#like my god I want the slaughter in gaza to stop too

[medinaquirin]

The utter blind hypocrisy of people criticizing Dems for trying to court too far Right while gleefully upholding the Right's obsession with moral purity and making the "right" people suffer.

[frogspawned]

this is such incredibly poor reasoning. biden is actively alienating his own party, you know, the thing he needs to have behind him to win, the people who want him to win this fucked up binary of bad options, to appeal to people who absolutely will not vote for him. who cares if they are stirred up! they don't like him anyways! they were never going to be swayed to the left, particularly in the current extremely polarized political climate in the united states. you're alienating your base for ZERO return. why are mainstream democrats always pulling this same tired routine? it has NEVER worked! you're just cutting away your own support, like some idiot sawing at his own rope while dangling over a cliff, because some of the other guy's might slip loose (spoiler they won't).

if trump wants to be the most pro-israel president in history, why are you competing with him for it? let him fucking die on that hill. your actual voters, your staff, the whole fucking world world are all BEGGING you to get off the hill.

"my opponent wants to wear the shit crown, but gosh, his followers -- who hate me viscerally and will never support me under any circumstances -- won't like it if i don't fight for the shit crown. oh well! guess i better wear it first!"

i'm already holding my fucking nose knowing i'm going to have to vote for this joke, because the alternative is the the same but worse! at least i can try to shame biden, and pressure him! we've moved the needle incrementally, and the momentum is building. too slow, but it is. the us abstained for the last UN vote for ceasefire. which is not enough, laughably paltry by any stretch, but at least it's creeping in the right direction. trump's going to continue to fund israel's war machine gleefully, with no hold's barred, if not ramp it up. he will actively enjoy any protest as red meat for his followers. because then he can whinge and posture and puff himself up. biden has an emotional attachment to the idea of israel? who gives a shit joe! maybe one should care more about the reality than the idea, and the reality is undeniable at this point. it's standing stark and naked before the world.

the reality is the united states has poured BILLIONS into a genocide machine who openly celebrates ethnic cleansing. idf soldiers put up selfies and funny tiktoks, and loot the homes of the palestinians they've slaughtered for the crime of existing on land they want. idf snipers target aid workers and doctors and children. they block food and medicine. they blow up trucks of flour. this is not speculation -- even if someone doesn't believe what their own eyes can see, every day, of the horrors pouring out of palestine, then take israel's word for it. they're proud of what their doing. they celebrate it. they snipe old women and beat old men to death, use children as bait for ambulance drivers, tear down homes and temples and mosques and centuries old olive groves then post it for their friends and family to see. they actively corroborate their own war crimes on tiktok.

but because it's easy, because the us has always done it, because it makes money for contractors and makes evangelicals giddy about the apocalypse, we'll just continue to pour anti tank rounds into their hands, missiles, drones, whatever tools they need to """mow the grass"""" in gaza. the military industrial complex has the us in an inescapable chokehold, in every facet of our lives, and god forbid we stop throwing lives and money and blood down the endless money hole. they might stop bombing people if we stop sending them bombs! and then how will israel sell that prime beach front property?

and in a decade we'll wring our hands and coo about what a tragedy it was, how sad, how inevitable, and throw up a fucking memorial in some park so we'll never forget.

[xtruss]

Texas Bentley’s Top 10 Predictions For 2024

I put on my Swami hat and my Guru suit, met with the Shamans, and consulted AI. I crunched all the data, checked all the facts, consulted all the "experts", and analyzed the results. And here they are - Texas Bentley's Top Ten Predictions for 2024 (and beyond).

#10 - Vladimir Putin Will Be Re-elected as Russia's President

Yeah, I know that's not an especially astute or amazing revelation (we'll get to those later) but it is an absolute slam-dunk guaranteed-to-be-correct prediction, which ensures, at least, that I won't get them all wrong. Of course, I could have predicted with equal certainty that the Sun will rise in the morning, but that is not completely certain. A giant meteor could smash the Earth into pieces tonight, or the Sun itself could explode before tomorrow. It's possible. But barring either of these two possible events, it is absolutely certain that Putin will be re-elected in 2024. It's also nice to start off with some good news, since there's not going to be a lot of that in the near future. Which brings us to my next prediction...

#9 - Things Will Get Worse Before They Get Better

Most people who have been keeping up with the news, and whose understanding of history extends beyond last Saturday night, probably already know this, but that particular set of people is a very small minority in the West, especially in the USA. Those who think that voting will change anything, or that there's any chance that the governments and the ones who own and control them will loosen their grips on the collective throat of Humanity have a naive and ahistorical world view that, to be honest, is a big part of the problem.

There can hardly be any credible argument against the fact that in the 21st century, for people throughout most of the world, things have not only gotten worse, they've gotten much worse. Those who say their rulers are "stupid" because of this fact, miss the whole point. Their rulers are not stupid, they are doing it on purpose, and will continue to do so, unless and until we stop them. Voting will not do it, singing songs and carrying signs will not do it. Posting the sad face emoji on Facebook will not do it.

If you want to try to make things better, you will have to pass through a crucible of fire, from which there's no guarantee you'll make it to the other side. But it is guaranteed that if you're not willing to go there, you'll never see the other side. And you will sit and wait to get what you deserve. If you want to know how to do it and what must be done, ask the Houthis, ask the people of Palestine, Iran and Syria, ask the people of Cuba and the people of Donbass. They know, and they are doing it, right now, today. Take a lesson from them. Speaking of which...

#8 - The Shia Axis of Resistance Will Not Back Down

The harder the US/UK/EU and Israeli forces hit the Axis of Resistance, the harder they will hit back. NATO forces are laughably unprepared for a conventional military confrontation in the Middle East or anywhere else. However, they are nuclear armed, experts at dirty tricks, and there is no moral line they will not cross to cling to power or slaughter those who resist them. They have already proven it themselves, by their actions in Gaza and elsewhere. Iran has stated officially that they do not possess, nor seek to possess, nuclear weapons, because those types of weapons are immoral and repugnant to God and Humanity. If attacked, they will use every weapon at their disposal to defend themselves, and they will fight to the end, without hesitation.

#7 - NATO Will Soon Involve Itself in a Multi-front War

In Ukraine, in the Middle East, domestically in Europe and North America, for sure, and probably with China too. Within a year from now, the countries of NATO will be in a kinetic shooting war in most, if not all, of these places. And they will be getting their butts kicked, on all Fronts. just like they have in Ukraine. The Houthis have already defeated the US-backed invasion on the ground in Yemen, and they have proven their ability and willingness to hit targets in the Red Sea. What the Houthis have done in the Red Sea, Iran can do in the Persian Gulf. The logistics alone make it impossible for the US/EU to win, but their naval and commercial ships will be sitting ducks for Iranian and Houthi missiles, in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and treated accordingly.

NATO's misadventures in Ukraine have absolutely depleted both the military and economic reserves of the US and EU, and Russia has proven that they cannot be beaten, even by the full power of NATO, in a war using conventional weapons in Ukraine. So NATO will use their unconventional weapons - nuclear, biological and chemical. They have done it before, they will do it again.

The farmer's uprisings going on throughout Europe will only grow in both size and intensity, as will the confrontation between Texas (plus the 25 states that support Texas) and the US federal government. In France, the police are literally handing out chocolate to the farmers who have blockaded Paris, dumped manure in front of government buildings and burned trucks with foreign produce. These are extremely militant actions, violent felonies, and it is only because of the fear on the part of the government and police that an equally violent reaction has not occurred. They will, but not yet, and not in the traditional form of suppressing uprisings. The NATO Nazis will use nuclear weapons on the foreign Fronts, and biological weapons against their own citizens domestically. You have been warned.

The same goes for the "Dis-united" States. The conflict between the "Liberals" and "Conservatives" has now gone far beyond any possible peaceful political resolution. There will be another US Civil War. It may not be sparked by the current confrontation on the Mexican border, but most certainly, it will begin shortly after the upcoming US "election", which will again be rigged, and more obviously and blatantly than ever. On purpose.

#6 - Genocide and War Crimes Will Continue and Increase, in Gaza and Elsewhere

The horrific slaughter and war crimes in Gaza are not primarily about "defeating Hamas" or even stealing the last remaining land from the Palestinian People. The main purpose of the genocide in Gaza is to move the Overton Window to a place where genocide becomes not only acceptable, but unremarkable and commonplace. Soon, they will do in the US and Europe what they are now doing in Gaza. The current death toll in Gaza from bombing and shooting, of mostly civilians by the IDF stands at 27,000 as of today.

Tomorrow, it will be higher still, but that number will soon be eclipsed by the number of deaths from famine and disease caused by the Israeli blockade and the failure of any international response to prevent it. Israel and its lackeys in the US and EU have laughed in the faces of the ICJ and UN, proving the collusion and abject impotence of international law. What is the use of "international law" if it is not enforced? It is totally useless and incapable of being used to prevent the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, and the multiple genocides that are on the horizon across the globe.

Economic sanctions and blockades of humanitarian supplies are every bit as deadly as missiles, bombs and bullets. Who can forget the half million Iraqi children murdered by US economic sanctions against Iraq under the Clinton regime, that Madeleine Albright said "were worth it"? Quite a few, apparently. But they forget at their peril - The blockade of Iraq, like the blockade of Gaza, are examples of what's to come, genocide by depriving millions, or billions, of people of food, water, medicine, electricity, transportation, communication, everything, in fact, that is required to sustain life, that will be used against all areas and people that oppose the Nazis of the 21st century, including in the US and Europe.

Death by starvation is the worst possible death that there is. It is slow and painful, humiliating, and creates a mad desperation in which people become willing to sell their children or their souls for a cup of gruel or a handful of Soylent Green. And this is exactly the weapon that will be used by 21st century Nazis, but it is not the only one. Nuclear and chemical weapons will be used on the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East, and biological weapons will be unleashed not only against foreign adversaries, but also domestically.

#5 - The War Will Be Global, and It Will Be Based on Economic Status, Not Nationality

The war will not be between nations, it will be a war of the Parasite Class, the "Golden Billion" that exists in every nation on Earth, against the majority of Humanity. Famine, pestilence (disease), and military conflict will be the main methods used to depopulate the planet of the majority of its human inhabitants. This war has already begun, and as in chess, we are now entering the Middle Game, where all the death and destruction take place. After the Middle Game comes the End Game, and the world will be vastly different for those few who will be left when they get there.

#4 - Trump Will Not Be the Next US President

In the 21st century, only idiots vote in the US. Same goes for Europe. The US "elections" in the last few decades have been marked by a blatant and impudent fraudulence, as if it were being done openly and intentionally, just to rub it in the faces of the chumps who still vote, who continue to believe they could win in a crooked game of 3 card monte. Which is exactly the case. Even though Trump is just another huckster and servant of the Parasite Class, he has zero chance of being again, for the third time, elected US President, or at least of taking the office, which is all that counts.

Even if he doesn't have a "heart attack" or suddenly succumb to some mysterious form of "turbo cancer", or "accidentally" fall off the balcony of his penthouse on the 54th floor, he currently stands indicted on 91 felony charges in four separate court cases. And though being indicted, convicted or even actually being in prison does not preclude one from running for, or even being elected President, being in prison does prevent one from actually moving into the White House. And Dandy Donny Trump ain't no Eugene Debs.

There are four charges against Trump, having to do with the J6 "insurrection", that in fact do prevent anyone who is convicted of them from holding office. Trump already had the 2020 election stolen from him, and he took it like a punk, and didn't do anything about it when he had the chance. How can anyone believe he would do anything different if he gets punked again? Besides, Trump and the Republicans are owned and controlled by the same scum who own and control Biden and the Democrats. They will decide who moves into the White House on January 20th, 2025, and you can bet, it won't be Trump. Or Biden.

#3 - Biden Will Not Be the Next US President. He Won't Even Run

Biden can't even walk, so how can he run? He slithered into the White House after a rigged and stolen election, and proceeded to ensconce the most corrupt, contemptible and humiliating presidential administration in US history. No competent person can deny or even question the obvious fact that Biden is not capable enough to bathe himself, much less be President. And while Biden may not have as many felony charges as Trump has, if there was any justice at all left in the USA, (there isn't) Biden's degenerate drug addict sex pervert son would be facing a number of charges that would make Trump's 91 felony charges look like a parking ticket. (He won't.)

Because, of course, one of Biden's cronies, hand-picked by those who own and control both parties and the entire US government, will be installed in the White House to make sure all Hunter's charges simply "go away". If actually charged for the multitude of crimes which are already irrefutably proven by the evidence on his infamous laptop, Hunter Biden can be counted on to sing like a canary and squeal like a pig on anyone and everyone, including his own senile father, at even the first thought of jail time.

There's no chance he could even handle a few weeks or months in jail. He must have protection from the very top, and only the White House can provide that kind of protection. And obviously, it has worked so far, so it will continue to work again. The next US President can't be a Republican, they would put Hunter on trial, just as the Democrats have done to Trump. And Hunter Biden knows as much as Epstein, and cannot be allowed to talk. The next President has to be a Democrat, which is exactly what it's going to be. Biden will not be re-elected, because he won't even run. Nor will the cackling harpy, Vice-President Harris. They, like Hunter's felony charges, will simply "go away", swept into the dustbin of history like a wad of used kleenex.

The non-entities who make up the top ten Democratic contenders for US President in 2024 are an insipid tribe of political pygmies and perennial losers who are about as important and inspiring as the aforementioned kleenex. No sane person would vote for any of them. And none of them will be President in January 2025. Nor will any of the sold out mob of craven lickspittles that make up the rat's nest collection of Republican candidates (including the lead contender against Trump, Nicky Haley, who is currently trailing 20 percentage points behind "None of the Above" in the Nevada Republican primaries) look. But The Powers That Be have already decided that it won't be a Republican, (it won't) it will be a Democrat (it will) who moves into the White House next year. But it won't be any of those listed above. Read on, I will tell you exactly who it will be. Brace yourselves.

#2 - The Next US President Will Be... Mobomba!!!

"Mobomba", is an amalgamation of "Michelle" and "Obomba", Barack Obama's well-earned nickname, as the "drone killer" President, who personally authorised 540 lethal drone attacks that killed at least 3,797 people, of whom at least 10% were innocent civilians, including at least one teenage US citizen. In exactly the same way that Dick Cheney was the shot-caller behind Bush Junior, and as Bush Senior called the shots behind Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama is now coming to the end of his third term as de facto President of the USA, the one who has been hiding behind the curtain and making every decision of the Biden regime all along. Obomba's work has again proven satisfactory to his masters, so shortly will begin his fourth term, hiding in the wings behind his spouse, "Michelle", (who may or may not have been born an actual biological female) and will soon be the next President of the USA. Take it to the bank, and remember you first heard it here.

I was born in 1960, I remember when JFK was murdered, and since then, every US President has been worse than the one before. This trend will continue with the selection of Mobomba. The 2024 US Presidential "election" is a freak show distraction for the rubes who still think that voting means anything in the 21st century USA. Meanwhile, it's all already been decided, and things will go on as usual. The rich will get richer, the ultra-rich parasites will continue to get ultra-richer, and the hard working and long suffering majority of Humanity will continue to be targeted for extermination and ground into the dust, through poverty, pestilence, famine and war. Mobomba will not only be the worst President in US history, they (pronoun is correct) will go down as the most malignant despot in human history. Caligula, Vlad the Impaler (who was Romanian, not Russian), Hitler. Mobomba. The Antichrist. And now, folks, for the Number One Texas Bentley Top Ten Prediction for 2024... (Drum roll, please.)

#1 - Everything Will Still Be Ok

Things are going to get worse, much, much worse, and they will probably never get better. You and all those you love will probably suffer more than you could ever imagine, and then you will die. The next few decades will probably be, barring a miracle, the most horrific in all of recorded human history. Famine, plague, World War Three. The reign of the Antichrist. The extermination, like insects, of the vast majority of Humanity, folks like you and me. All brought on, on purpose, by genuinely satanic forces in human form. No one gets out alive.

But don't worry too much about it. Just keep on keepin' on. Don't sell your soul, don't betray your Humanity. We can't save the world, it's already too late for that. But we can still save our own souls, by doing everything we can to try and save the world, being on the right side of truth and justice and Humanity, fighting against the demons in this world, putting them out of their misery when we can. And in the end, that's what counts - that we tried. You know, like Don Quixote's Impossible Dream. Obviously, the devil is real, and here now. You can literally see him in the faces of Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, Chrystia Freeland and Victoria Nuland, and in their every action. But if the devil is real, then that means God must also be real. And He is. Remember that. Don't just believe it, understand it. That everything we do in this life, good or evil, right or wrong, comes back to us in equal measure. Everything. And what could be more beautiful than that? This is not the only world, and this is not the only life. As my homeboy Bill Hicks used to say, "It's just a ride." We will all get to the end of it, and then beyond. And get everything we deserve. Be brave, be good, say your prayers, trust in God.

— By Russell Bentley | Sputnik International | February 05, 2024

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[queertheology]

A STRANGE BAPTISM: SERMON ON THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH

Acts of the Apostles 8: 26-40

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’

The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

When approaching a new text I think it’s helpful to start with the question, “What stands out to you? What do you notice?” And so I think it’s fair to start by saying, I notice this is a weird text. First an angel of the Lord appears out of nowhere and commands Philip to go down a wilderness road. Without question Philip goes and finds an Ethiopian Eunuch riding in a chariot who just happens to be reading Isaiah. And then at the end of this whole encounter Philip apparently has the gift of teleportation and finds himself in a new place leaving the newly baptized Ethiopian Eunuch by himself. What do we do with a text like this?

The book of Acts picks up right where the Gospels leave off. Some have even called it the 5th Gospel. Unlike the rest of the Second Testament, which is very much about the theology of the fledgling Christian movement, Acts is very much an action novel. It follows the stories of the nascent Christian community (who were still calling themselves “Followers of the Way”) as they struggle to form a group identity. They were a small community who were being heavily persecuted. The story of the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch comes right after Stephen has been stoned to death for proclaiming Christ. This story begins a series of healing and conversion narratives. Right after this story we read about the conversion of Saul who would become Paul. The book of Acts is trying to explain the expansion of this new movement. It’s a time when old rules about who were in and who were out were being challenged. And so we come to this text. Philip finds an Ethiopian Eunuch, an officer in the court of the queen, reading aloud from the book of Isaiah.

It’s interesting that Phillip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” and the Eunuch responds, “How can I unless someone guides me?” There is a reason that we don’t baptize children in private. It’s about more than just allowing the congregation to coo over their adorableness (although that’s nice too!). We baptize as a part of a community because we are making a vow to help guide these children as they grow into their unique faith expressions. The role of faith formation doesn’t just fall to the parents or to the teachers tasked with teaching Sunday School; it falls to the entire community.

How do we as a community understand the Bible? How is it that we approach this text? For some of us, this collection of writings has been used as a weapon against us, and so we either abandon it altogether or we read it so that we can form it into a shield to protect us. For others we have read this text so many times that it has ceased to bring us any new revelation. For some we haven’t approached the text at all; it either holds no relevance to our lives or else we simply have not had the opportunity to engage with it. My hope is that we can all begin to unpack our baggage around this text and begin to engage it with new eyes and open hearts; so that when these children begin to read it on their own, we can guide them and allow them to guide us.

One of the most significant parts of my spiritual journey has been relearning how to read the Bible. I have had to find new ways to let these words speak to me and to move in my heart. I have had to find ways to make the text sing again while also keeping my mind and my intellect engaged. So how do we read this text with new eyes? What about this story still speaks to our lives and our community today?

I wonder what it was that led this Ethiopian Eunuch to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. Clearly there was something in him that was compelling him to seek out a place of worship. But this person would not have been welcome in the Temple in Jerusalem. His status as a Eunuch, someone who had either been castrated or born with ambiguous genitalia, would have prevented him from being able to even enter into the Temple. We don’t know what compelled him to go to Jerusalem, what he had hoped to find there, or what his experiences were. But I think we can safely assume that he wasn’t allowed to participate. And now he was returning home.

Some of us have had this experience of going to a church and hoping to worship and instead being turned away. Or of being allowed to attend and yet being made to feel uncomfortable; maybe because we weren’t wearing the right clothes, or we didn’t know when to stand or kneel, or because of our gender identity or sexual orientation. And we have left church with a heavy heart, maybe crying on the way home because we had so desired to worship and had been prevented.

I wonder if the Ethiopian Eunuch was experiencing some of those feelings as he traveled toward home? And yet, Philip finds him reading the Scriptures. Maybe he was trying to find out why he had been rejected. Maybe he was looking for solace. I wonder if he had turned to his favorite passage to reassure himself that he was a beloved child of God. A couple of chapters after the passage he’s quoted as reading in our Acts narrative we read these words: “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say “the Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant. I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” What powerful words! And words that stand in such contradiction to the law in Deuteronomy that says, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted into the assembly of God.” These are words that would have crushed his spirit. Words that would have been used by others as an excuse to keep him out of the Temple. These words are still in use today to keep transgender people out of the house of God. But in spite of these hurtful words, the Eunuch was also able to find words that affirmed him and gave him hope. Words that he may have been turning to in his time of rejection.

Many us of have favorite passages that we turn to in time of need; For some it might not be a Scripture passage but a favorite poem or novel. Maybe there is a song that speaks to you in the midst of your pain or joy.

Philip enters into the story in the midst of rejection and confusion. He sits beside the Ethiopian Eunuch. He answers his questions and tells the story of Jesus; this person who was recklessly hospitable. A man who ate with sinners and touched lepers. A man who purposefully made himself unclean in order to call attention to arbitrary rules about who was in and who was out. Jesus wanted to challenge ideas about who was acceptable. I imagine these words would have sounded sweet to this Ethiopian Eunuch. Confirmation of what he already knew in his heart.

And then they came upon water and the Eunuch says, “Look! Here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

And Philip, who would have known the rules preventing eunuchs from worshipping, who would have know that this person he had been talking with was considered to be unacceptable says nothing. Philip just gets into the water and baptizes him. This evangelist baptizes a gender non-conforming person who had been excluded from worshipping life of the community. But after this moment he was allowed to go on his way rejoicing. This is a passage that speaks to the power that happens when we let down our walls and allow the Spirit to move. She will lead us deeper into communion with God and with one another.

There is something beautiful in what we do when we baptize children. We welcome them into the family of God first thing. We tell them that they are acceptable and pure and a part of the larger body. And we commit to walking with them on their journey. But it’s also an easy thing to baptize a beautiful infant. It’s easy to welcome a beautiful child into our family.

It can be a lot harder to welcome flawed and fragile adults. Or surly teenagers. It can be a lot harder to live into our baptismal vows when we were too young to remember that they happened. What does it mean for us to walk through the world as people who have been baptized? What does this symbol of water mean in our daily lives? Do you remember your baptism?

I grew up in a tradition that practiced adult baptism and so I do remember my baptism. However I have walked a long way since being submerged in those waters. Many of us have walked a long way since our baptisms; through different religious traditions and denominations, through crises of faith, through death and through transformation. Our baptismal memory fades.

What is the big deal about baptism? In Colossians 2:12 it says, “When you were buried with Jesus in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.” It seems shocking to talk about death in our rite of baptism, especially in the context of baptizing a child. It doesn’t make sense to talk about baptism being a death to an old way of life. But baptism isn’t just about what happens here with children.

Some of us are finding our way back to the church after years of being away. For some it takes courage just to walk inside these doors on a Sunday morning because of the years of abuse that have happened within church walls. For some of us we have become complacent in our faith and need to feel the breath of the spirit moving in us once again. For others we have remained in the church but maybe we are feeling tired and need to be renewed. Can you remember your baptism?

Jesus had a pretty remarkable baptism story. When he came up out of the waters of the Jordan the heavens opened and God’s voice said, “This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” I wonder if he thought back on that moment in the trials that were to come; when the religious leaders were hating him, when the Romans were bearing down on him. He must have struggled with his faith, wondered if he was doing the right thing. But he could always look back to that moment of baptism and say, “yes. I am God’s beloved.”

Can you remember the waters pouring over you? The voice of God claiming you as God’s own beloved child with whom God is well-pleased? Does that sentiment ring in your heart? If not, why not?

This is why we baptize in community: So that we can remind one another of our baptisms. When these children grow and struggle with their faith we can say to them, I remember your baptism. This is why we exist in community so we can turn to one another and say, I remember your baptism and God is well pleased with you. This is what allows us to approach the Scripture with new eyes and with open hearts, allows us to engage with these ancient words again and feel the Spirit breathing new life into us and recharging us for our work in the world.

“Look, here is water! What is to prevent you from being baptized?” The institutional church cannot keep you out, the law of the land cannot diminish you. It is only what is inside you that can keep you from these waters. Can you let go of the pain an approach the water? Can you lay down your shame and approach the water? What is preventing you from being baptized? Today if you are having trouble remembering your baptism; if you are grappling with doubt; if you cannot hear the voice of God saying to you that you are beloved, I say, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent you from being baptized?”

For more articles like this, check out QueerTheology.com

[dfroza]

spiritual truth is documented in the written Word of God

and the eternal tapestry is Heaven’s True story that we can only truly see through baptism eyes as children of our Creator.

and we see our Creator in the True nature of garden earth, but we also find our True nature (our True identity) through reborn hearts in the True illumination of the Son. and we’ve been given a mandate that this message be conserved and shared as a seed that will spread throughout the world.

but some stand in opposition to its spiritual truth, such as Saul before God changed his heart and name to Paul. and this is seen in Today’s reading from the book of Acts:

[Chapter 8]

Now, Saul agreed to be an accomplice to Stephen’s stoning and participated in his execution. From that day on, a great persecution of the church in Jerusalem began. All the believers scattered into the countryside of Judea and among the Samaritans, except the apostles who remained behind in Jerusalem. God-fearing men gave Stephen a proper burial and mourned greatly over his death.

Then Saul mercilessly persecuted the church of God, going from house to house into the homes of believers to arrest both men and women and drag them off to prison.

Although the believers were scattered by persecution, they preached the wonderful news of the word of God wherever they went. Philip traveled to a Samaritan city and preached to them the wonderful news of the Anointed One. The crowds were eager to receivd Philip’s message and were persuaded by the many miracles and wonders he performed. Many demon-possessed people were set free and delivered as evil spirits came out of them with loud screams and shrieks, and many who were lame and paralyzed were also healed. This resulted in an uncontainable joy filling the city!

Now, there was a man who lived there who was steeped in sorcery. For some time he had astounded the people of Samaria with his magic, boasting to be someone great. Everyone, from the least to the greatest among them, was dazzled by his sorcery, saying, “This man is the greatest wizard of all! The divine power of God walks among us!” For many years everyone was in awe of him because of his astonishing displays of the magic arts.

But as Philip preached the wonderful news of God’s kingdom realm, and the name of Jesus the Anointed One, many believed his message and were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon believed and was baptized! Wherever Philip went, Simon was right by his side, astounded by all the miracles, signs, and enormous displays of power that he witnessed.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had accepted God’s message of life, they sent Peter and John to pray over them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus and were yet to have the Holy Spirit fall upon them. As soon as Peter and John arrived, they laid their hands on the Samaritan believers, one after another, and the Holy Spirit fell and filled each one of them!

When Simon saw how the Holy Spirit was released through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he approached them and offered them money, saying, “I want this power too. I’m willing to pay you for the anointing that you have, so that I also can lay my hands on everyone to receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter rebuked him and said, “Your money will go with you to destruction! How could you even think that you could purchase God’s supernatural gift with money? You will never have this gift or take part in this ministry, for your heart is not right with God. Repent this moment for allowing such wickedness to fill you. Plead with the Lord that perhaps he would forgive you the treachery of your heart. For I discern that jealous envy has poisoned you and binds you as a captive to sin.”

Simon begged, “Peter, please pray to God for me. Plead with him so that nothing you just said over me may come to pass!”

After Peter and John had testified and taught the word of God in that city, they returned to Jerusalem, stopping at many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the hope of the gospel.

Then the Lord’s angel said to Philip, “Now go south from Jerusalem on the desert road to Gaza.” He left immediately on his assignment.

Along the way he encountered an Ethiopian who believed in the God of the Jews, who was the minister of finance for Candace, queen of Ethiopia. He was on his way home from worshiping God in Jerusalem. As he rode along in his chariot, he was reading from the scroll of Isaiah.

The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go and walk alongside the chariot.”

So Philip ran to catch up. As he drew closer he overheard the man reading from the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Philip asked him, “Sir, do you understand what you’re reading?”

The man answered, “How can I possibly make sense of this without someone explaining it to me?” So he invited Philip up into his chariot to sit with him.

The portion from Isaiah he was reading was this:

He was led away to the slaughter

like a lamb to be offered.

He was like a lamb that is silent

before those who sheared him—

he never even opened his mouth.

In his lowliness justice was stripped away from him.

And who could fully express his struggles?

For his life was taken from the earth.

The Ethiopian asked Philip, “Please, can you tell me who the prophet is speaking of? Is it himself or another man?”

Philip started with this passage and shared with him the wonderful message of Jesus.

As they were traveling down the road, the man said, “Look, here’s a pool of water. Why don’t I get baptized right now?”

Philip replied, “If you believe with all your heart, I’ll baptize you.”

The man answered, “I believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God.”

The Ethiopian stopped his chariot, and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, Philip was suddenly snatched up by the Spirit of the Lord and instantly carried away to the city of Ashdod, where he reappeared, preaching the gospel in that city.

The man never saw Philip again. He returned to Ethiopia full of great joy. Philip, however, traveled on to all of the towns of that region, bringing them the good news, until he arrived at Caesarea.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 8 (The Passion Translation)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the first chapter in the book of 1st Samuel that documents Hebraic History and the conception of Samuel after Hannah prays for a child. the genesis spark of conception is the moment life begins in the womb:

[Hannah Pours Out Her Heart to God]

There once was a man who lived in Ramathaim. He was descended from the old Zuph family in the Ephraim hills. His name was Elkanah. (He was connected with the Zuphs from Ephraim through his father Jeroham, his grandfather Elihu, and his great-grandfather Tohu.) He had two wives. The first was Hannah; the second was Peninnah. Peninnah had children; Hannah did not.

Every year this man went from his hometown up to Shiloh to worship and offer a sacrifice to God-of-the-Angel-Armies. Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, served as the priests of God there. When Elkanah sacrificed, he passed helpings from the sacrificial meal around to his wife Peninnah and all her children, but he always gave an especially generous helping to Hannah because he loved her so much, and because God had not given her children. But her rival wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in and never letting her forget that God had not given her children. This went on year after year. Every time she went to the sanctuary of God she could expect to be taunted. Hannah was reduced to tears and had no appetite.

Her husband Elkanah said, “Oh, Hannah, why are you crying? Why aren’t you eating? And why are you so upset? Am I not of more worth to you than ten sons?”

So Hannah ate. Then she pulled herself together, slipped away quietly, and entered the sanctuary. The priest Eli was on duty at the entrance to God’s Temple in the customary seat. Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to God and cried and cried—inconsolably. Then she made a vow:

Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain,

If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me

By giving me a son,

I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you.

I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.

It so happened that as she continued in prayer before God, Eli was watching her closely. Hannah was praying in her heart, silently. Her lips moved, but no sound was heard. Eli jumped to the conclusion that she was drunk. He approached her and said, “You’re drunk! How long do you plan to keep this up? Sober up, woman!”

Hannah said, “Oh no, sir—please! I’m a woman hard used. I haven’t been drinking. Not a drop of wine or beer. The only thing I’ve been pouring out is my heart, pouring it out to God. Don’t for a minute think I’m a bad woman. It’s because I’m so desperately unhappy and in such pain that I’ve stayed here so long.”

Eli answered her, “Go in peace. And may the God of Israel give you what you have asked of him.”

“Think well of me—and pray for me!” she said, and went her way. Then she ate heartily, her face radiant.

Up before dawn, they worshiped God and returned home to Ramah. Elkanah slept with Hannah his wife, and God began making the necessary arrangements in response to what she had asked.

[Dedicating the Child to God]

Before the year was out, Hannah had conceived and given birth to a son. She named him Samuel, explaining, “I asked God for him.”

When Elkanah next took his family on their annual trip to Shiloh to worship God, offering sacrifices and keeping his vow, Hannah didn’t go. She told her husband, “After the child is weaned, I’ll bring him myself and present him before God—and that’s where he’ll stay, for good.”

Elkanah said to his wife, “Do what you think is best. Stay home until you have weaned him. Yes! Let God complete what he has begun!”

So she did. She stayed home and nursed her son until she had weaned him. Then she took him up to Shiloh, bringing also the makings of a generous sacrificial meal—a prize bull, flour, and wine. The child was so young to be sent off!

They first butchered the bull, then brought the child to Eli. Hannah said, “Excuse me, sir. Would you believe that I’m the very woman who was standing before you at this very spot, praying to God? I prayed for this child, and God gave me what I asked for. And now I have dedicated him to God. He’s dedicated to God for life.”

Then and there, they worshiped God.

The Book of 1st Samuel, Chapter 1 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Sunday, September 20 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research:

September 20, 2020

The Comfortable Church

“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” (Revelation 3:17)

This is the heart of Christ’s rebuke of the church at Laodicea, the “lukewarm” church (v. 16) of the last days. This is an evangelical church for its candlestick is still in place (note Revelation 1:20; 2:5), but it has become a neutral church, “neither cold nor hot” (3:15). The reason for its tepid witness is because it has become “rich, and increased with goods,” comfortable in a culture that tends to equate material prosperity with success and God’s favor. It may have acquired large and beautiful facilities, developed special programs of many kinds, featured a variety of musicians and other artists, and even gained a measure of political power. Yet, Christ calls it poor and blind and naked!

Not all large churches become like this, of course, but it is always a real danger. The desire for large congregations can easily lead to compromising biblical standards of doctrine and practice. “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion,” the prophet warned (Amos 6:1).

Note that the Lord began His letter to the Laodicean church by identifying Himself as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14). This strongly suggests that a major reason for the development of such complacency in a large church (or a small church, for that matter) is neglect of these three doctrines—the sufficiency of Christ, the inerrant authority of God’s Word, and the special creation of all things by God.

The letter to this church ends with the sad picture of Christ standing at its door, seeking admission (v. 20). “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (v. 22). HMM

[neuroticfishbish]

Everyone I know is broken-hearted

All the genuinely smart, talented, funny people I know seem to be miserable these days. You feel it on Tumblr more than Facebook, because Facebook is where you go to do your performance art where you pretend to be a hip, urban person with the most awesomest friends and the best relationships and the very best lunches ever. Facebook is surface; Tumblr is subtext, and judging by what I’ve seen, the subtext is aching sadness. I’m not immune to this. I don’t remember ever feeling this miserable and depressed in my life, this sense of futility that makes you wish you’d simply go numb and not care anymore. I think a lot about killing myself these days. Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it and this isn’t a cry for help. But I wake up and think: fuck, more of this? Really? How much more? And is it really worth it? In my case, much of it stems from my childhood experiences and the collapse of the many relationships I had. But that’s not really the cause I think that those relationships were bulwarks, charms against the dark I’ve felt growing in this world for a long time now. When I was in love, the world outside didn’t matter so much. But without it, there is nothing keeping the wolf from the door. It's not to say I do not have good or kind people in my life, because I do. More than I deserve. It always used to be like this. Life sucked when I was young and I was unhappy then too. But there was always the sense that it was just a temporary thing, that if I stuck it out eventually the world was going to get better — become awesome, in fact. But here I am, and things aren't getting better I'm just getting older. I became an adolescent at the time Music was ushering in a decade of “slacker” ideology, as the pundits liked to put it. But the reality is that I didn’t know a whole lot of actual slackers in the until my early 20's I did know a lot of people who found themselves disillusioned with the materialism of the 1990s and what we saw as the failed rhetoric of the Sixties generation, who were all about peace and love right until the time they put on suits and ties and figured out how to divide up the world. I knew a lot of people who weren’t very interested in that path. The joke, of course, is that every generation kills the thing they love. The hippies became yuppies; Gen X talked a lot about the revolution, and then went and got themselves some venture capital and started laying into place the oversaturated, paranoid world we live in now. A lot of them tried to tell themselves they were still punk as fuck, but it’s hard to morally reconcile the thing where you listen to Fugazi on the way to your job where you help find new ways to trick people into giving up their data to advertisers. Most people don’t even bother. They just compartmentalize. And then the World Trade Center went down. And all of a sudden calling yourself an “anticapitalist terrorist” was no longer a cool posture to psych yourself up for protest. It became something you might go to jail for — or worse, to one of the Black Camps on some shithole island somewhere. Corporate capitalism became conflated somehow with patriotism. And the idea that the things you own end up defining you became quaint, as ridiculous spoken aloud as “tune in, turn on, drop out”. In fact, it became a positive: if you bought the right laptop, the right smartphone, the right backpack, exciting strangers would want to have sex with you! It’s no wonder that Gen X began seeking the largely mythological stability of their forebearers; to stop fucking around and eating mushrooms at the Rage Against The Machine show, and to try and root yourself. Get a decent car — something you can pass off as utilitarian — and a solid career. Put your babies in Black Flag onesies, but make sure their stroller is more high tech than anything mankind ever took to the Moon, because that wolf is always at the door. And buy yourself a house, because property is always valuable. Even if you don’t have the credit, because there’s this thing called a “subprime mortgage” you can get now! But the world changed again. And kept changing. So now you’ve got this degree that’s worth fuck-all, a house that’s worth more as scrap lumber than as a substantial investment, and you’re either going to lose your job or have to do the work of two people, because there’s a recession on. Except they keep saying the recession ended, so why are you still working twice as hard for the same amount of money? We started two wars, only one of them even marginally justifiable, and thousands and thousands of people died. Some of them were Americans, most of them weren’t. The world hated us again. It’s psychically oppressive to realize you’re the bad guy. Of course, for a lot of the world, America had always been the bad guy…but we didn’t really know that before, because we didn’t have the Internet in our pocket, to be pulled out at every lunch break and before the meal came and when the episode of Scrubs on TV dragged a little, and before bed. We were encouraged to immerse ourselves in the endless flow of information, to become better informed, because knowing more about the world made us better people. And maybe it did, but it also made us haunted people. Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I clicked on a video in my Tumblr feed that showed mutilated children being dragged from the streets of Gaza. And I started sobbing — just sobbing, sitting there in my bed with the covers around my waist, saying “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over to the empty room. Dead children, torn to bits. And then it was time for…what? Get up, eat my cereal, go about my day? Every day? So you’re haunted, and you’re outraged, and you go on Twitter and you go on Facebook and you change your avatar or your profile picture to a slogan somebody thoughtfully made for you, so that you can show the world that you’re watching, that you care, that it matters. But if you’re at all observant, you begin to realize after a while that it doesn’t matter; that your opinion matters for very little in the world. You voted for Obama, because Obama was about hope and change; except he seems to be mostly about hope and change for rich people, and not about hope at all for the people who are killed by American drones or who are locked away without trial in American internment camps or who are prosecuted because they stand up and tell the truth about their employers. There does seem to be a lot of hope and change in Fort Meade and Langley, though, where the NSA and CIA are given more and more leeway to spy on everyone in the world, including American citizens, not for what they’ve done but what they might do. And the rest of the world? They keep making more dead children. They slaughter each other in the streets of Baghdad and Libya and Gaza and Tel Aviv; they slaughter each other in the hills of Syria; and, increasingly, they slaughter each other in American schools and movie theaters and college campuses. And when you speak up about that — when you write to your Congressperson to say that you believe in, say, stricter control on the purchase of assault weapons, or limiting the rights of corporations to do astonishing environmental damage, or not sending billions of dollars to the kind of people who think it’s funny to launch missiles filled with flechette rounds into the middle of schools where children huddle together — you’re told that, no, you’re the fascist: that people have the right to defend themselves and make money, and that those rights trump your right to not be killed by some fucking lunatic when you’re waiting in line at Chipotle to grab a chicken burrito, and your right to not be able to light your tapwater on fire with a Zippo because of the chemicals in it, or not to end up in a grainy YouTube video while some demented religious fanatic hacks your head off with a rusty bayonet because your country — not you, but who’s counting — is the Great Satan. And the music sucks. Dear God, the music sucks. Witless, vapid bullshit that makes the worst airheaded wannabe profundities of the grunge era look like the collected works of Thomas Locke. Half the songs on the radio aren’t anything more than a looped 808 beat and some dude grunting and occasionally talking about how he likes to fuck bitches in the ass. The other half are grown-ass adults singing about their stunted, adolescent romantic ideals and playing a goddamn washtub while dressed like extras from The Waltons. The music sucks. The movies suck — I mean, they didn’t suck the first time they came out, in the 1980s, but the remakes and gritty reboots and decades-past-their-sell-by-date sequels suck. Indiana Jones is awesome, but nobody needs to see a geriatric Harrison Ford, lured out of retirement by the promise of building another mansion onto his mansion, running around with fucking Shia LeBeouf in the jungle. And besides, we’re all media experts now; we can spot the merchandising nods from the trailer all the way to the final credits. There’s no magic left. It’s just another company figuring out a way to suck the very last molecules of profit out of the things we cherish, because that’s what corporations do. Everything is branded. Even people. People are “personal brands”, despite the fact that, by and large, you can’t figure out what most of them are actually even good for. They just exist to be snarky and post selfies and demand that you buy something, anything, with their picture on it. You actually know who Kim Kardashian is. In an ideal world, you’d be as unaware of her existence as you are of the names of the Chinese kids who made the futurephone or featherweight laptop you’re almost certainly reading this on. In an ideal world, Kim Kardashian would have spent her life getting sport-fucked anonymously by hip-hop stars in some Bel Air mansion, ran a salon, and either died of a coke overdose or Botox poisoning. There is no reason that her face and her life and her tits and her deathless thoughts needed to be foisted upon the world outside of the 90210 ZIP code. Except that somebody figured out that you could make money off showing people the car accident in slow motion, that people would watch that. Sure they will. People love to watch stupid people do stupid things. It makes them feel less stupid. And the Internet. We built this thing — and was part of the generation who took to the new medium like water and have made the majority of our adult lives creating it, to a greater or lesser degree — because we believed it would make things better for everyone. We believed it would give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, bring us all together, help us to understand and empathize and share with one another. We believed it could tear down the walls. And in a lot of ways it has. But in just as many ways, it has driven us all insane. There’s an old story — I have no idea if it’s true — about monkeys who had the pleasure centers of their brains wired up to a button. Push it, Mr. Monkey, and you have an orgasm. And the monkeys did. They pushed the button and they pushed the button, until they forgot about eating and they forgot about drinking and sleeping and simply fell down and died. What do you do when you first wake up? What do you do as soon as you get into work? After work? Before bed? Hell, some of us wake up in the night and check our feeds, terrified that we’ve missed out on something. We do it because we are given that reward, that stimulus that tells us oooh, a new shiny! It’s the fourteenth Guardians Of The Galaxy trailer, with 200% more Rocket Raccoon! Some fucking null node in Portland made a portrait of every single character from Adventure Time out of bacon and Legos! And, maybe most poisonous, maybe most soul-crushing: somebody said something I don’t like that makes me feel frightened and threatened! It’s time to put on my superhero costume and forward unto battle! Except it doesn’t matter. Because you’re not really changing anybody’s mind. How often does that little skirmish end with anybody changing their mind at all, even a little bit? Or does it just end with one of you invariably either blocking the other or saying something like “You know what, I’m going to stop now, because this is getting out of hand.” Getting out of hand? Everything they told you about how to live in the world when you were a kid is a lie. Education doesn’t matter, not even on paper. Being ethical doesn’t matter. Being a good person doesn’t matter. What matters now is that you’re endlessly capable of the hustle, of bringing in that long green, of being entertaining to enough people that somebody will want to give you money or fuck you or fund your startup. We’re all sharks now; if we stop swimming for just a little too long, we die. We lose followers. We’re lame. We’re not worth funding, or fucking. Because all that matters is the endless churn, the endless parade, the endless cycle of buying and trying to sell and being bought and sold by people who tell you that they’re your friends, man, not like those others. Microsoft is evil and Google is not evil, except when they are, but that’s not really important, and if you decide that maybe you’re tired of being reduced to nothing more than a potential lead for a sales pitch, like something out of a fucking David Mamet play, then you’re a hater and irrelevant and a Luddite. And besides, what would you do with yourself if you weren’t checking Facebook or playing Candy Crush Saga or watching some teenage dumbass smash his genitals on the side of a pool on YouTube? What the fuck would you even do, bro? The comedian Bill Hicks used to do a bit where he invited the advertisers and marketers in his audience to kill themselves. He imagined them turning it into an ad campaign: “Oh, the righteous indignation dollar, that’s a good dollar, Bill’s smart to do that.” He laid out the futility of trying to escape: “I’m just caught in a fucking web,” he’d say. And that’s where we are. You, me, we’re trapped, between being nothing more than consumers, every aspect of our lives quantified and turned into demographic data, or being fucking Amish cavemen drifting into increasing irrelevancy. Because it really does feel like there’s no middle ground anymore, doesn’t it? There’s no way to stay an active, informed citizen of the world without some motherfucker figuring out a way to squirm into your life to try and get a dollar out of you. Only fools expect something for free, and only bigger fools believe they’re anything other than a consumable or a consumer. We didn’t get the William Gibson future where you can live like a stainless steel rat in the walls between the corporate enclaves, tearing at the system from within with your anarchy and your superior knowledge of Unix command lines. Now it’s just pissed off teenagers who blame you because their lives are going to suck a cock and billionaire thugs trying to sell you headphones and handbags, all to a soundtrack of some waterhead muttering “Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt” over and over while a shite beat thumps in the background. I know a lot of people who privately long for an apocalypse of some kind, a breakdown of the ancient Western code, because then they’d either be dead or free. How fucking horrifying is that? But nobody pulls that trigger, because now we’ve all seen what apocalypses look like. We saw Manhattan in 2001 and New Orleans in 2005 and Thailand in 2004 and the Middle East pretty much any given day. Nobody wants to hate, because we’re pummeled with hate every day, by people who are too fucking stupid to understand that the world has passed them by as much as it’s passed by the dude in the Soundgarden t-shirt who still drives around singing along to “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” on his way to his dead-end job. The best lack all conviction, and the people who are full of passionate intensity? Fuck them. We’re all sick of their shit anyway. And that’s where we are, and is it any goddamn wonder at all that the most profitable drugs sold in America for like a decade running have been antipsychotics? The world seems psychotic. I feel like I need to figure this out, like figuring all of this out and finding new ways to live has become the most important thing I could possibly do, not just for myself and the people I love but for the entire human race. I don’t mean me alone — I’m far too self-loathing to have a messiah complex — but I feel like, for me, this is the best use of my time. Because the world is making me crazy and sad and wanting to just put a gun in my mouth, and it’s doing the same thing to a lot of people who shouldn’t have to feel this way. I don’t believe anymore that the answer lies in more or better tech, or even awareness. I think the only thing that can save us is us. I think we need to find ways to tribe up again, to find each other and put our arms around each other and make that charm against the dark. I don’t mean in any hateful or exclusionary way, of course. But I think like minds need to pull together and pool our resources and rage against the dying of the light. And I do think rage is a component that’s necessary here: a final fundamental fed-up-ness with the bullshit and an unwillingness to give any more ground to the things that are doing us in. To stop being reasonable. To stop being well-behaved. Not to hate those who are hurting us with their greed and psychopathic self-interest, but to simply stop letting them do it. The best way to defeat an enemy is not to destroy them, but to make them irrelevant. I don’t have the answers. I don’t know some truth that I can reveal to everyone. All I can do is hurt, and try to stop hurting, and try to help other people stop hurting. Maybe that’s all any of us can do. But isn’t that something worth devoting yourself to, more than building another retarded app that just puts more nonsense and bullshit into the world? Just finding people to love, and healing each other? I think it is. Until I know more, I’ll just keep holding on. I won’t put the gun in my mouth. Because all of this sadness is worth it if there’s still hope. And I want to still have hope so badly. I still want to believe, in myself, and in you.

[teachanarchy]

On the cusp of change, in that last anteroom of childhood before adolescence, nine-year-olds don’t think in terms of demographic statistics or global averages. But when they talk about their lives, it’s clear: Children at this age are unquestionably taking account of their own possibilities—and the limits gender places on them.

To get kids’ perspectives, National Geographic fanned out into 80 homes over four continents. From the slums of Rio de Janeiro to the high-rises of Beijing, we posed the same questions to a diverse cast of nine-year-olds. Being nine, they didn’t mince their words.

Many readily admitted that it can be hard—frustrating, confusing, lonely—to fit into the communities they call home and the roles they’re expected to play. Others are thriving as they break down gender barriers.

What’s the best thing about being a girl?

Avery Jackson swipes a rainbow-streaked wisp of hair from her eyes and considers the question. “Everything about being a girl is good!”

What’s the worst thing about being a girl?

“How boys always say, ‘That stuff isn’t girl stuff—it’s boy stuff.’ Like when I first did parkour,” an obstacle-course sport.

                                                                                                                                                                                    The worst thing of being a girl is when you’re not an adult and you’re still a child when you [give] birth. Ayanah (Diana) Nyawira Kinyua Nairobi, Kenya Some boys hate girls, but if there were no girls, the house would be a garbage dump. Girls are a gift from God, and they help their mothers, and they clean the house. Mohamad Abu Shamalah Rafah, Gaza Strip I think that something girls can’t do is to be a police officer. I want to be a police officer, but most police are men and there are no women, so I can’t. Yunshu Sang Beijing, ChinA If I was a girl, my life would be very strange and odd, because like it would be really irritating with the long hair, and it would be really hot. Kyle D’Souza Mumbai, India [If I could change the world], I would change the thieves, and I wish they were good, so that they wouldn’t steal from people or kill them. Clara Fraga Rio De Janeiro, Brazil The worst thing about being a boy is when you go to school, the teachers blame the boys, because the girls are most of the time the teacher’s pets. Sediq Samim Ottawa, Canada You are seduced wherever you go. You are chased by men. If you go to fetch water, you are chased; you go to collect firewood, you are chased. Nawar Kagete Kaputir, Kenya When I grow up, I want to be in the Navy SEALs to protect my country, because other bad people have killed my people. Riley Richards Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota The best thing about being a girl is, now I don’t have to pretend to be a boy. Avery Jackson Kansas City, Missouri                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                   Avery spent the first four years of her life as a boy, and was miserable; she still smarts recalling how she lost her preschool friends because “their moms did not like me.” Living since 2012 as an openly transgender girl, the Kansas City native is now at ground zero in the evolving conversation about gender roles and rights.

The grown-ups talk about it—but kids like Avery want to have their say too. “Nine-year-olds can be impressively articulate and wise,” says Theresa Betancourt, associate professor of child health and human rights at Harvard University. They face increased peer pressure and responsibility, she says, but not the conformity and self-censorship that come with adolescence.

When asked the best-and-worst-things questions, Sunny Bhope—who speaks as his mother cooks rice over a charcoal fire, sending smoke through his small home near Mumbai, India—says the worst thing about being a boy is that he’s expected to join in “Eve-teasing,” his society’s euphemism for sexually harassing women in public.

For Yiqi Wang in Beijing, the best thing about being a girl is “we’re more calm and reliable than boys.” And for Juliana Meirelles Fleury in Rio, it’s that “we can go in the elevator first.”

How might your life be different if you were a girl instead of a boy (or a boy instead of a girl)?

Jerusalem’s Lev Hershberg says that if he were a girl, he “wouldn’t like computers.” Fellow Israeli Shimon Perel says if he were a girl, he could play with a jump rope.

If they were boys, Pooja Pawara from outside Mumbai would ride a scooter, while Yan Zhu from China’s Yaqueshui village would swim in a river that her grandmother insists is too cold for girls. Because she’s not a boy, Luandra Montovani isn’t allowed to play in her Rio favela’s streets, where she says the dangers include “violence and stray bullets.”

Eriah Big Crow, an Oglala Lakota who lives on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, says in a near whisper that there’s nothing that she can’t do, because boys and girls are “exactly the same.”

                                                                                                                                                                                    I like to be a girl because girls take better care of themselves than boys. Maria Eduarda Cardoso Raimundo Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Boys play with each other. And girls play with each other. They don’t mix with each other. They play something different from what we play, and we play different from them. Ibrahim Al najjar Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip The difference between boys and girls is that girls are gentle and boys are rough, and some of them call people names, and they are not kind or self-controlled. Nicole Nduta Munyui Osano Nairobi, Kenya Being a boy, you’re stronger, and you can lift things like refrigerators … As a girl, you have to comb your hair and put on clothes and make sure you’re modest and everything. Dvir Berman Givat Zeev (Israeli Settlement), West Bank Sometimes I secretly help my older brother [on the farm]. Mom whacks me when she finds out. She says that girls who do these things will grow calluses on their hands; then they become ugly. Fang Wang Yaqueshui, China The good thing about being a boy is the penis. Lopeyok Kagete Kaputir, Kenya We won’t get education in school, but boys will be educated, and therefore they can travel anywhere, but girls can’t. Alfia Ansari Mumbai, India I think that the worst thing about being a boy is bullying girls, because girls are generally weaker and smaller, and they’re also timid …  Boys should protect girls, just like my dad protects my mom and takes responsibility for our family. Yingzhi Wang Beijing, China The worst thing about being a girl is that you just can’t do things that boys can do; like, it kind of bothers me how there was not one girl president. Tomee War Bonnet Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                   Eriah’s claim might sound too optimistic to Anju Malhotra, UNICEF’s principal adviser on gender and development. With respect to gender inequality, she says, “we’re not seeing an expiration date for it yet”—but there is progress.

For global citizens under age 10, recent decades have seen more gender equity in areas such as primary school education access, says UNICEF’s Claudia Cappa. But statisticians can count only “those who were able to survive,” she notes, and “sex-selective abortions of female fetuses” persist in some countries.

Past the age-10 mark, however, the closing gap is replaced by a wide gulf. “Things change completely in adolescence,” Cappa says, with “striking” gender gaps in access to secondary schools, for example, or exposure to early marriage and violence. “This is when you stop being a child,” she says. “You become a female or a male.”

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Lokamu Lopulmoe, a Turkana girl living in rural Kenya, says that when she grows up, her parents will “be given my dowry, and even if the man goes and beats me up eventually, my parents will have the dowry to console them.” Some 300 miles away, in a gated community in Nairobi, Chanelle Wangari Mwangi sits in her trophy-filled room and imagines a much different future: She wants to be a pro golfer and “help the needy.”

In Ottawa, Canada, William Kay confidently plans a future as “a banker or a computer, like, genius guy.” Beijing’s Yunshu Sang wants to be a police officer, “but most police are men,” she says, “so I can’t.” In Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, budding journalist Hilde Lysiak rides around her neighborhood on a silver and pink bike, hunting for news—all the while suspecting that a boy reporter might “get more information from the police.”

What is something that makes you sad?

For Tomee War Bonnet, an Oglala Lakota, it’s “seeing people kill themselves.” What plants such thoughts in a nine-year-old’s head? Her reservation’s history of suicides, by kids as young as 12.

Mumbai’s Rania Singla feels sad when her little brother hits her. Lamia al Najjar, who lives in a makeshift home in the Gaza Strip, says, “I feel sadness when I see [how] our home is destroyed”—a result of fighting in the area in 2014.

What makes you most happy?

High on this list: family, God, food, and soccer. And friends. Other answers give a flavor of kids’ individual lives. One youngster loves powwows, another Easter eggs. For Amber Dubue in Ottawa, happiness is “room to run.” For Maria Eduarda Cardoso Raimundo in Rio, whose parents are separated, happiness is “Mom and Dad by my side, hugging me and giving me advice.”

Around age nine, Bede Sheppard says, children are “developing important feelings of empathy, fairness, and right from wrong.” As deputy director in the children’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, Sheppard has worked with child laborers, refugees, and other youngsters in dire circumstances. He says the most oppressed and disadvantaged can also be the most empathetic and selfless. Turkana herder Lopeyok Kagete dreams of giving away money and “slaughtering [livestock] for people to eat.” Though Sunny Bhope and his family live in a single concrete room, the Indian boy aspires to “provide rooms to the homeless.”

When nine-year-old girls and boys discuss themselves and each other, points of consensus emerge. Boys get in trouble more often than girls, both sides agree, and girls have to spend a lot of time on their hair. Such things are part of their reality—but much weightier matters are too.

If you could change something in your life or in the world, what would it be?

Rio’s Clara Fraga would make thieves “good, so that they wouldn’t steal.” Abby Haas would free her South Dakota reservation of the “bad guys.” Kieran Manuel Rosselli, of Ottawa, says he would “destroy terrorists.” The grim content of some answers, and the grave tones in which they’re delivered, give the impression of a miniature adult speaking, not a child. If she could, says China’s Fang Wang, the thing she would change is “what it’s like when I’m lonely.”

The aspiration mentioned most often, across lines of geography and gender, was summed up by Avery Jackson. If the world were hers to change, she said, there would be “no bullying. Because that’s just bad.”

[dfroza]

by reading the Scriptures we should see God as our Creator

who is Light and Love, and pure Justice who created everything perfect and good, and who has promised to make all things right again from all the damage we ourselves have done on beautiful earth and its sacred ground.

and we should see grace illuminated in the Son, revealed by the Spirit to the heart who is the inspiration for our thoughts in Love and in correction, also the inspiration for the writing down of the sacred texts to conserve spiritual truth for thousands of years.

A point seen here shared in an email i read this morning:

When filled with holy truth the mind rests.

...."we have the mind of Christ [the Messiah] and do hold the thoughts [feelings and purposes] of His heart".... 1 Corinthians 2:16b The Amplified Translation

...."Be still, [in a certain and steadfast trust] and know that I [am] God".... Psalms 46:10 NASB

and we see the significance of the written Word and its conservation in Today’s reading with chapter 8 of the book of Acts that begins with Saul’s persecution toward those who believed in the message of Heaven’s New Covenant of grace revealed, which led to his humbling and conversion, a metamorphosis into Paul as an apostle of grace who wrote of significance in the Letters of the New Testament

[Acts 8]

Now, Saul agreed to be an accomplice to Stephen’s stoning and participated in his execution. From that day on, a great persecution of the church in Jerusalem began. All the believers scattered into the countryside of Judea and among the Samaritans, except the apostles who remained behind in Jerusalem. God-fearing men gave Stephen a proper burial and mourned greatly over his death.

Then Saul mercilessly persecuted the church of God, going from house to house into the homes of believers to arrest both men and women and drag them off to prison.

[The Gospel Spreads to Samaria]

Although the believers were scattered by persecution, they preached the wonderful news of the word of God wherever they went. Philip traveled to a Samaritan city and preached to them the wonderful news of the Anointed One. The crowds were eager to receive Philip’s message and were persuaded by the many miracles and wonders he performed. Many demon-possessed people were set free and delivered as evil spirits came out of them with loud screams and shrieks, and many who were lame and paralyzed were also healed. This resulted in an uncontainable joy filling the city!

[Simon the Sorcerer Converted]

Now, there was a man who lived there who was steeped in sorcery. For some time he had astounded the people of Samaria with his magic, boasting to be someone great. Everyone, from the least to the greatest among them, was dazzled by his sorcery, saying, “This man is the greatest wizard of all! The divine power of God walks among us!” For many years everyone was in awe of him because of his astonishing displays of the magic arts.

But as Philip preached the wonderful news of God’s kingdom realm, and the name of Jesus the Anointed One, many believed his message and were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon believed and was baptized! Wherever Philip went, Simon was right by his side, astounded by all the miracles, signs, and enormous displays of power that he witnessed.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had accepted God’s message of life, they sent Peter and John to pray over them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus and were yet to have the Holy Spirit fall upon them. As soon as Peter and John arrived, they laid their hands on the Samaritan believers, one after another, and the Holy Spirit fell and filled each one of them!

When Simon saw how the Holy Spirit was released through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he approached them and offered them money, saying, “I want this power too. I’m willing to pay you for the anointing that you have, so that I also can lay my hands on everyone to receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter rebuked him and said, “Your money will go with you to destruction! How could you even think that you could purchase God’s supernatural gift with money? You will never have this gift or take part in this ministry, for your heart is not right with God. Repent this moment for allowing such wickedness to fill you. Plead with the Lord that perhaps he would forgive you the treachery of your heart. For I discern that jealous envy has poisoned you and binds you as a captive to sin.”

Simon begged, “Peter, please pray to God for me. Plead with him so that nothing you just said over me may come to pass!”

[Philip and the Ethiopian]

After Peter and John had testified and taught the word of God in that city, they returned to Jerusalem, stopping at many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the hope of the gospel.

Then the Lord’s angel said to Philip, “Now go south from Jerusalem on the desert road to Gaza.” He left immediately on his assignment.

Along the way he encountered an Ethiopian who believed in the God of the Jews, who was the minister of finance for Candace, queen of Ethiopia. He was on his way home from worshiping God in Jerusalem. As he rode along in his chariot, he was reading from the scroll of Isaiah.

The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go and walk alongside the chariot.”

So Philip ran to catch up. As he drew closer he overheard the man reading from the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Philip asked him, “Sir, do you understand what you’re reading?”

The man answered, “How can I possibly make sense of this without someone explaining it to me?” So he invited Philip up into his chariot to sit with him.

The portion from Isaiah he was reading was this:

He was led away to the slaughter

like a lamb to be offered.

He was like a lamb that is silent

before those who sheared him—

he never even opened his mouth.

In his lowliness justice was stripped away from him.

And who could fully express his struggles?

For his life was taken from the earth.

The Ethiopian asked Philip, “Please, can you tell me who the prophet is speaking of? Is it himself or another man?”

Philip started with this passage and shared with him the wonderful message of Jesus.

As they were traveling down the road, the man said, “Look, here’s a pool of water. Why don’t I get baptized right now?”

Philip replied, “If you believe with all your heart, I’ll baptize you.”

The man answered, “I believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God.”

The Ethiopian stopped his chariot, and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, Philip was suddenly snatched up by the Spirit of the Lord and instantly carried away to the city of Ashdod, where he reappeared, preaching the gospel in that city.

The man never saw Philip again. He returned to Ethiopia full of great joy. Philip, however, traveled on to all of the towns of that region, bringing them the good news, until he arrived at Caesarea.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 8 (The Passion Translation)

Ethiopia is said to be the “birthplace” of coffee.

A chapter of the New Testament paired with the closing chapter 3 of Habakkuk and accompanied by the lines of Psalm 4 and Proverbs 4 for the 4th day of january, and Psalm 15 for the 15th day of Winter

[Psalm 4]

For the worship leader. A song of David accompanied by strings.

Answer my prayers, O True God, the righteous, who makes me right.

I was hopelessly surrounded, and You rescued me.

Once again hear me; hide me in Your favor;

bring victory in defeat and hope in hopelessness.

How long will you sons of Adam steal my dignity, reduce my glory to shame?

Why pine for the fruitless and dream a delusion?

[pause]

Understand this: The Eternal One treats as special those like Him.

The Eternal will answer my prayers and save me.

Think long; think hard. When you are angry, don’t let it carry you into sin.

When night comes, in calm be silent.

[pause]

From this day forward, offer to God the right sacrifice from a heart made right by God.

Entrust yourself to the Eternal.

Crowds of disheartened people ask, “Who can show us what is good?”

Let Your brilliant face shine upon us, O Eternal One, that we may know the undeniable answer.

You have filled me with joy, and happiness has risen in my heart, great delight and unrivaled joy,

even more than when bread abounds and wine flows freely.

Tonight I will sleep securely on a bed of peace

because I trust You, You alone, O Eternal One, will keep me safe.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 4 (The Voice)

Listen to me, you elite among men:

How long will you defame my honor

and drag it down into shame?

Will you ever stop insulting me?

How long will you set your heart on shadows,

chasing your lies and delusions?

Pause in his presence

The Book of Psalms, Poem 4:2 (The Passion Translation)

what are you chasing in life on earth?

[Psalm 15]

A song of David.

Eternal One, who is invited to stay in Your dwelling?

Who is granted passage to Your holy mountain?

Here is the answer: The one who lives with integrity, does what is right,

and speaks honestly with truth from the heart.

The one who doesn’t speak evil against others

or wrong his neighbor,

or slander his friends.

The one who loathes the loathsome,

honors those who fear the Eternal,

And keeps all promises no matter the cost.

The one who does not lend money with gain in mind

and cannot be bought to harm an innocent name.

If you live this way, you will not be shaken and will live together with the Lord.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 15 (The Voice)

[Proverbs 4]

Gather, children, to hear your father’s instruction.

Pay close attention so you will understand,

For I am passing down to you important precepts.

Do not abandon these valuable life lessons.

Back when I was young—the very image of my father,

and yet from my mother’s view, still her only boy—

My father, with his years of experience, became my teacher.

Father: Son, grab on to every word I say to you—hold them close—

stay true to my instructions as you live, and they will serve you well.

Whatever it takes to gain Wisdom, do it.

To gain understanding, do it! Never forget this!

Never stray from what I am telling you.

If you don’t forsake Lady Wisdom, she will protect you.

Love her, and she will faithfully take care of you.

Gaining sound judgment is key, so first things first: go after Lady Wisdom!

Now, whatever else you do, follow through to understanding.

Cherish her, and she will help you rise above the confusion of life—

your possibilities will open up before you—

embrace her, and she will raise you to a place of honor in return.

She will provide the finishing touch to your character—grace;

she will give you an elegant confidence.

Hear my words, my son, and take them in;

let them soak in so that you will live a long, full life.

I have pointed you in the way of wisdom;

I have steered you down the path to integrity.

So get going. And as you go, know this: with integrity you will overcome all obstacles;

even if you run, you will not stumble.

Tighten your grip around wise advice; don’t let it slip away.

Protect Wisdom, for without her, life isn’t worth living.

Do not start down the road of the wicked—

the first step is easy, but it leads to heartache—

do not go along the way of evildoers.

Stay away from it; don’t even go past it—

and if you find yourself anywhere near it,

turn your back and run as far as you can in the opposite direction.

For evildoers are so twisted they cannot sleep unless they have caused harm;

they’ll lie awake all night until they figure out a way to cause someone to stumble.

For they feed on evil the way most eat bread;

they drink violence the way most guzzle wine.

Yet the way of those who do right is like the early morning sun

that shines brighter and brighter until noon.

Evildoers travel a dark road because they love to hide their deeds in darkness;

they can’t see the perils ahead that cause them to stumble.

0 My son, pay attention to all the words I am telling you.

Lean in closer so you may hear all I say.

Keep them before you; meditate on them;

set them safely in your heart.

For those who discover them, they are life.

They bring wholeness and healing to their bodies.

Above all else, watch over your heart; diligently guard it

because from a sincere and pure heart come the good and noble things of life.

Do away with any talk that twists and distorts the truth;

have nothing to do with any verbal trickery.

Keep your head up, your eyes straight ahead,

and your focus fixed on what is in front of you.

Take care you don’t stray from the straight path, the way of truth,

and you will safely reach the end of your road.

Do not veer off course to the right or the left;

step away from evil, and leave it behind.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 4 (The Voice)

[Healing Words]

Listen carefully, my dear child, to everything that I teach you,

and pay attention to all that I have to say.

Fill your thoughts with my words

until they penetrate deep into your spirit.

Then, as you unwrap my words,

they will impart true life and radiant health

into the very core of your being.

So above all, guard the affections of your heart,

for they affect all that you are.

Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being,

for from there flows the wellspring of life.

Avoid dishonest speech and pretentious words.

Be free from using perverse words no matter what!

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 4:20-24 (The Passion Translation)

can you have peace within, no matter the outward circumstances? will you still trust in Love to make things right, eventually, when things on earth go wrong?

we see such hope displayed in the closing lines of the ancient writing of Habakkuk:

Though the cherry trees don’t blossom

and the strawberries don’t ripen,

Though the apples are worm-eaten

and the wheat fields stunted,

Though the sheep pens are sheepless

and the cattle barns empty,

I’m singing joyful praise to God.

I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.

Counting on God’s Rule to prevail,

I take heart and gain strength.

I run like a deer.

I feel like I’m king of the mountain!

(For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)

The Book of Habakkuk, Chapter 3:17-19 (The Message)

and for those who wrongfully attack innocent people, at some point it will fall back on their own heads, just as seen written in verse 14 of the same chapter:

Their warriors rushed in to scatter us,

thrilled to consume their poor victims in secret,

But You turned their weapons against them

and pierced the heads of their warriors with their own arrows.

The Book of Habakkuk, Chapter 3:14 (The Voice)

[dfroza]

if we don’t know truth then we cannot be free.

we simply must find rebirth and its eternal hope that refines the heart into the purest gold.

(inside, Anew)

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 8th chapter of the book of Acts:

Now, Saul agreed to be an accomplice to Stephen’s stoning and participated in his execution. From that day on, a great persecution of the church in Jerusalem began. All the believers scattered into the countryside of Judea and among the Samaritans, except the apostles who remained behind in Jerusalem. God-fearing men gave Stephen a proper burial and mourned greatly over his death.

Then Saul mercilessly persecuted the church of God, going from house to house into the homes of believers to arrest both men and women and drag them off to prison.

Although the believers were scattered by persecution, they preached the wonderful news of the word of God wherever they went. Philip traveled to a Samaritan city and preached to them the wonderful news of the Anointed One. The crowds were eager to receive Philip’s message and were persuaded by the many miracles and wonders he performed. Many demon-possessed people were set free and delivered as evil spirits came out of them with loud screams and shrieks, and many who were lame and paralyzed were also healed. This resulted in an uncontainable joy filling the city!

Now, there was a man who lived there who was steeped in sorcery. For some time he had astounded the people of Samaria with his magic, boasting to be someone great. Everyone, from the least to the greatest among them, was dazzled by his sorcery, saying, “This man is the greatest wizard of all! The divine power of God walks among us!” For many years everyone was in awe of him because of his astonishing displays of the magic arts.

But as Philip preached the wonderful news of God’s kingdom realm, and the name of Jesus the Anointed One, many believed his message and were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon believed and was baptized! Wherever Philip went, Simon was right by his side, astounded by all the miracles, signs, and enormous displays of power that he witnessed.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had accepted God’s message of life, they sent Peter and John to pray over them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus and were yet to have the Holy Spirit fall upon them. As soon as Peter and John arrived, they laid their hands on the Samaritan believers, one after another, and the Holy Spirit fell and filled each one of them!

When Simon saw how the Holy Spirit was released through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he approached them and offered them money, saying, “I want this power too. I’m willing to pay you for the anointing that you have, so that I also can lay my hands on everyone to receive the Holy Spirit.”

Peter rebuked him and said, “Your money will go with you to destruction! How could you even think that you could purchase God’s supernatural gift with money? You will never have this gift or take part in this ministry, for your heart is not right with God. Repent this moment for allowing such wickedness to fill you. Plead with the Lord that perhaps he would forgive you the treachery of your heart. For I discern that jealous envy has poisoned you and binds you as a captive to sin.”

Simon begged, “Peter, please pray to God for me. Plead with him so that nothing you just said over me may come to pass!”

After Peter and John had testified and taught the word of God in that city, they returned to Jerusalem, stopping at many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the hope of the gospel.

Then the Lord’s angel said to Philip, “Now go south from Jerusalem on the desert road to Gaza.” He left immediately on his assignment.

Along the way he encountered an Ethiopian who believed in the God of the Jews, who was the minister of finance for Candace, queen of Ethiopia. He was on his way home from worshiping God in Jerusalem. As he rode along in his chariot, he was reading from the scroll of Isaiah.

The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go and walk alongside the chariot.”

So Philip ran to catch up. As he drew closer he overheard the man reading from the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Philip asked him, “Sir, do you understand what you’re reading?”

The man answered, “How can I possibly make sense of this without someone explaining it to me?” So he invited Philip up into his chariot to sit with him.

The portion from Isaiah he was reading was this:

He was led away to the slaughter

like a lamb to be offered.

He was like a lamb that is silent

before those who sheared him—

he never even opened his mouth.

In his lowliness justice was stripped away from him.

And who could fully express his struggles?

For his life was taken from the earth.

The Ethiopian asked Philip, “Please, can you tell me who the prophet is speaking of? Is it himself or another man?”

Philip started with this passage and shared with him the wonderful message of Jesus.

As they were traveling down the road, the man said, “Look, here’s a pool of water. Why don’t I get baptized right now?”

Philip replied, “If you believe with all your heart, I’ll baptize you.”

The man answered, “I believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God.”

The Ethiopian stopped his chariot, and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, Philip was suddenly snatched up by the Spirit of the Lord and instantly carried away to the city of Ashdod, where he reappeared, preaching the gospel in that city.

The man never saw Philip again. He returned to Ethiopia full of great joy. Philip, however, traveled on to all of the towns of that region, bringing them the good news, until he arrived at Caesarea.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 8 (The Passion Translation)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for monday, june 7 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A set of posts by John Parsons about humility:

"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter but will not be able" (Luke 13:24). The narrow door is the way of humility, assuming a low position, crawling, if you will, and making yourself small... It is the way of the cross of Messiah, confessing the truth of our condition and trusting in God alone for deliverance.. The narrow door is the way of faith - trusting God’s compassion and righteousness given on your behalf. The large, wide-open door is designed for the crowd and its various idols. Beware of the world that seeks to assimilate the soul: beware of becoming part of the crowd! The individual is lost and overwhelmed in the midst of the crowd and its momentum. The crowd assimilates the soul, laughs at the notion of individual responsibility, and abandons itself to the gravity of fallen natural forces... The life of faith, on the other hand, refuses to regard the individual human heart as a triviality. Faith is an individual struggle, a walk into unknowing; it is the way of the sojourner who feels uneasy in this world of shadows... God is always with us and helps us stay strong and resolute, even as we struggle through the darkness of this age. Press on, friend: the day and the hour draw near! [Hebrew for Christians]

Our Torah this week (i.e., Korach) begins, "And Korah took" (וַיִּקַּח קרַח), which immediately suggests something about the character of the man. Though he was wealthy, esteemed among his tribe, and honored with the task of caring for the Ark of the Covenant, none of this was enough for Korah... There was an insatiable hunger, a "black hole" in his soul, an unrelenting envy, that drove him to madness and self-destruction. Korah was imprisoned by his own jealousy, arrogance, and spite. When he compared himself to Moses and Aaron, he felt overlooked, deprived, and therefore he justified in his desire to be honored. As an archetypal figure, Korach warns us against being swallowed up with egotistical envy or seeking the praises of men (Matt. 23:2-7).

In the Kingdom of heaven, worldly success is sheer delusion. There are open and hidden riches. There is a pearl of great price, a treasure "hidden in a field." These riches are regarded as "fool's gold" to those who love this world and trust only in the realm of the phenomenal, but to those who trust in the LORD, they represent all that the heart needs...

“And when the other disciples heard [that James and John sought prominence], they were indignant” (Mark 10:41). But why were they aggrieved except that they sought glory for themselves? The faults we see in others usually mirror our own... If your brother offends you, test your own heart to see where you share his fault... Or do you seek reward for your service to God alone? Do you request a “chief seat” at His table? Any “reward” in the truest sense must include empathy and service for the benefit of others. Heavenly rewards are never gained through self-promotion but through losing yourself in the father's business (Luke 17:10). We don't make old wine from new... What good is any “reward,” after all, if it were gained at the expense of your brother or sister? Is such praiseworthy? We can only look past ourselves and see others when we understand that we are in as much need of God’s mercy as they are... It is natural enough to want a blessing, but check your heart: the Apostle Paul was willing to himself be accursed for the sake of the well-being and blessing of his own brothers (Rom. 9:3).

The son of Zoma said (Avot 4:1): "Who is wise? He who learns from all people, as it is said: 'From all those who taught me I gained understanding' (Psalm 119:99). Who is strong? He who conquers his evil inclination, as it is said: 'Better is one slow to anger than a strong man, and one who rules over his spirit than a conqueror of a city' (Prov. 16:32). Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his lot, as it is said: 'When you eat the toil of your hands you are fortunate and it is good for you' (Psalm 128:2). 'You are fortunate' - in this world; 'and it is good for you' - in the World to Come. Who is honored? He who honors others, as it is said: 'For those who honor Me will I honor, and those who scorn Me will be degraded'" (1 Sam. 2:30). [Hebrew for Christians]

6.7.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

June 7, 2021

Likeminded

“Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” (Philippians 2:2)

This emphatic command, along with the parallel terms, helps us understand the concept of “thinking” the same thing. “Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits” (Romans 12:16).

Such thinking also includes “having the same love.” There are two aspects of this love. First, the term itself (agape) would demand that all of Christ’s disciples “love one another: for love is of God” (1 John 4:7). This is often repeated to born-again believers so that our love for each other is so obvious that “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples” (John 13:35).

Godly love then produces “being of one accord.” This phrase is the translation of the Greek word sumpsuchos, which is a compound of the preposition most often translated “with” and the word for “soul.” Thus, the agape that we are to share results in a connection “with-soul” that binds the “likemindedness” in agreement with the mind and spirit of the Creator God.

We are finally commanded to be of “one mind”—slightly different from the “likeminded” opening charge of Philippians 2:2. The initial words are auto phroneô—“his thinking.” The last use is en phroneô—one (way of) thinking.

The entire context of the opening verses of Philippians 2 is to think like Jesus Christ thinks. “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). “Set your affection [phroneô] on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). This kind of “thinking” must have God’s love and soul embedded in the very core of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. HMM III

A tweet by illumiNations:

@IlluminationsBT: Meet one of our illumiNations partners - Seed Company. Learn more at: https://seedcompany.com

6.7.21 • 12:01pm • Twitter