Blog Archives

Periphery or Center?

2/28/2023

Christians lament being pushed to the periphery of society. They complain about being marginalized. They fear they may soon be singled out. Perhaps even hunted down.

Christians long to return to a time when they occupied the center of society. When they were the ones doing the marginalizing, the singling out, and the hunting down.

At the very least, Christians yearn for security. If nothing else, they dream of establishing safe spaces where Christians can be Christians without the threat of being marginalized, singled out, or hunted down.

Christians today loathe peripheries. They do not feel secure on the circumference. They long to reoccupy their place at the center because they believe that is the only way the they can be safe and the only way the world can be saved.

Christians today should forget about being safe. And they should certainly forget about saving the world.

Jesus didn’t pray for the world. Why do you?

Christians should also consider that the spiritual center is no longer synonymous with the social center. On the contrary, the spiritual center now begins on the social circumference and extends beyond the peripheries of ideal objectivity into real subjectivity.

Christians should also consider that Christ Himself was always on the social periphery despite being THE spiritual center.

Still, Christians insist they can only be Christians when they are safe, and being safe means being in the center of society.

In reality, Christians today are only safe when they are free. A Christian who is free knows he is at the center of the spiritual world. As such, he cannot be pushed to the periphery of anything.

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With Franz Liszt on Lead Vocals

2/27/2023

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Henri Lehmann (1814-1882) - Portrait of Franz Liszt - 1839

I am generally not a big fan of the music video genre, but every once in a while I come across video that makes me smile for all the right reasons.

Case in point -- the video for Alpha Zulu by the French pop band, Pheonix. Featuring a gallery's worth of famous artworks come to life making faces and bobbing their heads to the music, Alpha Zulu's "piece de resistance" has to be Henri Lehmann's Portrait of Franz Liszt singing the song's first stanza.

The choice to feature Liszt singing the opening lines of Alpha Zulu is no accident but a continuation of Phoenix's appreciation of the master, who was born in the town of Raiding, a mere 40 kilometers from the village I now call home. The video below features the band visiting Liszt's home -- now a museum -- in Bayreuth, Germany.

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Weather: Under It, Quite Severely

2/20/2023

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Spring has exploded here in western Hungary. Clear skies. Pleasant temperatures.

Unfortunately, my immune system has responded to this development by exploding in a different, less pleasant way.

The old adage of being "under the weather" doesn't even begin to describe the overall state of ill health I have experienced in the past few days.

Aw, well. Nothing a little time won't cure.

I hope to be back blogging soon . . . perhaps in a few days' time.

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Christ Without Christendom

2/17/2023

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I have never lived in Christendom, and to the best of my knowledge, no Christian alive today has. To claim that such-and-such country in the West was -- until very recently -- a part of Christendom or even a Christian country is delusional.

Sure, Christianity continued to influence some aspects of culture and society in some Western countries until about the Second World War -- maybe even up to about the 1960s in some places -- but it would be a stretch to refer to the influence of this sum of "somes" as Christendom or as characteristics of a so-called Christian country.

Christendom is behind us -- far behind us. Same goes for Christian nations. Furthermore, I doubt that I will ever live in a Christian nation or in any kind of Christendom in my lifetime. My son's lifetime? Who knows? Maybe -- but probably not. Same goes for his kids.

Bleak outlook? Well, it depends on one's perspective. If Christianity depends on things like Christian nations and Christendom, then the outlook is bleak indeed.

However, if one can separate Christ from nations and a grouping of nations, then the outlook brightens considerably.

There is no Christendom. There are no Christian nations. There is only Christ.

And if you stop and think about it -- really think about it -- you might begin to see this as a blessing, not a curse.

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Life in the Garden of Death

2/15/2023

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The Garden of Death - Hugo Simberg - 1896

My vegetable garden began as a hobby – a way to spend some constructive time outdoors in the spring, summer, and autumn. Household finances were not a primary motivator. I simply enjoyed the process of planting, nurturing, and growing a little extra food. The superior taste of the produce from my garden was reward enough for me.

Well, what began as a hobby is now somewhat of a necessity in this part of the world. The official food price inflation is above 40% at the moment, but the actual “real” food inflation is 100% and higher . . . in some cases, much higher.

My family can still afford to buy food at grocery stores, but at such ridiculously elevated prices, it is worth looking for cheaper options wherever they may be found. That’s where the necessity part comes in. Although I don’t really need to grow any of my own food, I would be foolish not to.

I am not a prepper. Nor am I a bunker-building survivalist hell-bent on surviving some much-vaunted zombie apocalypse. I’m just a common man attempting to lessen the impoverishing effects of inflation . . . ahem, cough, cough . . . price gouging.

I can’t fully escape the pressure the demons are applying via their economic, financial, trade, and supply chain tactics, but I can still do little things to ease the pressure here and there. Growing my own vegetables happens to be one of them.

And these little things are nothing to sneeze at. For example, the dozen egg-laying hens I purchased last spring have saved my family between 700 to 800 dollars over the course of the year. To put that into perspective, that’s an average month’s salary after taxes in Hungary. The hens have been such a great success that I am already working to obtain at least a dozen more this spring. I may also begin raising quail. Perhaps some ducks, as well.

None of these things will make me self-sufficient or liberate me from the System. Nor will they fully protect my family from larger potential dangers or ramped-up demonic pressures. Yet they do offer some reprieve.

More importantly, they offer glimpses into reality’s independence of Ahriman. Those glimpses alone are worth the extra effort of digging and hoeing.

Revelations of life in a garden of death.

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Grain of Salt? More Like Boulders . . .

2/12/2023

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One of the most depressing aspects of the past three years has been the sudden and unwanted revelation that most of the people I have looked to for insights, discernment, interpretations, observations, cognizance, clarification, and ideas have been dead wrong about nearly everything that has transpired in the past three years.

I'm talking about incredibly intelligent, well-read people here.

By dead wrong, I don't mean inaccurate predictions or garbled analysis. That's par for the course and is to be expected.

After all, being wrong is a part of being human. I've been wrong about many things and will continue to be wrong about many more things. No, by dead wrong I mean wrong in the most fundamental way -- at the level of metaphysical assumptions -- at the core concept level of being, existence, and reality.

Experiencing intelligent, well-read people being consistently and predictably wrong at this level -- the level of first principles -- has been difficult to ignore and increasingly challenging to excuse.

It wouldn't be nearly so bad if the dead wrongers admitted that they should at least consider honestly re-evaluating their assumptions, but very few appear willing or able to do so.

As far as I can tell, they've made their commitments, and they're sticking to them. Fine and well, but I hope they understand that everything they continue to say about theology, spirituality, morality, ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, cosmology, and all the rest of it now requires a boulder of salt.

A mere grain is insufficient to cover dead wrong.

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The Thing About Fast Food Kitchens

2/11/2023

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Having a chef for a father means I grew up with a solid understanding of what the term "good food" means.

Nevertheless, I had a certain weakness for fast food throughout my childhood and adolescence and enjoyed eating in places like McDonalds, Taco Bell, or what have you.

Thankfully, my youthful affection for Big Macs and Whoppers began to fade by my late-teens. When I hit my mid-twenties, I stopped eating fast food altogether.

The reasons?

Well, there were the obvious health and nutritional considerations and the general quality of customers who frequent such establishments, but what really turned me off fast food were the kitchens.

Have you ever really stopped to consider what fast food kitchens look like?

Below is an image of a typical (higher end) fast food kitchen:

And this is what a typical post-mortem examination room looks like. You know, the place where they perform autopsies.

Because I worked in many restaurants in my youth, I get that virtually all kitchens in contemporary restaurants -- fast food or otherwise -- look like autopsy rooms, primarily because stainless steel is durable, corrosive-resistant, relatively hygienic, and easy-to-clean.

Regardless, the whole thing turns me off. Always has -- which helps explain why I don't go out to each much anymore.

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Because They Have Become Useless

2/10/2023

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Behold the peck "immunity certificate" the Hungarian government handed out to all of its pecked citizens at the height of the birdemic.

Yeah, you read that right -- "immunity" certificate.

For a while the government strongly implied that all Hungarians would require one of these in order to conduct their day-to-day lives.

For a while Hungarians did need one of these if they wanted to travel by plane, or visit a hospital, or go to a restaurant, or attend certain public events.

For a while there were suggestions that the card would eventually be needed to for other things like attending school, using public transportation, and going grocery shopping.

Some "experts" went as far as to demand the creation of an apartheid society or the incarceration of people without "immunity certificates".

Fun times. Great people.

I never got the "immunity certificate". Those who did eventually realized that they were not really immune to anything.

Well, in its infinite wisdom and goodness, the Hungarian government has decided to bring an end to the era of the immunity certificate -- at least in Hungary:

According to Világgazdaság, the government will issue no more COVID immunity certificates because they have become useless.

Based on a new decree, owners can keep their immunity certificate and can access their EU digital COVID certificate via its QR code. People will also be able to access their digital COVID certificate with the help of different apps.

The Hungarian government refuses to state the obvious. These certificates did not become useless -- they were always useless, at least from the perspective of public health. Ah, but they were certainly useful for trying to establish a totalitarian bureaucracy, weren't they?

Shame that didn't work out, but I'm sure they're not done trying, particularly since the fine folks at the EU continue to push the whole digital ID thing. Too bad about all the destruction in the meantime though.

One more thing -- revocation is not repentance. In fact, it doesn't even qualify as an apology.

Just throwing that out there.

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Slaves Well Before They Became Slaves

2/9/2023

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When we think of slavery (or servility or subservience or self-abasement), we tend to conceptualize it as a purely external force exerting oppressive pressure on an otherwise free and resisting being.

Within this conceptualization, the free and resisting being only becomes a slave after force overpowers his freedom and resistance to oppression.

This force then smothers the free and resisting being into submission. Thus, slavery is the dominance of oppressive force over a conquered but otherwise innately free being.

This is all fine and well to a certain degree, but it limits slavery to an external imposition, thereby neglecting the reality that most forms of external slavery first arise deep within man himself -- that the exterior slavery man experiences is, more often than not, a form of slavery man has created for himself within his interior being.

Some slavery can be purely external, but most of the slavery we see around us today is the product of consciousness.

This tends to get lost in the mix because the only slavery we perceive and experience as slavery is that which manifests and plays out in the external world.

The external world certainly has the power and force to enslave, but this power is nothing compared to the internal power of man to enslave himself via consciousness.

Hence, our go-to conceptualization of slavery is sorely misguided because it casually ignores the reality of a purely external force exerting oppressive pressure on a servile and consenting being.

Within this conceptualization, the servile and consenting being was a slave long before he ever encountered the external oppressive force.

Such a being does not need to be overpowered or smothered because he was submissive long before the external power appeared. Such a being welcomes the external force and regards it as a liberator.

Thus, the appearance of an oppressive external power does little more than draw out the servile consciousness of such a being and renders it tangible and perceptible to those who are still able to discern between what constitutes a free and resisting being and what does not.

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On the Hill Top

2/8/2023

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On the Hill Top - Károly Ferenczy - 1901

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