Why We Need Biographies

Whenever I read a work, one of the first things I do is research the Author. I look for any interviews the Author did, I look for any kind of biography on the author. I look for anything I can to help me understand the Author's thoughts, and what might have been going through their mind as they wrote.

This is helpful, because then I can properly extrapolate the theme from the Author's stories or essays. By knowing who the Author was, and what the Author spoke, and what he or she actually believed, I can reference that as a Rosetta Stone for interpreting any Author's work.

It's almost imperative that someone know the author, before they interpret their work. And doing so, one can look at the four Gospels in the Bible, and use it to fully understand the Bible. Both Old and New Testament, we can see Jesus' extreme mercy, His extreme kindness, His meekness, and understand this characteristic was the personality who blessed David and told Joshua to go out to battle. We can understand that Jesus, Who is the same God Who told Israel to defeat Canaan, is the same God Who died upon the Roman cross.

It's imperative that we understand this, too, as most people believe the Old Testament is a different God than the New. The fact is, they are not. Jesus, when He returns, will bear the sword in wrath, and will exercise all of God's judgment upon the world. He came in the Roman times to demonstrate His mercy, and to later bestow the gift of His ministry to men and women, so they could share in the impartation of blessing which Jesus had lived. Yet, it is imperative that we understand every word in the Bible is a red letter. It's all Jesus' words, and it's all Jesus' sayings. Save the dialogue, when one of the people are speaking. Yet, even those, in their certain way, are paraphrases used by Christ to express the person's true feelings, and to concisely speak their words, not His.

When we understand an author, we can have better insights into the work they've created. We can know their beliefs, their motivations, their systems and ways of thinking. When reading a book, one ought to absorb every ounce of information they can about the author, if there is ever going to be any kind of understanding the text. It's a part of the circle of readership. The text is a mediator between Author and Reader. It's been said before, yet with one of the pieces missing, there can be misinterpretations of the text.

 For works which we do not know the author, there is only the times we can understand. That is equally as important. When we do not know the Author, we must understand the times, the traditions, the works' place in history. What previous commenters had said about it. Yet, with the Bible it is quite different. We need only know the man responsible for Writing it, and that is Jesus. Who, I'm sure, was like any other writer, and wrote His book in His spare time, between sanding and shaping stools and tables; or whatever materials His family could afford. Jesus probably was gifted vellum from His mother, on which He'd carefully inscribe the scriptures the way He wished them to be read. And Christ would write, both Old and New Testament. He would set down, and slowly scribe out His masterpieces, prophesying the entire thing. That's how I imagine it, as it's a lot easier to understand the Bible when we know it's written by one Author. And we need to have faith that God is careful enough to preserve a work for us to study, so that we don't believe He would leave His children in the dark.

When I'm studying other authors, I use the same methods. I look over their life, I study their beliefs, their patterns of thinking, their phraseology, their mentality, their age, the way they died. I pore over their interviews, their biographies, their extraneous philosophies. That way I can get an accurate portrait of who the Author was, or is. As, without it, there is no way one can conceivably understand the works they read. Without knowing the man or woman behind the voice, there can be no true knowledge of the stories one reads, and their meaning. Aesop, we know, was a slave. Therefore, we understand his fables as concealed metaphors which hid their meaning from the slave owners, and they were passed down from slave to slave. And we know that he was freed for his cunning. Plato, we know, knew Socrates, and was intent on finding a perfect Form on which to base all other things. He, as it were, was looking for the Author of Creation. And we, being in the current century, have found Him and His name is Jesus. Then there is philosophers, writers, thinkers, theologians. Their lives are important to study, so their works can be accessed. Whether miserable failures, victims, prosperous or conquerors of the world---we must know the Author of a text in order to understand their work. And without it, we must condescend to the time period it was written.
 
Yet, sometimes, also, there are things we shall only know about the Author through his or her writing. And that, my friends, is why we read. We can only, truly, know a writer by reading their text. As many biographers try to piece together the puzzle of an author, they cannot unless they were there to meet them. And sometimes, biographers can be outright wrong about the great ones, if there is political interest to skew the authors' personal lives. Thus, we come full circle, as the other thing which is true about the Bible, is that all we know about Jesus is written in the scripture, as if by His own hand. Just like Shakespeare's sonnets betray our modern scholars are wrong about him, so does Jesus' words betray that modern Scholars are wrong when they wish to frame Him as a sinner or otherwise try to defame Him as a lunatic. His words do not betray a decrepit mind. We know Jesus existed for two reasons: One, His census still exists, and two because Paul, after his conversion, eight years after Jesus' death, approached James and Peter. James, who was Jesus' little brother, confirmed the teaching that Jesus had resurrected, and that He was indeed God made into Human Flesh. And that is how we know, for Paul indisputably is a historical figure, and we know he did indeed persecute the church. Therefore, the Gospel was not, nor could be, an invention of his mind. It was, from its beginning, the gospel handed down to us we see today.

Mythology Is a Soap Opera

As I was reading Agamemnon's fate, in Edith Hamilton's Mythology, I realized Mythology is a soap opera. I've read the Norse and the Greek, and I see it now. Someone is raping someone, someone is killing someone, someone is committing patricide or filicide to accomplish arcane magic. Nor do I believe that Agamemnon actually died this way. I tend to think of him as Nebuchadnezzar, and the Sack of Troy was the Sack of Tyre. Maybe some Bibliomancy was done to create it. As there is a verse in the Bible, "Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.'" Perhaps that's just an overreaching theme in old literature, is the king returning from battle, and being slain. Perhaps because it is true. Maybe the peoples hate the war, and that is why there is regicide after coming home from a war.

The mythologies of the world were soap operas. They followed the ill reputed gods, who boasted omniscience and omnibenevolence, as they destroyed, and left wakes of ruin behind them. Setting an example to their people to follow. To rape those of lower status, to murder beloved children for magic---only, to expect recompense from the dharma of fate. For, every evil act must return an evil act. Which, is why I believe Agamemnon was Nebuchadnezzar is because that form of belief seems more consistent with the Babylonians.

That's the whole story. The gods in their dramatic wars with mortals and with one another, frolic without consequences, bringing upon the wrath of mortal and god alike. Sometimes there is a mortal who hates a god. Sometimes there is a god who hates a mortal. Whether because of rape, or because of infidelity, they seek retribution, destroying temples, bodies, while committing sodomy at times to accomplish the deed.

I see all of this, and now know what makes it interesting. I cannot write it. I know of humanity's bad nature, but I only know it from the outside. I know it from watching it, and feeling it oppress me. I know it on a crude, Global scale. I know it not intimately, anymore. When I read Ovid, I am reminded of my youth, chasing the girls around on the playground in boyish lust, like Pan and Syrinx, but that's over. That person died a long time ago. He died when I found Christ, and when I fell in love with Jorgia. An idea of love captivates me. Love actually saved me. Though it was love with a phantom, the idea of peace. What I write, I wish to capture peace. For, I tried writing my mythology, and I found it lacking the soap operatic feel and texture of a true mythology. I do not wish to make characters, populate my worlds---that author is dead, too. The imagination I had as a boy is cultured into a prosaic mind, wishing to merely find meaning. 

The King of Assyria heard a voice telling him of a rumor, I can only hope the same happens to Putin. And this war ends. Yet, I wish not to write the soap opera of kings and queens, of Putin and Elizabeth. I wish not to write the soap opera of history. My ability is waning---if I push, I might bring about another delusion. For somewhere does the material come, and I hope to comfort you with my arcane stories, and poems. I wish to give you peace with them. The waking up from a dream. But, my creative spring is tapped.

As a Child, Oft was I Wrong

As a child, oft was I wrong.
Kindhearted, filled with liquor
Of love and joy, I would speak
The things I felt were true.

Soon, tremendous attacks
Would aim their darts at me
And I would defend my halfwise
Positions. Yet, through right,
My peers were unkind in their
Rebukes of my ignorance.

Today I am just like them.
I rebuke my family, friends
With the curse of knowledge.
I ought to keep my mouth shut.

As, kindness is more right
Than the factoids of truth.
So a man thinks his folksy wisdom---
If it is his, it is his. Hers, it is hers.

Need I contradict the truth
Of another? For kindness' sake
I shan't. Unless that truth is sin.

However, I see in a man the rogue
Confusion of modernity...
The Congress passed a law
Forbidding lynching.
The Congress also passed a law
Distributing "Safe Pipes"
And "Safe Needles" To the poor.
They are not really giving out 
Crack pipes, they are just 
Distributing safer pipes
To smoke crack in.
Both these innocuous truths
Are true---each an elixir
For a certain man's ideology.
Each fuel for a culture war.

Shan't I sustain in the middle?
Shan't I simply see the enflamed
Tongues, and know that each
Of these men live within their vacuum?
Why need I add to it?
Both men are sufficiently convinced
By their truth. So convinced
That I, knowing the truth,
Need simply write it in poesy
And hope one day another
Will read it and understand the problem.
Everyone is filled to the brim with facts
Aimed at tearing down their opposition.

The truth is, it is unkind to correct someone
For their every faulty belief.
I should be focused on Christ and Christ alone. 
And beliefs are stronger than opinions---
Yet, everyone has conflated the two
For every opinion these days
Is as strong as a belief.
Therefore, there is no peace.

Romantic Naturalist

Heaven is a romance;
Align it with the soul
And life shall be good.
The flesh of man---
The naturalist in me---
Sees every failure
Underneath every 
Forbidden rock.
Pick up the rock---
As Cain had---and the earth itself
Becomes a stone.
Pleasant natural highs
Intonate the Romantic's
View on life.
Live in the high...

Yet, true love is found
In some who feel little.
So cruelty is found
In some with the opiate of infatuation.
Sobriety can make one right;
Pleasures can cause harm.

But, to know love...
To have felt it... or true joy
And have it snuffed out by one
Whose pain is caused by another's pleasure...
It tethers me to reality.
I understand it both ways.

The Naturalist is not evil;
Nor the Romantic good.
My virtue is not a warped portrait
Nor is it self medication.
I know the opium of love
That it is true.

Yet those who call it aught a drug
Are addicts who will shirk anyone to obtain a fix.

Magic is not Real

The extent of magic's effect on someone is purely psychological. Shrunken heads are shook, the heads contain no power. Rather, it is the mind which ascribes to the symbol power. It looks frightening. It creates trauma. Same thing with a woman throwing gemstones. It isn't the power of the gemstones. It is the psychological effect of the gemstones. I, seeing the gemstones, gave them power. It frightened me, sent me into a frail mental state---later, I would learn about conspiracy theories. I got frightened because my mind was primed for the fear, incepted by the woman throwing gemstones. Hypnotism is real, yet is only neuroticism. Power through suggestion.

Demons are very real. Yet, magic does not affect one, to bring upon an innocent person demons. As the proverb goes, "As a bird does not alight without a cause, so does a curse not alight without a cause." The bird being related to a demon. Magic has no power over the one who lives righteously. And should magic be exerted---hypnotism---the individual will have that part of them shaved off, and it will become a folkstem. Like it had never existed. The sin will be removed as far as the east is from the west.

Magic also deludes. If one believes the levitating statue is real---it's done by magnets---then one is inculcated into the cult, believing their own will power moved the statue. If one sees the cup move by the water underneath it, and is told a ghost had moved the cup... unless the magic trick is revealed, the person has witnessed the cup move, and thereby believes in ghosts. Not to say there are not real poltergeists. Yet, such a thing is a demonic entity and thereby a curse on a sinful dwelling. It is a demon implanted in a place from a crime committed long ago. Yet, it can be spiritually cleansed by one's own repentance. For the belief in ghosts is delusional. But the belief in demons is not. Consorting with ghosts is witchcraft. Consorting with idols is witchcraft. Yet, the idols are dumb and cannot perform any work. The witchcraft is dumb and cannot cause any harm. For, Satan is under God's command to do what is evil and thereby destroy the wicked, while chastening the righteous. Satan is a rebellious prince, wishing to commit regicide and patricide, yet, for fear of his own life, he still performs the King's duties. His armies go to war on the King's authority, not the Prince's. As the King decrees, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD." Thereby, the prince's war machine cannot siege, without God's command. He says of Assyria, " Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." The smiting of the LORD is in the LORD's authority, and when the Enemy overreaches his bounds, he shall be rebuked for our sake.

Therefore, Magic is not real. Kabbalah and fortune telling with numbered cards implants into the brain fear. And that fear is used by evil forces to malign one, and cause one to shrink back. Same thing with anger, rage, hate, bitterness---these are the true witchcraft. For by these things, one shrinks back, feels frightened, is caused to seek vengeance, is caused to seek evil for evil. And when this incepts in the mind, it produces sinful thoughts, which bring upon the soul guilt. Even lust has this effect. To which, namely, Magic is simply psychological, by manipulating this grief to cause one to fear, hate, lust or be enraged. And by these faults, the Magician can turn one toward even worse sins. Save that the LORD cleanse the heart of its unrighteousness, and circumcise the folkstem from the soul. For to stop magic, it takes love, kindness, forgiveness, joy, peace, gentleness, self control, forgiveness, to never let anger last until the night.

Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlsen

These are two of our best and brightest. Good people with common sense. Not stupid. The media and some people in the government are hinting at throwing them in prison, because Tulsi reminded the American People Ukraine has Bio Labs---US Funded---and that war could compromise them. And Tucker repeated what she said.

I stand with free speech, and it's time that Americans stand up to their government and say "No" to this authoritarian move. We deserve to know these things, because who will suffer if this happens? All of us, like we did during Covid. We---being voters---have to know exactly what our officials are doing, and its time the government stop hiding secrets from us which we need to know in order to elect sound officials. As, the officials of our country are betraying us.

There is no reason anyone should be talking about sending anyone to prison for free speech. And I have half a notion to think if we knew the compromising position our government has placed the American people in, we'd be ashamed of them and vote them all out.

The U.S. needs to stay out of the Ukraine war. Let them fight their Iraq. Feed the Russian people the truth, like our media ought to have done for us. And frankly, those labs ought not have been there in the first place.

Why Critical Race Theory is Bad

A thing in purely academic form, is usually useful. In the instance of Postmodernism, it can be used to understand a text more vividly, and lucidly. It can draw pinpoint precise critical analysis of niche themes in a text, and draw it out and extrapolate on it.

Critical Race Theory, much the same, in a purely academic form is as useful to critique real world inequalities which still exist. However, when these ideas get bled down into the general public---they lose all nuance.

Postmodernism becomes the mistaken belief that reading is a matter of one's own personal interpretation. In the realm of CRT, it becomes the idea that Blacks and Minorities are racially superior, and it instigates race riots and race war.

Both pervert law, as then that populace consensus gets adopted by academics, and the cycle repeats until there is nothing left of either theory's benefits. And all that's left is disorder, chaos and confusion.

David’s Last Words

5 Although my house be not so with God; 
yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, 
ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, 
and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.

The verse refers to David not being allowed to
Build the temple.
This is the correct sense.

Charles Spurgeon was wrong
In that he thought David was lamenting
His household not being ordered.

Modern Translators are wrong
By making David's words rejoice.

Spurgeon's sermon was beautiful, 
Though. All of God's servants had an "Although."
Solomon, although he transgressed through many wives.
Samuel, although he transgressed through appearing to the witch at Endor.
Paul, although he transgressed by murder.
Although, James and Peter transgressed by doubt.
Although Samson transgressed by Delilah.
Although Hezekiah went to battle.
Although Manasseh repented.
Although Uzziah tried to be priest and king.
Although I committed sins in my youth.

And David sings a melancholy verse
Of how his house was not in order.
He didn't get to establish the temple.
Yet, God established him.
In my life...

My dad Said Poet

I pressed my dad on
Whether I was a dreamer 
Or a poet. I
Know I sin in calling him
That, but Jesus meant

Not to make him or
Anyone a god. So I
Do not. 

                He said I
Was a poet. 


                     I look for
Auspicious tidings from God.

My dad's exact words
Were that, "I didn't write fluff,
But reality."

I have obtained my
Blessing. A poet is meant
To write poetry.