Reading Amos in the Devil's House

Amos 5King James Version (KJV)

5 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

3 For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

4 For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5 But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

6 Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel...

As any who know me can tell you, I work in food service at a casino. I've been there for 14 years. It used to be a good job, now it's just...average I guess. The benefits are good and I have days off that I like. That's why I'm still there after all this time. Last night I was running a bit late, had a hell of a time finding a parking place and getting in to punch in on time...

Anyway, I report for the pre-shift meeting and before I even get there, my boss tells me where I'm at. The Slot Palace. OK, great, back out to the car to drive over there and then I have (on a normal night there) a long night ahead...because it'll get pretty slow.

While driving over there I pass this huge red tour bus...Safeway tours, it said on the side. What was notable however was that the name appeared in two languages, English and a complex slew of Chinese characters...and the flag on the back was Canadian. Cool, I thought, not a lot of idiocy regarding diversity and multiculturalism in Mr. Trudeau's Great White North. 

(I have to wonder if my own country will survive long enough to reach that point where an American greyhound bus might have Arabic or Chinese letters on it to go with the English ones, and I wonder now, without it seeming so far-fetched, if what comes after might do a better job of handling the simple truth that we are all human beings, and all equal...equally saved or equally damned...in the eyes of our Creator...depending on whether or not we accept whatever Truth it is that He has for us?)

Around that same time, the above Bible Verses stuck in my head...enough that I felt compelled to look up Amos chapter five when I went on my first break after an uneventful first couple of hours, and read it.

7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

8 Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name: 9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

Then I saw this.

For those who don't care to follow the link, a Texas Baptist Church choir basically sang a song of praise to Donald Trump. Like he's Jesus or something:

(Sorry, but my theological background is originally Baptist, so this offends me on a literally theological level. I'm about to get a little ranty and most likely I'm going to lose my cool and cuss up a storm before it's over because I'm sorry, that's what people with my level of Baptist influence, who grew up around carpenters and sailors and who've lived a rougher life than they should've and seen a lot since do in this case.)

The short version could best be summed up as "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!"

But then, my mind flashed back to what I'd just read...

10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

11 Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

12 For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

If that doesn't sound like the Republican Party and about 36% of America right now, I don't know what the hell does. Our elected officials want to take health insurance away from 32 million of their own citizens, and massively drive up costs for all the rest. We've denied entry to the country to robotics competition teams from Afghanistan and the Gambia (although the all-girl Afghan team's robot is going!) and though most of the Muslim Ban stuff was not allowed to go into effect...we're still not allowing people's grandmothers into the country...

Any of this sound fucked up to you yet?

....AND then we have Baptists, singing songs of praise to Trump?

Sorry, but this is starting to sound an awful lot like one of those overpriced, extremely terrible End Times Apocalypse novel series one would find at the local Christian bookstore...only worse and it's reality. It's almost enough to make me wish I didn't know that the Rapture was a false, unbiblical doctrine based on escapism and revenge fantasy...

13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17 And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19 As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20 Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

The End is coming, people. It won't come in nuclear fireballs or the flash of lightning seen from east to west that Matthew 24 says the Lord's return will be like. No, the End comes when day by day, our country and its government lose a little more credibility each time the President says something stupid, ungodly, or both. The end comes from pulling out of the Paris Accords climate change pact (which many cities and states have pledged to continue to follow, in effect, setting their own foreign policy...which in my view, they are right to do) and from pretty much every state so far refusing to fully comply...and many, including many conservative states...refusing to comply at all with the President's bullshit "Voter Fraud" voter suppression commission....and yet again...they are 100% right to do so in order to protect the interests and privacy of their own citizens. At this rate, the End of America will come by disunion simply because of utterly incompetent leadership...and we will deserve it...

Why?

...Because people who should've known better sang praises to this asshole like they thought he was Jesus Christ in a bad orange wig.

Because white privilege, and white supremacy...were more important to a lot of people than decent governance. Because people would rather want horrible things about their neighbors to be true...and act as if they were...than go and talk to those same neighbors and risk finding out that those things were false...and most of all? Because people have lost the ability to discern the truth from a lie...which is also something that the Bible speaks of in the End Times.

21 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

(I think in this case, He is speaking to you, First Baptist church of Dallas, Texas. Maybe it might be a good idea to have more homeless people and fewer oil billionaires in your Congregation, you might get closer to the Truth.)

I started out as a Christian, as a (moderate) conservative, and when I first registered to vote I did so as a Republican. I can't tell you how angry and disappointed I am, that I see those words all becoming synonymous with what the Bible or even my old Baptist church back in the day would have called doctrines of devils and houses of demons.

Go ahead, tell me where the Bible advocates exaltation of the Self, greed, hate, racism and mindlessly following after vapid pop-culture icons, I'll wait.

Probably for a damned long time...

24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.

To quote a signature line from a favorite science fiction series "All this has happened before, and it will happen again."

The authoritarian bootlickers and the bullies and the idiots and the rich con-artists will have their fun for a little while, a while that appears to grow ever so slightly shorter by the day, and then there will be blood. People are only going to put up with this shit for so long. That's what a good portion of these Trump idiots want. They want to fight the rest of the world with their guns and get saved by the intervention of White Republican Jesus. I just don't think that's going to work out the way they think it will.

Not least because their version of Jesus is fake, made in their own image.

When the bill gets settled up after, you best be sure you were on the right side.

Pro-tip: Historically, the right side is not the one that sings songs of praise to buffoonish false Christs and wannabe-dictators.

Think about that for a second. 

By the most basic standards of Christian conduct as outlined in church tradition and the Bible, Trump fails.

Who ever thought that electing a non-Believer to lead this country would make it more "Christian?"

And then the guy allows Christians to sing praises to HIM?

Think about it. Just set aside all the dogma and all the politics and what you thought was gonna happen and think about it.

You know it's wrong, don't you, really?

Exodus 20:3King James Version (KJV)

3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Coins For Mercedes (Fundraiser closed by me.)

Two weeks ago, my friend Alyssa and I rescued two ferrets, a large Sable male who we named Monte Christo and a small Cinnamon female we named Mercedes. They are both supposed to be around eight months old.

Monte is fine, a big bouncy happy boy that likes to get into stuff, whose only real problem is a dangerous desire to chew on anything rubber that he can reach.

Mercedes, however, has real trouble using her back legs. We first noticed this when giving them the obligatory bath after we got them back to my house, and during the ensuing ferret playtime. At best, she'll walk sitting down, or sort of crawl. She wants to be a ferret and play...but that's difficult with mobility issues.

We took her to the vet, and she got medication for a potential back injury which was what the vet suspected, as did I at the time...and after two weeks of cage rest and medication there hasn't been any improvement and Alyssa, who along with a friend is caring for her...appears to be becoming despondent about this situation.

(Anybody seeking to donate should message me on Facebook)

Thanks.

Changes.

"I've had some long nights in stir, alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts, time can draw out like a blade. That was the longest night of my life." ~Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman's character) The Shawshank Redemption.

I do travel, occasionally. Last weekend I hired an animal sitter to tend to my dogs and the ferrets and I went up north...first to my Mom's and then to the Upper Peninsula (of Michigan) to attend my Grandma's 90th Birthday party in the Marquette area.

Early Saturday morning (with Memorial Weekend well underway, judging from the previous day's traffic) my Mom and I headed out pretty early. driving up through Cheboygan and then along the lake towards Mackinaw City...and after driving across the Mackinaw Bridge (which had reduced traffic due to joggers being present) we made a quick stop for breakfast and to use the bathroom at MacDonald's in Saint Ignace. When we got our food...we were waited on by this cute little Black girl.

That's a change...and an obvious one,,,here.

Mom got behind the wheel of her Jeep, and we set off down US-2, headed west under a vast, clear blue sky. There is a reason locals often call the Upper Peninsula "God's Country" and days like that one are it.

You notice things...signs for small businesses in houses, tourist traps, changes since the last time you went this way...for me, it's been about five years.

Early on, we passed a small convoy of Army National Guard trucks, shockingly out of place painted in desert tan. Almost certainly, they were from the 107th Engineer Battalion (the Upper Peninsula's resident National Guard unit,) All headed the other way...presumably to Camp Grayling for training. You'd think they'd have the holiday off. I have to say that, thanks to the open side windows on the armored cabs of their Oshkosh M1083 trucks, I observed that this troop included at least a couple of Black and Brown faces...and it, too, is worth noting that though they have Armories in the cities like Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie, many of their companies, detachments and troops are based in outlying communities like Gladstone (near Escanaba) Ishpeming, or Kingsford.

So, diversity in this case is noticeable.

Along US-2 is still kind of a tourist area, so everything is decently well kept. Some of the houses might be a little rough, old cars here and there...and, it being Memorial Weekend...lots of garage sale junk...but things are decently maintained.

Further down the road, I noticed that not only some of the houses...but road signs with blinkers and the common pumping stations and transfer sites for things like natural gas that are pretty ubiquitous in the area had Solar panels to power them. This held all the way through our turn north up through Engadine and driving up to M-28 for the main leg of the trip across the Upper Peninsula...what they call the "Seney stretch." This is the Upper Peninsula that people think of when somebody says the word "Yooper."

Much of the way along M-28 a railroad track follows along the highway, crossing in several places. On sidings here and there sit old railway cars, boxcars and tanker cars mostly...and many have not moved in 30 or 40 years. The route goes through several towns...skirting around Newberry, Seney, Shingleton...and there's more than one collection of abandoned houses or other buildings in each town or in between. Especially given the changes I'd mentioned earlier the disparity can be jarring.

Yet for whatever reason, Federal grants, who knows? Each town had a nice, new, well-maintained park with new-looking playground equipment.

Odd...but not that out of place in the land of rusty old pickup trucks and nice new deer rifles.

In some places...it really does seem almost apocalyptic...abandoned houses, broken-down cars in the yards of shitty shacks, falling-down barns, rusting rail-cars on equally rusted tracks. Hell, add a few abandoned cars on the highway and it would not be hard to imagine a different past in which instead of the last ones flying out to Minot, North Dakota on my birthday in 1994, the BUFF's (Boeing B-52H Stratofortress strategic bombers) of the 410th Bomb Wing were all bombed up in response to some crisis, that orders were hastily given and that the sky shook every 12.5 seconds with Minimum Interval Takeoffs, and filled with the ear-splitting sound of screaming TF-33 jet engines and vast trails of black smoke in the face of incoming Soviet (or Russian) missile strikes that would turn the northern night brighter than the light of a thousand suns in an apocalypse of energy and fire, nor to imagine that the area that I knew so well in my younger years...K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, the surrounding communities of Gwinn and Skandia, and probably Marquette itself...would not be so hospitable to human life as it was to be for us later that day. If one imagines the few bike-riders or people out walking that we saw as the living ghosts of shell-shocked survivors...it's not hard to imagine that the Nukes...or perhaps in our more popular modern context, the Zombies...have come and gone and the apocalypse is decades in the past.

But in the real world...we face many less immediate, but in some ways more insidious crises. Climate Change, for one...and election meddling by the Russians that might even cause as much or more damage than the aforementioned nuclear weapons. I heard dumb ass Trump is thinking of pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Change accord?

Dude...the oil and gas companies are already using solar panels.

Try as you might, you can't hold back...nor easily undo...progress. If you try...you're likely going to get squished under the forward motion of the world. It's slow, perhaps, but inexorable if it's gotten to here by now.

Funny thing, too, not a political sign in sight. People have moved on.

We stopped for gas in Munising at the other end of the Stretch before doubling back a bit to take a slightly different route. A Latino family got gas at the same time we did. We got back on the road, a large programmable sign I'd seen earlier advised truck traffic to K.I. Sawyer to take this route also. An hour or so later...and having shooed several mosquitoes out of the Jeep...we turned onto US 41 north, only to find extensive road construction and a decent amount of truck traffic close to the former Air Force Base. So, after a couple of decades of inactivity...the area seemed busy again...or at least busy enough for the Saturday morning of a holiday weekend...perhaps more so than I remembered it.

We went on to have a nice day with my family. When we got there, my cousin was regaling guests with the tale of her Lyft driver...one of the top five in Chicago, she said. An immigrant from Cameroon who works as a scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory who drives Lyft as a second job to pay off his student loans...and she took the opportunity to speak to him in French. Like I said...we NEED people like that Lyft driver in America...that kind of drive, freaking energy and intelligence...if this country is going to meet all the challenges it must in order to survive. But some people don't like that guy, just because he's Black?

Madness, I say.

Even as I write this people I know are arguing with StormTrumpers and dealing with Russian bots on Twitter. Putin has basically admitted that the Russians diddled our Presidential election, and even as Republicans plan budgets that will kill their own constituents I just saw that even FOX News is not saying that Trump is innocent anymore. So the stakes...and increasingly the amount of public mockery and outrage directed towards Republicans and Trump...grow exponentially by the day if not by the hour. Yet people thought this bullshit would be a good idea? Why? Because they thought they wanted to be able to say racist shit in public again?

Son, that shit hasn't been cool...that I know of...for 40 years. The President is not a King, he cannot undo 50 years of social change nor 70+ years of progress by decree. Let alone he can't do it just because you don't want Black People to get any...and THAT has been the way it is for over 150 years according to our Constitution.

We got back on the road after dinner and pictures, Mom was tired so we switched drivers in Munising and this time I drove...and one thing I noticed above some of the trees was prodigious funnel-clouds of bugs. We talked about the day and various issues and among other things...our first remembered encounters with people of different races.

By the time we got close to St. Ignace, Mom was knocked out in the passenger seat. I fished around in the console for the bridge-fare money so I didn't have to wake her up. When I got across the bridge I stopped at the rest area outside of Mackinaw City to take a piss...and there was a Toyota minivan with several people of apparently Indian or South Asian extraction...young men and women, one girl wearing a Hijab with otherwise-Western clothing, including shorts. The van had Missouri plates.

"As Salaam Alaykum" I said. Peace be upon you. "Wa Alaykum Salaam" one of the young men replied, smiling...And upon you, peace. He was young, early to mid-20's, bearded, very dark skin and shiny black hair, very neatly brushed, dark American-hipster type clothes. Each of us...myself and these two young foreign men, the second in shorts, a Chicago Bulls T-shirt and Sandals...set off separately for the bathroom. They got there before me, we each concluded our business and when I went to wash my hands, the first guy was combing his hair in front of the mirror with exacting precision.

"Where you from?" I asked, curious. "St. Louis" he replied, again smiling. The second guy was done, and obviously needed the sink. I stepped back, grabbed my cane and headed for the door. I said my say "You gentlemen have a safe trip...and a blessed day." Both replied "And you as well, sir."

As I drove home under a darkening sky, I noticed an awful lot of anti-oil-pipeline signs in front of permanent residences and vacation homes alike...in an area not necessarily known for being full of environmentalists or liberals.

That was a bit of a surprise, and honestly I was shocked that I'd not noticed the signs in the morning.

Politeness and common decency should never feel revolutionary...but in Trump's America, they do. That one desires to protect one's environment should never be a surprise. It is, but yet there it is. If normal things are so revolutionary in this time of abnormality, sign me up for the revolution. I was taught to use a rifle, once upon a time.

But I was also taught that Soul Force was far stronger than force of arms.

We are faced with a choice, as we face the future:

We can do this their way...and live through the darkness and its fires...

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

~Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God, Jonathan Edwards, 1741

(...And remember, kids, if you're a Republican, and/or sufficiently anti-Liberal, none of this need apply and you can do whatever you want. Damnation, hell, and rules are for other people.)

Or...

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

~Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a Dream." August 28th, 1963.

Change is coming. Make your choice.

As for me 'To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other."

Bonus points if you know who I'm paraphrasing.

Education, experience, knowledge, and an informed and consenting citizenry were considered essential things when I was coming up...and I knew who Johnathan Edwards and Martin Luther King Jr. were, what they had done, and at least some quotes from each of them...by the time I'd made it through the 5th Grade.

Think about that the next time you're dealing with some Trump Supporter that can't get basic pronouns right.

We have to be the change we wish to see in the world.

As Roland Martin put it at the end of his show today. "We'll fight until hell freezes over, and then we'll fight on the ice."

It's OK, Moses, I'll clean it up...

Exodus 32King James Version (KJV)

32 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord.

6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?

12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.

13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.

14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.

16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.

18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.

19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

As I've always said, I have a Church background. I think about stuff. I've always sort of wondered...what must have gone through Moses's mind when he came down from the Mountain of St. Catherine and caught his people worshiping a golden statue of a cow?

Last night at work I saw this. Evidently, Paula White is hawking "Prayer flags" that supposedly have been "Blessed" by Donald Trump.

There's two small problems with that. #1 Donald Trump is not religious so far as I can tell, and #2 Prayer Flags and the use of them are a Chinese Traditional religion, Hindu and also Tibetan Buddhist/Traditional religious practice, not a Christian one. (The picture above is of Chinese traditional prayer flags in the Quilan Mountains in China.)

I know, I know...details...details...but who cares. Profit!

As my friend Aaron says, I've probably already put more thought into it than they have.

Then I saw this...

In the interest of not dirtying up my blog I'll link to the article rather than post the picture, the short version is that awhile back a retired New York (City) Police Department officer was photographed in the back of a boat, completely naked and humping away at a recently caught dead shark.

Right there with ya, Moses, right there with ya. Hold on, take a deep breath, I'll get the broom and dust pan...

Oh, forget it. This crap is ridiculous.

Now, I don't care if Buddhists in China and Hindus in India have prayer flags. That's their customs and they're observing their religious or traditional beliefs and that's absolutely nobody's business but theirs. I'm certainly not going to worry about it.

But please, go ahead, show me in the Bible where the words "Prayer" and "Flag" ever appear in the same verse, much less the same sentence. It's the weekend, I've got ALL day, I'll wait.

While we're at it, I don't really care what other people do with their bodies...but almost everybody I've ever met would agree that bestiality and necrophilia are disgusting and wrong.

For that matter, why did I push a stack of glass racks out into the break room at work so I could stack the cups on the cup rack, only to be immediately bombarded with (from all 3 TV's being as they were on the same channel) ads for "Adam & Eve.com" a website that sells sex toys...AND I WAS AT WORK! Had I brought my laptop to work, got on the internet with it and gone to that website to buy something I'd be in violation of the Casino's internet policy AND their sexual harassment policy! I could get FIRED! (...And yet, this crap is just fine on TV?) For the record if ya'll wanna buy sex toys go ahead. I don't care. When I've had a girlfriend or when I was married (and after that but still kind of involved with my ex-wife) I bought some. It's OK. BUT I DON'T WANNA SEE THAT STUFF WHEN I'M AT WORK! It's inappropriate in a professional setting.

Yet it's on TV. (The cashier, who is a Christian, and I the old former conservative who's getting too old for this crap, briefly commiserated about "Why do we have to put up with this?)

Why is this tolerated?

...And what does any of this have to do with the Bible verses posted above?

Money. That's why.

Gullible people buy unbiblical, unnecessary and just plain WRONG faux-religious articles because they've been sold a gold-plated load of just-plain-bullshit about politics and religion and the intersections thereof, and people who probably don't know the Quilan Mountains exist or are located in China don't know or care what the actual religious or theological significance of a prayer flag is, or that it doesn't relate to Christianity in the first place...but that it does relate to the kind of Shamanic and Traditional practices that the Church often historically (wrongly, in my view, but whatever) tried to stomp out whenever it could.

American pop-Christianity is loaded with this kind of fakery, and I spent much of this day discussing these matters (and to a great extent, this post) with a Facebook-friend who lives in Uganda, whose main concern right now is raising money to buy a water pump to irrigate a small patch of farmland that his United Methodist church (Lugala United Methodist Church, somewhere near Kampala) owns so the congregants can grow fruits and vegetables more efficiently to feed their kids.

Priorities, huh? For the total cost of six of those useless prayer flags, a church in Uganda would be able to irrigate its gardens better, have more food, maybe even sell some extra produce and raise money for whatever hard-working African people (for whom $100 is a LOT more money than it is to me) might need.

I wonder how many Americans really would take a chance on trading all this fake, stupid pop-culture and pop-religious fake garbage for the genuine effort to actually follow what we say we believe and help out a bunch of African kids who just need more vegetables and stuff? I quite wonder how many people would set aside the cheap grace, fake righteousness and sheer tribalism of Americanized Christianity and do what the Lord actually commands of us? How many would follow His Word and set aside even a little to help the disadvantaged? If half the people in just my small city gave a dollar that most of us wouldn't miss...those people could get themselves all type of stuff to make life better for everybody.

What are the odds? Even though the average person would probably find that they derived more emotional satisfaction from doing such a thing, how many would actually have the guts to do it, to stand on the faith they say they believe?

Well, my Twitter feed today has been aflame with all sorts of stuff about President Trump giving the Commencement speech at Liberty University in Virginia...and the stuff he and the other speakers have said.

The odds are not great. Trust me...and the answer is, only the people for whom that's their natural inclination anyway...and that's the problem.

When you make even being a decent person, much less following your own claimed beliefs optional, a lot of people just won't DO it.

They'll probably put more work into convincing you they do it than actually doing it would even take.

The kind of fake-religious garbage that caused Jesus to become angry and make a whip of cords to drive the money-changers from the Temple is not just thriving...complete with all the same kind of silly bullshit that Jesus Himself railed against back in the day...it's the only kind of Christianity indeed, I think the only religion that is actually growing in the United States of America right now.

Even the kind of Fundamentalist Christianity on which Liberty University is based is withering and dying here, or being overtaken by the kind of Prosperity Gospel false teaching embraced by Paula White and nominally claimed by Donald Trump. Mainstream Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, etc. etc. all are hanging in there, and some are even doing alright...but no belief system holds the spotlight right now like good old fashioned money-soaked American Calvinistic Protestantism...ESPECIALLY in its current debased Prosperity Gospel Pentecostal form (Actual believers in Reformed Theology are quite rare, and I say this as somebody who frequented online Christian forums for years) where the main (if not only) "Sins" appear to be being gay, having an abortion, not voting for the Republican Party and (apparently) not worshiping Donald Trump. That leaves an awful lot open. We are on track to soon have a Christ-less Christianity, that celebrates Godless capitalism and doesn't even know the children of Lugala UMC exist, or read the Book that says we should help them.

Actually...we're closer to attempting to realize Ayn Rand's vision of John Galt replacing the Sign of the Cross with the Sign of the Dollar than we are to reaching for Ronald Reagan's vision of America as a Shining City On A Hill.

...And that too, was a vision inspired by the Bible, even though Reagan wasn't all that religious.

Rand's vision, by contrast, was (as Chuck Colson called it) an "Idolatry of self and selfishness, that places Man at the center of a Godless world, where self-satisfaction becomes the moral purpose of his life."

I know from life experience and being aware of how the world works, which of the two visions helps me more. I know which inspired me...and which I view as an obstacle that threatens my future. I'm hardly an orthodox believer in anything...Christian influences I can't shake aside...and I reject Ayn Rand and her Godless, selfish Atheism...

...Even as so much of American Christianity rushes to embrace it.

When you start out being taught the Truth...especially, I think, if you're given the choice to follow or not to follow...at least some of it will stay with you.

Sometimes it does that whether you want it to or not. All these years later I really can't explain it all.

It's hard to know the Truth, that's what tells me those rushing to support the way things are, don't. Their way is easy. All they want...is more. Meanwhile, I'm fine with what I have. I know people for whom life would be a lot better if they had just the equivalent of one of my paychecks.

We're in some deep shit, people, but keep at it. Work, for the night is coming.

We can do better, but it starts with each of us putting in whatever efforts we can, all of us.

Maybe, if you meet one, ask a Ugandan about what's really important in life.

Chances are good you'll hear a lot about farming and Jesus. You'd have to go all the way back to my Grandpa's generation to get that here.

Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it. ~Matthew 7:13 (NIV)

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder...

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

~Revelation 6:1-2 (KJV)

As the name of this blog implies, I have ferrets.

Last week, the local pet store got this little Cinnamon Sprite kit (A Sprite being a spayed female ferret.) I had got there just as the delivery guy was dropping off the weekly critter shipment Wednesday morning. As usual, that shipment included a couple of baby ferrets. My friend Tyler got the ferrets (This one and a little red-eyed Champagne/Sandy Gib kit...a Gib being a neutered male ferret) out of the shipping box. She immediately latched on to his fingers, jaw-locked and hissing in that sort of way only an enraged weasel can. I helped disengage her, we put the other kit in the ferret cage and I took little miss bitey back to the cat towers to work with her a bit. I grabbed a squeaky toy on the way.

When I got back to the cat towers I put her down on the shelf in front of the cat tower, let her bite and grab my finger, then pulled her off and scruffed her saying "No bite." Next, I offered her the toy, squeaking it a couple of times for emphasis. (The toy, since you can't see the whole thing, is a little green dragon.) She immediately grabbed it and started to back up into the lower section of a cat tower. I held fast, so a tug-of-war ensued between me and this ferret. I let her have it a couple times, offered her my hand (she bit) scruffed her again and then offered the toy. This went on for about 20 minutes. A couple of times she bit hard and drew blood, but she was slowly getting the idea. Finally, I just held her down and started petting her, and she seemed to calm down and recognize that I was something other than a threat or a giant chew toy. By the time I left the store, we'd made friends. It might not seem like much, but it was a small victory. Last Friday I brought her and her cage-mate an old dog toy (same brand as the dragon, but it was a Triceratops dinosaur.) It lasted the weekend before the two teething baby ferrets destroyed it. (This toy had previously survived the jaws of 32 other ferrets, but I digress.) The little Sprite has since gone on to a new and happy home and the little Gib is my pet store buddy.

What does this have to do with anything? Nothing, really, but also everything.

Ferrets are fearless little critters, for one.

In my experience, a good act, or a positive accomplishment or the completion of a project makes people feel good (self included here) whether it's getting out of work after a busy shift, helping somebody, paying my bills, or even something as simple as bite-training a baby ferret so they'll go to a good home. In my experience also, knowledge...real knowledge...translates into power. Knowing the history of the Antebellum era, and of the Civil War...indeed having been raised on it...gave me the capability to say that the President was wrong to say the dumb shit he said about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War...and to know I was right because I've been studying this history since I was learning to read in the first place. Knowledge reinforcing values prevents one from being lured into the catatonia of groupthink, or from being moved by popularity and going along with the crowd. In the world today, believe it or not, that matters. As I have said many times, I started out as a Christian and as a conservative. It is precisely for those reasons that I didn't go with the crowd and support Donald Trump.

With all that in mind, it never ceases to amaze me that people would choose the societal heroin of racism or sexism as the means to feel good about themselves, or chase after stupid and often blatantly false conspiracy theories above actually seeking knowledge (and remember folks, I started out as a conservative. Facts are nonpartisan, and stubborn things. They are true whether one believes in them or not. A solid baseline of facts and reality was once a part of conservatism.) It blows my mind that young men...and even some my age...will go on living in their Mom's basement, angrily spewing all sorts of nonsensical invective, racism and whatever else at the world because they're angry that they can't find a girlfriend, or their job sucks, or they don't have a job...and to a great extent these are the people who supported Trump, either because they wanted to make the rest of us miserable or (and worse, in my opinion) because they thought it would be funny.

Well, roughly two-thirds of the rest of us Americans aren't laughing, Pepe.

Like I've said, if you want to defeat terrorism...don't be afraid. Don't allow yourself to be terrorized. If you aren't happy with your life, you can go out and change it. You. YOU, YOUR actions are always the key here. If you don't want to be afraid all the time, instead of wishing for a government that will kill all of your bogeymen and/or "protect" you from the things you're afraid of...why not just try not being afraid in the first place? Be fearless like a ferret. If you want your country to not get laughed at or taken advantage of, well, don't do stupid shit and allow yourself to be taken advantage of.

We are all responsible for our own actions.

A large number of Americans have proved the veracity of the old adage that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

It's just not the particular people I thought it would be 20 years ago.

I saw earlier today that FBI director James Comey testified before Congress today, and the lack of interest from some Republican Senators was pretty ridiculous. I mean, come on, people. This is our country we're talking about. Now I know that American conservatives are suddenly in these last couple of years butt-buddies with the Russians. Hell, once upon a time we were that way with Saudi Arabia too...but goddamn it, if we'd been taking orders from or our politicians had got elected with the aid of the House of Saud there'd have been hell to pay at the ballot box the next cycle, if not blood in the streets. This is where we're at right now, Comrades. It's coming down to "Do something, preferably the right thing, or face the consequences.

Because that's just what happens.

Change is coming, and they can blithely ignore it all they want, but whether by ballot or revolution, it's coming. We the People are no longer asleep at the switch. The middle has moved on, while the majority of Trump Supporters are either angry poor whites or rich old white men, the majority of us took our campaign signs down last November. So, sooner or later these idiots are going to walk into a buzz saw. Smart Republican strategists know it, and they are already worried about 2018. They know people are pissed. As Trump daily proves himself more and more unfit, and demand for impeachment grows...well, the current behavior of Congressional Republicans and the assholes who constitute the majority of Trump Supporters these days...that's exactly the type of shit that sparks revolutions.

When you have Congressman Mo Brooks (R-Redneckistan) saying shit like "Good people don't have pre-existing conditions" well that's when a hell of a lot of the people who agree with him on a lot of beliefs...but have preexisting medical conditions for which they need health care...well, he just probably lost those people. It amazes me that people say shit like this in a world where firing squads, Guillotines and revolutions of all kinds exist.

It amazes me that here we have all these people, who were presumably taught some kind of values at some point...who could use the positions and power they have to effect good policies and positive change and in so doing become great...settle for at best mediocrity and at worst self-destructive short-term thinking where all they care about is "What can I get out of this Right Now?"

It amazes me that for all their big talk, these people's vision is so small. Like with the budget stuff last week...after all this crazy talk over nothing...the current budget looks an awful lot like that of last year or the year before...and as usual there's no direction from the White House, only the threat of a government shutdown that Trump isn't the one who has power to effect. This guy can bluster and "look into" and "Review" all the stuff he wants. The constitution and the law are what they are, and everybody else in the system but him knows it's dangerous to set the precedent of doing a lot of tinkering with it for the benefit of one man. After all, the next Democrat in office could then turn around and do the same...and eventually we end up with a bipolar and ineffective government that tries to reinvent the wheel every four years. At this point, as several people that I know have said, these people's incompetence is the main thing protecting us from their malice.

Hell, yesterday I watched a video of Trump giving a speech with the US Air Force Falcons football team standing behind him...and all the cadets, from the most Republican of our Armed Services, were either failing at game faces or trying not to laugh (and failing) and one cadet looked like he hid behind another to facepalm a couple of times. The speech was intended to honor the team...but Trump made it all about himself.

This is what we're dealing with here. I often think getting through all this will be easier than I thought. But at the same time, overall the situation is more of a train wreck than I ever thought it could possibly be. I guess I was expecting a smarter wannabe-autocrat.

Things are holding, the situation seems still in hand, but barely. We're all just going to have to keep doing the best we can and we'll all get through this together.

In the meantime, we need to be as decent to each other as we can be. Ignore the pop-culture bullshit and stupidity...because those things are a big part of what got us here. Count up the small victories, and keep the tide rolling, because that's how you make a tidal wave, eventually.

Change is coming, very likely it's going to look like the Apocalypse for somebody...and it looks increasingly likely that it's going to be the people who have it coming.

The only thing that worries me is that they'll probably take a lot of the rest of us down with them. That's why we have to be prepared. The afterlife is only a heartbeat away, and what we do in life echoes in eternity.

Be ready, just in case. Be strong. Master your fear and reach for the stars.

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around

The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground?
When the man comes around

Hear the trumpets hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singin'
Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettledrum
Voices callin', voices cryin'
Some are born and some are dyin'
It's alpha and omega's kingdom come
And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree
The virgins are all trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

~Johnny Cash, the Man comes around.