editorials

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?

The Electrically Excitable Brain & Body

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.” 1 Peter 1:13 

Electrical Currents

Electricity, current, frequency; flows through us and is all around us.  Our brains and bodies busy with electrical activity, electrical signals running messages throughout.  We are all very charged, and full of energy, and it’s all very stimulating inside and out. 

The caution here is to be aware of interactions that agitate our internal states from normal; creating too much disturbance or excitement. 

Modulate

Think of the body’s excitatory potential and also of its inhibitory effects, and the body’s stabilizing functions. Our bodies are incredibly stabilizing. 

Now think of the things that are conflicting and abnormal; things adversely impacting mood, inducing stress, or causing ineffectual activity, misfiring cells etc.- The things that are stimulating in a dreadful way.  Think of the things in the environment that communicate with our internal environments with the potential to overwhelm our senses; the things causing out of control overactivity, and causing an overworked brain and body.

Our make-up functions properly without deficiencies and without disorder, with proper cellular communication. Deficiencies and disorders are divergent to our make-up.  Therefore, eliminate deficiency and prevent disorder. 

Back to Normal

The direction here is to outmaneuver the amplified frequencies increasing in nature for a more peaceful, quieter, brain and body- one that is active, but growing and developing in a healthy way.  Circumvent the overexcitement of the day- day by day.

The Beautiful Quality of Homeostasis

 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” John 14:27

Maintain Peace, Resist Change

Your body’s constant is to seek to maintain homeostasis.  It self-regulates to survive, keeping the balance between the body and environment.  Your body’s built-in goal is to maintain optimal functioning by regulating responses to internal and external stimuli to benefit your health.  The body’s Soul purpose resists anything that interferers with its divine order.  That is the fight.  Your body’s delegation and mandate is to resist the world and its exacerbating influence.  

How do you support the harmony your body so dutifully calls for? Are you actively bringing peace into your environment? Are you counteracting harmful influences and negating chaotic effects?  Are you prioritizing your physical health, mental health, and spiritual health? 

Natural sense for peace

The external environment offers stimuli that may or may not be to your benefit. Sensory stimuli for visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory systems, all introduce change to your body.  And it is your body’s gift of duty or divine order to measure these changes to your benefit. 

Your state of being is naturally opposed to harmful changes. Your body naturally reacts to stimulus in healthy ways under healthy conditions.  In a way, this is a sense for peace in your internal environment.  

In a world of wildly swinging pendulums, where people are attracted to extremes, it is good to know and understand that at least your body fights against harmful effects for balance and stability. It is good to know and understand that your very being seeks peace. 

Influence in the World- the Heart and the Mind

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:27‬

Influence by Bondage

The cycle of influence by bondage in the world, is like the ouroboros- the serpent eating its own tail. The cycle is persistent, and the effect is perpetual suffering because the course is cyclical.  There is no escape from man made constructs that determine influence, and there is no escape from the negative elements that hold sway. This is societal torment. This is in opposition to love. This is the control of the mind which is predisposed to imbalance.

Peace of Mind & Heart

Now the heart you’ll find uncompromising.  It beats steadfast with life purpose. The heart is less ruled or controlled and less volatile. It is independent. You can hold peace in the heart.

The heart is central and fundamental. It is fearless in its duties, promoting life and love. Unswayed, but the heart is vulnerable to attack if unprotected. 

So, protect the heart you must. There is a battle in this world for each and every person. The conflict between the heart and the mind.

Battle for Heart & Mind

As influence looms to besiege the heart’s independence, it employs to make the heart sick. It works to harden the heart. To eject all peace and instill fear.

It is your right to push back against the persistent cycle of influence in the world. To connect back to Truth and its freedom.  Question everything, hear, then feel with your heart. Cause your own independent, personal awareness. Hone what you believe. Connect to what brings you peace. 

Memories in Candlelight

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)” Ephesians 5:8-9

Lighting a candle or building a small fire is a peaceful thing. It calms. It evokes a sentimentality.  Could it be that it reminds us of a simpler life?  That we connect to memories of small quite gatherings lit by the warmth of a fire- A time before the modern unnatural- at home with the quiet flicker of candles or a wood fire. A time of comfort in communion or in solitude.

Putting flame to dance for a moment, in the quiet of our presence, as it lights up the darkness, is akin to revelation.  When we are revealed, we are actively in concert with lighting up the darkness in our immediate presence.  This active belief is like our basic survival instinct, and it connects to what brings us peace. Without that which brings us peace, we are self-destructive.

Distant affixed memories of what brings us peace automatically resonate with us. Therefore, relax into that which brings peace and concurrently connect back to that light which brings us life.

The Search for Knowledge

“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.” Proverbs 16: 1-3

The search for knowledge in a wild or aggressive way is rooted in materialism.  It is related to the physical therefore beyond man’s ravenous ambition for transcendence through knowledge.  The wild search for knowledge is built of ego.  And although the ego, in concept is metaphysical, it is bound by the soul and earthly in nature.  Attempts at piercing the veil never was.  The search for secret knowledge is ages old. A search for knowledge beyond the veil, out of one’s mind.  It is the ego’s attempt to be more than special, more than gifted, more than graced, more than loved, more than…

Knowledge, however, is not a power grab.  It is not to be usurped. Knowledge is given as wisdom and insight.  It is graced and gifted through specific and special experience. It is given in love and should be received with patience.

The search for knowledge in a wild or aggressive way is forever carnal.  Forever rabid for divine supremacy.  Knowledge tempting to offer sovereignty beyond your wildest dreams. Gnosis.  As foreboding as Icarus in flight.  This wild knowledge calls from the abyss (outside the bounds).  What then when you stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares into you?

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.

Free Your Purpose

“For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:17‬ ‭

We are created beings.  Our desire for purpose and meaning in life is the result of being created with purpose and meaning.  We exist for a finite purpose for which the world distracts.  Our own established value systems hold us captive, hindering our purpose.  We are driven by purpose, so when our purpose is hindered, we are not at peace.  Our purpose is intrinsic, and as we move in it, in the flow of it, we are at peace.

We are creative beings.  Our desire to create is to bring to fruition the purpose which we are created for.  When our creative purpose is confused, opposed, stunted, we are not at peace. 

But the world distracts, and the world confuses.  And so, we struggle for our peace.  Our systems of inputs and outputs are misguided and what we hold as valuable is skewed because of it.  When our wants and needs are filtered through skewed senses, our purpose is entangled. The ultimate body, soul, mind attack is the entanglement of our purpose.  

How do we disengage or emotionally detach from misguided systems to where our purpose is set free?

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.