The Way of the Path

What's the purpose of the Path? 

The path is both a literal and figurative journey that we walk through life and in our Journey towards and with God. All the way He is providing us with both Path and Journey, our way is His Way, though many of us have yet to know the Planner or the Work of His Hand. The difference between believer and unbeliever is the unbeliever thinks they are charting their own course. Like a kitten chasing a laser dot, they are certain the dot they're stalking is fleeing in fear of their claws. They never realize that someone else is involved and they are going where God wants them.

I can imagine God playing along, "Sure, you're an intellectually satisfied academician, a brilliant original thinker, the ascendant Homo Technicus, and you've got this whole life "thing" figured out. Bravo! Hooray! Good show!

Now, get that crazy dot, Kitty!"

As for me, I will acknowledge with gratitude that I'm not that original, cool, or evolved. I walk the Path my Maker made, and accept it as His. I may stumble or even fall along the Way, though the journey is long I know where I came from and to Whom I return. That's enough for a simple man. It's all I really need to understand as I walk His Path.

What's so important about faith?

We live in a faith based universe. We wake up because we have faith that our jobs are rewarding, our plans for the day will work out, or our children need us. We stand up next to the bed because we have faith that the floor will hold our weight. The same faith applies to each individual step down the stairs. We put the keys in the ignition because we have faith that they will start the car.

Almost every single thing we do is based upon faith. As an example, the next time you make a deposit in your bank read the little Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation notice next to you, it reads,

"FDIC insurance is backed by the full FAITH and credit of the United States government."



The comedy in this little know leap of faith is the "Separation of Church and State" fanatics, who interpret "Freedom of Religion" as "Freedom from Religion", never argue the unconstitutionality of this form of Secular faith before the Supreme Court. Make no mistake about it, Secularism is a religion based upon faith. Our government, and all others, are faith based systems. Judging by the accounting our Congress employs and our annual budgets hemorrhaging red ink decade after decade, all we have to work on is faith. In faith we trust.

Many people believe that without millions of laws, rules, regulations, and a strong government to enforce them, there would be chaos in our streets, but in truth it is our FAITH that keep most of the barbarians howling outside the gates. The rest are already comfortably seated beneath the Capitol dome.

(Sorry, if you're a regular reader of my political blog, you know I can't resist.)

Why should we hope in a hopeless world? 

Simple answer, because as long as just one human being, just one of us has hope for the rest of us in the world, then it isn't really hopeless. Hope is to the human spirit what air is to a flame. Without hope our spirits grow dark, forlorn, and desolate. We need hope to keep us healthy spiritually, psychologically, and physically. Hope is human soul food.

But hope is fragile so we must be careful with our hope. We've all been in an intimate relationship that ended poorly. It was our hope that was wounded and we protect our fragile hope passionately. Hope runs ahead of us to find all the wondrous things that might or might not be. The problem is that hope is like an innocent child it can't tell the difference between the imminent and imaginary, hope only wants to see certainties.

We must be careful with our hope because if it becomes too battered and bruised hope can become despondence. Despondence is the trickster alter ego of hope. Despondence also runs ahead of us but all despondence sees is the darkness, the isolation, and the fear. It predictably and constantly reports back, "There is no hope out there."

Hope is always much stronger than despondence so the only way despondence can get the upper hand is when we are helping it by holding hope down. We hold hope hostage and that explains why there was no hope out there.

Let hope run ahead and make sure despondence is tied and gagged behind you both. Like any good parent, don't take every word the little one reports back as gospel fact, instead consider it a wonderful fantasy that just might be... Hopefully.

What's love got to do with it?

Everything and everyone accepts love. Love is the universal currency, with God as the Central Bank. Love binds husband to wife, parents to children, and grandchildren to grandma and grandpa. Which is a model for the Love economy. God pours out His Love upon us. We are the vessels and the instruments of His Love. When we are full, we share it with one another and then return it to God in Worship and prayer. The cycle of Love complete.

There are those who accept Love but refuse to return it, they are the hoarders of Love. They can't conceive of a limitless supply of Love, so why spend such a finite and precious resource when it's sure to run dry.

The hoarders don't understand the Love lesson the Hebrews were taught in the wilderness with Manna. The Manna fell every day, with a double portion in preparation for the Sabbath, but the Manna could not be kept for a single day. The hoarded Manna would rot and decay. This is exactly what hoarders do with God's Love . No wonder they're always so unhappy, so empty, and so ravenous. When it's Love, we only keep what we give away. Do it now and every day.

Remember what Christ said about the Greatest Commandments...

Love God. Love others.

The verb is Love and a verb is a call to action. Christ implores us to take an active part in His Creation. Take in the scenery, but do not be part of it. If we do all things in Love, we cannot commit sin.

God bless you as you walk your Path, the one He put in front of you.




In His Faith, Hope, and Love,

Retailers of War

Fair is Fare, equitably.

The following is based on a true story*

More than six thousand years ago, just before breakfast, someone considered that he wasn't going to be eating as nice a breakfast as someone else. This was obviously unfair and something had to be done about this grave injustice. He “convinced” his neighbors that he was unquestionably correct about this breakfast inequality issue and they took to immediate action, military action, specifically.

Their leader organized them into ranks and they all marched off to straighten out this whole-wheat affair with maces, spears, and some horsies. The leader stayed safely behind to eat his pitiful morning scraps. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Many will die for the lack of it while a few will kill to take their fill and call it “justice”. Those who delineate good from evil seldom risk their skin or kin in the warfare game. History illuminates the dead, wounded, and maimed, the ones who bleed without need, are really “just us”.

Fair is fair, subjectively.

The battle won, this first chapter of the book closed quickly but the history of the Retailers of War reads on endlessly. Finally, their new Prince ate a “fair” and “balanced” breakfast as he deserved, at least for a little while.

The vultures, crows, and rats ate like Princes, too. Some may claim that war is inherently inequitable, however the consumers of carrion unanimously disagree.

Some time later the people they mêléed for the “fair” meal deal came with more men, more maces, more spears, and a whole bunch more horsies to take back what they thought was “fair”. Their new God-King declared, “Turnabout is fair play.”

The vultures, crows, and rats ate like kings, too. War is as equitable as can be, you see.

We've always found things to fight over, against, and for. Sometimes, those things aren't even important things like breakfast things, they're abstracts; ideas, concepts, or beliefs. Usually, underneath all those pretty abstracts, the stuff that we are willing to kill another human being for is just stuff, ordinary things. The abstracts maketh murder more palatable, some of the carrion craving class would say “delectable”.

Whilst they snack, we're finger painting pretty pictures in crimson red all the same, very equally. Murder is murder unless the Retailers of War claim it's for truth, justice, equality, freedom, a free meal, or God. Suddenly, everything sounds delicious regardless of who's seated at the table or what is eventually placed upon it.

The vultures, crows, and rats aren't all that interested in the abstract, they are far more concerned with the meat of the matter. Meat, sinew, bile, and marrow, they make no bones about it. No matter who it happens to be. They will eat the flesh happily, dividing and carving up humanity, equal as can be.

This all seems rather silly and far-fetched. Who in their right mind would kill another human being over breakfast? It reminds me of another story that is set in the distant past about a woman who decided that she was willing to die for a piece of fruit that didn't belong to her.

However, the vultures, crows, rats, even the Serpents all agree, and that's a majority, it's a fair trade equitably.

Over the past six millennia we’ve established a couple certainties: "Old habits die hard. We die easily."

The story is our story, which has always been written by the victor in the blood of his brothers. Some claim that civilization can be traced back to the fertile crescent in a land named Sumeria, where city-states battled for centuries over the rich agricultural farm lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. We’re still fighting over that same ground today. We have become comfortable killers, haven't we?

The Carrion Call