reason and defend liberty. It is 1776 once again! We the people are the messenger and we will not be silent.

The Roots of Politicized Evil

What does evil mean to you? When you perceive evil what are your next motivations? Is it possible to root out evil? If so, what then?

Evil is essentially the opposite of good. One requires the other in order to exist and have meaning. For instance, if human kind were able to transform our existence on earth to always be good, would human kind have rooted out all evil? OF COURSE NOT! There would always be an example of evil in order to define what is good. Otherwise good is simply that which IS.

As I read social media threads in response to political posts it is obvious to me that liberal contributors to these threads are more hostile to the conservative or moderate contributors. Why is this? Doesn’t it stand to reason that provoking anger from the opposition could lead to more hostility? Isn’t hostility a form of evil? Isn’t provoking someone evil? If one person provokes another, isn’t the natural human reaction to fight back? Therefore isn’t fighting back an evil action?

I hope you can see where I’m going with this…

If tomorrow we all agreed that those who govern us are doing good work to run the country and the world, then we would probably also all agree that our lives are equal and fair. Total and complete agreement requires no decent. Isn’t no decent a good thing? But that’s not the world that humans live in. Remember that God had to expel Adam and Eve from Eden because they didn’t obey His order. Even if you don’t believe in God or what is written in the Bible, Eden is a perfect example of a utopian system that could not really exist. Unless humanity removes the reality of our free will, our existence is always good vs evil, one vs the other, yes vs no, right vs wrong.

We must not allow ourselves to label any political party in the USA as evil or good. Political parties exist to organize as a platform of ideas that represent the free thought and beliefs of some people. When there is more than one political party then there are many ideas. When there is free debate and questioning of the ideas then the best ideas generally win, but only if a free press reports on the ideas in a bipartisan manner. It is not a crime to have an idea or belief.

Politicized evil is rooted in controlled messaging whether this narrative is put out by the press, social media platforms, partisan politicians or woke churches. We know that large sums of money often accompany the controlled messaging in some way. The only way to root out politicized evil is by uncovering the truth which can only be arrived at by questioning the narrative. When questions are shut down, ignored, diverted or dismissed then there is immaturity and complicity to the evil.

It takes courage and maturity to fight back and question the narrative…This is good for our Republic! I care about other’s ideas and beliefs which is why I will always ask questions about their ideas and beliefs. I would expect the same in return. And just like that, evil is neutralized 😉

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!

Giving Over Personal Control

It’s true! Bit by bit my incredibly ordinary life is being controlled by forces that have very little compassion for me and my values. What forces? Basically they would be anything and anyone in government that I personally cannot hold accountable for actions that are contrary to my welfare.

The “general welfare” clause in the US Constitution is incredibly important for the individual citizen. General is meant as inclusive rather than exclusive AND very different from “for the public (common) good”.Think of it this way…As one individual in a family, that one person has the same personal rights and responsibilities as every person in that family to keep that family whole. But, not everyone in the family has the same abilities so each individual must learn how to contribute to the family’s overall health and survival. It’s just the same for our nation! We as individuals with our own unique abilities have the rights and responsibilities to keep our country whole. WE do this…We The People. Get it?

Each of us have the self-governing authority to ensure a governance that promotes our general welfare. This means that elected officials and administrative bureaucrats must use BEST PRACTICES to ensure the security of each and every individual who is a citizen of the country that ALL OF US are a part of, a.k.a. the More Perfect Union. Not the “Perfect Union” because we all know nothing and no one is perfect, but we can and must at least strive for a perfection which is God’s will NOT man’s will. As a child of God and as an individual of our human family I honor others of my human family by helping and not hurting our general welfare.

Elected officials and administrative bureaucrats hurt our general welfare by using their will to control the general population. Methods of this control typically come in the form of Congressional overreach. For example: The Democratic Party for years have been wanting single payer health care. To achieve this end they put out the narrative that 30 million people every year go without any health insurance and therefore go into debt trying to pay back bills for their major medical care (we can equate this initiative to the current college debt forgiveness). This narrative is repeated over and over with help from the liberal media in effect drowning out any hard data that shows many of these people are temporarily without insurance because of a job change, a lifestyle interruption, preferring to pay cash, or have no idea they can negotiate their costs and afford a pay back plan. Leaving out this hard data creates the perception of a “crisis”, therefore health insurance for 320 million people must change for the needs of 30 million people who are either in a transition for health insurance or who know how to deal with their health care needs in their own way. Reality could indicate that only 500 thousand people need actual help which could be managed through their representatives directly or through a charity source. Interestingly, much of this debt was directly forgiven anyway by every healthcare user through increased facility costs which you have much more control over rather than your tax dollars going into a federal healthcare fund.

Enter the “care team” of the federal government…Taxpayers across the board foot the bill that bureaucrats implement through laws, regulations and IRS oversight. I don’t know these people! I’ll never meet these people and there is no guarantee I can even talk to them. Yet the money from my paycheck that goes to Washington DC is supposedly working for my benefit. Congressional oversight of the administrative state is currently a lever only pulled by a Democrat majority (with help from a Republican establishment), which is to say that oversight isn’t actually happening for our general welfare. Control is in their hands. Affordability is never a result. My tax dollars are being spent on initiatives that go counter to my values in some cases.

Even “private” industry is tracking our second amendment right. Government along with Big Tech definitely have an interest in this.

In the not too distant future nothing the individual does will be left unchecked which is the complete opposite of the limited government that our forefathers envisioned. Once the federal government has access to your health care practices, education choices, energy usage and banking records you have handed over control of your ability to decide what is best for your general welfare. Your Liberty is not even an option. The only choice you will have is at a federally mandated voting booth (or app lol), but the results will be made by majority rule conditioned by media propaganda. Personal rights and responsibilities become obligations and contrition.

We as individuals, families and communities take care of ourselves. Politicians and bureaucrats do not take care of us, and regulations should be implemented only when clear and scientific data along with bipartisan debate ensures that liberties are minimally encroached. When a federal government works hard to divide people racially, culturally, economically and politically then it becomes harder for us to form bonds to take care of each other and easier for that manipulative government to provide that care by picking winners and losers with our own tax dollars.

Never allow yourself to be guided toward division against your fellow man. Let go and let God as it is said. Pray for more kindness in all of our hearts. And treat your neighbor the way you would want to be treated. Love is a verb, use it.

The Shrew

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