The Remnant: Those in the Minority that Get It – Faith Version Episode 1

In my previous post I opened up the whole concept of the remnant as it was offered by Albert Jay Nock in the 1930s to describe those who could see what the masses could not. His thought was that is was a huge waste of time and effort to educate the masses, and that it was much more effective to address the remnant, even if it meant a much smaller audience and rarely any reward factor.

I talked about my school experience transition where I was able to see it for what it was by age 10 as my parents separated and I moved with my mother and sister to California for my 5th grade school year. My whole personality changed with this new adventure in the midst of a time of crisis, where my parents were heading toward divorce.

My second of three major transitions came in the part of life that many people talk about the least. While most see this as religion, I see this more as faith and hope. Many, like myself were introduced to faith through religion, especially in my generation ( #60ish ), and that experience could have been good or bad, however, if you are one of the remnant, you might be “gratefully disillusioned”.

In hindsight I would change nothing, because my faith journey toward who I am today required that I navigate (with the assistance of the Great Navigator) my own way to the understanding I have today and where I might be going in whatever tomorrows I still have. I had mentioned last week:

I think it is by design that truth makes itself know in a process verses just being taught. While knowledge helps, there is nothing like a crisis to unpack that truth that had been simmering for months and years before.

This holds true for me in my own process of developing a faith worldview.

The process started in my earliest memories of attending a fairly large conservative church where a majority were of Dutch ancestry in the Midwest. The typical cycle of weekly religious life was church attendance TWICE on Sunday, at 9:30am and 6pm with almost NO “fun” allowed on that “day of rest”.

Many families would have cooked their Sunday meal the night before and prepared for a day, the “Sabbath”, to reflect on where they came up short with their creator. The church service was designed by John Calvin’s followers to be a rather dour experience where man’s degenerative nature was emphasized and I was quickly aware of the sour faces around me for that hour of organ music and hymns followed by a sermon from the “dominie” ( minister / professional pastor ) who spoke God’s Word at us in no uncertain terms.

Dominie is a Scots language and Scottish English term for a Scottish schoolmaster usually of the Church of Scotland and also a term used in the US for a minister or pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church

By Monday morning I was on my way to Christian school where the underlying emphasis was still communicated as almost all our lessons came from the Bible’s Old Testament and God was someone you always feared. Staying on the right path performance wise seemed to be the only way to avoid God’s wrath and judgement until one went to Heaven to be with Him forever. Midweek there was a Catechism class taught at the church and so we were bused from the Christian school to the church for another hour of instruction on what is called the Heidelberg Catechism, a question and answer format that was foundational to this Calvinistic theological matrix that emphasized total depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. ( known by the acronym TULIP, how Dutch is that? ) The only day without religious expectations was Saturday, which to me meant Little League, college football and playing with neighborhood friends except for weekends when our family went to my grandparent’s dairy farm for the day to visit, which itself was an interesting experience that I plan to talk about someday.

Inside this rhythm of religion, I started to explore the only option I had during the minister’s sermon on Sunday mornings, the Bible. Instead of paging through the Old Testament, I started reading the New Testament books where I discovered a whole new “lens” to see what faith was beyond the typical religious wrappings and trappings. I found it interesting that Jesus came humbly into the world and took His time to start His official ministry, that he was marginalized in His own hometown and that He chose gnarly fishermen to be on His team. This was not an exclusive religious performance culture, but an inclusive relationship-based friendship culture. The nautical culture that Jesus introduced His friends to the real loving Father he had, would impact the early Jesus-follower’s vocabulary for generations. The anchor symbol meant a hope to a future, whether on this earth or not.

“At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” ~ CS Lewis

So in the middle of religion, I found a relational faith that would take years and decades to unpack. I will post an “Episode 2” in a few days that expands on my journey during the balance of my school years from 5th grade and beyond.

In hindsight, towards the end of this journey, I have learned to relax in this relational faith in the middle of the storms of life.

As opposed to religious obligation says that it is all up to you, where, if God isn’t doing the things you want, you have to work harder, stand firmer and pray longer. The religious focus I have found is on your performance, your obedience, your righteousness.

Outside that box, you will learn to rely on Him ( Abba Father or Papa ) alone and recognize that any time you give up responsibility for your spiritual and faith nourishment to another person – whether friend, pastor or author, you’ve already traded away a bit of your freedom, for life in a box.

So in these days I picture this:

.. and I leave you with this:

Peace out ..

The anchor holds
Though the ship is battered
The anchor holds
Though the sails are torn
I have fallen on my knees
As I faced the raging seas
The anchor holds
In spite of the storm

-SF1

 

Good or Evil? That is the Question

From The Burning Platform

“The greatest want of the world is the want of men — men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.” – Ellen G. White

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an un-uprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Each human is just one step, one heartbeat from going down the evil path.

Each state, country, nation does the same. For the US, we have been on the path of evil for quite sometime but it gets prettied up like a pig with lipstick to convince the sheep that we are an honorable people/nation/empire and that we are exceptional. Epic BS.

In this article the author paints the accurate reality when he says:

Until individuals in this country choose to tell the truth and insist on being told the truth by the leaders they choose, chaos and ultimate collapse will be our destiny. Our economy, our currency system, our banking system, our political system, our mass media, and our public education system are built upon nothing but deception, lies, misinformation and falsity. The entire fetid cesspool of lies cannot withstand the glare of truth, as explained by Ron Paul

Lies, damned lies. No wonder suicide is epidemic among vets (who are coming to terms with the empire’s lies and their participation in them) and among the commoners.

I’ve made it my mission in life to only follow rational thinking, honest, straightforward, fact based people who have not been bought off by a party seeking to cheat, mislead, or steal from average Americans.

Single digit percentage of Americans are honest, rational, critical thinkers IMHO. Looking at our political and corporate (these lines are indeed blurred) leaders and managers are rightly painted by the author here:

Very few corporate executives at S&P 500 sized companies meet this standard of honesty. The criteria for reaching the corner office is insatiable greed, backstabbing, lying, and a sociopathic personality. Despite the Wall Street/Fed rigged financial systems and fake news propaganda spewing mainstream corporate media, there are still independent, non-corrupt, truth tellers as the lone voices of reason in this empire of lies.

Truth does emerge in the end, but I sense this path will be very painful for so many who are used to the easy life of believing a fantasy world. You might say things are not so bad .. but consider the data:

The Wall Street cabal puppeteers have had their Federal Reserve puppets dancing to their tune for the last nine years as bailouts, QE, and free money for feckless financiers has propelled their latest bubble to epic proportions. The bubbles in the stock market, bond market and real estate market are all built upon a vaporous foundation of easy money debt. It took 219 years for the country to accumulate a $9.6 trillion national debt, but our fearless leaders have managed to add $11.6 trillion since September 2008, all geared to enrich Wall Street, the military industrial complex, the sick-care complex and mega-corporations, while leaving Main Street to fend for ourselves with stagnant wages and rising costs for necessities. With government, corporate and consumer debt levels at all-time highs, a financial collapse is inevitable. Hundreds of billions of student loan, auto loan, mortgage loans, and credit card debt are unpayable, especially in a rising rate environment.

Ya think? Tax-slaves for generations could not pay down this debt .. what was every one chasing, quick money and quick power?

Go to any 4th of July picnic and your average neighbor or relative will tell you how much their 401k and house value have soared as they have been convinced the economy is booming and on a sound footing.

They won’t tell you their credit card balance, mortgage balance, auto loan debt, or student loan debt obligations. The value of their stocks and real estate can plummet by 50% in a matter of months (as they did in 2001 and 2008), but the debt will remain, wrapped around their throats, choking them to death.

Yes, a lot of tears are on their way. But this is not all bad. Pain is inevitable … gain is optional. Think about who will be true heroes to all those in misery, could the real Jesus followers emerge in the grassroots of the empire to once again console those who lose much in this life, weeping with those who week and giving them Hope through introducing them to a Papa that is especially fond of them? This has happened before and it turned the empire upside-down.

Choice. That is what each of us is faced with.

Who is to blame for the current state of affairs? The Deep State? Shadowy oligarchs? Politicians? The Jews? The Russians? There is one commonality – human beings are the members of each group. Humans have created the problems plaguing the world. Humans choose to act in a good or evil manner. Humans decide whether to lie or tell the truth. Humans decide whether to be driven by greed, power seeking, selfishness and hubris or generosity, citizenship, sacrifice and humility. The truth is humans commit unspeakable atrocities, steal, cheat, kill and destroy. They are also capable of generosity, self- sacrifice, acting with integrity, and behaving courageously.

The author goes on to admit:

Cooperation, peace, and mutually beneficial deeds have not been the default setting for human interaction throughout history. They are the exception, not the rule. But, the mass of humanity is willfully ignorant of history and naively believe their benevolent leaders and media thought police when fear is used to keep them under control. As Jordan Peterson points out, once people wake up to the realization of their potential for evil, they can resist being led to slaughter by their Deep State controllers.

So here is the root of the article, a sensation out of Toronto, a professor who tends to be a truth-teller:

When once-naïve people recognize in themselves the seeds of evil and monstrosity and see themselves as dangerous (at least potentially) their fear decreases. They develop more self-respect. Then, perhaps, they begin to resist oppression. They see that they have the ability to withstand, because they are terrible too. They see they can and must stand up, because they begin to understand how genuinely monstrous they will become, otherwise, feeding on their resentment, transforming it into the most destructive of wishes. To say it again: There is very little difference between the capacity for mayhem and destruction, integrated, and strength of character. This is one of the most difficult lessons of life.Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Is this truth? Is the difference very small? Can you entertain this thought before believing it?