Category: Life & Times

The Way Forward

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” Psalms‬ ‭32:8‬.

Faith

Belief + action + confidence = Faith. Go forward by faith. The only way forward is by faith. And how do we know this causation? Because our inclination is to always be moving forward. To not be at a standstill but to grow.  We’re wired to move with time, to consider the future, to seek avenues that ultimately lead to progress and peace. We build upon what we know; we act upon what we believe. These are the building blocks of our faith that propels forward the chain of events in which life unfolds.

There is a reason for everything. A never-ending series of remarkable occurrences with causal connections. A way forward that draws us in the way of purpose, and draws us through time like magnetism.  Should we care to know is an exercise in wonder.  

Force of Life

We are in the midst of surrender to the force of life that connects us all.  We relatively live in the unknown from our point of view.  Ideal objectivity is ever so out of reach- we are in echo chambers of egos.  We think and feel with skewed emotional maturity- intellectually striving to subvert our primal drives. We feel masterful in our autonomy. To know we’re not the ones in control is to threaten our sovereignty. 

We make our choices, every second of every day, one after the other. Without a thought or indiscriminately, or with impeccable planning and forethought; But also with guidance.  An invisible hand in the form of momentum moving us forward.

God’s Will-Your Journey

So, are we creating this journey of life with God? Is the way paved before us or are we paving the way? Free will or determinism. The answer is both. Free will and destiny coexist.  We are all in a symbiotic relationship with our creator God and with each other.  The good, the bad, the ugly things in life, all mutually dependent.  All our choices are a means to an end. God draws you to Him as we all draw nearer and nearer to the end of time and a new heaven and a new earth.  

Your life journey is your own. It’s a most memorable and personal journey between you and God. In every decision you make, you walk the path set before you. An ecosystem of free will and determinism. And this is God’s will for your life.  Be receptive to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; and fear not the path that leads you forward.

2020-2021

“You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.” 1 Corinthians 7:23 

A vote cast. A decision made. The populace speaks.  The next president is selected in this zero-sum game of politics.  Game, set, match yet none the wiser.  Another marker in history as we usher towards unlocking other keystones in these end times.  We hearken towards another year with ringing ears of what’s to come.  Will it offer inner peace or inner storms?  And if peace of mind is the currency of the future, how do you fare?  

It’s about value; what we value now and into the future.  We will be quantifying and accounting for values we did not or could not before.  Ways of thinking, feeling, and being.

The nation’s inhabitants are its source of wealth. We trade in goods and services and the peculiarities of currency.  But how do we value wealth individually, and how do we acquire value?

We are born with value. We acquire value in our very being.  Value is inherent in our existence. Our intrinsic value is what’s left when all else fails. And an abundance of strength of character is our wealth that brings trust, empathy, and connection with one another– which offers valuable exchanges.

Nihilism- the Undoing of Belief

“Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 

Nothing has meaning

Nihilism- the undoing of belief, where belief is nothingness.  It is the story of annihilation of the human spirit.  The plot and ploy to instill nothingness– to determine that nothingness be willed in the heart of man. Life has no meaning or value (existential nihilism); there is no right or wrong, no good or evil (moral nihilism); all knowledge and beliefs are baseless (epistemological nihilism); reality does not exist (metaphysical nihilism).

Removing God

Modernity says there is no God, and the might of reasoning reigns supreme, and if wisdom is not found there, war is found where wisdom is not.  Where modernity declared there is no God, postmodernity will have its nihilism, and you will have nihilism, detached from all relativity. 

Attempting to remove beliefs, morals, ethics, knowledge and wisdom, of universal truth itself, is, in itself, to annihilate the innermost compass in humanity. To remove our resiliency.  To disassociate our seeking souls and inquiring minds.  Our inquiring minds are our sparks to remembrance of faculties inherent in us from before birth, prior to all experience.  The creeping system of nihilism would have belief undone, to separate God out from the human psyche.  God is in us and they want Him out. 

Replacing God

See it now commonplace that belief in God is counted as stupidity, unintelligent, flouted as ignorant to the laws of science and the enlightenment of philosophy.  

The intelligentsia is carved out elegantly, into a chasm.  The intellectual and pseudointellectual alike have been cornered into eviscerating the inner compass that leads to conscious thought, for a pyramid scheme of rationale to disqualify God.  Scaling the hierarchy to negate God, avoiding God in microscopes and telescopes, they find they are weighed down by their evolution.  Because where nihilism is found, denial of the human spirit is found also. Nevertheless, nihilism, in all its futility, with its determined stare, has its trophied gaze upon us. 

1807 – 2027: The tune and the score.

“The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” Proverbs‬ ‭27:12‬

19th Century

Seven delicate years in, and the 19th century was developing proudly.  Puffed up- with a head crowned heavily with death and injustice in its formative years, it knew nothing of true freedom.  Still fixed to stubbornness but the years grew wise in knowledge of what progress looks like.  Injustice had a name, inequality grew shameful. A higher purpose was the calling. Visions of unity echoed out the mouths of babes. 

The future had steam; the years had the momentum of industry.  It pushed us forward come hell or high water.  

20th Century

The 20th century had undercurrents of hope and change not fully realized but inevitable.  We moved with the civil rights movement.  It made us better, humanity became stronger.  

21st Century

Information takes its place, the good and the destructive.  Widespread and primed for manipulation, the 21st century has information technology fast and furious.  Now, as we methodically advance through time, shaking in our knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs- what is our melody? Are we in tune?

The future has a sound.  I hear it.  It is intelligent beyond words.  Beyond our imagination but of our imagination.  The music is captivating. The drums are ominous, but the strings are soothing.  The horns, harmonious.  And the score is arranged for us to abstract the notes of who we are, and where we’re going. 

Mechanics of Symbolism

“evil persons and impostors will keep on going from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves. But as for you, continue in the truths that you were taught and firmly believe. You know who your teachers were, and you remember that ever since you were a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:13-15 

Symbolism Usage

It’s remarkable how images and symbols impress our minds. The implanting of an idea that elicits connection or relationship, with emotion, and the extent to which it subliminally echoes is astounding. 

Symbolism is the use of symbols or images to represent and convey ideas and meanings.  Symbolism is found everywhere and is used in a variety of ways.  The most prevalent and pervasive use of symbolism is through the media, in entertainment: TV, Radio, Books, Newspapers, Magazines, Internet, etc.  Symbolism can speak to our conscious mind or subversively speak to our subconscious mind.  As such, symbolism can be used in both good and bad ways.

Symbolism Transmission

The transmission of an idea can be crude or well crafted; it can be obvious or inconspicuous, overt or hidden.  But when an idea is well placed, it replicates, multiplies, spreads, “goes viral”. It starts in the mind with symbolisms that represent ideas.  Like language, which is a system of symbols and signs, information is communicated, and our brains process the information that is transmitted.  Transmitted symbols transform into thoughts and beliefs, which eventually drive our actions. What then, when symbolism is nefariously deployed through systems?

Symbolism Affect

The gears turn in our minds; our difference engines. We hope to intelligently determine wise steps to take in life and move forward in our free will; learning from mistakes, lamenting our perceived missteps, reassessing, making our corrections, moving forward, and always checking in with our hearts.  What then, when our thoughts are not our own, but rather unnaturally elicited thoughts and responses that determine our form and function?  What then, when we are maneuvered by the mechanics of abstract symbolisms used in violation of our willful minds?  What then shall we say when we are where we are in spite of ourselves?

Intensely Captivating Cinema and Mind Subversion

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Matthew‬ ‭6:22-23‬

The Joker Movie (2019)

The movie “Joker”, characterized as a psychological thriller, is intensely captivating cinema and a lesson in subversion. Cinematically beautiful, raw, riveting, and it has all the ingredients of a blockbuster film. The evocative storyline brings you in and feeds you an entrapping narrative. Something stimulating and “sexy”.

The movie teeters on the precipice of what is and what is to be. It mirrors the suppressed attitudes and behaviors of society… a burgeoning anthem set to the music of chaos. This reality is a slowly moving crescendo. Slowly burning, slowly unraveling, and the movie is here to tell you so. And it is here to show you blurred lines of good and evil. And it is here to entitle you, to make you complicit.

This movie, like others, is a breaking down and a building up of social norms in its capture, depiction, and ascension of glorified mental illness. Bringing us into its wheelhouses, acclimating us to depravity.

2019

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:18‬ ‭

Information

2019 is something of a slow burn.  Separating the good information from the bad, for honest, unencumbered forward movement.  And what of these months of the last year of the decade?  And what of the elapsed time of your life since birth up until now? What is your state of mind. And what does your heart have to say about it. 

Information Technology

We are on the verge of something. They call it a singularity. Simply put, it’s a time of supreme technological advancement and information synthesis. 

Consequently, It will be a time for mania, hyperactivity, overactivity, sensory overload. 

There is a certain frequency of information out here, that is formed into culture.  Lives are overpowered by it.  Information that is demanding and posturing to overpower our insight. 

State of Mind

Now my friend, it is time to know more than ever who you are.   

Take account of where you are in this moment. In these months of 2019.  What is your state of mind?  What is the information that is in play in the feedback loop of your environment?   And what does your heart have to say about it.

The Burning of Notre Dame

“For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”

Philippians 3:18-19

Faith, housed in the heart, will never be destroyed.

It is Holy Week 2019 and Notre Dame Cathedral is burning. The stark imagery of a burning building a wash in medieval symbolism, juxtaposed to the procession of Holy Week was curious to say the least. This masterful edifice has stood its ground since the 12th century, with its demanding architecture and demanding presence. Now on this 15th day of April, 2019, it is burning.

So now, as we consider this imagery and wonder, the question is: What do we see, what do we know, and what do we learn? Destruction in this world is imminent. But faith housed in the heart will never be destroyed.

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris 2009

Intuition vs Culture

Intuition. That intangible thing that you know, that you know, that you know. It’s an inward knowing. With so much information swirling in the air of the “information age” that we currently stand in, it’s hard to discern this inward knowing.

The problem: too much information. Too much information that is useless, meant for negative engagement, and that stealthily encourages unawareness. Our life and times are overloaded and bombarded with this chaos of information. How do we find our connection to what we know is true in all this? Cultivate your independent, personal, culture of awareness. Retreat inward, hear, write the vision and make it plain. Find the substance that is there. Don’t yield to the culture of false or empty awareness.