"Indian Dreams"
Dream Catcher - One of the most beautiful stories in North American Indian Mythology.
To be a dreamer (Wise One) was a highly honored position in a tribe or nation...
Today we are so busy with modern life that the visions of dream time must come during sleep time in order to get our attention. Traditionally, a dream catcher is made with willow and woven into a sacred circle, with a web type center to harness bad dreams (which will perish at dawn's light) and still allow good dreams through. Dream catchers allow us to pay attention to the gifts of dream time, and become aware of the talents and treasures within each one of us.
The dream time reality is as ancient as our universe and holds all possible doors open
to all levels of awareness.
Sweet Dreams Friend...
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A Man and His Beast
Upon a time an old SkyWalker taled a youngling
of battle that wages inside everyman.
The battle between two forces that dwell within all.
Animal and Spirit
The Beast of man and the Best of man
The animal is Voracious.
It is: Weakness; hunger, lust, addiction, anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow,
regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority,
lies, obsession, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The spirit is Veracious.
It is: Strength; truth, humility, freedom, joy, peace, love, hope, serenity,
kindness, benevolence, magnanimity, empathy, generosity,
compassion and faith."
The youngling struggled this for a moment
then querried the SkyWalker,
"Which of these is Victor?"
The old Skywalker simply replied,
"The one you feed”
Still the Beast ~ Steel the Best
What does not make me strong Will Kill me
Feed your beast
Your beast will devour you
Feed your best
Your best will empower you
If ye'll not your beast abey
Ye will your beast obey
~Sage Wordslinger
The Enemy is the Yen O Me
The Eye Pull of My I
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From the jargonphile, a pose for thought. See "A Farside Chat" at the bottom.
There Be Dragons! and deamons!
dragon definition
~ from Latin dracō, from Greek drakōn; related to drakos eye]
(the all seeing eye of the world wide web ie. "www.")
~ [MIT] A program similar to a daemon, except that it is not invoked
Daemons are spoken of as spiritual beings (Matt. 8:16; 10:1; 12:43-45)
at enmity with God, and as having a certain power over man
To paraphrase: (Daemons are virtual beings that have certain power over man)
Is it any Wonder? The condition of our world?
Look at how often the daemon is invoked in computer programming language, 24/7,
is this mere coincidence?!! Who could have machinated such an insidious scheme!
Computing Dictionary
daemon definition operating system
/day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ (From the mythological meaning, later rationalized as the acronym "Disk And Execution MONitor") A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon).
For example, under ITS writing a file on the LPT spooler's directory would invoke the spooling daemon, which would then print the file. The advantage is that programs wanting files printed need neither compete for access to, nor understand any idiosyncrasies of, the LPT. They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.
Unix systems run many daemons, chiefly to handle requests for services from other hosts on a network. Most of these are now started as required by a single real daemon, inetd, rather than running continuously. Examples are cron (local timed command execution), rshd (remote command execution), rlogind and telnetd (remote login), ftpd, nfsd (file transfer), lpd (printing).
Daemon and demon are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations (see demon). The term "daemon" was introduced to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and used it to refer to what ITS called a dragon.
[ Jargon File]
(1995-05-11)
Bible Dictionary
Daemon definition
the Greek form, rendered "devil" in the Authorized Version of the New Testament. Daemons are spoken of as spiritual beings (Matt. 8:16; 10:1; 12:43-45) at enmity with God, and as having a certain power over man (James 2:19; Rev. 16:14). They recognize our Lord as the Son of God (Matt. 8:20; Luke 4:41). They belong to the number of those angels that "kept not their first estate," "unclean spirits," "fallen angels," the angels of the devil (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 12:7-9). They are the "principalities and powers" against which we must "wrestle" (Eph. 6:12).
Perspicacity
Jargonspiel from a Jargonphile
A far side chat with the Thinker Tinker
Who'da thunk it?
Who could have machinated such an insidious scheme!
Who Done It!
Aqueuetzar
A Lyin' King
Power of Babble
Who through Gates Opened Wide ~The Web of the World
Who spelled the jargon pile ~ For the way of the web
Who gave daemons ~ Control of the scheme
Who put the Byte ~ In the apple of your eye
Who offers a second life ~ In which to play Abettor's Way
Who gave the world ~ The language of One
Who did Inter ~ The world in the net
Who gave us a sanctum ~ To divine simulacrum
Who displaces verity ~ With virtual reality
Who gave us all knowledge ~ For the good of Evil
Who gives us the Dazzle ~ Of Luci in this guise
With Daemons
Once upon a time ~ The angel of light
Now The Accuser
Aqueuetzar
In Hebrew "satan" means “the accuser”
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For the Good of Evil
"The Evil One, and savior of death… He promises you illumination,
he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind.
He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution that reveres them.
He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you,
and encourages you.
He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods.
Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you;
he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them,
and then you are his."
~ Bl John Henry Newman
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White Dog of God Fire
Holy Spirit
THE WHITE SPIRIT
THE SACRED WHITE FOUR LEGGED’S
To most all North American Indian tribes, the spiritual meaning of the color white represents the most holy connection to the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, Tankashilah, or by the many other names by which the Creator is known.
A symbol of purity, life, renewal, good, and peace.
It is a color universally recognized as pure and representing good.
As rare and unique as the white buffalo, the birth of a pure white Indian dog pup is also seen by many tribes as a significant spiritual event. Tribes all across the United States held religious rituals that revolved around these uncommon animals. The white color of the dogs was very rare, and viewed as something magical and mysterious, therefore a sign from the Creator of some special religious meaning. And they were thought to be capable of magical abilities.
These white four leggeds are seen as messengers from the Creator telling us that he is among us,
and that our prayers are being heard.
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Crabby Old Man
What do you see nurses?........What do you see?
What are you thinking......
when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man, .....not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food.......and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice....
'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice .!
....the things that you do.
And forever is losing, a sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not......
.....lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding
....... the long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?
Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse......
you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am....... as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding,
......as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten......
with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .......
who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now ..........
a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty .........
my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows........
that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now ..........
I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide
and a secure happy home.
A man of thirty my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other .........
with ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons
have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me........
to see I don't mourn
At Fifty, once more,
babies play 'round my knee
Again, we know children ........
my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me ........
my wife is now dead.
I look at the future ..........
I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .....
young of their own.
And I think of the years......
and the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man.........
and nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age .......
look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles.........
grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone........
where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass .....
a young guy still dwells,
And now and again ........
my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys..............
I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living.............
life over again.
I think of the years .....all too few......
gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact.......
that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people ..........
open and see..
Not a crabby old man.
Look closer....See.......ME!!
~ anonamous
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Cracked Pot
An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the
ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.
One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect
and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house,
the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman
bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection,
and miserable that it could only do half of what had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure,
it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of
myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out
all the way back to your house."
The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on
your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?"
"That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I
planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day
while we walk back, you water them."
"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers
to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are,
there would not be this beauty to grace the house."
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and
flaws we each have that make our lives together
so very interesting and rewarding.
You've just got to take each person for what they are
and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day
and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
Ken Ye!
~ anonamous
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The day finally arrived.
Forrest Gump dies and goes to Heaven.
He is at the Pearly Gates, met by St. Peter himself.
However, the gates are closed, and Forrest approaches the gatekeeper.
St. Peter said, "Well, Forrest, it is certainly good to see you.
We have heard a lot about you.
I must tell you, though, that the place is filling up fast,
and we have been administering an entrance examination for everyone.
The test is short, but you have to pass it before you can get into Heaven."
Forrest responds, "It sure is good to be here, St. Peter, sir.
But nobody ever told me about any entrance exam.
I sure hope that the test ain't too hard.
Life was a big enough test as it was."
St. Peter continued,
"Yes, I know, Forrest, but the test is only three questions.
First: What two days of the week begin with the letter T?
Second: How many seconds are there in a year?
Third: What is God's first name?"
Forrest leaves to think the questions over.
He returns the next day and sees St. Peter, who waves him up, and says,
"Now that you have had a chance to think the questions over,
tell me your answers"
Forrest replied, "Well, the first one -- which two days
in the week begins with the letter "T"?
Shucks, that one is easy.
That would be Today and Tomorrow."
The Saint's eyes opened wide and he exclaimed,
"Forrest, that is not what I was thinking,
but you do have a point, and I guess I did not specify,
so I will give you credit for that answer.
How about the next one?" asked St. Peter.
"How many seconds in a year? Now that one is harder,"
replied Forrest, "but I thunk and thunk about that,
and I guess the only answer can be twelve."
Astounded, St. Peter said, "Twelve? Twelve?
Forrest, how in Heaven's name could you come
up with twelve seconds in a year?"
Forrest replied, "Shucks, there's got to be twelve:
January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd... "
"Hold it," interrupts St. Peter.
"I see where you are going with this, and I see
your point, though that was not quite what I had in mind....
but I will have to give you credit for that one, too.
Let us go on with the third and final question.
Can you tell me God's first name"?
"Sure," Forrest replied, "it's Andy."
"Andy?!!" exclaimed an exasperated and frustrated St Peter.
"Ok, I can understand how
you came up with your answers to my first two questions,
but just how in the world did you
come up with the name Andy as the first name of God?"
"Shucks, that was the easiest one of all," Forrest replied.
"I learnt it from the song."
"ANDY WALKS WITH ME, ANDY TALKS WITH ME,
ANDY TELLS ME I AM HIS OWN."
St. Peter opened the Pearly Gates,
and said: "Run Forrest, run."
~ anonamous
God's wisdom is unfathomable
Only to be exceeded by His sense of humor
”You must be as little children
To enter the kingdom of God"
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The Lambent Flame
Fox Fire
Faux Fire
There was in every hollow
A hundred wrymouthed wisps.
—Dafydd ap Gwilym (trans. Wirt Sikes), 1340
The Will-o'-the-wisp has been recorded as flickering over marshy ground since at least the middle ages, as the quote above testifies. In the centuries that followed, dozens of antiquaries have recorded anecdotes and personal accounts of the ignis fatuus, with even Sir Isaac Newton mentioning them in his 1704 opus Opticks. The lights have also been incorporated into modern literature, e.g. Dracula, and have even had a children's television show named after them. The most commonly cited explanation for them is that they're the product of ignited marsh gas: most likely slowly leaking methane whose ignition is triggered by phosphene (also called phosphine or phosphorus hydride). Historical and contemporary accounts of these lights, however, often fly in the face of this explanation given that the lights are often seen to move, and to not emit heat.
Some of their synonyms reveal what cultures thought about them: "treasure lights", of Danish origin, suggests that they are the marking places of treasure; "corpse candles" suggests that they're the souls of the departed; "fairy lights", which now mean quite a different thing, suggest that they're the work of (or indeed are) fairies.
The phenomenon is also inextricably linked with the leading astray of weary travellers into mires. The light was taken to be a lantern or a torch carried by a mischeivous spirit, as is indeed reflected in the name Will-o'-the-wisp, which has an etymology of "William of the wisp [of lighted hay]". The man of the lantern was said to play tricks on people, as in the case of the gentleman who was knocked off his horse by the Lantern Man of Horning, Norfolk in the 18th century*.
As quoted by Wilkie (1996), in 1778 William Pryce wrote in Mineralogia Cornubiensis that tinners would use anomalous light forms to find veins of tin: "another way of finding veins [...] is by igneous appearances of fiery coruscations. The Tinners generally compare these effluvia to blazing stars." The westcountry seems to have held the phenomenon in generally high regard, in fact, for Dr. Jonathan Couch (or his son, Thomas Quiller-Couch) quotes a poem* in his History of Polperro that is reminiscent of the practice of using foxfire to guide one back home through forest:
Jack o' the lantern! Joan the wad,
Who tickled the maid and made her mad;
Light me home, the weather's bad.
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Commandeer in Chief
Zeitgeist
The Abominator
Out of the shadows
Silver Tongue cast the Golden Bull
And darkness swept the land
You Assay
No longer America the Beautiful
But the Owb Bamah Nation
As the long winter of Narnia becomes his hand
Not the White Witch but the Owb Bamah enable Snowman
Who rules with draconian intent
The ways of God are outcast and outlawed
Now it is: One Nation under Owb Bamah
In Owb Bamah we trust
Short “change” in every way
As in the Garden Snake did say
Change & Hope
You will become like god! You will not die!
And we the foolish man, have succumbed again
To the infamous lie
Death becomes who vote for death
Who listens to the snake
Lies in the dirt
And learns to speak with his tongue
Who sleeps with the enemy
Becomes him
What' sin a name?
Owb Bamah
Hebrew ~ owb: spiritual medium who uses infant sacrifice
~bamah: high places of the owb ritual of infant sacrifice
Oh! America!
Who is your commander in chief?
~Sage Wordslinger
Ephesians 6:12
12 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood;
but against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of the world of darkness,
against the spirits of wickedness in high places.
Owb Bamah
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How's this for apocalyptic literature. This was written by a pastor's
wife in biblical prose as a commentary of current events. It is brilliant.
------------------------
And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land
called America, having lost their morals, their initiative, and their
will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader
that person known as "The One."
He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He
hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you." My lack
of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my
association with evil doers are of no consequence. I shall save you
with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the
land that he who proceeded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation,
and that all he has built must be destroyed. And the people rejoiced,
for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised
that it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said " We live in
the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything about it!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah! Change is good!"
Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the
people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And
the people said, "Show us the money!" And the he said, "
redistribution of wealth is good for everybody."
And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to
steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One"
ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized.
One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was
banished from the kingdom!
Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and
having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with
radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with
them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they
will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people
said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons
into free cars for the people!"
Then "The One" said "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one,
lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One"
said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!"
And the people said, "Hallelujah! Show us the money!"
Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell
your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market
collapsed. And He said. "I shall mandate employer-funded health care
for every worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every
person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the
clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!"
Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas."
And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"
Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and
electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is
dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part
about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, Not to worry.
If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out.
Just sign up with the ACORN and you troubles are over!"
Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let us
grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches,
free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And
the people said, "Hallelujah!" and they made him king!
And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and
ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others
simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank
like unto a rock dropped from a cliff.
The bank banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a
crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.
Then "The One" said, "I am the "the One"- The Messiah - and I'm here
to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have
enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him. "Wait a
minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have
to pay more... And "The One" said, "Wait a minute. That is
unfair!!" And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic
programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and
a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"
And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea
verily, it was too late. The people set upon The One and spat upon
him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation
was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or
shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like
unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that
consumed all that they had built.
And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish,
"give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too
late, and their homeland was no more.
You may think this a fairy tale, but it's not.
It's all too real and is happening RIGHT NOW!
Just wait until you start getting the bill for Health Care,
Cap and Tax, The $787 Billion Porkulus Bill, etc, etc.
THIS really tells it like it is. After reading it -- and before you go
into the bathroom to throw-up -- forward it to your friends
and those you know who care about our country and
what is happening to it under the rule of Commissar Obamanation.
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Ailing Nation
Ben wrote, produced and starred in the incredible movie titled "Expelled"
for you oldsters he starred in the Visine commercials as the
"Oh WOW" guy! He is brilliant...
The American Spectator
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein
We've Figured Him Out
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed. Because he and his cunning circle
realize some basic truths: The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright. They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator. The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests
and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans. Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy (Barakrosie?) is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society.
Either the costs go up or the free society goes away. These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms. There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary"
for every issue of The American Spectator.
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A Spiritual Battle – How to Win the Culture War
Posted by Dr. Peter Kreeft • November 1, 2011 • Editor's Note: On Saturday, October 29, 2011,
Dr. Peter Kreeft gave a talk on spiritual warfare inspired by his essay, "How to Win the Culture War", at a Major Speakers Series event at St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church in Roswell, Georgia. This was one of three talks given by Dr. Kreeft at the conference sponsored by The Integrated Catholic Life™. Deacon Mike Bickerstaff, ICL
co-founder, served as emcee.
How to Win the Culture War
To win any war, the three most necessary things to know are: (1) that you are at war, (2) who your enemy is, and (3) what weapons or strategies can defeat him.
You cannot win a war (1) if you simply sew peace banners on a battlefield, (2) if you fight civil wars against your allies, or (3) if you use the wrong weapons.
Here is a three point checklist for the culture wars.
1. We Are at War
If you don’t know that our entire civilization is in crisis, I hope you had a nice vacation on the moon. Many minds do seem moonstruck, however, blissfully unaware of the crisis—especially the “intellectuals,” who are supposed to be the most on top of current events. I was dumbfounded to read a cover article in Time devoted to the question: Why is everything getting better? Why is life so good today? Why does everybody feel so satisfied about the quality of life? Time never questioned the assumption, it just wondered why the music on the Titanic sounded so nice.
It turned out, on reading the article, that every single aspect of life that was mentioned, every single reason for life getting better, was economic. People are richer. End of discussion.
Perhaps Time is just Playboy with clothes on. For one kind of playboy, the world is one great big whorehouse. For another kind, it’s one great big piggy bank. For both, things are getting better and better.
There is a scientific refutation of the Pig Philosophy: the statistical fact that suicide, the most in-your-face index of unhappiness, is directly proportionate to wealth. The richer you are, the richer your family is, and the richer your country is, the more likely it is that you will find life so good that you will choose to blow your brains apart.
Suicide among pre-adults has increased 5000% since the “happy days” of the ’50s. If suicide, especially among the coming generation, is not an index of crisis, nothing is. Night is falling. What Chuck Colson has labeled “a new Dark Ages” is looming. And its Brave New World proved to be only a Cowardly Old Dream. We can see this now, at the end of “the century of genocide” that was christened “the Christian century” at its birth.
We’ve had prophets who warned us: Kierkegaard, 150 years ago, in The Present Age; and Spengler, 100 years ago, in The Decline of the West; and Aldous Huxley, seventy years ago, in Brave New World; and C. S. Lewis, forty years ago, in The Abolition of Man; and above all our popes: Leo XIII and Pius IX and Pius X and above all John Paul the Great, the greatest man in the world, the greatest man of the worst century. He had even more chutzpah than Ronald Reagan, who dared to call Them “the evil empire”: He called Us “the culture of death.” That’s our culture, and his, including Italy, with the lowest birth rate in the world, and Poland, which now wants to share in the rest of the West’s abortion holocaust.
If the God of life does not respond to this culture of death with judgment, God is not God. If God does not honor the blood of the hundreds of millions of innocent victims then the God of the Bible, the God of Israel, the God of orphans and widows, the Defender of the defenseless, is a man-made myth, a fairy tale.
But is not God forgiving?
He is, but the unrepentant refuse forgiveness. How can forgiveness be received by a moral relativist who denies that there is anything to forgive except a lack of self-esteem, nothing to judge but “judgmentalism?” How can a Pharisee or a pop psychologist be saved?
But is not God compassionate?
He is not compassionate to Moloch and Baal and Ashtaroth, and to Caananites who do their work, who “cause their children to walk through the fire.” Perhaps your God is—the God of your dreams, the God of your “religious preference”—but not the God revealed in the Bible.
But is not the God of the Bible revealed most fully and finally in the New Testament rather than the Old? In sweet and gentle Jesus rather than wrathful and warlike Jehovah?
The opposition is heretical: the old Gnostic-Manichaean-Marcionite heresy, as immortal as the demons who inspired it. For “I and the Father are one.” The opposition between nice Jesus and nasty Jehovah denies the very essence of Christianity: Christ’s identity as the Son of God. Let’s remember our theology and our biology: like Father, like Son.
But is not God a lover rather than a warrior?
No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is, what the love that God is, is. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love’s enemies. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely “compassion” (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.
In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one. The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my “Catholic” students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world. They have. They have gone past the warm fuzzies, the fur coats of psychology-disguised-as-religion, into a world where they meet Christ the King, not Christ the Kitten. Welcome back from the moon, kids.
Where is the culture of death coming from? Here. America is the center of the culture of death. America is the world’s one and only cultural superpower.
If I haven’t shocked you yet, I will now. Do you know what Muslims call us? They call us “The Great Satan.” And do you know what I call them? I call them right. But America has the most just, and moral, and wise, and biblical historical and constitutional foundation in all the world. America is one of the most religious countries in the world. The Church is big and rich and free in America.
Yes. Just like ancient Israel. And if God still loves his Church in America, he will soon make it small and poor and persecuted, as he did to ancient Israel, so that he can keep it alive. If he loves us, he will prune us, and we will bleed, and the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church again, and a second spring will come—but not without blood. It never happens without blood, sacrifice, and suffering. The continuation of Christ’s work—if it is really Christ’s work and not a comfortable counterfeit—can never happen without the Cross.
I don’t mean merely that Western civilization will die. That’s a piece of trivia. I mean eternal souls will die. Billions of Ramons and Vladamirs and Janes and Tiffanies will go to Hell. That’s what’s at stake in this war: not just whether America will become a banana republic, or whether we’ll forget Shakespeare, or even whether some nuclear terrorist will incinerate half of humanity, but whether our children and our children’s children will see God forever. That’s what’s at stake in “Hollywood versus America.” That’s why we must wake up and smell the rotting souls. Knowing we are at war is the first requirement for winning it. The next thing we must do to win a war is to know our enemy.
2. Our Enemy
Who is our enemy?
Not Protestants. For almost half a millennium, many of us thought our enemies were Protestant heretics, and addressed that problem by consigning their bodies to battlefields and their souls to Hell. (Echoes of this strategy can still be heard in Northern Ireland.) Gradually, the light dawned: Protestants are not our enemies, they are our “separated brethren.” They will fight with us.
Not Jews. For almost two millennia many of us thought that, and did such Christless things to our “fathers in the faith” that we made it almost impossible for the Jews to see their God—the true God—in us.
Not Muslims, who are often more loyal to their half-Christ than we are to our whole Christ, who often live more godly lives following their fallible scriptures and their fallible prophet than we do following our infallible scriptures and our infallible prophet.
The same is true of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Quakers.
Our enemies are not “the liberals.” For one thing, the term is almost meaninglessly flexible. For another, it’s a political term, not a religious one. Whatever is good or bad about political liberalism, it’s neither the cause nor the cure of our present spiritual decay. Spiritual wars are not decided by whether welfare checks increase or decrease.
Our enemies are not anti-Catholic bigots who want to crucify us. They are the ones we’re trying to save. They are our patients, not our disease. Our word for them is Christ’s: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We say this of the Chinese communist totalitarians who imprison and persecute Catholics, and to the Sudanese Muslim terrorists who enslave and murder Catholics. They are not our enemies, they are our patients. We are Christ’s nurses. The patients think the nurses are their enemies, but the nurses know better.
Our enemies are not even the media of the culture of death, not even Ted Turner or Larry Flynt or Howard Stern or Disney or Time-Warner. They too are victims, patients, though on a rampage against the hospital, poisoning other patients. But the poisoners are our patients too. So are homosexual activists, feminist witches, and abortionists. We go into gutters and pick up the spiritually dying and kiss those who spit at us, if we are cells in our Lord’s Body. If we do not physically go into gutters, we go into spiritual gutters, for we go where the need is. Our enemies are not heretics within the Church, “cafeteria Catholics,” “Kennedy Catholics,” “I Did It My Way” Catholics. They are also our patients, though they are Quislings. They are the victims of our enemy, not our enemy. Our enemies are not theologians in so-called Catholic theology departments who have sold their souls for thirty pieces of scholarship and prefer the plaudits of their peers to the praise of God. They are also our patients. Our enemy is not even the few really bad priests and bishops, candidates for Christ’s Millstone of the Month Award, the modern Pharisees. They too are victims, in need of healing.Who, then, is our enemy?
There are two answers. All the saints and popes throughout the Church’s history have given the same two answers, for these answers come from the Word of God on paper in the New Testament and the Word of God in flesh in Jesus Christ. Yet they are not well known. In fact, the first answer is almost never mentioned today. Not once in my life have I ever heard a homily on it, or a lecture by a Catholic theologian.
Our enemies are demons. Fallen angels. Evil spirits.
So says Jesus Christ: “Do not fear those who can kill the body and then has no more power over you.
I will tell you whom to fear. Fear him who has power to destroy both body and soul in Hell.”
So says St. Peter, the first pope: “The Devil, like a roaring lion, is going through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Resist him, steadfast in the faith.”
So says St. Paul: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers
of wickedness in high places.”
So said Pope Leo the XIII, who received a vision of the 20th century that history has proved terrifyingly true. He saw Satan, at the beginning of time, allowed one century in which to do his worst work, and he chose the 20th. This pope with the name and heart of a lion was so overcome by the terror of this vision that he fell into a trance. When he awoke, he composed a prayer for the whole Church to use to get it through the 20th century. The prayer was widely known and prayed after every Mass—until the ’60s: exactly when the Church was struck with that incomparably swift disaster that we have not yet named (but which future historians will), the disaster that has destroyed a third of our priests, two-thirds of our nuns, and nine-tenths of our children’s theological knowledge; the disaster that has turned the faith of our fathers into the doubts of our dissenters, the wine of the Gospel into the water of psychobabble.
The restoration of the Church, and thus the world, might well begin with the restoration of the Lion’s prayer and the Lion’s vision, because this is the vision of all the popes and all the saints and our Lord himself: the vision of a real Hell, a real Satan, and real spiritual warfare.
I said there were two enemies. The second is even more terrifying than the first. There is one nightmare even more terrible than being chased and caught and tortured by the Devil. That is the nightmare of becoming a devil. The horror outside your soul is terrible enough;
how can you bear to face the horror inside your soul?
What is the horror inside your soul? Sin. All sin is the Devil’s work, though he usually uses the flesh and the world as his instruments. Sin means inviting the Devil in. And we do it. That’s the only reason why he can do his awful work; God won’t let him do it without our free consent. And that’s why the Church is weak and the world is dying: because we are not saints.
3. The Weapon
And thus we have our third Necessary Thing: the weapon that will win the war and defeat our enemy. All it takes is saints.
Can you imagine what twelve more Mother Teresas would do for the world? Can you imagine what would happen if just twelve readers of this article offered Christ 100% of their hearts and held back nothing, absolutely nothing?
No, you can’t imagine it, any more than anyone could imagine how twelve nice Jewish boys could conquer the Roman Empire. You can’t imagine it, but you can do it. You can become a saint. Absolutely no one and nothing can stop you. It is your free choice. Here is one of the truest and most terrifying sentences I have ever read (from William Law’s Serious Call): “If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be.”
That insight is terrifying because it is an indictment. But it is also thrillingly hopeful because it is an offer, an open door.
Each of us can become a saint. We really can. What holds us back? Fear of paying the price.
What is the price? The answer is simple. T.S. Eliot defines the Christian life as: “A condition of complete simplicity/Costing not less than/Everything.” The price is everything: 100%. A worse martyrdom than the quick noose or stake: the martyrdom of dying daily, dying to all your desires and plans, including your plans about how to become a saint. A blank check to God. Complete submission, “islam,” “fiat”—Mary’s thing. Look what that simple Mary-thing did 2000 years ago: It brought God down and saved the world. It was meant to continue.
If we do that Mary-thing—and only if we do that—then all our apostolates will “work”: our missioning and catechizing and fathering and mothering and teaching and studying and nursing and businessing and priesting and bishoping—everything.
A bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations on ways to increase vocations.
The priest replied: The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, Your Excellency, would be your canonization.
Why not yours?