Author: eejoseph

Know and live

eejoseph, ,

One of the truly sad stories in the New Testament is that of Yeshua’s meeting a man who was demonized and living in the tombs. Only one scenario outranks the scene of a man “Constantly, night and day … screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.” (Mark 5:5, NASB). It is the story of the rich fool, the man who loved his property more than his life. The story of the tomb dwelling victim of Satan ends in a particularly happy note.

Rich fool

“And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?””

Mark 10:23-26, NASB

The action-plea that worked

In this complicated series of actions the one thing that the man who dwelt among the tombs was able to do he did and God responded marvelously. In verses 7 and 9b Mark relates how the demons try to squelch the man’s voice to the extent that we never hear the man’s voice. Like sparks flying upwards, the man sought only to be in Yeshua’s presence. “Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him;” (Mark 5:6, NASB).

Without a voice

When Jesus tried to speak to the man the demons would respond. When the demons realize that Jesus was going to deal with them decisively they begged for options. “And [he] began to implore Him earnestly not to send [them] out of the country.” (Mark 5:10, NASB, braces added to show the demonic dominance and confusion)

Clothed, free, eager to be with his saviour, amazing everyone

  • “They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the “legion”; and they became frightened.
  • Those who had seen it described to them how it had happened to the demon-possessed man, and all about the swine. And they began to implore Him to leave their region.
  • As He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was imploring Him that he might accompany Him.
  • And He did not let him, but He said to him, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.”
  • And he went away and began to proclaim in Decapolis what great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed. (Mark 5:15-20, NASB)

We do not know the extent of voting discoveries

eejoseph

Seeking ends in finding. The rare exception is that quest conducted by the denier established facts. There was a song called “Why stand aloof?” Containing the exhortation “Break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer, Seek out his wickedness until You find none.” (Psalms 10:15, NASB). We understand that every quest conducted by people who are neither wicked nor evil has a successful end. Find appears in quotes in the intelligent press because the state of Georgia knows how to keep civil war dinosaurs alive. When secession and insurrection are shown to be nothing to write home about then the fatal disease of a nation’s conservative and republican policies and general voting expectations are not real any more.

The certainty of finding exactly what we want

Successful Quests

The legacy of political corruption

We do not know when or in what country the practice of manipulating the result of a general election began.

Exceptional seeking is putting Jim Crow and First Nations abusers under the microscope until the world will have no doubt that their opinions are absolute rubbish. 

The broken arm of the wicked

“But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.”

Israel will seek (the verb is perfect and piel) YAHWEH when she finds herself in a strange land.

(Deuteronomy 4:29, NASB)

Certainty was in Moses’ mind when he said, “The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you”, (Deuteronomy 4:27) The scattering is perfect and hiphil; the action is respectively certain in the speaker’s mind and caused by the Lord. There is no doubt at all that the United States is being governed by a lot of scattered brains. Now that it is clear that one-third of Americas can create delusions of anything they think they need to cover up the absence of a genuine quest to discover the answer to “What would Jesus do?” it is now safe to expect “vote finding” to be more than a Georgian thing.

Assaulting Black people with a Black star

eejoseph,

It is estimated that 2% of Black people voted for Mr. Walker in the 2022 elections. That means that 98% of the million plus Georgians who voted for him thought that Black people do not care that a public servant is incapable of uttering a sentence that make a single point. That 98% thought that a person who is incapable of detecting hypocrisy in himself is fit to be a senator. That 98% can be expected to have thought that the choice of the disgraced former 45th president was worthy of respect.

The long hard road to human decency

There is such a long hard road ahead of the American people and if one is non-white there is little comfort in hearing “we’ve come a long way “.

Bandit kings and quasi-CEOs

eejoseph, ,

The Canaan Abraham knew was plagued by kings ruling nothing more than walled towns and villages. They formed alliances for raiding neighbouring farms and ranches. They kidnapped people for ransom. They were most certainly not democratic or had any interest in protecting the rights of human beings as such. They were bandits and thieves, an an ancient portrait of the modern chief executive officer who learns how to bypass the wishes of the people whom he serves.

They found refuge in a state north of Canaan, namely Syria, as we learn in Abraham’s action against the northern alliance. “He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.” (Genesis 14:15, NASB)

“Then they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food supply, and departed.” (Genesis 14:11, NASB)

“They also took Lot, Abram’s nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom.” (Genesis 14:12, NASB)

What do these ancient kings have in common with the 21st century’s civic elected leaders? Cities have become extremely powerful entities, with huge budgets and extensive economic interests and increasing draconian tendencies. The Ontario premier has inserted a culture of bandit monarchy by creating legislation which gives mayors “strong powers”. This is squarely fascist play. Mayors can appointment civil servants in the city, hire and fire these individuals, and place them essentially beyond the necessary checks and balances, and mayors can now proceed to pass by laws with only one third of the council members in agreement. Let’s tell Mayor Tory that there is no respectable or reasonable way to be undemocratic, and provincial priorities must not be a cover for denying Toronto’s elected government to be sidelined by corrupt and cowardly Conservatives like Doug Ford and his cronies.

Smell the cannabis you noses of love and justice

eejoseph, ,

What exactly is canceled culture?  I’m not going to look it up,  but I guess it relates to people who think that whatever they have to say, whatever they have to contribute, must be accepted by everybody else.  People cannot say no to them.  People can’t say “Hey Buster. You’re done”.  Let’s face it some people are done.   There is no longer an empire named Babylon.  There is no Empire named Persia on this planet.   There’s no Empire name Greece.  It is over for world-ruling empires.  What is left of world empires is iron and dirt.  That is Rome today, and we can see where Rome  is heading today.  Exciting revelations are pouring out from Stanley Tucci explorations, so let us see if we can talk culture and cancel without getting trigger happy and loose tongued.  A neo-fascist Italy is not too far from the Rome that built London, and Rome had nothing to do with Washington, or the capitals of Texas, Florida, Michigan, or Arizona. Railing against cannabis is a rotting fish, and the justice sniffers are inoperative, because alcohol, annual killer of thousands, is a favorite of many politicians, one of whom promised citizens beer for a buck.

Make who great again?

If people do not read they can hardly call themselves civilized.  Ask the Iraqis and the Iranians about writing and progress.  There is no spin that can unseat the facts.  Ask the Germans, French and the British about empire and you will discover that watching reality TV and consuming hundreds of poisonous viral videos will end in soiled hands and pants with no water in sight.  Greatness is not an idea; it is the result of honest and courageous persons living where all men can see them.  If you have ever wondered why the 45th president of the United States steals documents, does his best to leave no trail of his communications, ask “Why does wax melt in the presence of a fire?” Who seriously wants Babylon Persia, Greece or Rome to be in charge of the global agenda again?

The gloves are off

America has gone from grand adventure to wild West, to an unending civil war and the theatre of  political games.  What else can a two party state be but a game of all fall down?  So they want to play with official opposition, well, there it is, and the house divided falls.  The readiness with which people deny that humanity contains a standard of goodness, even a potential goodness to one’s enemies is surprising and shameful.  The powerbrokers on one side of the aisles of power are equipping themselves to empty the government of the nation of basic welfare for all.

Serving justice has a new face

Why should using the law to permanently injure people for cannabis use be reversed?  Short answer: cannabis is neither a narcotic nor an intoxicant like alcohol.   Apart from the desire to have abundance (the love of money) we can see what makes siblings of Iran, the United States, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the PRC.  Misogny.    If women, the lynchpin of human existence, can be the target of such a destructive attitude and program, we should not be surprised that racist and xenophobic mindsets also thrive in these places.

We can’t smell justice even right under our noses

These same states that are famous for concocting legislation that outlaws things that are perfectly legal can fool the gullible.    Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs was a verifiable red herring: it targeted black and brown people and ignored the use of synthetic chemicals by white people practically in the open.  Ronald Reagan and the GOP did not close a single bar or liquor store.  Yeshua and his apostles said nothing about what go ornament justice should look like, and no one wants to adopt Mosaic legislation wholesale.  Yeshua’s mother, on the other hand, was cogent and precise about what justice looks like.

And His mercy is upon generation after generation Toward those who fear Him. He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; And sent away the rich empty-handed.

Luke 1:50-53, NASB

When you find a politician who is ready to scatter proud people, ready to bring down the rulers from their seats, ready to exalt the humble and the meek (basically the oppressed people), ready to fill the hungry with good things, and ready to send the rich people away empty-handed, give us a call then we’ll talk about real justice in the 21st century.

The patriotic slogans mask

eejoseph, , ,

The vast majority of Canadians can smell insurrection, fascism, white supremacy and blind political rage when  they see it.  People can’t just slap the label “freedom” on their anger and questionable slogans and get hailed as heroes, especially when the nation has not shown its readiness to atone for genocide.  My mother and her generation had a saying tagging lawyers as liars and we that not all lawyers are liars,  but all the legal posturing possible by conservative types and churches are just a mask for more White privilege spam.

Lawyers cannot legitimize white privilege

Convoy leaders and political leaders hoped that police would look the other way while the power of church money, the designs of mob rule and insurgent strategies played out in Canada’s capital. I  do not know of anyone  who wants to hear grievance or protest from Nazi sympathizers or from people who feel neither sympathy nor solidarity for immigrants and Canada’s First Nations.

The commission of compulsory cowards

The present police force in Ottawa was clearly cowardly and we dare not even mention the Ontario premier, who wanted to be hands off while a group of people that he seemed friendly towards were crippling the nation’s capital and at the same time putting the knife to the throat of the nation’s economy at border crossings. Who does not know the truth about courage and cowardice in those circumstances? The Royal Canadian Mounted Police might seem to be incompetent in the resolution of the freedom convoy’s assault on Canada’s tranquility and economic ascent, but we had all better remember that the force is as we speak protecting the nation from both internal and external threats, both of which in many of us do not want to hear about and many of us have no right to hear the strategies they use to do so.

“End the lockdown” bombed badly

Anger at covid19 restrictions was a gift to many people who are always looking for a reason to appear better than White Anglo Saxo Protestant. Most Christian’s know that freedom happens in aconte of loving constraint, but not the freedom convoy. It wanted the freedom to urinate and defecate on sacred grounds, hold a city and a nation hostage, and the freedom to camp out on city streets. Christian money, petitions and websites like http://chng.it/YNfcpNVz were not figments. It was not a figment that the Ontario Government gave th4 city of Totonto the power to take action in emergencies with only a third of council in agreement. What kind of democracy does not see the use of extraordinary powers as insurrectiontionist-prone? Not only did the anti-mandate slogans not work, they were happily allied with other historically distasteful characters but the convoy strategies also made losing appearances at the Public Order Emergency Act inquiry. Governments can say the pandemic is over and restrictions are no lo get necessary, but the scientific community and institutions of learning are not buying it. The dangers of fatal respiratory disease continue and the status of Canadian hospitals and healthcare institutions statistics are not lies The patriotic mask should be retired because it just does not work any more.

City on a pedestal

eejoseph,

Eyes on the ball and breaking down the walls of vanity are in order at the richness that leaps out from the psalm titled “For the choir director. A Psalm of the sons of Korah, set to Alamoth. A Song.” It makes me smile and want to hug. It celebrates refuge and strength and assistance. For a Christian reading this song, the Holy Spirit is front and centre in the interpretation and embrace of the song’s message. Especially distinct is the reference to water, the gladdening river.

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.” (Psalms 46:4-5, NASB)

  • River, nature, Holy Spirit
  • Streams, life-supports
  • God’s city, Jerusalem, me/you
  • Dwelling places, many, mishkanē, me/you
The sacred tent, the MISHKAN, the tabernacle

The city on a hill, the glad tent, is the believer, more so than any piece of real estate . You are more than a proverb or picture.

Nothing better than carving out sovereignty

eejoseph

Here is incontrovertible evidence that an Alberta Conservative politician can bamboozle Albertans with legislation defining hypothetical fights with the government of Canada. Launching a sovereignty shield is pure thumb-twiddling that takes the place of real work for citizens.

Sovereignty act segways to chaos

Don’t Canadians see, in bright letters,  where the pride and passion of sovereignty ends?  How many sleepless nights are Albertans going to endure to have this Quixotic shield against the Federal government up and functional? I am pretty sure that every regional leader in Canada, with a vanguard of lawyers at their disposal, knows exactly where the lines of federal, territorial and provincial authority intersect, and I am no lawyer.