2010

There is little doubt that 2009 was a year filled with dreadful events - but so was 2008 and 2007 and 2001 and 1941 and well, you get the point. Death, mendacity and tyranny were the modus operandi of everyone from the politicians to the corporations to the religious establishment. What was most shocking this year to me was how naked and open evil has become; there was no attempt by the enemy to disguise his intents or for his henchmen to finesse their plots through to fruition. Evil was bold and unfettered as if it expected no opposition of any consequence.

As the secular calendar turns the page to a new year, it seems as if there may be some who are persuaded that there is reason to believe that the road to serfdom we are marching down can be blocked and that we can be returned back to the rightful path.

I wish I could agree.

Frankly, I don't see the efforts of the so-called patriot movement and the mainstream political opposition have accomplished any more than providing a false sense of empowerment to the people involved. They are doing the same things they have been doing since I came out of the TV stupor and began to understand where the real battle was and to recognize the false paradigms imposed on the world. The alarms are sounded, everyone scurries around, guns are sold, food is hoarded, gold and silver become scarce commodities, fear gives way to panic and then...nothing happens and it starts all over again the next week.

So, what is going to happen during the next 12 months?

The Health-care usurpation is still on track. Carbon regulation is about to take place by fiat rather than legislation. The state will soon actually, legally, take control over life and death and place it in the hands of bureaucrats whose only interest is to maintain their job, not solve problems.

Will the democrats be run out of office and replaced with republicans? Will the President declare martial law? Are we all getting bar codes?

Frankly, I don't see much changing.

Health-care will more than likely become law - and it will be a disaster. Yet I see the democrats retaining power because the real effects won't be felt until well after the election.

Don't be surprised if there are several million newly registered voters to make certain that happens as, by law or fiat, many currently illegal migrants are made citizens.

Journalism will still suck, but some of those who believed in the hope and change are becoming disillusioned and there will be some prominent defections this year.

Global warming and/or climate change will fall from favor and carbon taxes will start to take a back seat to other issues: inflation, fuel shortages, more terror (by someone) short credit, higher unemployment, a second wave of real estate failures, regional strife and the political battles moving to the local level and not in a peaceful way.

There's no better time for the believer to disengage from the system as much as possible.

What do you see for the coming months?

Sorting It Out

I come from a long line of ordinary people - common folk - from among those who conform to the world because that is what you do. You conform and hope that with some sweat and toil, with yes sir and yes ma'am, giving it all up, that everything will work out. The American dream can be had if you only do it right.

There was just one small issue: I couldn't do it. I really tried! Really I did! But there was nothing in the world, at least the ordinary world, that attracted me.

Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not saying I wasn't attracted to worldly things...pretty women, exotic ideas, mind-alteration - big things, weird things.

All I knew then was that I couldn't do what I saw everybody else doing, the way they did it, for the reasons they had.

And most of my life I have paid for it.

For years and years I was convinced that my problem was that I was lazy, or rebellious, or, sometimes, stupid. I'm still not sure that there isn't some truth there. But I find that when I start to work on something that is interesting or that I enjoy or important to me, I can work hard and long and well.

Rarely, however, do I find that what I want to do coincide with what I know the world deems to be important.

I am very dysfunctional in the ordinary world.

So the question before me is one of sorting out priorities - separating responsibilities from conformities, desires ffrom needs, right from wrong.

I am not even sure how to go about that, well, perhaps I really know, but I am finding distractions to keep me from the really hard work - the work of turning away from the world and turning to God.

The full truth is that I am sitting on the proverbial fence...and I despise myself for doing that.

What I really need to do is throw everything at the feet of Jesus and wait for Him to tell me what to pick up and work on.

Can I do that?

I don't know, but I think it is a matter of life or death.