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Fear and Sentimentality

8/31/2021

Sentimentality inspires mostly negative connotations today. The word has become a pejorative to define and describe anything that conjures exaggerated tenderness and self-indulgent emotionalism.

Critics argue that depictions of tender emotions like love, caring, and sympathy can be classified as sentimental when they appear contrived and artificial rather than natural and real. This not only makes sense, but is also easily observable in many works of art and literature in which sentimental depictions are an affront to decorum and good taste.

Encountering sentimentality creates feelings of discomfort. At the most basic level, we detect that we are being lied to. Though the emotions presented are generally regarded as "good", they are presented in a manner that is too tender, too ideal, and too "good" to be true. Sentimentality makes syrupy that which should merely be sweet.

At the same time, I have noticed that the line demarcating the sweet from the syrupy keeps moving further from the sweet and deeper in to the syrupy. More specifically, what might have been considered sweet a decade or two ago is now considered syrup; what was once considered moving and authentic is now considered schmaltzy and kitschy.

The line between the romantic and the sentimental has all but disappeared. It very much seems that all tender emotions have been relegated to the realm of sentimentalism.

Be that as it may, most negative emotions do not appear to have suffered the same fate. Depictions of hatred, anger, or lust are rarely criticized for being exaggerated or contrived. On the contrary, they are often lauded for their sincerity and "reality". Inflated depictions of tender, positive emotions tend to leave people unmoved, while overdone depictions of harsh, negative emotions tend to move people a great deal.

Modern people seem to relish picking out the "emotional lies" in nineteenth-century paintings and novels that idealize friendship, love, or caring, but appear oblivious to the "emotional lies" in modern news stories and government communiques that incite resentment, anger, or fear.

Especially fear. The past eighteen months have taught us that unlike love or caring, fear appears impervious to exaggeration. Moreover, most moderns refuse to acknowledge that fear too can be contrived.

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Stephen Vizinczey Has Died

8/30/2021

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I met Stephen Vizinczey before I read any of his work. Back in 1990, a friend, who was a Vizinczey admirer, persuaded me to attend the Toronto Authors' Festival with her to hear the man read from a work-in-progress. Vizinczey, who was then in his sixties, read a few pages from a manuscript called "The Man With the Golden Touch".

The narrative dealt with a protagonist who, while attempting to commit suicide by swimming out into the ocean, has a chance encounter with a glowing alien space craft sinking in the water below him. The protagonist ends up rescuing the alien from certain death. In a show of gratitude the alien - who ends up being a smart-talking prepubescent boy possessing magical, genie-like powers - grants the protagonist three wishes . . .

I didn't know what to make of the reading. Though I found the prose and storytelling palatable, I was repulsed by the premise of what I had heard. Simply put, I found the story a bit silly.

Following the reading, my friend and I took the opportunity to meet the author in person. In her generosity, my friend gave me her copy of An Innocent Millionaire for Vizinczey to dedicate to me personally with an autograph. Meeting an author whose work you have never read is somewhat of a strange experience. Asking the same author to autograph a novel you hadn't even heard of before is downright surreal.

In an effort to avoid speaking about his writing, I asked Vizinczey if he visited Hungary often. To further distance myself from my general ignorance of the man's work, I made sure to ask the question in Hungarian. At the sound of the Magyar language, Vizinczey's dark, brooding eyes softened somewhat. He informed me he occasionally "went home" to visit his mother, but that visiting the country of his birth had become filled with the same sense of awkwardness one would feel upon visiting the home of an ex-girlfriend. He graciously wrote a dedication in the novel in Hungarian: "To Ferenc, With Friendship, Vizinczey István.

I read An Innocent Millionaire immediately afterward and found it to be one of the best novels I had ever read. Modeled upon the greatest classics of the nineteenth century, the novel provides moving and masterful insights into what I at the time termed "the human condition", all within the framework of a well-paced adventure story. Intrigued by Vizinczey, I quickly took up his first novel, In Praise of Older Women, an erotic novel that unconventionally aligned with the dominating milieu of the 1960s sexual revolution.

In Praise made Vizinczey a literary star - and a millionaire to boot. It was only later that I understood that his second novel, An Innocent Millionaire, was a thinly-veiled analogy of his own experience at striking it rich via his creativity only to have the cold, calculating world ruthlessly attempt to "steal" his achievement from him under the banner of civilized society.

I was a waning Christian when I encountered Vizinczey and his work. As such, I found his staunch defense and praise of secular, humanist values and his merciless criticism of human wickedness and stupidity both uplifting and enticing. Lauding writers such as Stendhal and Voltaire, Vizinczey was very much of the belief that religion, Christianity especially, was essentially nonsense. For example, he loved Dosteovsky, but had no use for Dosteovsky's Christian metaphysics. For Vizinczey, religion was at best a delusion; at worst, a tyrannical means of social control that hindered free thought and individual expression.

He was not entirely wrong in this, but unbeknownst to Vizinczey - and to me at the time - a complete rejection of the spiritual and the embrace of material atheism also serve to hinder free thought and individual expression. This hindrance becomes readily apparent in Vizinczey's little philosophy book, The Rules of Chaos, which, for all of its sharp insights, lacks the kind of solid metaphysical assumptions that would make the insights truly profound.

After reading Vizinczey's two novels, I eagerly awaited the publication of his third. I waited. And waited. And then I waited some more. Finally, in 2014 - more than twenty years after I had listened to Vizinczey read from his "work in progress" - I came across an announcement on his website. After more than twenty years of writing, rewriting, and perfecting, Vizinczey was ready to publish his "work in progress" under the title Three Wishes. I immediately announced the news on this blog. To my surprise, Vizinczey left a comment on my post.

Shortly afterward, we began to correspond intermittently. It took another two years for his "work in progress" to finally appear. He graciously sent me an advanced copy - the title of which had inexplicably changed from Three Wishes to If Only - and asked me to report any typos or errors I encountered.

Vizinczey was convinced his latest work was "perfect, his best yet", but reading If Only not only proved to be a major disappointment, but somewhat of an embarrassment. Nearly thirty years in the making, Vizinczey's novel about the kid alien granting three wishes proved to be downright putrid. Once I had finished the novel, Vizinczey eagerly asked me what I thought about it.

Out of respect for the man's past work, I chose to be dishonest. I told him I thought the novel was great. The decision provided me with an intensely painful learning experience. I regretted and repented my dishonesty immediately and made a vow to never again be so utterly insincere, even at the cost of sparing someone's feelings.

To my surprise, Vizinczey later informed me that he had purchased and read my novel. When I asked him for his opinion, he unsurprisingly informed me that he thought it had some potential, but that it was overwritten. I immediately understood that he had hated it. I wasn't particularly bothered by that - I know my own work is quite flawed. What bothered me was the "noble" lie I had uttered concerning his own work. I pondered being forthright with him, but resisted under the assumption that he would interpret my confession as little more than resentment.

If Only, which Vizinczey self-published hoping lightning would strike again as it had decades before with In Praise, proved to be spectacular flop. It sold poorly and was panned by the few critics that did take the time to review it. A couple of years later, Vizinczey himself unceremoniously declared that he himself hated the novel and had decided to re-write it once again (!) and republish it as 3 Wishes.

So much for perfect.

Anyway, my purpose here is not to denigrate or disparage Vizinczey or his work. Despite the failure of his self-proclaimed, final masterpiece, he was and remains a good writer. Nevertheless, for me, he was and remains a good leftist writer. And that makes all the difference in the world to me now. The Stephen Vizinczey I admired when I was more inclined to and accepting of leftism is a very different writer from the Stephen Vizinczey I came to know when I rejected leftism and dedicated myself wholeheartedly to Christ.

Vizinczey was a highly intelligent man possessed by an enormous ego and an incredibly eventful life - one that saw him experience the horrors of the Second World War, the monstrosities of communism, the pain of exile, the tumult of moving around the globe, the joy and challenges of literary success, the frustrating decline of modern culture and civilization, the warmth and love of a solid, lifelong marriage, and the gradual decline into relative obscurity. Despite this extraordinary set of events and experiences, Vizinczey's learning in life could not move beyond the scope of his limited metaphysical assumptions; limited metaphysical assumptions that become acutely glaring in declarations like the ones below, made a mere year before his death:

In all fairness, I fell into the Jordan Peterson trap as well, but it did not take me too long to figure out the errors Jordan Peterson and other, similar modern thinkers espouse. Of course, I probably would not have been able to discover these limits had I been firmly grounded in a leftist worldview, which is exactly where Vizinczey chose to remain until the very end of his life.

Though he touted himself as a renegade and a politically incorrect thinker, he was surprisingly and solidly political correct in his beliefs. His pronouncements often approvingly echoed litmus test agenda items such as racism and climate change. As is to be expected, Vizinczey had nothing to say about the 2020 global totalitarian coup. Though he was insistently dismayed by the general social and cultural decay he witnessed all around him, Vizinczey remained firmly convinced that the world was actually improving, as he confirmed in a recent blog post : "As I often said I am not so much of a writer, but a re-writer and I was writing and revising this novel for 17 years. Reading it over last time, I was amazed how much the world has changed during these 17 years, we are at a better place than we were all those years ago. So part of the book is already past history."

I sincerely hope Vizinczey is in a better place now - that he saw the light, that he made the right choice - the same choice he simply could not accept during mortal life.

Whatever the case, I am grateful for his work. Despite its obvious leftism, much of it remains quite good from a purely literary perspective. It provided joy and taught me much, albeit probably not in the manner Vizinczey originally intended when he wrote it.

Note added: An obituary for Vizinczey can be found here.

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Pecks In Perpetuity

8/29/2021

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People who consented to the peck hoping that it would lead to freedom and a return to normal are probably scratching their heads right now.

Where is the freedom and return to normal they were promised?

Where is the safety and health they were promised?

Of course, a portion of the head-scratching multitude have likely been taken in by the propaganda citing the unpecked as the reason why freedom and the return to normal have yet to materialize.

Following this none are safe until all are safe line of logic, freedom and a return to normal will only happen once everyone - including children and pregnant women - have been pecked. Peck the world, and the world will become free and normal again.

Yet it is becoming readily apparent that a free and normal pecked world will require an endless regime of ongoing booster pecks and other pecks to prevent anyone from ever becoming a biological hazard again.

The official motto for this tyrannical nightmare might very well one day be, "Hey, there's a peck for that!"

So much for free and so much for normal.

It may be many other things as well, but in case you haven't noticed, the peck is primarily being employed as an instrument of social control.

If you opt to take the peck or allow yourself to be "forced" into taking the peck, you endorse this form of social control. More plainly, you endorse tyranny. More explicitly, you support the wrong side of the spiritual war.

You support pecks in perpetuity.

The Biden administration recently suggested that it would move its booster peck program up to five months from the original eight months after initial pecking. The same administration also aims to begin pecking children as young as twelve. If a twelve-year-old were to receive booster pecks every five months, he or she would be injected close to two hundred times in his or her life (assuming they could survive such a regime and actually make it to old age).

Does that sound free or normal to you?

Related - the Hungarian government recently announced it was building its own vaccine production facility to ensure a constant, reliable supply of pecks to combat future viral threats. This suggests that perpetual pecks play a big role in the future envisioned by our global totalitarian rulers.

Will this envisioned future become reality?

I personally don't believe the totalitarians will be able to pull it off successfully over the long term. At the same time, they're doing a pretty bang up job at the moment thanks to all those souls who have willingly rolled up their sleeves in the name of safety, health, freedom, and a return to normal.

Kudos to you, fellow global citizen! Kudos to you!

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Why Stop at "The Science"?

8/29/2021

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I'm not sure when the inclusion of the definite article "the" before "science" became common in mainstream System discourse, but narrowing the concept of science down from something general and universal to something specific and restricted was certainly intentional. "The" before science served to differentiate and elevate System-approved "not science" from actual science.

The messaging is too clear too ignore. System science is not merely science, or any old science, but the science - implying that anything else that qualifies as science must be peremptorily ignored and discarded as not really science.

For the few people who have thus far resisted living by lies, "the science" has become a pejorative term; a quick and easy means through which to disparage and tear away at the System's evil "scientific" chicanery. And when you consider all the deceit, dishonesty, falsity, duplicity and plain-old lying that comprises "the science," you immediately realize that chicanery is all "the science" really is.

Unfortunately, the lying trickery infecting "the science" is not limited to the field of science alone, but can be readily applied to nearly every part of our rapidly collapsing civilization. So, why not expand the definite article "the" to include those parts as well?

As fate would have it, some of the most fraudulent pillars of our civilization already come with definite articles attached: e.g. the media, the economy, the law, the research, the arts, the literature. Nevertheless, I propose that "the" be extended to the following as well:

the history
the education
the politics
the democracy
the Christianity
the human rights
the freedom
the liberty
the individual rights
the love
the medicine
the knowledge
the philosophy

The above is just a short list of suggestions. Further suggestions are welcome.

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Delta Force: The Ordeal

8/27/2021

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In a previous post, I noted down a few points about The Siege. Today, I would like to share a few thoughts concerning The Ordeal.

Back in December of last year, I speculated on a potential development that I termed "The Great Lockout":

If the Great Lockdown served to suspend society, the Great Lockout will become the proposed lifting of this suspension. Put another way, lockdowns were meant to push people out and away from a frozen society; lockouts will seek to thaw society and pull people back in. But this pull factor will come with conditions, and it is through these conditions that the Establishment will not only maintain its iron grip of control, but increase it.

At the present time it appears magical medical juice will be the linchpin that keeps the totalitarian wheel spinning. Yes, the world can be your oyster again, but only if you take the magical medical juice and adhere to all the complex and intrusive bureaucratic and surveillance mechanisms installed to support it. Do that you, and the Establishment will ensure you are "locked into" the System.

Don't want the magical medical juice? No problem, but refusal will guarantee you are "locked out" of the system. You can then proceed to live the isolated and solitary life of a clam.

Given a choice like that, how many people will choose to be locked in rather than locked out?

It does not take an ocean of imagination to realize how quickly and easily the Establishment could effectively lock individuals in or out of the System. It also does not take a great deal of perspicacity to notice that the preliminary groundwork for a lock-in/lockout system is already in place. Whether or not the Great Lockout will be fully implemented remains to be seen, but many developments in the world today point in that direction. Whatever the case, the Establishment wants to ensure the lock remains in place.

The Great Lockout is currently in full swing around the world. In some places, the unpecked are prohibited from entering cafés, restaurants, theaters, etc. Other countries have taken the lockout a step further by denying the unpecked access to employment, education, even healthcare. Peck mandates are popping up all over the place. The demons behind the peck mandates must really love The Godfather films because the mandates essentially present the unpecked with "offers they can't refuse."

Get pecked or get fired. Get pecked or get out of university. Get pecked or the doctor will refuse to see you. Get pecked or we'll make you pay. And so on.

Being confronted with an "offer you can't refuse" is distressing, particularly if the offer in question jeopardizes your ability to earn money, pursue your ambitions, or feed your family. I do not consider it hyperbole to label this kind of demonic pressure an ordeal.

When confronted with potential ordeals, we tend to imagine them as prolonged, seemingly endless affairs, but experience shows us that this is usually not the case.

For example, a few months ago I lived through a lockout here in Hungary. The Hungarian government was one of the first to implement segregation measures against the unpecked and as spring unfolded and the weather began to improve, the government unexpectedly decreed that all unpecked people would be barred from practically everything but essential services. This turned out to be quite the ordeal for some, and they quickly gave in to the offer they thought they couldn't refuse and ran out and got pecked.

Four or five weeks later, the Hungarian government unceremoniously canceled the segregation measures against the unpecked. Suddenly the pecked and unpecked were on equal terms again. Surrendering to the demonic pressure had bought the "pressured into the peck" people five weeks of "freedom and privilege." Nothing more.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that the same thing will happen with every "offer that can't be refused", but my experience demonstrates that it can and does happen. Nevertheless, you only really benefit (that's probably not the right word, but hopefully you get what I mean) if you find a way to refuse the offer that can't be refused.

I'm not one for giving advice. Everyone is responsible for himself and herself. We all have our own choices to make. But I will say this - if you are subjected to demonic pressure during which you are made an offer you seemingly can't refuse, then I humbly suggest doing everything in your power to find a way to refuse. At the very least, find a way to delay.

The end of that seemingly never-ending ordeal may be just around the corner.

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The Unapologetic Cruelty of None Are Safe Until All Are Safe

8/26/2021

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Moderns have a difficult time wrapping their heads around evil. As far as I can tell, most contemporary people believe the global diktat of none are safe until all are safe is motivated by good intentions.

Those of a more skeptical mindset seem to take the Hanlon's razor approach of not assigning to malice what can readily be assigned to incompetence or stupidity.

Either way, very few people appear willing or able to call eighteen months of "none are safe until all are safe" what it truly is - evil.

This observation started me thinking about the blatant and intentional cruelty permeating every single action, dictum, decree, measure, study, and communication the globalist totalitarians have employed since the start of the birdemic. It also reminded me of how unapologetic the totalitarians have been concerning their open cruelty.

Setting concepts of evil aside for a moment, I refuse to believe that contemporary people are impervious to the obvious and tangible cruelty that has flooded over the world since 2020.

They must, at some level, detect the impetus behind all the intentional physical, mental, and spiritual harm they have witnessed and experienced, yet very few appear willing or able to address it, not even in their thinking.

If I were a psychology type, I would diagnose the problem as some form of masochism, for a dark masochistic streak does appear to stain the souls of most modern people. I don't know how else to describe the perpetual yielding to authority, especially the yielding to malicious authority that openly and un-apologetically denigrates, punishes, and humiliates.

Rational thinking and action would dictate a person would at least attempt to find ways not to surrender to the malicious authority. If for no other reason, than purely out of some sense of dignity or self-preservation. Yet modern people appear more fearful of the judgments of the malicious authority than they are of the actual harm the malicious authority inflicts.

More to the point, modern people seem willing to accept any inhumanity the global dictatorship dishes out in order to avoid the judgment of the global dictators. Or the judgment of anyone else for that matter - family, friends, colleagues, strangers.

To top it off, contemporary people seem to derive some sort of sick pleasure from the cruelty they endure. This pleasure appears rooted in the propensity to tolerate the ever-increasing viciousness without surrendering some faux-noble virtue of non-judgment, which elevates them above the hassle of thinking about the obvious.

They experience the wickedness firsthand, but would not dare to label those behind it wicked because to do so would open the possibility of drawing judgment upon themselves. And this seems intolerable to the vast majority of modern people.

What would my tormentors (moreover, my family, friends, colleagues, and total strangers) think of me if I said, did, thought that?

Under such an arrangement, the tormentors feel no need to apologize for their cruelty.

Why would they?

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I Find It Impossible To Imagine Not Being a Christian Today

8/25/2021

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Bruce Charlton posed a pertinent question on his Notions blog today:

Why not convert to leftism? (You know it makes sense . . . )

The use of the verb 'convert' is particularly revealing. The question is not aimed at leftists or atheists or everyday moderns. If it had been, the verb 'convert' would be both superfluous and irrelevant. After all, there is no need to turn anyone already saturated in leftism toward leftism or turn a leftist into a leftist. No, the question was not aimed at leftists, but at Christians. At you. At me.

After posing the question about leftist conversion, Dr. Charlton wasted no time wading into some seemingly positive rationale for answering the conversion question in the affirmative:

Since you can't do anything about global totalitarianism, why not just make the best of it?

Why not exploit the situation instead of moaning about it? Do what is expedient - why not?

Why not make a successful career out of leftism - like so many others? Why not surrender your private mind to leftism, in the same way as you have already surrendered your public behaviour? By having any reservations at all, you are making yourself miserable - why not simply cast-aside those reservations?

Just say an inner yes to what you will, anyway, be forced to do (sooner or later)...

The last in the excerpt above is particularly pressing. As the days and weeks move forward, we are likely to increasingly find ourselves in circumstances in which we feel we are being forced to do something that goes against our will, belief, and judgement.

How will we respond to such pressure? What choices will we make? What will we do?

More importantly, what will we think?

Some of us may simply shrug and decide to grudingly submit to the program. Others may become resentful against God Himself. Why would he put us in such circumstances if He loves us? A few may embrace the notion; enthusiastically convert.

Hey, why not? As Dr. Charlton notes in his post:

There is no earthly reason why not.

Of course, the utter lack of an earthly reasons for not converting to leftism are tremendously outweighed by the simple yet seemingly infinite number of spiritual reasons for not converting to leftism, chief among them, the welfare of your soul.

Upon encountering Dr. Charlton's question, I took a few moments to conduct a little thought experiment and and attempted to imagine myself surrendering - willingly, wholeheartedly - to leftism.

I found I couldn't do it.

Not because I'm a saint, or sinless, or pure, or perfect, or righteous, or holy, or elevated, or what have you.

I know what leftism is.

For many years - too many to mention without feeling pangs of shame - I did say 'yes' to the conversion question to a certain degree. I was at best a tepid convert, but a convert all the same.

I mostly went along to get along. I deliberately said things I knew to be insincere and untrue; did things I recognized to be immoral and ugly; believed things I knew to be false and evil.

For years.

And I was able to do all of it because I had tricked myself in thinking that I was still a true Christian and that none of it really mattered - not in the present, not in the end, not ever.

I won't bore you with a prolonged digression of how I reverted back to being a more sincere Christian, but suffice to say the process involved the joyous acceptance that all of it - my words, my actions, my thoughts - really does matter. Nay, more than really matters - more like nearly all that matters, in the present, in the end, and forever.

As I thought back to my own conversion to leftism years ago, I simply could not imagine doing it again. Yes, I still struggle with sin, and I still scrub away at the leftist residue that stubbornly sticks like tar, but I can no longer imagine not being a Christian.

Especially not today. What would I be turning toward? What would I turn into?

Seriously . . .

I find it impossible to imagine not being a Christian because without Christ all I would have is the world, but with no means of overcoming.

I find it impossible to imagine not being a Christian because without Christ I would not know Truth, appreciate Beauty, understand Virtue.

I find it impossible to imagine not being a Christian because without Christ I know I cannot really, truly, deeply love.

And if I could not really, truly, deeply love, I would not be able to find purpose and meaning.

And without purpose and meaning, I would once again become a slave to fear, to comfort, to convenience, to lies.

I would live in complete darkness, yet remain convinced that my life was somehow bathed in light.

That part of me that is divine would diminish, perhaps even die.

No.

Been there. Done that. Never doing it again.

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From The Pages of S.K. Orr

8/23/2021

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Moving prose from S.K. Orr over at Steeple Tea:

These things I love…my wife, my family, my dogs, my few acres, the sights and sounds and scents of the woods and fields and mountains…these things are words and punctuation on the pages of my days, and I read them with complete absorption. I love them so. Even as I grow old and brittle like the leaves up there on that oak, even as I grow slower and wearier like that bee there on the flower, I love these things so.

I will take them with me someday, these pages. I am confident of this.

Read the rest here.

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Humility and Obedience Have Turned Into Something Evil

8/22/2021

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The old experience of humility and obedience has turned into something evil. And it is necessary to enter the way of religious disobedience to the world and the evil of the world when the spirit of death is sensed in the fruits of obedience.

Man is to face the world not with humble obedience but rather with creative activity. Even the experience of communion with God comes into the world as an act of creativity; for the once-revolutionary asceticism has turned into the conservative guardianship of the past.
- Nikolai Berdyaev, The Meaning of the Creative Act

Thoughts:

Some Christians have extolled the necessity of humility and obedience in light of everything that has transpired since 2020. The logic driving this line of thinking stems from the conviction that man has strayed too far from God, mostly through pride and disobedience. The only way to right this errant course is through humility and obedience. Man has to stop thinking so highly of himself and begin to listen to God once again.
Fair enough, but I very much doubt that a steady diet of meekness and thinking oneself to be unimportant coupled with passive law-obeying will lead anywhere good in this time and place. For starters, man is important, but his importance is only evident if he is aligned with God. A hubristic, arrogant, non-God aligned man is an evil buffoon, but a self-effacing, self-deprecating God-aligned man that remains trapped in a mindset of humility and obedience without striving for creativity may very well become a spiritual dead end.
Repentance and asceticism were the bedrock of sainthood when Christianity was still new - when a humble, obedient, repentant, ascetic consciousness was indeed heroic and revolutionary, especially when pitted against older forms of consciousness. Repentance and asceticism are still necessary, but they they must now lead to creativity. Repentance and asceticism alone cannot overcome the world; only creativity can.
Humility and obedience to external secular and religious authorities is no longer spiritually viable. This is not accidental and it very much appears that Divine Wisdom has revealed itself here. Obedience must be internal; it must emanate from within, from the communion of the Divine Self and the Holy Spirit.
Obeying God is no longer simply a matter of following scripture, churches, ceremony, or dogma. Humility is no longer simply a matter of belittling before God. Obeying God involves becoming that which God wants us to become - and we should not be timid about what God wants us to become.

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End Times Confirmed

8/20/2021

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For reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, I find I like the Justin Bieber pop song linked below.

I know this isn't an official sign of the coming apocalypse, but in my shame-filled mind it should be.

I'm going to spend the next few days repenting. Therapist recommendations are welcome.

Pray for me.

Note added: I don't know much about Justin Bieber, but in this recent interview he says some interesting and apparently sincere things about following Jesus. Take it for what you will, but at times his insights and confessions make more sense than what most church leaders are spewing these days. As difficult as it is to digest, it very much appears the Beebs is on the right side. In any case, the interview makes me feel a little less guilty for liking his Peaches tune - not guiltless, but a little less guilty all the same .

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