Burn Down

It is not a good idea to bring the war back into your own living room, particularly when you set the new target as a man who will pursue you with a vengeance when the opportunity presents itself.
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Can a relentless war be waged against an elected person and half of the population of the US for over two years and not add mightily to the payback register? What is to be expected when that war is being waged by the barbaric means of fighting cocks with razor spikes attached to their feet?
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What happens when the target cock at the head of the heap finally has the shackles removed and both feet go into a thrashing whirlwind making a threshing machine look like a toddler’s Lego toy by comparison?
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And along comes a fateful series of events capable of loosing the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
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Just two examples of which are enough for this little tale; one embodied in Julian Assange, the other embodied in Robert Meuller 111. Assange a journalist/publisher who has embarrassed the Emperor; Meuller, we are told by some, apparently a manipulator/conductor and protagonist in that war.
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Assange filling the role of First Amendment shredding trial balloon; Meuller filling the role of pike man, lancing the horses into a maddened frenzy and then opening the gates to nothing standing in the way of an eventual stampede.
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In the short interregnum before the start flag drops, the Media cocks have finally started to awaken to the fact, that should that trial balloon get up and fly, they will probably be left with no clothes as well, and with a threshing machine the size of a fireball from the heavens heading straight for them.
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The stench of that burn down will not be like the napalm barbecued water buffalo up on the Ho Chi Minh trail, but more like the stench coming from the stakes of the Medieval Inquisition, fuelled by billions of dollars worth of asset loss.
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Why go down that road in the first place, remembering the deep wounds inflicted on American society back in those 1960/1970 tumultuous years; not the greatest in the country’s history. Is collective memory that short? Also the great rupture rendered in America’s religious body, almost enough to be put on the spiritual suicide watch.

Perhaps the Fourth Estate and the Religious Estate might think about the need to go back to seeking the truth, although both ideological and religious systems are not about the search for truth, more about the need for security. However, at this time in human history, TRUTH may be the only life preserving option.
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One has to say that it would not be advisable to hold one’s breath in anticipation though.
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Have a read of the linked articles and see what you think, always remembering that human life is the place where God is met.

Afterthought: For an Australian politician (a Prime Minister no less) to claim a helping hand from God in a recent election win, one wonders why he wasn’t the first to jump on board the push for justice for this Australian citizen years ago. It must be only some of the select who qualify for God’s attention – NOT.

The Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah
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“He sketched a portrait of one he called “the servant of the Lord” who was, I suspect, simply a symbol of the Jewish nation facing its future realistically. The servant was to live out the vocation that this unknown prophet was driven to see as the only possible vocation for those he thought of as God’s chosen people.
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Israel’s role was to no longer seek power, but to accept powerlessness as a way of life. The “servant was to go beyond Jewish boundaries to bring justice to the Gentiles, light and salvation to the world (49:6). The “servant” was to live out the tenderness of God for all people (55:5), to guide the thirsty to water (55:1), to set life free (42:7), to make people whole (42:7). He would not resist hostility or pull back from maltreatment (50:5-6). His face would be set like a flint toward his purpose (50:7). Though afflicted, the “servant” would live in the expectation of a final vindication that would probably come not in history, but beyond history. This figure would finally be overwhelmed, meet a shameful death, even be slain as a criminal. That was all part of accepting the vocation of powerlessness.” (Jesus for the Non-Religious – John Shelby Spong)

Janine Hartley’s following article resonates with this great Jewish prophet’s insight.

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Where Freedom Begins – Janine Hartley

‘Take me with you,’ she said. ‘I’ll try harder, I promise.’
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Hassan found it very difficult to resist Farida’s pleas, but he knew well the consequences if their parents found out, if they were captured by soldiers, or worse. ‘Farida it is dangerous, you know that.’ Hassan tried to be strong, but he had always found it difficult to resist his younger sister when she looked at him that way. Those beautiful big brown eyes so much like their mothers that could speak of gentleness one minute and darkest storm clouds the next.
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‘You know the soldiers are always prepared on Fridays for the Ni’lin protest’, she fired. ‘Maybe you and your friends should not be so stupid and surprise the Occupiers occasionally’, she said. Her body was tense, and she knew that convincing her brother to let her go with him was not going to be easy. Hassan replied gently, ‘What if mother and father return and find you are not here?’ Hassan shrugged, ‘what then, eh?’
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‘They will think I am at school, that’s what I do on Friday’s remember?’ Farida rolled her eyes and gave her brother a pitying look. Hassan chose to ignore the taunt and she continued. ‘Besides, they will be held up at the checkpoint for hours. Mother will miss her appointment at the hospital again. They will still need to go there to make another appointment again. They will not be home before dark.’
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Farida was right, the soldiers were expecting the weekly protest, but the foreign activists and media always knew when and where the protests were. Without that support the world would not know what their people suffered under Israeli Occupation or the impact The Separation Wall has on their village. Yes, she was right, that was another reason not to allow her to accompany him. Farida carried fire within her, fire that could get them all killed. He knew there was no point in demanding she stay behind, he had to find a way to convince her with reason, she had never been one to conform to rules, not those of their culture or their father.
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‘Farida listen to me.’ Hassan stood to look out of the kitchen window toward the eight-metre-high wall that surrounded their town and cast a shadow over his heart. He knew he had to tread very carefully, not even hint at the fact of her gender forbidding her taking part. She was as sharp as a tack and she wasn’t going to let this be easy for him. He turned to look at her and decided to take a different path that he hoped led to somewhere other than her anger. ‘Farida, our brother was killed just for throwing a stone at an Israeli tank, cousin Olan is just twelve years old and sits in gaol, no-one knows why and for how long. What if the bullet hits you this time, and how could I protect you when I don’t know where you are until I hear you yelling at the soldiers?’
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‘Hassan my legs will move faster than my mouth this time, I promise. Besides, didn’t our brother die fighting for our freedom, if even you deny me freedom to protest the Occupation then he has died in vain’.

“Swing Voter”
Is the commonly denigrated “swing voter” simply a self centred chaser after MORE, as implied, or could it be that the “swing voter” is in fact a “performance voter”, casting a vote based on the lack of delivery of promised policies and outcomes, elucidated during the theatre of election promises the previous time around?
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Conversely, is a party stalwart voter, an evaluate r of trajectories of past successes and failures, or more like a slot machine handle pulling automaton?
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Is it similar to the difference between what some sociologists call communal Wayfarers and practising Wayfarers: The difference between those who practice citizenship seriously and diligently, and those who take it for granted?
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At this time, perhaps the civility or crudity which contending political aspirants use when performing for and addressing citizens, might give pause for some thought. Is the cultural atmosphere being simply reflected in those offering themselves for public service, OR, is it being led by their example?
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How much are they “bought” by the rewards of the job, OR, how much by the results for the commonweal that may be possible to generate?
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Do we even know enough about the aspirant; who are they, what is their background, what values and virtues will they be bringing to the table etc.?
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Will they truly represent the policies and outcomes that you have voted for, or are you being treated as a means to an end and if so, who’s end?
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Citizenship requires us to VOTE WISELY!
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The linked video demonstrates the possible outcomes of the neglect of taking citizenship seriously.

Heroic Greta Thunberg
One of the most obvious things that hits one when attending Church services is the predominance of the older age group making up the congregations.
Some of the Pentecostal Churches do have a greater number of young people attending and while they are growing in size, word of mouth indications are that there is also a relatively, not insignificant, turnover of young followers. Additionally, while this growth is good news, they make up a fairly small percentage of the whole Church going population.
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With the Baby Boomer generation that currently seem to make up the bulk of congregations, there is but about 15 years left before the thinning out becomes terminal.
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Now the only glaring conclusion I can come to, is the passing on of the Christian message to younger generations has seemed to have sadly failed.
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I feared failure when I was working for a living, but since retirement I have come to fear it more. And this sense of failure is not about the demise of the organisational Church, but the failure to let young people know that “Whether or not we survive is irrelevant. How we each live is an imperative”. For in the living is the measure of who you are and that goes with you into the Cosmic Mind/Memory of God in eternity.
I find this personally a devastating thought. How one can work out this failure when one becomes disembodied, the mystics tell us is very difficult.
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In the business world there seems to be an axiom that says, there’s no standing still. You’re either moving forward or you’re moving backward.
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If one is in the “business” of passing on the Way, you look for the potential young leaders of tomorrow and then do everything you can to support them. From sociology comes an idea that somewhere between 5%-10% of society lead change; about the same percentages will not change at all, and the remaining 80% will tend to follow where the leaders go.
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For us older ones, the need to not let fear and the pursuit of comfort – emotional and psychological comfort – get in the way of letting the younger budding leaders start to experiment.
Christianity is currently going through the 5th/6th great change in its history, and its name that describes it is Liberation.
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It is the young people who now know that we “olders” have let them down. The threat Extinction is its name. And wilful ignorance will not change that.
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Identify the potential young leaders in your communities; get out of their way by accepting change in the way that the Way gets promulgated; and give them total focused support in the best way that you can.
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A beatific eternal life may depend on it!