There is a new episode of the Bad Roman out, The Myth of the Christian State, well worth listening to.
Posts
For a long time I've thought that all Christians should be pacifists. I've thought it was very clear from the teachings of Jesus, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, that a Christian could not participate in a war for any reason. This seems blindingly obvious to me. Yet almost all Christians hold the opposite view, that it is a "Good Thing" to serve ones country as a soldier. How can this be? Is it because, as I've heard some pacifist Christians say, that once Christianity was entangled with the Imperial Government, beginning under Constantine, that it compromised on war and government in order to better serve the Emperor's needs? I have been reading, slowly and painfully, through some of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, painfully because the version I have available on Kindle is from the 1800's and is translated in a pretty archaic form of English, but then again I read a LOT of 19th century stuff so I'm pretty used to it. I'm hop...
This morning, as I was reading about St. Adrian and Natalia and 23 other unnamed martyrs, I realized how weak my own "witness" for Christ tends to be. Martyr means witness, after all. These Saints withstood horrific tortures rather than betray Christ, while I can't even manage to fast a couple of times a week and make sure we have a brief family prayer time. Traditional fasting in the Orthodox churches involves abstaining from animal products, basically vegan, except for shellfish. I have never yet managed to do that for more than one day at a time. I have attempted to integrate the idea of fasting into my Grain-Free diet by restricting the amount of food and times of day when I eat on fast days. Today is a regular fast day and it is my intention to have only one moderate meal some time between Noon and Four in the afternoon. I haven't talked to Abouna about this yet, but it seems a reasonable compromise to me. Saint Adrian a...
Once upon a time I wrote long and rambling journal entries long hand in spiral notebooks. I filled one after another with my thoughts, my dreams, my memories and my desires. Eventually I bought a typewriter and wrote with that, not quite so much as when I wrote long hand, but many thousands of words and I wrote many pages each day. Then one day I got a computer, because with a computer I could easily edit my writing and supposedly write more readable prose. This was true for a time. But the computer eventually came to be connected to the internet, and on the internet began to appear distractions of all sorts. First among the distractions was something called "Newsgroups" where I could have conversations with strangers about various subjects. Along with conversations were newsgroups where people posted pictures and I spent way too much time downloading thousands of sci-fi and fantasy paintings that I still have on my compu...
All right then, my spiritual Father has VERY strongly recommended that I leave Facebook because I seem unable to refrain from inappropriate and foul language. After careful consideration, and realizing that, yes, he is right, I am done with that place, and done with politics as well, even though I have been saying I don't have a dog in this fight, the truth is I have acted as though politics matters, when really it does not. My only outlet for now will be this blog, I'm not able to be reasonable on regular social media. If you see this post it means I have your email and subscribed you to my blog, if you object from hearing from me, you can easily unsubscribe. Peace and love to you all :-)
The government, in its benevolent wisdom, has taken huge amounts of money from the local citizenry and used it to build wonderful splash parks and pools. Then, also in their infinite wisdom, they close them down as soon as the "official school year" begins. Who cares if kids are not all in school, or if the temperature is in triple digits for weeks at a time? You only need access to these expensive facilities you paid for on the weekend. Meh.
I am not used to this sort of heat anymore, if I ever was. So far we have dodged the bullet as far as the rolling blackouts go. Even the totalitarian government of Rancho Cordova has conceded that dying of heat stroke is a way more realistic threat than the vague chance of maybe catching a mild flu and has opened up government buildings as cooling centers in spite of that "risk." Our Father Hezekias announced in church today that if anyone had a need for cooling the church can be opened up for them to shelter during this very real crisis. By the way, that thermometer above is in a bad location and always reads a little bit high, it's actually quite a bit cooler than that... Pray for California that we don't all burst into flames or dry out and blow away in a dust storm.
After several months of doing speech therapy online instead of in person, Tiernan is finally adjusting to the idea and has become much more cooperative and laid back about it. This makes two weeks in a row that he made it all the way through the session without any problems. I guess one of the main advantages is he doesn't have to get dressed to visit with his friend Miss Stacey. :-) Way to go Mr. T!
I'm working on staying balanced in my life these days. Facebook has been a challenge for me, as y'all know who have been around me much :-) My method for keeping my balance will involve, among other things, only going onto Facebook when I have come up with something relatively positive to post there. I will be putting my first post of the day here in this blog from now on, because that allows me to write up a post without the distraction of being on Facebook before I write. I've had times in the past where I would go onto Facebook to write about something and end up being bombarded with the comments section and looking at other's posts and the 100,000 memes a day some people throw up (you know who you are), and never do manage to say what I went there to say, forgetting what it was most times. Things I'm going to write about will probably NOT be political at all, because I can't seem to turn that into a positive, ever. I can post about f...
I'm trying to figure out how difficult it will be to write and post from my phone because these days 99% of my photos are taken with it. Sadly my camera is gathering dust in the closet most of the time and I don't have it handy when I have a quick opportunity to take a picture. Like yesterday when Lora made Green Eggs and Ham for Maximus, Tiernan was pretty skeptical about the whole idea. :-) Well, it looks like this will work pretty well since I've got this bluetooth keyboard I have left over from my tablet days. I'm not decided yet on going back to Facebook but for sure I'm going to be posting and commenting here.
Life is too short to waste it on Politics. I have decided that paying attention to what those who think they are our rulers are doing is not at all helpful in my spiritual walk. Pretty obvious isn't it? You would think it wouldn't take so many decades for me to figure it out, but I have finally done so. I intend this post to be pretty much my final comment on political matters. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.