The White Nigger

I peel grapes for him
And am angry at him
A rich man with a stick
Who beats me 
Metaphorically speaking
So I curse him
In the forest.
Then, Steve arrives
And embarrassed and ashamed
I bow down to the forest floor
Knowing I am a nigger.
But a good thing for it to be---
For I am free, and perfectly
Fine commiserating with the lot.
I'd rather be the poor nigger with white skin
Set free like Aesop was
Than the Rich Black Man with no soul.
Yet even then, I was never made a slave.

When Christ Returns

Hazy are the clouds, like a nuclear winter
In the spring day, a yellow hue is on the horizon.
I walk in the brisk fifty degrees,
Up the familiar path, and am surprised
By the forest walking over yonder the hill...
I say to it, "The bees, they are coming out of their holes"
For only one or three days of the year
Do the bees peak out, and over the hillocks 
Fly in their immature bodies.
I am surprised by the sudden meeting and hazy
As the sky above, for so it will be like when Christ and I meet
Surprised, and suddenly, and without warning.
I'd rather be looking at the bees, than gesticulating
At my enemies around me, wishing to curse and cause a stir;
Or beating Christ's fellow servants
When I am surprised by that chance meeting
And then the haze lifts, and the sun becomes seven times brighter:
Yes, I'd rather not know what to say, and be studying the bees.
I do not wish to be a chicken aside the road,
And scared to approach Him, knowing I'd been doing wrong;
For the Bluebells are immature,
And the Hyacinth are half strong, and half growing
For another week there shall be bluebells like clockwork:---
We do not know the time or hour, and it may be when everything
Seems untimely and half in bloom, and surprise you as the sun did me
When it burst from its haze, and shone today
As I ate, and there seemed to be Zion, which seemed
Impossible to reach, and its heavenly songs
Yet I will feast there upon the sweet nectar
And the Meat of the Fruit of Life---
It will have seemed like it could never be done
And it, too, seem so very early, and unexpected;
Yet there it is.

My Rough Road

That Paul explicitly warns about not needing to observe the Jewish Old Testament Law, I wish I would have learned that in Sunday School instead of how to save the world.

Like, I get it. The world is bad—it really wasn’t that bad, but the church I was at wanted me to solve Global Warming, and poverty and all that nonsense. I mean, it was good… I used it as a muse to develop Psuedo-technologies for Sci-Fis, but generally, I should have been learning solid theology and foundational Christianity.

At about the time I was fourteen, that’s when you really need to encounter Paul. Christ is for a young child, you learn Him, and build the foundation, but Paul’s for a teenager, because by about that time you’ve made some big mistakes, and need to learn the lesson of Christianity, which is we all fail, and need redeemed. At about 30 you need to learn Moses, and the time for War, and the harsh realities of life, that it’s not candy, and sometimes morality is ugly. Which, you know, we know when we watch TV the bad guy gets it, but we need to know what war is by 30 because that’s when we have the most mature reason to understand it.

But, I’d say around 14 I needed to be taught Paul and Song of Songs, and some of the other epistles. As I was not fully aware of what Christianity was by the time I got sucked into a well meaning, but destructive Messianic Jewish cult. I mean, the man who taught me, taught me a lot about Judaism, and I respect the ideas of the Covenant, and the Sacrifice and all that other stuff… it let me understand the Old Testament, from having lived it. But, to be forced into it, or to think I needed to do those things to be saved, really that’s why I needed a better teacher in my youth, who could teach me Sunday School.

Instead, he taught me the Bible was a bunch of stories, and even theologians say so, which made me disdain theology with a passion, if it could teach you that about the Bible. As I had bad influences all around me, and I needed the tools to combat it. As, I dealt with true spiritual forces, and I needed to know the good. And I needed to know Paul at 14 and 15 and 16 instead of about Feminism, Global Warming and how to solve Poverty. Which, you know… it got me thinking about those things, but I’m in no position to fix any of that. I would have been better off with a sound theological framework so I wouldn’t get sucked into a cult. Because I really wanted the morals, to fight back the evil that was surrounding me, and wanted to make me a prey.

So, he taught me some good things… in Sunday school my teacher taught me to help the poor. That’s foundational to who I am, and I’m thankful for that, just like the Cult Leader taught me about Judaism… so it worked for the good. I have a very deep theological depth, so quite inadvertently these traps sprung on the devil, and made me far more aware of the true religion, and capable of understanding it.

So, I’d never say either of them were bad people… they’re not… they’re just mistaken on opposite ends. One’s a secular Christian, the other a Messianic Jew, and they taught me dual things about the faith… but the meat and potatoes wouldn’t be taught to me until I was in jail, when the Chaplain told me to read Galatians, and I heard Jay Vernon McGee sermons on the radio, and found he had identical readings of the book of Jeremiah. Which, backtrack, was prepped in me by a Baptist church I was going to, but that’s a whole other story. I think he tried to tell me, but the damage was already done, and he might have called the authorities on me, because I used the wrong name… he was kind of a weird dude, too.

So, anyone who cries about abuses in the church, I don’t think I ever had a religious leader who taught me anything close to resembling the truth, except Christ Himself, and I’ve always somehow figured it out, and I guess that’s the Holy Spirit in me teaching me as I go… and I’m really understanding the concept of the Law’s Abolishment, that all things that condemn you, are abolished in the cross, so it leaves you with hope to become a better person.

On the good side, however, I had great Sunday School and Vacation Bible School until the Lutheran Church became secular. I had a good catechism teacher. And at the Baptist church I was going to, I learned fundamental theology from the Pastor, and had a good Sunday School, who I think were the authorities in question, called in to deprogram me from whatever cult I belonged to... which I'm a little miffed at actually because I think they hindered me in many things, and no such apparatus ought to exist in a free country. But, that's generally the fact. I appreciate what they taught me in the realm of apologetics, though. But, generally, the spying and all that other crap needs to stop, as the person who was in that cult and taught me is harmless. He just believed something eccentric.

Snow White Controversy

[It[ kind of reminds me of when I wrote my Philosophy Paper in 101. I went to the professor five or six times, asking him about my thoughts on Existentialism--which was a decent enough essay, and we had a good rapport--and then I scrapped it for the easy question [because he didn't like it]. Which [the easier] was one of those dumb prompts they give you for a College Admission. And... the original would have been a lot better. But, I feared my philosophy professor's opinion so much, I turned in the essay I wrote in half an hour, rather than the essay I was writing for 2 weeks. You understand? Because if you have an unappeasable audience, you're going to turn out crap. So, if you're going to turn out something audiences are already prejudiced toward, it's best to just do the best job you can and be as authentic as possible. As I may have actually gotten an A in that class and not a B if I had just turned in the essay I was working on for the term.

Natural Religion vs Christianity

{}Natural Religion, {} is found all throughout the world, from Druids to Egyptians to Babylonians. Confucianism is probably the best example of natural religion, or some combination of it with Mozi and Lao Tsu. And from that we get Natural Law. But, that law is self evident, and can be understood by rational minds. Christianity is interesting, because it first assumes that rationale for it to exist. As we sin knowing sin is sin, and so therefore need redeemed from it by Christ's death and resurrection.

Pilate and Lentulus

Coming upon these two Syriac manuscripts
One by Publius Lentulus and another by Pilate
I've found 5th century Syriac sources
Written in the Syriac tongue---
When translations were fruitful
It would be around the 5th Century AD.
460 years after Christ.
Catholics say, "It is pseudepigraphal
"For no Lentulus ever was Publius."
Although, scholars said Nazareth never existed;
They've even gone so far as to say Israel
Didn't exist until the seventh century B.C..
Which we know is not true.
Why would translation work be done
And then hidden until the Renascence?
Mystery upon mystery.

The Enlightenment

[What people are calling "The Enlightenment"] is the exact opposite of the [E]nlightenment. Maybe we need a new [Enlightenment]? Don't you think?

[T]he introduction of Buddhism to the West is what caused it, like [one says] Nietzsche and Kant. The actual [E]nlightenment was what came before it. That's the beginning of Modernism what [they're] describing. 

Generally, The Enlightenment was established in the Philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, and based itself in reason and sound first principles. Fortunately, we still have its tradition preserved in the Constitution and Declaration, but in the phrase "We hold these truths to be self evident" [t]here's no admission of subjectivity, as "Self Evident" is not "Subjective" but rather based in first principles of something being of itself evident, which is how Geometry works. You read in Thomas Jefferson's letters, or Locke the cusp of the Enlightenment, which was philosophy based in sound and evident first principles, that were apparent to the learned, but maybe not the unlearned.

Descartes was famous for saying, "I think therefore I am" but the whole point of that, was to establish a true set of knowledge. Like Descartes was a Mathematician, and framed the Quadratic Equation in its modern incarnation. He was not afraid to claim there's objective knowledge. 

I'd actually say Nietzsche and Kant were the beginning of Modernism, as Modernism is the exact opposite of the Enlightenment, which it opposes that there's any true knowledge beyond the material. And Postmodernism objects to there being knowledge at all. 

The Enlightenment was man first discovering there was knowledge, and then giving that fire to the people, like Prometheus. I mean, the entire Enlightenment was of course created by the Masons, who founded that there was knowledge. That's why The French Revolution deified Reason. 

I don't know... something smells fishy about this.