The Wings of Doing the Right Thing

 On January 6, 2021, donald trump’s attempt to mount an insurrection against our Congress was not a victory for him. It backfired because of the steadfast integrity of one man, Vice President Mike Pence. 

Our Vice President, Mike Pence, did the right thing on January 6, 2023. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. In  so doing, he rescued our Constitutional Republic from disaster.

Later, when our US House of Representatives appointed a committee to investigate the insurrection of Jan6, many profound testimonies were heard. But there is one testimony that surpasses all of them in its importance. That was the testimony of Mike Pence’s Counsel, Greg Jacob. Mr. Jacob took hold of  the Lord's enabling to  do the right thing.

During the violent attack on our Capital and our Congress, dutiful defenders of Vice President Pence had hustled him down to a secure location beneath the main Capitol building. While our Vice President was getting extreme maga pressure to do the wrong thing— to join the confederacy of trumpian traitors— his Secret Service defenders shuffled Mike quickly down to that secure location. Months later, when Congress was conducting an investigation to find out who had mounted the insurrection, the US House Jan6 committee interviewed Vice President Pence’s lawyer/defender, Greg Jacob.

Mr. Jacob’s testimony presented an explanation of the ordeal that Mike Pence and his staff were forced to endure while waiting for the mob to be defeated and arrested.  His account of doing the right thing when it mattered the most represents the long history of Jacob's ladder providing a divinely-enabled ascent  to do the right thing.

Greg Jacob testified that, in that hour of peril and confusion, he turned to a divine source to find some direction about how they should endure and prevail in this extremely dangerous attack. 

Greg Jacob testified:

“. . . my faith really sustained me through it. Down in the secure location, I pulled out my Bible, read through it. . . took great comfort. Daniel 6 was where I went. . . Daniel had become second-in-command in Babylon. . .a pagan nation. But he completely and faithfully serves.   He refuses an order from the king that he cannot  (must not) follow . . . he does his duty in consistence with his oath to God. And I felt that that was what had played out that day.”

In that moment, Mike Pence grabbed hold of the ancient enablement to do the right thing:

Why did  Mike Pence and Greg Jacob accept the peril of trump's violent attack by resisting it and standing with our People and our Constitution to do the right thing? Greg Jacob explained it this way to the Jan6 committee:

“The Vice President did not want to take any chance that the world would see the Vice President of the United States fleeing the United States Capitol. He was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day—that it was his Constitutional duty to see through. . . and that the rioters who had breached the Capitol would not have the satisfaction of  disrupting the proceedings beyond the day on which they were supposed to be completed.”

Since that fateful day, many have commended Mike Pence for his courage in defending our Constitution, our Congress and our nation’s Rule of Law. But some people  criticize his Christian faith. 

We need to understand that it was Mike Pence’s faith in God that motivated him to do the right thing when it mattered the most.

The Bible teaches that Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

We are fortunate today that Vice President Mike Pence’s fear of the Lord compelled him to ignore, and thereby defeat, the fear of trump and his band of murderous rebels. But he didn't do it all by himself. The Lord, Greg Jacob and a few other brave souls assisted our dutiful Vice President in doing the right thing when it mattered most.

Glass half-Full

The Gaza Dilemma

 What happened when the blimey Brits

sailed across  Atlantic waves?

They morphed to wily yankee twits,

forgetting how a Brit behaves.

 

But when Churchill made the call

to Roosevelt, back in ’41 or ’42

Sir Winston knew, above it all

what he and Franklin had to do,

 

Because that hitler asshole with depraved aggression 

had some ancient curse or grudge

You know the one: with the murd’rous obsession

that loudmouthed little mustachio’d sludge

 

who ordered all them murd’rous prison camps

to extinguish the Jews and other decent souls.

They gassed them and hauled ‘em out on ramps

and dumped them into big mass-grave holes.

 

Such depravity mankind had never seen

on such a massive scale they fell

Not even in our wildest dreams . . .

but only in that depraved sig heil hell.

 

Now we know that after that holocaust,

the Jews returned to their ancient land.

They forged a new Israel out of what had been lost.

Natives had to make room in that Palestinian sand.

 

As ancient tribes dwell again in close solemnity,

This would require a constant, peaceful Levity.

I pray Israelis don’t over-react to hamas enmity.

Lord let them not descend to third reich depravity.

Glass half-Full

A Special Child ls Born

  

An ancient story, but true. . . Just believe it:

  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

http://www.careyrowland.com

Serfin' on BuzzAntheum

  With apologies to William Butler Yeats, (1933)

This is no world for old folks. The young 

in ticking tock of imagery online

wiyle away their frickin’ time.

Caught up in  world wide web we all reflect;

viral streams void ancient intellect.

Our hallowed halls, those ancient wells of words

lollygag in digital neglect

while we stampede in viral herds.

 

A human mind is but a paltry thing

a dappled mass, a neuronic fling.

Oh Soul! do shout do sing, and louder ring

these clanging bells of bygone bling

Too far gone now’s the dusty study halls

those monuments of creeping ivy cover

these brickish ramparts, hollowed stalls

What’s our next diversion to discover?

 

O sages in God’s ancient flame

as in enlightened ages gone

Can we recall that Holy Name?

Can we cast off what before was on?

Do we twitter time away today

fastened in a frickin’ net?

I find it really hard to say

just what it is I came to get.

Once out of nature we shall never take

our identity from any natural thing,

But such a form as online denizens do make

of click’ed images and shiny bling

to make a citizen think he’s still awake

not just another online thing.

We summon images they come they go

as if we’re frickin’ Michelangelo.

Glass Chimera

Justice or Election Interference?

 Are our Courts of Law setting a path of Justice, or are they conducting a campaign of “election interference”?

We the People are now being divided over this question. 

Are we willing to let one man disable our Justice system?

Donald trump launched his campaign to disable our Justice system in December of 2021, when he gathered a team of his lackeys to devise a conspiracy to steal the election. 

He claimed that the election was stolen so that he could steal the election. The devil’s in the details. 

He summoned a mob to disrupt and disable our Congress, so they could not count the Electoral votes because our Representatives and Senators were being attacked by a violent mob.

Making appropriate use of our Constitution and our Courts, We the People having been trying, for three years, to determine precisely who was responsible for that Jan6 insurrection and to sentence the guilty people to appropriate punishment.

The path of Justice through our Courts is slow; that’s because we want to get it right. We want punishment for crimes to be administered only to guilty people. 

Our Justice system is determining who those guilty people are; it is a deliberate, carefully structured process, so that Justice will be correct and appropriate to the guilty offenders. 

While it seems obvious to me who is guilty of calling for the attack on our Capitol, the Courts need to make the decisions. 

Decisions, if done properly, according to lawful process, take time.

At this time, we have courts in Washington DC, in Georgia, in Florida and New York, whose job it is to determine who is guilty for the Jan6 crime of insurrection against our Congress and against We the People.

Justice would not be served if we were to terminate, or delay, those trials just because donald is calling our Judges and Judicial procedures . . . “election interference.” 

The election will take place in November of next year, 2024. We the People will decide at that time who is to be President, but We will not suspend our Justice process just for him, who has demonstrated no intent to abide by our Constitutional Rule of Law.

donald trump was interfering in the election of 2020; now he is already attempting to interfere with the next election.

But he is the one interfering. Don’t let him fool you. Don't let him steal our Justice.

Glass half-Full

Help from Hannah Arendt

The embers of World War and nazi destruction had cooled only six years prior when, in 1951, Hanna Arendt published her post-war historical opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

In chapter 12, Totalitarianism in Power, Arendt concludes section 1 of that chapter (page 418 of the Mariner Harper Collins paperback edition) with an analysis of Hitler’s use of organized power.

 Third Reich power had not been built up by wealth, worldly possessions or riches, but by organized military force. 

By the end of WWII, Germany itself had been laid upon the sacrificial pyre of highly organized SS Stormtrooper War. Hitler’s obsession with organized warfare propelled his highest priority into an organized SS war machine. That wehrmacht had driven Germany into its final, fiery destruction. Hitler didn’t give a damn about the German people. He used their nation to prepare his own funeral pyre. 

Hanna Arendt exposed the dictator’s absolute selfishness with this statement: 

“He did not consider the war lost when German cities lay in rubble and industrial capacity was destroyed, but only when he had learned that the SS troops were no longer reliable.”

Hitler’s self-induced, self-obsessed destruction of Germany was an historical prequel to Donald Trump’s self-induced, self-obsessed attempt to destroy our Constitutional Rule of Law.

Using Hannah Arendt’s quoted totalitarianism statement as a framework to explain what happened at our US Capitol on January 6, 2021, the outcome could be stated this way:

“Donald did not admit the election lost when our Constitutional Electoral process lay in rubble on the Capitol grounds, but only when the American people finally compelled him by Rule of Law in four courtrooms to shut his big mouth and go to jail. Do not pass Go; Do not count 200 fake Electors.”

Glass half-Full 

The so-called kristo-fascism

 What is being referred to as kristo-fascism by news reporters and commentators has nothing to do with the Prince of Peace who taught that peacemakers are to be blessed and the meek would inherit the earth. 

Jesus Christ told his right-hand man, Peter, to put away his sword when a crowd had come to take Jesus away. 

Neither violence, nor force of any kind, had any place in Christ’s demonstration to the world of his final acts. His greatest demonstration of divinity was found in his absolutely pacifistic willingness to be judged and suffer a criminal death even though he had committed no offence worthy of such punishment. 

Consider the Prince of Peace. Here was a man who taught that peacemakers are to be blessed, and that the meek would inherit the earth. 

Christ’s spoken wisdom and his gentle behavior bore no resemblance to the aggressive behavior of maga-fascists and the repulsive conduct of bullies who think they can terrorize the Congress of  our United States of America so they can illegally prop up their fat rich man dictator to take on the authority of Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan and Joe Biden.

Christ suffered death on a cross in order to demonstrate to the world that he could, and would, conquer death itself so that we—all of us who identify with the Prince of Peace—could, ourselves, join him in that victory over death.

And victory over murder and hate and fascist manipulation of our Congress and our Presidency.

This Jesus, this Messiah for anyone who is willing to accept him, said: “I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you visited me.”

And when we, puzzled, reply. . . Say what? When did we do all that? Jesus responded: “Whenever you’ve done it to the least of my people, (it is the same as if) you have done it unto me.”

Now does that sound like the response of a fascist?

This present riotous, lawless movement to occupy by force our Congress of the United States and the corridors of  American power has nothing to do with the Prince of Peace.

If the trumpian fascists want a cross as their emblem, they’ll have to take the one that history assigned to them—the crooked one that hitler used, the one that our brave soldiers beat down into third reich ground 78 years ago.

Glass half-Full

Christian Faith

 Christian faith is about being redeemed from the limitations of this present life and being born into eternal life with Jesus Christ, the only man in history who died a criminal death and then lived to tell about it.

You believe that?

If you believe that, perhaps some day you’ll join us.

Christian faith is not about politics; it’s not about worldly influence or governmental ascendency, It’s not about media influence or domination. It’s not about what happens in Washington, or Jerusalem or Gaza or Hollywood or Silicon Valley or any pleasant valley on a Sunday. 

I’t about your life. Do you want to live forever? Or not? If you do want to live forever, you have an historical opportunity to join up with the  person who has proven that life goes on after death. 

How do I know? The message that I just delivered to you was delivered long ago by Jesus and those who followed him. It was written for posterity.

But be careful. The Christian life is no walk in the park.

Hear more about that in my song:

Follow 

 After He ascended into eternity, Christians kept the message going. That message of eternal life and salvation has been going on ever since, and will continue. You can read more about it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 

So now you know the real deal. It’s not about politics, clout or whose in charge of this present circus. It’s about you. What is your destiny in eternity?

Glass half-Full

The Evita Mystery

 Our media-saturated life is a roundabout. We go ‘round and round in our daily routines, in our weekly routines, and monthly and. . . year after year, decade after decade, until one fateful day. . .

Anyway, don’t know about you, but I’ve been on this merry-go-round since 1951; not that it was all that merry, but that it does go round and round and is perpetually decorated with memories.

For sure, there are the real memories, with real people. . . fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, school chums, frieusnds, best friends.

Then there are the ever-present media memories that are always humming or gleaming in the background. For my generation that backdrop was Captain Kangaroo, Howdy Doody, Disney stuff, Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, Kennedy, MLK, Saigon, blahblah. . .

AM radio. Elvis, Beatles, CSNY, Karen Carpenter. . .

Say what? Karen Carpenter?

Well, yes, there was Karen, who came along with her pianoforte’ brother, Richard.

The point of this blog is getting around to what I’ve been remembering for the last week or so:

the most beautiful voice that God ever put into a human, and now that that you mention it. . . Karen singing the  most beautiful song written during my lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ZKihNCWWE

Don’t ask me how it happened. 

The song, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, was sung in a musical opus called Evita, a so-called rock opera, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in 1976.

The story in that Webber/Rice rock opera is a musical depiction of the life of Evita Peron, wife of  historic Argentinian President, Juan Peron. You can learn more about her in this Wikipedia posting: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evita_(musical)

I don’t know how or why I got onto this song-memory thread . . . but I guess I just wanted you to hear it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ZKihNCWWE

Music and Memory are two incredibly fascinating elements in this life. This is my way of sharing a very special moment in 20th-centiry music with you.

King of Soul

So what about the Jews?

 Like a disease, antisemitism flares up now and then in our world history and . . . now again, it seems, to be poking its hateful head  in our present Age. 

The Jewish people have been documenting human behaviour for thousands of years. Their history scrolls originated with a very smart man named Moses. He wrote the story of a wise man named Abraham who decided to improve his life and the life of his family, by leaving a bad situation and moving to a faraway place where he could do better for himself and his family.

But Moses’ historical opus wasn’t just about Abraham. Moses also documented the ancient story of how the Creator, YWHW for lack of a better word, who created our world and the first people in it. 

And if that wasn’t enough, Moses also wrote a list of laws that have enabled men and women to live productively and healthily in tribes and communities for thousands of years. 

Because Jews have been literate and morally conscientious longer than other people groups of the world, they have developed a culture that provokes jealousy and resentment from other people.

We humans have a very useful thing call Law. The Jews are more responsible than any other people group for the awareness of law and the proper use of it for establishing and maintaining a civil society.

You know what I’m talking about: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, etc.  etc.

Their cultural insistence on doing the right thing gets them into trouble with people who don’t want to do the right thing. 

What happens is this: Some wise guy cranks up a human project or institution that victimizes other people. The wise guy and his lackeys know that what they want to do is wrong but they blast their way through their unjust or usurious program anyway.

And  what happens, historically, is that a Jew who knows and understands the moral Law comes along and says No you can’t do that; it’s not right!

In ancient times, for instance, a notable prophet, Daniel, served in the royal court of Babylon, similar to what Joseph had done in Egypt, many years prior. 

In elucidating a divine Law for the sake of improving human life and governance—instead of corrupt human laws that promote the hegemony of of powerful overlords—Jews such as Daniel have from time to time gotten themselves in trouble with the powers that be.

In ancient Babylon, Daniel came to understand the character and motivations of corrupt leaders. Daniel described, in those ancient times a type of leader who would do as he pleases—instead of doing rightly by promoting Justice, Mercy and Peace. 

Daniel described such a leader: 

“He will show no regard for the gods (or sacred values) of his fathers . . . for he will magnify himself above all.”

“He will honor a god of forces . . . with gold, silver and costly stones and treasures.”

That person whom Daniel described in ancient times indicates an archetypal leader who arises from time to time in human history. 

In the long trail of our human civiization, certain Jews who were aware, at the time, of such entities have gotten themselves into deep trouble because they were aware of the corruption that goes on among the movers and shakers of our civilizations.

And they were willing to expose that corruption so that the rest of us citizens would understand what the hell is going on.

The most recent manifestation of this historical dynamic was worked out in the Third Reich, dreamed up and actualized by adolf hitler, who imposed a massive holocaust on the Jewish people. But decent citizens of the world moved in to put a stop to those murderous auschwitz-camps and gulags and other despicable, unlawful imprisonments that men concoct to control other men and women.

In the world today, there are men who would strive to put themselves, improperly and unjustly, in positions of power for the sake of their own enrichment and authority.

 But for the sake of all mankind, as well as for the protection of Jews and other persecuted ethnicities, men who enforce their own wealth and power at the usurious expense and persecution of others should be brought under the mantle of Justice and legitimate Law.

May it never happen again!

Never again.

Glass half-Full