As summer winds down, I am happy to report that the garden has been a surprising success this year. The tomatoes have been spectacular . . . The squash, zucchini, pumpkin, and watermelon are all currently conquering my backyard . . . And the greengage plums are so plentiful that they sag the branches (the photo is a bit out of focus, but you get the idea) . . . The potatoes, onions, peppers, eggplants, and beets also turned out well. The only crop that hasn't lived up to expectations this year are the raspberries. The lack of rain in a hotter than normal June appears to be the cause of the low yield this year.
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. . . who isn't all that interested in what has happened in Afghanistan?
I finished putting the shingles on the new roof yesterday for my little brick outbuilding project and will now turn to plastering the exterior walls. I will put the finishing touches on the fascias and soffits a little later when I install the gutter.
The roof was not all that difficult to complete, but in hindsight I wish I had stuck to my original plan of framing out the roof as one large rectangle rather than following the contours of the building. I uploaded the second photo for Michelle who was curious to know how I managed to incorporate the chimney into the new roof. As I mentioned to her in a comment, I wish I had done it differently, but all in all it worked out well all things considered. The part of the chimney below the roof line will be plastered over. The old, intact plaster on the wall reveals where the building's previous roof line had been, while the exposed brick shows where and how much I raised the walls. Predictably, the Roman Catholic Church has declared it will not provide religious exemptions from the peck. Granted, there are some bishops here and there that have taken a stand against this, but it appears the majority within the church are ready and willing to deny their followers any exemptions from what the pope himself has deemed "a moral obligation."
Citing Aquinas's common good and the injunction of loving one's neighbor, the church seems committed to doing exactly what it did during the lockdowns and church closures of 2020 - namely, obsequiously obeying and parroting the anti-God global dictatorship and its diktat of none are safe until all are safe. Other System Christian denominations are either already on the same page or will shortly be on the same page regarding peck exemptions. Also, in a most serendipitous turn of events, Cardinal Burke - who is adamantly and vocally opposed to the totalitarian agenda and the peck - has apparently caught the birdemic bug and is reported to be on a ventilator fighting for his life. Needless to say, the System's media wasted no time drawing attention to the sweet irony of the 'conspiratorial' cardinal's supposed medical misfortune. Of course, none of the above should surprise anyone. We are currently in what I have described as the "siege" stage of the peck program. The main goal of the siege is to convince everyone to consent to the peck via the System's "think, feel, do" campaign - and religious leaders play a big role within the campaign's framework. I believe all of what I have briefly outlined above - which is but a fragment of the siege and the Establishment's overarching goal to peck the entire world - is directly connected to the development of consciousness and the unfolding silent schism between System Christianity and Non-System Christianity. I am under the impression that Christians who continue to obediently follow their church leaders regarding the peck and other litmus test issues will remain grounded in "obedience" consciousness, in which they will continue to surrender freedom to an external authority for the purpose of providing for the greater good. Christians at this level of consciousness generally do not and will not regard freedom as a high value, and will freely and willingly surrender it in exchange for other values they perceive to be higher than freedom - values such as safety, health, security, comfort, and convenience. Christians possessing obedience consciousness interpret divine-human destiny largely as a matter of submission to the supreme authority of God via the external institutions that represent this supreme authority in the world. The institutions themselves are seen as the only meaningful way through which an individual can relate to God. The role of the divine is to dictate; the role of a good Christian is to obey. Non-System Christians, on the other hand, are likely to nurture a consciousness attuned to freedom and love. Not freedom to do or love whatever the individual wishes, but rather freedom and love that is based on successful alignment of the divine self with God and the successful distancing of the objectification and determinism of the given world. Unlike obedience consciousness, "freedom" consciousness is at once autonomous, meaning it emanates primarily from the self, and also theandric, meaning it works jointly with the divine. Simplified, System Christians believe man does not possess the potential or the capacity to become a co-creator with God. The best a Christian can do is to accomplish "good works" via obedience to the external, given world of the System. On the flip side, Non-System Christians recognize that most of the "good works" accomplished via obedience to the external, given world of the System are anything but "good" and understand that the current push to incorporate everyone and everything into the System is inherently evil. The true path of Christianity for Non-System Christians lies in freedom and love - that is, in the freedom to be "with" God, and in the love needed to be able to co-create with God. System Christians ultimately regard the inclusion agenda as vital to their faith whereas Non-System Christians know the inclusion agenda to be akin to spiritual death. Note added: The difference between System and Non-System Christians does not boil down to churchgoing and non-churchgoing, denominational or non-denominational, liberal or traditional. The difference boils down to motivation and thinking. I have always found the Narcissus myth baffling. I mean, what kind of man cares about, let alone falls in love with, his own beauty the way Narcissus did?
A strong streak of effeminacy permeates the whole story - I believe Gyula Benczúr captured this streak rather well in his own take on the mythical character. Up to now Christian consciousness has not known the creative revelation that man's task in the world is to create what has not yet existed, to supplement and enrich the creative work of God.
The world-process cannot be only the experience of sin and redemption from it, only the victory over evil. The world-process is the eighth day of creation, it is continuing creation. All the mysteries of God are revealed in the cosmogonic world-process; the mysteries of creation and creativity. The world process is a creative process of revelation, in which both the Creator and the created being equally participate. In the creativity of the created being the Son of God and the Spirit of God are revealed. The creating man partakes in Divine nature; in him the divine-human creation is continued. - from Nikolai Berdyaev's The Meaning of the Creative Act Thoughts:
Working on some sort of renovation/construction project is what my dad and I inevitably end up doing whenever we are together for any extended period of time. This summer has been no different.
My father and I are both a little older and both a little slower, but the joy of working together remains (even during the disagreements and heated debates about measurements and angles). I experienced something exceptionally peculiar this morning. It was about eight or so and I was out in the yard getting my tools ready for the day when I heard a fluttering sound behind me. I turned toward my neighbor's house, the back of which ends on my lot line, and saw a small sparrow furiously flapping its wings just below the eave.
Now, there is nothing strange about seeing a sparrow beneath my neighbor's eave. I've noticed sparrows nesting in that place ever since I moved into my own house. What was strange, however, was that sparrow was suspended in the air just below the last row of roofing tiles. It kept flapping its wings, but it didn't really go anywhere. It just stayed in one spot in the air. Even stranger, it remained suspended in the air even when it stopped moving. I drew closer to the bird and noticed it was hanging by its neck. It had somehow got itself tangled up in a long strand of grass from the nest and when the bird tried leaving the grass must have tightened around its neck like a noose, tethering the unfortunate creature and leaving it dangling under the eave like some kind of living Christmas ornament. The sparrow reacted to its predicament the way any animal would - with panic. It oscillated between hysterical escape attempts and short pauses during which it resembled a creature condemned to death by hanging. I grabbed my step ladder and quickly made my way up to the eave where I managed to get the bird into my hand with surprising ease. As I gently unwrapped the grass from the bird's neck, I noticed it was a young bird and I attempted to place it back in its nest under the eave. After three failed attempts, the sparrow took advantage of my loosened grip and flew away out of sight. I'm not going to mince words or doll this one up.
If you have willingly submitted to the peck, you have willingly surrendered to global totalitarian evil. You have willingly caved in to the side that is opposed to God and Creation. It really is that simple. Take a moment to wrap your head around it. I'll wait. Now, now. Spare the world your rationalizations and justifications. You knelt down before the Big Lie. Even worse, you have willingly endorsed it. Contrary to the official narrative, you haven't saved anyone. You haven't made anyone safe. You haven't helped get things back to "normal". You haven't added anything at all to what remains of the public good. Quite the opposite. Furthermore, your submission has strengthened totalitarian evil and has helped it to spread. Like it or not, you are now a part of the ubiquitous demonic pressure. Peck passports, peck mandates, paycheck deductions, threats of job loss, denial of healthcare, additional booster pecks, the relentless lies, manipulations, and propaganda - you are a part of all of that now. I could go on, but I won't. Listen up. If you willingly submitted to the peck, you must repent, and you must repent truly and deeply. That isn't me being judgmental - that is simple Christian common sense. Repent truly and deeply and you can get back on the side of God and Creation. Refuse to repent or rationalize your way out of repentance - well, that's between you and God. In the meantime, get out of the way and let the rest of us carry on from where you so miserably failed. "I ask a lot of those who follow me, but I ask little of those who do not." The line is from an episode of The Chosen. Jesus speaks these words to Kafni after the latter agrees to let his daughter Ramah join Jesus's ministry. Now I know The Chosen is just a series, and I know Jesus likely did not speak these exact words. And even if He did, it is unlikely that he spoke them to the vintner Kafni. As far as I know, the Gospels make no mention of any woman named Ramah let alone provide any details about her involvement in Jesus's ministry. But none of that is really relevant concerning the line above. Even if Jesus never said these exact words, He certainly did speak words containing a similar message, and I believe this message is of the utmost importance today. So let's ask ourselves the following question, here, now: Is Christ asking a lot of us or is He asking little? If we find He is asking little of us, perhaps we need to re-evaluate what it means to follow Him. Note: The line appears at the 1:53 mark of the scene below. |
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April 2024
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