There is something annoyingly phony about the protests currently going on on collage campuses. The youths involved are either paid protesters, (and some aren’t so young), or else party protesters. The former would not be there if it wasn’t for the money, and the latter wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the fun. The indignation they muster is either about as superficial as a child dressed up as a monster on Halloween, or it is the genuine indignation of a person squirted by water. A surprising number of the protesters have only a vague idea what they are protesting about. Many chant slogans they are told to chant, but when asked to discuss the issues with some semblance of depth, they can’t do it.
One annoying consequence of this superficiality is that it waters down quite serious topics, such as racism and genocide. When just about anything you do can be called racism, genuine racism gets ignored. The chief example of this is the incredible statement, “All people with white skin are racist”, which, despite being a racist statement, blurs the distinction between what is racism and what is not.
People need to think more deeply than they do, and muster what is called “discernment.” There is an actual difference between good and evil, and people need to draw the distinction. However those who profit off selling snake oil prefer false advertising to Truth, prefer Fake News to Truth, and even like to confuse the weak-minded by saying Truth is a relativity, a subjective preference, and is so variable it doesn’t exist; cultures differ; Vikings felt warfare was heaven; Buddhists did not; if you say war is good you are racist against Buddhists, and if you say war is bad you are racist against Vikings; Therefore you are not allowed to have any opinion at all.
Yet, after creating this moral apathy, these same people can get as moralistic as a fussbudget, when it comes to anyone who opposes their watering-down of distinctions. If you point out there is a distinction between good and evil, you are not only racist and sexist and various other “ists”, but, by trying to defeat evil, you are guilty of “genocide”.
Well, let us think about that. If you state a certain viewpoint is wrong, are you guilty of attempting to obliterate another?
The word “genocide” didn’t even exist until it was created by a Pole who experienced the horrors of World War Two. It is defined, by the United Nations, as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
But what about Nazi’s? Were they not a “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”? Is not the United Nations guilty of hypocrisy, when on one hand they advocate an end to genocide, but on the other hand they agree Nazi’s should be wiped from the face of the earth?
I personally detest Nazi’s, and only bring this up to demonstrate how, without the distinction between good and evil, almost any resistance can be seen as genocide, and racist.
Which is exactly what skulls-full-of-mush protestors are doing, when they accuse Israel of genocide, for fighting back against Hamas, whose very charter advocates the genocide of the Jews.
What Hamas did on October 7, 2023 was unspeakably vile and inexcusably evil. If it is genocide to want such behavior wiped from the face of the earth, so be it. It is justifiable genocide.
People who define “milling around” as “loitering” do not understand the process of milling, as it was once done. Back in the “modern” world of our great-grandfathers, power, usually supplied by a water wheel of some sort, turned a great granite disk atop a stationary great granite disk. The top disk had slots cut into it towards the axle, something like the spokes of a wheel. The grain or corn to be milled started down these slots, but seldom made it to the center without being overridden and crushed between the two stones, becoming flour or meal which exited at the center. (Or perhaps it went the other way, from center outwards, in some cases.) In either case, as the grain or corn was trickled in to this grinding process there were initially no high tech scoops that efficiently pushed it into the slots; rather it agitated and bounced about at the entrance to the slots until dumb luck popped it into the slot. In other words, before it was milled it “milled around.”
My point is that “milling around” was part of the process. If grains or kernels stood still they would never enter the slot and be ground. There was no “loitering” involved in “milling around” (or “milling about”). In fact the agitation of grains of wheat or kernels of corn at the entrance of slots was necessary, if those wonderfully simple mills were to work.
As I have been feeling agitated, yet seem to be far from becoming any sort of refined “flour”, I therefore I think “milling around” is a good description of my current state. I am not loitering. I am part of a process above my pay-grade, in God’s hands. I am troubled, agitated, outraged, but lack the power to influence those who trouble, agitate, and outrage me.
I am not alone. The so-called “swamp” in Washington DC has resorted to corruption, calling it “ways and means”, which just isn’t right. Everyone knows it. They themselves know it, which makes them increasingly take steps to oppress the backlash they know is brewing, because they know they deserve it. They hope to delay the backlash until after they have lived their glutted lives, and then, like the French King once stated, “After Us, the deluge.”
However the American Revolution was not like France’s. It definitely had an ugly side, but nothing like France’s. Loyalists did hang the young schoolteacher Nathan Hale, but then acted astonished when they themselves were not hung, but sent packing to Canada, after they lost the war. And as these poor refugees fled north they received food and shelter from the very patriots they had despised. This is different from what the French revolution would have given them: The guillotine.
Despite all the wars and bloodshed, compared to other lands there is something very nice about America. It seems almost too kind. And, whatever it is, it is currently “milling around.”
I don’t find milling around a comfortable place to be. To be so agitated is all wrong. The righteous are overruled by bribed judges, over and over, as if filthy lucre mattered more than God. But what can we do? We “mill around.”
If I were given the time and resources to debate, I could explain why what is wrong is wrong, but such debate is exactly what “they” want to prevent. Therefore I, and countless others, wind up shadow-banned, marginalized, cancelled, unheeded, and part of a population “milling around.”
This is part of a repetitive process which occurs and reoccurs and re-reoccurs in history until we get sick of it. Good gets established as the “Law”, (or Constitution, or Bill of Rights), but then some slime-bags come along and think only suckers follow such sissy, Sunday-school rules, and they briefly prosper by cheating. I say “briefly” because, in the long run, history teaches us that “cheaters never prosper.” However, for a while they think they are smarter than everyone else.
The concept of there being a “Law” we follow to our benefit (and break to our detriment) is very ancient, and predates Moses and the Torah. Through the mists of time, scrutinizing clay tablets, we can catch glimpses of a “God of Righteousness” with a name something like “Zedek”, and this animates the mysterious appearance of Melchizedek, a “high priest of God”, in the wanderings of Abraham, long before Moses wrote the “Law” down.
The “Law” was written or dictated (or perhaps recalled after-the-fact; there is much debate about this,) by Moses as the Torah, which is basically the first five books of the Bible. It is not merely the foundation of Judaism, but also Christianity and Islam. Islam? Yes, for, although I am no scholar of the Koran, in 5:44 It states,
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of God, and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price [i.e., worldly gain]. And whoever does not judge by what God has revealed – then it is those who are the disbelievers
My personal reading of the above suggests that followers of Islam (and indeed everybody) had best be wary of hating Jews, lest in the process they hate those who are following the Torah, which would make the haters themselves, and not the Jews, the “disbelievers.”
Sadly Mohammedans, and Christians, and Jews, have all at times failed to “Judge by what God has revealed.” That is how religions founded on love are corrupted to hatred and horrible wars. The hypocrisy gives religion a bad name. The behavior of Catholics and Protestants towards each other, and Sunni and Shiite Moslem towards each other, has been barbaric. And that is between followers of the same dogma, who you would think could get along. If you can’t even get along in your own cult, how can you love your enemies? Consequently we see the mayhem of crusades. It is enough to turn anyone towards Atheism. However the fact of the matter is that this disgusting behavior is not proof religion is bad, but proof some don’t practice what they preach.
The sad fact (that we mortals are able to be seduced away from obedience to the “Law”) is ancient. One delightful thing about Judaism is that they don’t hide their failures, in their histories.
One thing that has always fascinated me is the political situation which is apparent in the time when Jews had no overlords, described in “Judges.” They were apparently what we now would call “Libertarian”. They needed no police, for they knew what the “Law” was, and obeyed it, until they got seduced and didn’t. Then all hell broke loose and they became terribly upset, and milled about, whereupon a “Judge” appeared to rescue them and get them back on track, in terms of obeying the “Law.”
Though this was occurring 3000 years ago, it seems suspiciously similar to our situation today, as we mill around. I am wondering if we are wishing for a modern day “judge”. Perhaps Donald Trump?
But the ancient scriptures also describe a time the Jews didn’t just want a “judge”, able to discern between good and evil, but rather wanted to abdicate their personal freedom and accept a “king”. I delight in how the prophet Samuel warned the Jews how costly such an abdication of freedom would be.
So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; 12 and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. 15 He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. 16 He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattleb and donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
America’s founding fathers wanted presidents to be short term “judges” and not long term “kings.” The first furthers freedom, and the second ends it.
In any case, I have no such power, as we currently mill about.
In some ways I’m glad I have no power, for the burden of telling people the difference between judges and kings would be great, especially because as soon as you have power you face an onslaught of seductions. What sort of fool might I make of myself? Suppose some publisher (who actually gagged at my poetry) told me he wept reading it, or some nubile maiden (who actually found my decrepit body so loathsome she wanted to vomit) told me I was irresistibly attractive? There’s no fool like an old fool, and I confess I’m susceptible to flattery, and therefore it is a good thing I never get any. Instead, I’m just milling about, with all sorts of other people who never get flattered.
Of course, there is something dangerous, even explosive, in the “milling around”. To continue my millstone analogy, people don’t think of flour as being like gunpowder, but when flour dust in the air was ignited by a spark in the old mills, there could be amazing explosions.
Perhaps we saw such an “explosion” in my little town, in broad daylight, at the “big” intersection of Main Street with the “Turnpike”. I pass through that intersection on my way to work, but not on my way home, (because I take a one-way road going home). Therefore I saw nothing unusual when I headed out to feed the goat at the Childcare at 2:00 PM, but later, at 6:55 PM, as I headed out after supper to a Bible Study, the intersection bore a remarkable graffiti.
(I took the above pictures a week after the event. The “burn outs” were even blacker when fresh.)
Usually such “burn outs” are the result of rebellious teenagers going wild at two AM, when no one can see them and report them. What I found striking was the above vehicle did its screaming pirouettes in broad daylight. Also there are some rumors the rebel wasn’t a teenager.
At this point there tends to be discussion about the danger involved, and the foolishness of risk, but there can be little doubt the graffiti which the burn-outs left in the center of a small town expresses a certain contempt towards authority. Then the discussion moves on to which authority is the contempt directed at: The “Law”? Or the busybody ordinances of bureaucrats who themselves are contemptuous of the “Law”?
I can’t say. Maybe a little of both. But I will say that I sense a pent up tension in the air, as people “mill about.” Nor do I feel it is only experienced by a particular political party in the United States. It seems to be world wide. People are simply fed up with a leadership which is increasingly contemptuous of the the “Law”, and increasingly disdainful of ordinary people who simply want to be left alone, and to live ordinary lives, where two sexes have babies in a wholesome and natural way, and support, nourish and raise their children to be good citizens. The simple and ordinary, which the “Law” teaches us is noble and beautiful, is increasingly under attack as being “racist” and “sexist” and “exploitation”, while that which is deviant and criminal is mollycoddled and praised and released without bail after committing horrific crimes.
We are pitted against each other, rather than brought into the brotherhood of unity, when in fact we are all in the same boat. Americans are at odds with the leadership of Iran and China, but the people of Iran and even China are also “milling around.”
Do you think the hard working people of China are not well aware of their government’s shortcomings? They are perhaps more aware than anyone else on earth. They laugh at us for ever trusting those we are starting to distrust, for they have experienced a century of cruelty. They have developed their own way of whispering what the government wants unspoken, and they are well aware of awful deeds, such as organ harvesting from hapless Uighur imprisoned without cause. They are “milling around” too, you know, and their leaders are very worried about it.
And so are the ordinary people of Iran. They too know about the Uighur, and they are incredulous that their leadership, which is so high and mighty about upholding Islam’s “Law”, is friendly with China and says not a word about China oppressing people simply for being Islamic.
In fact the whole world knows about the Uighur, but the leaders do nothing. Inaction is just one more unlawful thing they do among all the rest of the unlawful things they do, laughing up their sleeves at people who try to obey the “Law.” However the “milling around” seems to be getting louder and louder.
For the moment the “Law” seems powerless, but in fact it has a power greater than any leader’s. The “Law” is based upon Truth, and Truth remains true even when dictators disallow It being spoken. Dictators can scream and rage all they want, but Truth silently keeps smiling at them, for Truth cannot be anything other than what it is. It is invulnerable, and there is no kryptonite that can harm such a Superman. Most amazingly of all, Truth is Love, which is unfathomable to greedy, lustful and hateful dictators, and Love has a power so far above the heads of those who sneer at the “Law” that they are like worms under rocks.
This is what I personally feel is building in the “milling around” which I notice more and more.
The founding fathers of the United States were well aware of how people in leadership, (even they themselves), could be seduced and corrupted by greed, lust and hate, and they tried their best to create a government which would prevent such moral failures from gaining control. One device was free and fair elections. Free elections allow the “milling around” of the public to manifest in a manner that avoids bloodshed. However our last election was not free and fair, because the scofflaws in the “Swamp” don’t care about what the Founding Fathers cared about. I can’t imagine the upcoming election will be any different. However in a way it will be different. The “milling about” is far greater.
Many are nervous about bloodshed, and I confess I worry about that myself. But I also have a strange hope that the United States is different. We are a kindly nation, founded on the “Law”, and there may be something in our make-up that skips the bloodshed, and allows Truth to manifest in a way we can’t even imagine.
This strange hope was supported by the fact that on three recent occasions my intellect was reduced to despair. The current nonsense where students chant “Destroy the Jews” an “Death to America” is typical. Intellect is useless when you are dealing with appalling ignorance. One is reduced to moaning.
What good is moaning and groaning? Well, it seems fairly useless, but I chanced on something that struck me as rather wonderful in the sixth Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans.
“….the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
My current woes are not worth recounting, but take my word for it: On three occasions my intellect felt as smart as the wrong side of a rock. I had no answers, and if I was younger I might have expressed myself by screeching tires on a road, and leaving burn-out graffiti of black rubber. Instead I expressed myself by writing three sonnets. In each case I began without any idea what the poem would be about, and in each case they began basically as a groan. Yet in each case I amazed myself. The groan flowed out easily, without correction, and when I was done I felt amazingly revived.
For what it’s worth, here they are:
After outrunning the wolves, the lone stag Stands on the hill, quietly contemplating Where to go next. Shall he climb yonder crag And watch the sunset, or graze lush grass, sating All hunger? Even beasts must make decisions.
I, too, must decide, but stand in a place With no paths, or perhaps my vision's Too weak to see them. Or maybe I face Many paths like the spokes of an old wheel, And I stand at the axle. Where to go? What to do? I wish I could hear God's will But my own logic's the poor guidance I know. I run from wolves like the stag on the hill, And then? I'm no shepherd. I'm a lost lamb. I am a not-ness in need of "I Am."
It's spring, but the yellow flowers seem sad. Sun's bright, but the north wind's crooner chills With his piercing song. The world has gone mad And the flowers all seem like a funeral's. Where has gone hope? Forsythia splashes Its yellow clowning, bobbing in the breeze, But I'm not amused. Something glum dashes The uplift, and If I wrote symphonies They'd sing of sadness. Someone is missing And the flowers remind me they're gone. My lips are cold. They want to be kissing As daffodils gleam their gold in the dawn. This ache in my heart makes it quite clear Love has not gone though love is not here.
I am hungry for that first drumming roll Of thunder in the spring, informing all We are under new management; the toll We paid is abolished; Winter's downfall Is accomplished; the wall that divided Is smashed like Berlin's. Yet today's rain Brought no lightning; it just provided The spring with more chill. I tire of the pain And look to the clouds for the longed-for shift. All the world seems awaiting. Where's the thunder? Wheres the glance of warmth that strangely uplifts Without words? All the world seems to wonder In a night so chilled the frogs cease their peeping. Though men go to bed, no one is sleeping.
(Note: This post was begun some weeks ago, but, due to interruptions, I’m only finishing it up tonight. Sorry if some of the graphs are dated.)
Well, we are past the yearly “sea-ice maximum”, so I suppose I should do a sea-ice post, but I’m rather uninspired. Rather than proving we are reaching the dreaded “tipping point”, any discussion about sea-ice has become a “moot point”. Further discussion is more or less pointless.
First, for many young Alarmists the idea of Global Warming is an indoctrination they’ve received from early in grade school. Both they and their teachers watched Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” (2006) yet they were never exposed to the carefully thought-out decision by a British court which stated the movie was only one side of a political debate, and students shouldn’t be exposed to it without being informed Al Gore spoke eleven falsities. (2007).
Such students and teachers don’t need to see any evidence to know Global Warming is “true”, because they were taught by teachers who didn’t need to see any evidence either, because it was in the book they taught from (or video they taught from.). For such people Global Warming is a pertinacious and deep rooted falsity, founded in faith in those who taught them. To question Global Warming questions the integrity of Miss Fruitisweet, a third grade teacher who was just about the only kind teacher they experienced in twelve years of academic monotony. She may have taught by the book, and the book may have held balderdash, but to question her integrity is like slaughtering a holy cow for burgers. Miss Fruitisweet was patient, kind and loving, and it wasn’t her fault that she too trusted an authority prone to balderdash. Miss Fruitisweet may have brainwashed innocent children, but she did so out of love, meaning well.
In any case, such brainwashed people tend to avoid actual discussion with pleas to authority: “The textbook says so” or “Dr. Pixiznose said so,” or “scientists say”, or “the science is settled,” or “the consensus agrees.” Actually discussing things becomes next to impossible with such people, because they don’t seem to know how to think; only how to believe.
Secondly, politics destroyed a lot of the best research being conducted, because politics demands science prove certain points and discredit others, whereas Truth doesn’t take sides. But the blustering bully of power politics imagined it could control Truth by funding scientists whose research agreed with “their side’s” agenda, and by de-funding those whose research dared disagree. It would not matter if “their side” was saying up was down, money talked, and funding made nonsense “true”.
Such funding is like bribing a judge. It turns the courtroom into a mockery of justice. The judge is not carefully weighing evidence, deeply concerned with righteousness. Instead he is unrighteous. Rather than the clear intellect of a clean conscious, and the purity of untarnished intuition focused on truth, bribes basically turn minds into whores, making a mockery of love, for money.
Besides Dr. Pixiznose’s tendency to be a whore, the media also have proved woefully susceptible to bribes, and became culpable for their sensationalist, blaring headlines of even the most absurd hypotheses that furthered the Global Warming hysteria, and their complete silence concerning the hard work of scientists who found reasons to have hope that the world wasn’t going to end by now. To deepen their disgrace, the media not only censored their own better judgement, but rabidly advocated the censorship of those with far better judgement than the media ever dared manifest.
Lastly, as politics descended from at least a semblance of righteousness into the current squalor of corruption, harmonious cooperation fell apart, especially in terms of arctic research. For example, the Russians were deeply interested in arctic research, considering the thousands of miles of coastline they own, facing the Arctic Sea. They had great resources they wished to exploit, but others felt such exploitation was a bad thing, for various reasons. However initially Russia was able to cooperate with other nations, as is apparent if you look back at my posts about the “Barneo” bases Russia set up every year, (right about now, In early April). Norway and the Ukraine worked hand in hand with Russia in these endeavors, which involved research, military exercises, and tourists who could afford to splurge big bucks, having a blast. Needless to say, Russia and Ukraine are no longer so cooperative, those lovely days are long gone, and “Barneo” is fading into a fond memory.
Even back in 2016 the politics at the Pole were getting intense. If you have the time, here’s a post (I’m rather fond of) about how crazy things were getting even back then.
Now eight years have past, and things have gone steadily downhill. The only good I can see is that the corruption has become so grotesque, and the sham so absurd, that people are getting downright sick of it. Even scientists working in hostile environments, where any outright questioning of Global Warming might get you swiftly fired or, if you have tenure, get your funding cut off, are scientists who tend to avoid mentioning Global Warming at all in the body of their papers, and only add a flimsy genuflection in the conclusion. I sense a sort of wink-wink, nudge-nudge in some of these obligatory genuflections, as if, between the lines, is written, “We all know this is bullshit, but here goes.”
Why are people fed up? Well, you can only screech the sky is falling for so long before people start to notice the sky isn’t.
For example, because air temperatures, and SST (Sea surface temperatures), were well above normal the past year, I expected more sea-ice to melt than usual, but that didn’t happen. In the chart below 1996 is the green line, while 2024 is the blue line. While the 1996 maximum was towards the end of February the 2024 maximum was delayed to the end of March, and while the 1996 level was well above 2024 towards the end of February, by the end of March they are roughly the same. There is no apparent “shocking decline” in the “extent”, despite the passage of 28 long years.
This is also apparent in the DMI graph of the March “extent” (an average for the entire month). In a sense the “trend line” looks silly, for the trend since 1996 has been basically flat, (follow the central line, indicating 15 km2 of extent, and you’ll see the two years are nearly the same.)
The “trend line” included in such graphs is based on the sea-ice level of 1979, which much evidence indicates was the highest level in recent times. Some say it is “the start of the satellite record”, but the first IPCC reports show graphs using satellite data which indicate far lower “extent” levels only a few years earlier, and we have this early “Nimbus” satellite shot from September 1969 which shows a large area of open water towards 80 degrees north latitude, north of Bering Strait.
It is fairly clear that sea-ice has always fluctuated between high and low levels. If you bother study history you see it has been doing so for some time. Willem Barentsz sighted the entrance of Raudfjorden in June of 1596 in a small, sail-powered wooden ship, whereas it would have taken a steel, diesel-powered ice-breaker to have reached the same spot in June of 2023. If I was foolish I could use 1596 as my start day, and create a rising “trend-line” from 1596 to 2023 which could freak everyone out by suggesting sea-ice was growing, and we were all about to freeze. And, back in 1979, we experienced a cold period which caused some false prophets to freak everyone out with “The Ice Age Scare”.
The funny thing is that some now attempt to assert “The Ice Age Scare” never happened.
However I was alive at the time, and can vouch that it did happen. In case you doubt an old man’s memory, Tony Heller used the “way back machine” to compile a long, long collection of media sensationalism which shows that the “Ice Age Scare” was a lot more than, as the above article suggests, “nine paragraphs”.
One interesting character in the Ice Age Scare was Steve Snider.
What was interesting about Steve was he switched so effortlessly from the Ice Age Scare to the Global Warming Scare. His primary interest seemed to be scaring the public. He seemed to think logic wasn’t enough, and the public was basically imbeciles, and needed to be bossed about by smart people, like himself. He moved on to become a notorious “gatekeeper” at Wikipedia, zealously removing any evidence that Global Warming was anything other than “settled science.” Then he unexpectedly did something I must do, and indeed all must do eventually. He died, at a relatively young age.
It must be odd to die when you think you have years ahead of you. You think you can continue to manipulate data, and that these manipulations of truth will eventually have some result other than the dishonesty you believe is justified. But you do not live to see that day, which you think will excuse all your dishonesty. Instead you are abruptly dead, and all you have to show is a lifetime of deceit. It must be especially hard if you are an Atheist. You die, and abruptly become aware Truth is calling you forward to be judged on what you have done. And what have you done? All you have done is make a good living denying Truth.
Personally I believe my departure from this creation will bring me face to face with Truth. Even back when I attempted Atheism, I believed the final nano-second I was existing would confront me with Truth. Was I honest, or was I a liar?
The problem with being a liar is that you lose touch with Truth. A discrepancy is created, as is displayed in the above graphs. At that point the liar can either confess their mistake, or double down on the lies, attempting to cover up prior lies with further lies. This only doubles the discrepancy, which eventually becomes glaring.
And this is the point we have reached with the arctic sea-ice “Death Spiral” hysteria. There is no “Death Spiral”. In fact, even during this very warm year, when there seemingly should be a decrease in sea-ice, the levels increase. What the heck is going on?
This is what a sane government would pay its scientists to figure out. Instead our insane government pays scientists to support a scare-story which justifies their declaring martial law, so they can have dictatorial powers. What they don’t understand is that, in setting aside real science, they are losing the power real science offers. They may be chuckling to themselves, thinking how a false disaster tricked the public into giving them control, but may at the same time be blind to a genuine disaster. They are sipping tea in a house with exotic rice-paper walls, floating on a houseboat midst water lilies, fed luxuries and fanned by a servile staff with English accents, oblivious to the fact they are just upstream from a thundering waterfall.
One danger we may be about to face is a repeat of the Dalton Minimum. That time of a “quiet sun” ended with a couple of volcanic convulsions that left ash in the ice core samples of both Greenland and Antarctica. One we can identify as Tambora in Indonesia, but the other is a mystery volcano. After all, this happened in 1810, and we hadn’t gotten our satellites up, quite yet.
All the ash and sulfur thrown into the atmosphere by these convulsions led to some bizarre weather, contributing to famines, which contributed to tremendous societal upheavals. (If you want specific details, go through my long-winded past posts.)
One thing they knew nothing about, during the Dalton Minimum, was what was occurring at the bottom of the sea. Now we are seeing a surge in the seismic activity along mid-ocean ridges, which suggests (to some) that besides the eruptions we can see, like the spectacular eruption of Tonga last summer, there are equally spectacular but totally hidden eruptions occurring over a mile down in the deep sea depths.
The temperature of the water down that deep is close to the freezing point of fresh water, and the sudden appearance of lava as hot as 2000 degrees is bound to change the status quo. How so? We have no idea.
We might have had some idea, if the great scientist Bill Gray had been funded. He wanted to study “thermohaline circulation”, however he was honest to Al Gore, and told Al he didn’t think CO2 had all that great an effect on climate, and Al Gore, to his eternal shame, severely cut the funding to an honest and brilliant man. So we know little about “thermohaline circulation”, while we have spent trillions on stuff that basically is disconnected from rational thinking, such as solar power, windmills and electric cars.
However odd stuff is certainly happening to our seas. During the El Nino last winter, when waters to the northeast of Australia are ordinarily cooler than normal, during El Ninos, they abruptly became warmer than normal. Yes, there was seismic activity, and yes, this is just west of the enormous Tonga eruption. And no, this has never been seen before. Lastly, it utterly screwed up many long range forecasts, (such as Joe Bastardi’s), because it introduced a never-seen-before variable.
Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christie at the University of Alabama noted a spike in temperatures.
I greatly respect these two men, but I will state their focus is on the atmosphere. They haven’t studied seafloor volcanoes much. They are interested in Tonga, but only because it vaporized so much water and sent the steam high into the atmosphere. Ordinarily they do not lower themselves from the heights to study the depths. They are less interested in eruptions two miles down, which may (or may not) have raised the temperatures of the sea-surface northeast of Australia. But I will state they showed an uncharacteristic interest in a study of whether or not there were “plumes” of warm water rising from the depths, which I think shows they knew something weird was going on.
I will also state that, when I peruse the comments following the post, “How Much Ocean Heating is Due To Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents?”, that appeared on Roy Spencer’s site, I am made painfully aware of my own ignorance. My value, if I have any, is primarily as an observer. Back when there were buoys with cameras bobbing about the Arctic Sea it was possible to observe many things which seemed to run contrary to what proponents of the “Death Spiral” theory promised us we’d see. However, once I leave observing and venture into theorizing I step off a shelf and am immediately over my head. Having confessed that, I will state I observed something weird happened last winter.
What was weird? The abrupt appearance of warm water northeast of Australia was weird. It is difficult to explain how weird it was, but I’ll try.
When we attempt to understand a phenomenon such as the El Nino we try to stick to the facts, and not stray from those facts. Even if you believe the Red Sea can be parted, you are not allowed to use belief in your data. Therefore all the El Nino data we had went into creating a clumsy understanding of El Ninos within a computer model, and one component of that understanding was that waters northeast of Australia would be cooler than normal. But last winter utterly broke the rules. Perhaps the Red Sea did not part, but to conventional thinking it was nearly as astounding.
Yet the press ignored the event. It seemed quite unlike them, considering they blame nearly-every-thing-you-can-think-of on Global Warming, but perhaps some recognized the event repudiated the narrative. How so? Global Warming is not a localized event. Background radiation is fair and equal and effects all areas in a smooth manner. This event was concentrated northeast of Australia.
The study which Roy Spencer focused on in the above post was a bit primitive and underfunded. Basically a boat dragged sensors, like a biplane dragging an “Eat At Joe’s” sign up and down a beach. They found no evidence of “plumes” in the small area they crisscrossed, which disappointed me, but which seemed to relieve Christie and Spencer. Perhaps they took it as an indication the oceans were not controlling the atmosphere, and they were not focused on the wrong thing. Or perhaps not. But the fact they actually did look outside their field shows they are real scientists.
My problem is I poke about too much, and have seen evidence of “plumes” in other studies. One fellow was painstakingly tracking the strata of various types of seawater, sliding north like cards in a deck, in the Gulf Stream, with the strata determined by salinity and temperature, and just as the current crossed the mid Atlantic ridge his study got totally screwed up. Something mixed the waters, and, in the diagrams his study produced, the disruptions looked very much like “plumes”, at least to me.
This tickled my fancy, because it seems to me that any disruption of warm currents that basically flow from Florida to the North Pole could result in less sea-ice melting. This makes sense of what is initially counterintuitive: How could lava that warms the SST (sea-surface-temperatures) and atmosphere cause less sea-ice to melt? In this manner: Sea-ice is not melted most from above, but from below. If lava creates a “plume”, and the “plume” interrupts the import of warm waters, it is only logical less melting would occur.
And what happens next? Well, this is what concerns me. The records of long ago, created by using various proxies, show some times of warming followed by abrupt crashes in temperatures. If you want to talk about weird, these crashes are most mysterious. Basically we know they occurred, but not why. Various unverified theories are out there, the most noticed one, (by the mainstream media), involving freshwater lakes abruptly draining into the Atlantic when glacial plugs dissolved and crumbled, but although this may explain a particular down-spike it does not explain others. So I might as well throw my own unverified theory out there.
Suppose a quiet-sun period such as the Dalton Minimum winds down to its end, and the sun gets noisy again. The lava which was so active when the sun was so quiet might cease to be so active, and the abrupt cessation of this warming effect would have obvious repercussions. Some would be more immediate than others. However one repercussion might be a short-term downward plunge in temperature.
Where the Parry expedition in 1819 found summer waters open, and only became frozen in for a winter, and easily escaped the actic the next summer, the Franklin expedition got frozen in so solidly every man on two ships perished, starting in 1845 but likely, because they were so well prepared, taking at least two agonizing years to kill the final sailor. How could the same place get so much colder?
This what we should be studying. Why? Because, what if it is our fate? What happened before can happen again. Won’t we look like complete idiots if, over the next thirty years, there is a dramatic downturn in temperatures, just as we prepare for Global Warming.
This is where Al Gore and his ilk look particularly stupid. Rather than preparing us for disaster, he has diverted trillions of dollars away from what we should have been studying. How different our level of understanding might now be, if only he had heeded Dr. Bill Gray.
And how much I miss Robert W. Felix, and his “Ice Age Now” website.
Stay tuned, (though my focus these days is not so much on sea-ice, but rather rather on how to get back to honesty, and away from wasting so much time and money on bribery and lies.)
Below is the total mess I make of my wife’s lovely dining room when it comes time to do the taxes.
There is order in this chaos. The four piles on the far side of the table and eight piles on the counter represent the twelve months of the year, and I meticulously collect every bill and receipt I can possibly use as a “business expense”, because the more my business expenses are, the less my “profit” is, and profit is what they are after.
In actual fact my profit is zero. “Child Care” is no way to get rich, and for most “child care professionals” it is a way to scrimp by. It is a hand-to-mouth existence, a labor of love, a Christian ministry, and there is something vile about oily accountants from The Swamp wanting to know every detail of how you get by. It’s none of their business. It’s mine. They are ignorant of what I know.
First, in The Swamp’s eyes it tends to look like something fishy is going on, if you work hard and have a charitable nature. Saint Paul said spiritual behavior, to the worldly, looked like “foolishness.” I’d take it a step further, and say that, to a communist, charitable behavior looks like the counterrevolutionary acts of the petite bourgeois, who need to be purged, for only the state is allowed to be a benefactor.
Second, The Swamp wants you to divide yourself from your work, and keep careful track of what you do for your self and what you do for your business. This is absurd, when you are so absorbed in your work that it is your life. But bureaucrats likely want mothers to say, when they breastfeed, how much is for the child and how much is for the mother. They divide what is whole, and it rots what is wholesome.
Bureaucrats can never understand the generosity of the poor. How is it poor people give more than rich people? (This is an established fact, statistically proven by careful research, and should put every rich person to shame.)
The fact of the matter is that such charity is how the poor “get by”.
I took economics in school, and passed my A-level exam in the British system of 1971, even though me and math do not get along. Because I am educated in this way, I am fascinated by the way the poor “get by”, and seek to find a way to make it look more sensible in terms economists understand.
Here is an example:
I thought I’d be faster than usual, and complete my taxes way ahead of the deadline, but no sooner had I made a mess of my wife’s dining room table, when my wife broke three bones in her ankle, which involved surgery. The mess on the table just sat there, barely touched, for weeks, for I had to care for my wife, and also do all her work. A man never appreciates his wife’s workload until he has to do it. He seldom thinks about things such as the fact there is always toilet paper in the bathroom, until there is none there. Then the belittling ceases.
For example, I kid my wife a lot about how fast I go in and out of a store, while she takes longer, however when I had to do all the shopping, it took me three times as long, and I often forgot important items yet came home with some unnecessary stuff. (I bought “scrapple”, made of pork byproducts and cornmeal, because I liked it, sixty plus years ago, drenched in maple syrup during boyhood breakfasts. I didn’t know it existed any more, and when I saw it I figured I needed pampering, with my wife down and out.)
I was hard pressed to find time to cook the scrapple, or anything else, but grimly determined to be a good husband and provide my wife with all the weird stuff she eats, (not scrapple), but then all sorts of other kind women, or their husbands, began arriving at my door, with all sorts of dinners. It was so kind. I did cook breakfasts before rushing to work (when I’m supposedly retired), but when I dragged my butt home I think I only cooked three dinners in three weeks. The hearts of others provided. And some of the dinners that appeared were better than anything I could concoct.
I would have been grateful even if every meal was macaroni and cheese, but that is not my point. My point is how do you show such kindness, when doing your taxes? Can the people who brought me dinner take a deduction for the food they bought?
Not usually, but they should be able to do so. Not that The Swamp even wants to know about such generosity, let alone reduce your taxes if such kindness rules your entire life.
The United States was founded upon ideas full of such kindness. That is why there were so few taxes at first. There was no such thing as an income tax, because the traditional family farm fed, sheltered and clothed many, but the “profit” was minuscule. The government raised most of its money with tariffs on imported goods, and the Custom House at each port was a marble structure, sometimes with pillars in the front of it, for they had the power of the IRS.
It must have been nice to be alive before the income tax existed. Now, when I take kids fishing, I must save a slip of paper that shows I spent $2.50 on worms.
Once I could put the pedal to the metal And burn the midnight oil. Those days are gone. Those hormones are gone. I yawn. My fettle Is lacking. I'm slacking. I ignore dawn And I'm not attacking the damn taxes Like I should. Yet why should I worry? Even if a man never relaxes Age makes him like a turtle in a hurry. My high speed is now to plod a bit faster. I plod and I plod, and never scurry, As life doles out yet another disaster. I'm not a pleased cat, arching and purry, For I plod and I plod, which shows I care And is how an old turtle outruns a young hare.
Sailing through night, my bright guiding star Is not made by me. Instead it's a gift. I did not hang that light, twinkling afar, And the same is true when my eyes uplift In worship. My surging inspiration's Not mine. It's a gift. All the good things In life are presents, yet also our nation's woes, and all that clips our outstretched wings, Are part of the given as well. Give credit Where credit is due. We did not make God. He made us. Grasp that tiller. Embed it On heart and brain. I know that it sounds odd, But God wants us shining like yonder star. The less that you own, the richer you are.
Don't tell me to hope. This spring's too chilly. Too much has gone wrong. I cannot describe How hope looks foolish. The law looks silly When judges are swayed by evil's bribe.
What use is the law when the judge breaks it? What use is love when the lover forsakes it? What good is a smile when every face fakes it? What use is my heart when cruel fate breaks it?
Last night I heard the first querulous peep Of a spring peeper. He paused, and again Peeped. "O, shut up", I thought. I will weep When the others reply. Nights warm, and then A thousand shrill peeps will deafen sky again And, bucking the odds, my heart will try, try again.
Tired of the highway, I wish that I Could just sit in ruby sunset with You. The goal is too far. I see that the sky Stretches beyond horizons, and I can do Nothing to claw it closer. I'll never Get to Never-never, and so I plead That You come here. I am not clever Enough to know how to change route or speed And bring distance near; distance stays distant, When what we need is the sweet oasis Of Your companionship. What we miss can't Be touched by worldly paws, but Your touch is What transformed the starved into a feaster As darkest night dawned, amazing with Easter.
One board game I disliked as a child was called, “snakes and ladders”. I didn’t like it because skill played no part. One was at the mercy of the roll of the dice, as you progressed towards the finish line. If you landed on a “snake”, you fell backwards, and if you landed on a “ladder”, you leapt forward.
The only way to control your destiny in such a board game is to cheat. You must gain some sort of control over how the dice roll. This may be illegal, but you do stand a far better chance of winning, unless your opponent is better at cheating, (or else catches you cheating, in which case the game may dissolve into a brawl).
Cheating seems to be how the game of politics is played in “The Swamp”, (IE: Washington DC.) They feel they are “the elite” and are smarter than the “deplorables”, (IE: Fellow Citizens). They do not really believe all men are created equal, nor that they should love their neighbor. Rather they feel that they should control their neighbor, because they are smart and the rabble (IE: Fellow Citizens) are ignorant. However the rabble are becoming roused, and the elite are increasingly fearful they are losing control. A storm is over Washington this “Super Tuesday.”
It shows up especially well on radar:
The funny thing is that elite in Washington DC would laugh at the idea that the physical reality of the weather has anything to do with the social climate they create with their cheating, even as they try to sell the idea to the Public that the Public is guilty of causing Global Warming.
The fact of the matter is that Creation is a unity. No man is an island, and all greedy attempts at segregation deny the reality of God’s plan for universal oneness, and do so in ways that stir up actual, physical storms. We do control the atmosphere we abide in, not by throwing virgins into volcanoes, nor by driving about in impractical electric vehicles, but more in the manner that the atmosphere of a movie is controlled by background mood music.
A historical example of the uncanny connection between men’s deeds and the weather appears in the fact that, when Hitler’s invasion of Poland forced even the peace-loving Chamberlain to conclude to his cabinet, “Well then, gentlemen, it is war”, there was a brilliant flash of lightning and deafening roar of thunder outside the House of Lords in London. Just a coincidence? I think not. It is as Shakespeare’s Hamlet stated, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”, though perhaps we should update that to, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Hillary, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
The elite can write all the silly laws they want in their mire, thinking they control the vastness of weather (Global Warming preventions) and the minutia of viruses, (Coronavirus vaccines), but they don’t control either. They are pretenders.
They are desperate to cling to the powers they imagine they have gained, through their pretense. These words I write will most definitely be censored, though I write them to warn them, because I pity them. Actions have reactions, and, if one reaps what one sows, the swamp creatures are sowing thistles for themselves.
I’ve been addicted myself, and therefore have compassion towards addicts. I am part of a group striving to help youth escape fentanyl addiction. I wish I could also be of help to the elite, but they don’t admit they are addicted. (To power.)
The “swamp” needs to learn what fentanyl addicts have learned. To get what you desire is hell, compared to what you get when you suffer the agony of withdrawal symptoms.
The “swamp” scoffs at the idea I have anything to offer them, but are so scared of hearing me that they censor me (and millions of others).
They call me a “bitter clinger” (though I’ve never bought a gun) though they are the ones who cling, desperately, to power.
They display contempt towards the hands that feed them, dismissing the breadbasket of the nation as “flyover country.” Poor fools, can they not see what they are earning when they bite the hand that feeds? Don’t they see actions have reactions?
I’d like to go off on a long tangent at this point about the laws of Karma; of “reaping what you sow,” And also of “killing the goose that laid the golden egg”. Often it is better to deny yourself than to get what you want (but don’t need.)
The so-called “deplorable” tend to be poor, and must constantly sacrifice just to get by. They constantly deny themselves. Consequently they know of a sweet freedom, which those, who don’t deny themselves, are ignorant about.
What is this freedom you get? The fentanyl addict wants to know. They long to be free of the constant craving. They hunger to know about freedom, but the swamp is craven, and doesn’t want to know. However, as the swamp is suppose to be representing “the land of the free”, they damn well should want to know. What is this freedom I’m speaking about?
What is the freedom? It is the freedom from being controlled by a craving. Rather than hankering for money or power or fame, you can take them or leave them. You are not some child who will tantrum if they don’t get some toy, nor some adolescent who grieves greatly over infatuations. You just accept the Now.
Donald Trump seems a representative of such freedom. He is not controlled by the “swamps” cravings. All he has earned, through his wish to help us achieve the freedom enshrined in our constitution, is monstrous harassment, yet he remains free.
There is something very attractive about such freedom. It is inherently friendly. When Trump visited the border, he did not give the middle finger to illegal aliens, across the Rio Grande. Instead he cheerfully waved, and an excited voice returned from across the river: “Trump! Trump!” Trump laughed, “Even they like me! Isn’t it incredible?”
Yes, it is indeed incredible. It is also incredible that the governor standing up most for America’s integrity can’t stand up. In his wheelchair he stands taller than many who swagger, up to their armpits in the mire of the swamp.
It is incredible and even a little dream-like, and not a good sign for the swamp that despises impossible dreams, this Super Tuesday. Where they were sure they had loaded the dice and would land on a ladder, they see themselves landing in a swamp seething with snakes.
(This being Sunday, I decided to go off on a esoteric tangent.)
It seems a cynical thing to say, but one thing I have learned in my time is that often the surest route to a complete debacle is to try to improve myself. My New Year’s Resolutions usually end in embarrassment.
Not that we should stop striving. I just had my seventy-first birthday, and I’m still striving to stop being such a moron. And I’m certain our efforts don’t go unnoticed in heaven: “No good deed goes unrewarded.” However we don’t live in heaven, which has led to the sardonic, earthy counter: “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Often our punishment is self-inflicted. Our vision of a better way involves a degree of arrogance, and pride is a dirigible just begging for a pin. Many times, when I became aware that my vanity was getting out of hand, I resolved to stop being vain. I strove in vain.
It turns out that, while egotism may be selfishness, it is a sort of necessary evil. The wild winds of this world would disperse us like a puff of cigarette smoke in a gale if we didn’t have some way of standing our ground. So we become like turtles, and our ego is our shell.
Living in a shell gets old. For one thing, it gets lonely.
Long, long ago, when I was a teenager, men were very tough, but perhaps some began wondering if there might be some way to escape the lonely suit of turtle-armor they were clanking about in. “Peter and Gordon” had a hit song called, “The Knight In Rusty Armor,” back in 1967, which, though in some ways risque for it’s time, typified an unspoken restlessness men felt with being turtles, forever tough and “macho”.
Personally, I wasn’t all that macho to begin with, and my sensitivity was worsened by the fact I had skipped a grade and was the youngest boy in my class. Consequently I went to great lengths to prove I wasn’t a weenie, doing things I didn’t much want to do, to prove I wasn’t a coward. For example, at age fifteen I hitchhiked from the coast of Maine up into Quebec to Montreal, and then southwest to the far eastern suburbs of Toronto. While in Montreal I spent 25 cents to take pictures of myself in a “photo booth”, (the equivalent of a “selfie” in those departed days,) putting on my toughest face, but when the strip of four pictures came out I was slightly horrified. I didn’t look tough, but instead terrified. (I looked like a fifteen-year-old all alone in an alien city where many didn’t even speak the same language.) I think I invested a second 25 cents to do a better job of looking tough.
Experiences such as this made me aware, early on, that there was a gentler, kinder side of myself. I wrote a slightly absurd poem at age 16 describing myself as, “a peach, but a peach in a gravel pit. I bruise too easily.” I recognized I wasn’t as tough as I pretended, and even acted. I could crash five cars, just about kill myself with drugs, be involved with drug smugglers and thieves, but another side of me could sob like a baby, when I was hidden within the dark of a movie theater, watching a tearjerker. Which was the real me?
By age nineteen my life was wreckage. All my efforts at being “tough” were a miserable failure. Therefore I went the opposite direction, and became a miserable failure at becoming a “sensitive male.” I studied all sorts of psychologies and religions, and joined “men’s groups” where we deflated our toughness by punching pillows and weeping about how Mommy was mean, and Coach made us run an extra lap. Beyond doubt this put us in touch with a side of ourselves which being “Macho” denied, and even (somewhat accidentally) connected us to the lower echelon of some sort of spiritual hierarchy which had a vague idea of an Almighty, whom one couldn’t see, far above. But this involved an added humiliation, for I had started to see myself as “religious”, but swiftly also saw I failed to live up to my new, high standards. In fact, when push came to shove, I behaved in a downright unspiritual manner.
Perhaps the worst, and most humorous, failure involved a time I was preaching to an elder brother that “peace is the answer,” and he responded that I was only saying that because I was a prissy little mamma’s boy with wrists too limp to fight. I then attempted to punch his lights out, which wasn’t too peaceful of me, was it now?
Now it is fifty years later, and I seldom try to punch anyone’s lights out anymore, for two reasons. First, my withered testicles are failing to produce enough of the hormones which fuel blind fury, and second, if I got into a physical fight I’d very likely get knocked out in fifteen seconds.
I still do enjoy a good brawl on intellectual levels, but an odd detachment seems to have possessed me. I have the awareness that we mortals lack the brains to find our way out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into:
Yes, there is a difference between good and evil, but they are of the same coinage. They need each other to be defined. Good is “less evil” and evil is “less good”, but neither achieves the Absolute. The only way to the Absolute is through the Absolute, which is why Jesus said, “The only way to the Father is through Me,” which was the Christ’s way of declaring he was not a mere philosopher of this world, nor a particularly zealous idealist willing to sacrifice His life for His idealism, (which was how I was brought up to view Jesus), but instead Jesus was from Beyond this world.
Beyond this world? What is Beyond this world?
This world is creation. Beyond this world is the Creator.
The Creator didn’t just create small stuff like galaxies; the Creator created time. The Creator is beyond time.
Can any of us imagine what life is like is without time? I think not. And this is one reason we cannot escape the trickery of this world. We require help. Our own efforts are doomed to failure.
As an optimist, it is hard for me to say we are all doomed, but we are, as long as we insist we can do it on our own. We use creation’s standards to envision what the purpose of life is, but the purpose of life is join our Creator, who is utterly beyond worldly imagination. Our minds create many mental tools which are helpful within creation, but they are of no use when it comes to getting out of creation. In fact the mind itself, like time, is a creation, and something short of the Creator.
Artists, when inspired, gain hints of glory beyond ordinary imagination, and strive to share this amazing beauty with their fellow man, and quite often wind up in some way crucified. They are in some ways like small children copying their father. Their creations are nowhere near as grand as God’s; are like a cardboard box is when a child emulates his father’s truck; but this world has a nasty response, when you in any way, shape or form dare say creation is merely a road, a passageway you walk upon, and that the real goal is the Creator. In a sense you are daring to tell the world it is useful, but like a Kleenex is useful; in the end it will be wadded up and thrown away. And none of us likes being treated like a Kleenex.
I could embark on a long digression at this point, describing in intricate detail the various ways this world insists it matters, and its Creator does not. I’ll skip that, and just say whatever your worldly goal is, it is not the End. You may sweat and strain and strive to be world champion, and even if your dream comes true and you become world champion, it is not the End. Your achievement of the pinnacle is followed by a decline. You get old, as I am now, and then you point out (to people who want to be world champions) that such a worldly goal is not the End, and how do people respond? It is as if you have spoken blasphemy. How dare you! How dare you say being world champion doesn’t matter! Are you trying to discourage our youth?
No, but as an artist I see that what really reaches “the people” is not worldly, but otherworldly. Most artists can’t explain it. They just do it. And when they succeed it is glorious, but besides the ecstasy there is agony. “You gotta pay the dues if you’re gonna sing the blues.” If you take on the role of creator you must also accept the crucifixion.
You may say this world does reward it’s best artists, with millions of dollars, and appreciative audiences roaring approval, and adoring groupies, but in my life I’ve watched how such great men suffer. John Lennon got shot. John Baluchi died of debauchery. And the delightful Robin Williams hung himself. If that is the reward success gains you, I feel blessed to be unsuccessful. It seems even in the small world of art, people prefer the creation more than the Creator. People will spend millions for a painting by Van Gogh, but if they ever had met the agonized man, they likely would have found him weird, and wouldn’t give him the time of day. And, if that is true in the small world of art, is it any wonder that, in the giant world of Absolute Reality, the Creator himself got crucified?
However the Good Book states the Creator bounced right back. Jesus rose from the grave. Creation cannot obliterate its Creator, nor negate the reason for being created, which is to join the Creator in “timelessness”.
And what is the punishment for refusing the Creator’s compassionate invitation? It is to remain in time, which is called the “everlasting.”
In other words, we are given the choice to leave creation and join our Maker in the bliss of Timelessness, or of staying stuck in time. Most chose to stay stuck.
The fact we are given free will, and tend to prefer the known to the unknown, is frustrating to some preachers, who want people to Love God, and accept God’s invitation, and therefore they attempt to bully their congregations into submission. Rather than “everlasting” they like to add horror, and say “everlasting hell” and “everlasting lake of fire.” They desire to scare the bejeezes out of you, which makes them quite different from our compassionate Creator, (and in many cases makes they themselves become candidates for hell). Our Creator does not bully; he gave us free will; He wants us to follow His advice because we adore Him, not because we are cowering in dread.
As a person attempting to be a poet, I have blundered into some inspirations that can only be described as “heavenly.” However they did not last. They obeyed the Law of time, which is that nothing in creation is Eternal. All created things have beginnings and ends, in terms of time. “This too must pass.”
In other words, “everlasting heaven” would still be within the traps of time, and less than the bliss of joining our Creator outside of the trap of creation called time. Therefore, as attractive as such heaven might be, it would still hold the pangs of separation from the Creator. Even as one reaped the rewards which the virtuous deserve, one would know they were still on the road; they had not shed the shell of a turtle and become absorbed in What We Cannot Imagine.
Seen in this light, a person enjoying “everlasting heaven” is not that far removed from “everlasting hell.” The former are experiencing enjoyment as the latter experience suffering, but they are stuck in time.
One of the most intriguing statements in the Bible is where Saint Peter states what Jesus did during the time between when his body was “dead” and when his body was “resurrected”. Peter states Jesus went to hell to “preach to the sinners of Noah’s time.”
(If Christianity had the eraser of “cancel culture”, this statement would be scrubbed from scripture. It has caused problems. Why would Jesus preach to the damned? Were they not “everlastingly” damned? Or is there an escape from hell? Jesus would not preach just to rub it in that the damned were forever doomed, but rather to save them from doom. So there must be an escape hatch from hell, which led to the concept of “purgatory”, which is “derived but not mentioned” in Christian scripture, and has led to one heck of a row.)
Personally I’ve tended to retreat from all religious squabbling. It has gotten out of hand. I study history, and know “the Pope”, (actually many Popes over 2000 years), has authorized the deaths of roughly fifty million Christians. Hitler only killed six million Jews, and he could claim they were “not Christian”. As the “Pope” killed fifty million he knew they were fellow Christians, but didn’t agree with Rome. God may have given such free thinkers free will, but the “Papacy” did not approve of freedom. In response Protestants have killed millions of Catholics. Likely their numbers are less, but only because Protestants have only had five hundred years to butcher within. And the peculiar thing is both sides insist they are not aggressive, but merely “defending” their faith.
Islam is no different. Millions have died in wars between Sunni and Shiite. They are no different from Catholics and Protestants. They took otherworldly Love and made it dirty and worldly. They used scriptures of Love to make war.
And if Christians can’t even get along with Christians, and Muslims can’t even get along with Muslims, it is little wonder that when these two supposedly spiritual groups meet the sparks fly, and our planet sees all the pleasantries of crusades and jihads.
That is why I tend to retreat from all religious squabbling. The “experts” so obviously miss the point. I want to use the free will God has blessed me with to be a free thinker.
What I have concluded, with my puny intellect, is that there is a big difference between the “everlasting” and the “eternal.” The “everlasting” exists within time and space, but the “eternal” exists in timelessness and spacelessness. And, around the time my thinking gets this far, there is smoke and the reek of burning rubber, and my brains burn out. For even the perfected mind of a mastermind cannot comprehend God, and therefore my puny intellect hasn’t got a prayer, (yet, oddly, when you haven’t got a prayer tends to be when you pray most.)
The mind too is a creation. It is the most useful tool of all (when it properly integrates the heart) for traversing creation, but in the end it is shed, like a useful knapsack is shed at the end of a long, long journey. But who can imagine this? The very idea of losing our minds tends to fill us with dread.
(I warned you at the start this would be an esoteric tangent. The definition of “esoteric” is “a subject few understand.” I am not one of the few who understand. I am one of the many who don’t. But I do like to look at Infinity, and be humbled by wonder.)
Sunrise's Swansong 