Donald Lee's Blog, page 4

Good Friday—A Different Perspective

“Good” Friday is certainly ironic. Read a different perspective on it in this week’s edition of

What’s good about Good Friday? It’s a common question, even among Christians. It is ironic that we call death “good”. As you know, the spiritual life is full of irony and paradox.

The usual answer to the “Good” Friday question goes something like this. It is “good” because Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all humanity and offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins.

In the Bible, sacrifice is a common theme. The idea is that we need to sacrifice something to God as a means of atoning for (making up for) our sins and healing our relationship with God, to bring us back into a right relationship with God.

The Easter message is about the ultimate triumph over death itself. Jesus died and rose from the dead, demonstrating His power over death and His oneness with God.

Here is another idea. I am not bold enough to claim whether one or another understanding is correct or true—just a different perspective.

Perhaps the message of Good Friday is not a conquering of death, but a demonstration that there is no death. You are not your body. The beginning and ending of this body are but a sleeping and a waking, or a waking and a sleeping—a momentary transition in the eternal life of your soul. Death never was. You are an eternal being of Light and Love—forever a child of your eternal Father and created in His image of Light and Love.

Once you realize that you are an eternal soul—not a body—you also have “conquered” death. You no longer fear death. You realize that death is just a change. You came from God and return to God. Just as matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, so it is with you. You simply change form. But whether you are in this form or another form, you are always with God, for it is not possible to be without God.

You are as God created you. You cannot be otherwise. Today we celebrate that Jesus showed us this truth, as he laid down his physical body. Celebrate your realization of eternal life.

Yet whatever perspective you choose to meditate on this Easter, may it be a blessed and illuminating experience for you.

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Your Potential Love Within

Potential love does nothing. Only when your love is kinetic will you feel love. Read what I mean in this week’s edition of

Do you remember learning about kinetic energy and potential energy in science class, way back when? Kinetic energy is moving and potential energy is stationary. When you lift a rock up into the air you give it potential energy. As you hold the rock over your head, it just sits there, doing no work. But when you let the rock fall to the ground, its potential energy gets converted into kinetic energy. Then it can do some “work”, as it smashes an ant on the sidewalk. That’s the kind of work 10-year-old boys like to do.

There’s an interesting metaphor here for our spiritual life. Love is energy. It can be potential energy or kinetic energy. When it is “potential” love energy, it does no work. It just sits in you. No one even notices it. It cannot be felt or experienced, by you or by anyone else. It is static, motionless. It is not fulfilling its purpose. Love energy must move. There is love within you, and in great quantities, for it is the infinite Love of God.

Only when you let down your barriers to God’s love and let it flow through you will you feel love. Only then will it accomplish within you, and within the world, that revolution of love that is known as the Christ Consciousness.

It is so ironic that all of us look outside ourselves for love, when the love we seek is always right within us. We just have to let it out, let it flow into the world, flow to our brothers and sisters. Then we will feel the love that we have always sought.

Let your love flow!

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Take Back Your Power

Here’s the spiritual conclusion to last week’s post, in

Last week’s blog post was quite long so I’ll make this one quite short. Last week I didn’t really explain the spiritual meaning, so I’ll do that this week. It’s not obvious but it’s also not difficult.

What the world’s elites are seeking is even more power—power over everyone. The ironic thing is that power really comes down to a spiritual concept. There are many famous sayings that capture this idea, like the one by Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” That is, no one can have real power over you that you do not willingly give them.

Since God dwells within each one of us—as St. Paul says, “Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,”—we have the power of God within us. We just have to access that power. And the power of God is Love. Ironically, love is the greatest power in the universe. We have it.

Perhaps surprisingly, the power to not be controlled by others is love. In love is the strength to align our actions with the will of God—to be guided by our conscience and not by the will of others. Even when those “others” appear to have external power over us.

We have the power to say, “No”, lovingly. Without anger, or enmity, or blame. Just, “No”. We have the power of non-violent non-cooperation. “No, I won’t go along with fraud, lies, corruption, and the abuse of power. I won’t participate in that.”

Therein lies our power, both individually and collectively, to lovingly oppose the tyranny that is being imposed on us. Just refuse to cooperate with it.

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

You Will Own Nothing, he, he, he…

Looking and sounding like a Gestapo interrogator from a bad 1960s film, Klaus Schwab is putting out PR videos like there’s no tomorrow. Maybe there isn’t.

"You vill own noting, und you vill be happy."

“You will own nothing and you will be happy.”

World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum recently put out a nice, friendly little public relations video (They’ve actually been really busy lately with PR videos.) with an upbeat list of “predictions” for 2030. It is so full of ironies that I’ll just let you figure them out for yourself. Today’s blog post is not my ordinary fare. Yes, there’s a spiritual message in all of this. But I don’t have space to draw it out. I’m already way over my word count limit.

The future is always unpredictable—unless you plan it. That’s what they do. And to help you understand more clearly what the WEF is meaning in their glitzy video, I’ve put together this little aid to translating into English their Newspeak language. It’s clearly not written in English and they have neglected to include punctuation. Maybe the WEF folks don’t really speak English. I hope this helps you. You might even use it to help guide your actions as we move into their Brave New World.

8 Predictions for the World in 2030

Meaning: These are not predictions. The WEF does not make predictions. It makes plans. This is the world elite who are planning to take over the whole world, abolish nation-states, free enterprise, freedom, and democracy; and then rule the world as philosopher/kings in a socialist/fascist new world order. I’m not joking. Read their own material.

Plan 1: You will own nothing and you will be happy.

Meaning: It’s true. You will own nothing. The elites will own everything. WEF member Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the USA. Does it look like he is moving towards owning nothing in 9 years? The “being happy” part? Not so much. That’s really a philosophical statement. There are two ways to be happy: to have what makes you happy, or to be happy with what you have. In the New World Order, it’ll be the second option.

Plan 2: Whatever you want, you’ll rent and it’ll be delivered by drones.

Meaning: Well…not quite whatever you want, but whatever they want you to rent. There will be a social credit score for everyone, just like there is right now in China. As long as you do what they want you to do, they might let you rent things. And yes, they’ll be delivered by drones because you won’t be able to just go to a store and pick out what you want. You might not be able to leave your home. They’ve been rehearsing that this year. How do you like it so far? And they certainly won’t let you just choose anything you want. Your choices will be determined by what the central computer, or the central committee, decides to let you rent…until they decide otherwise. After all, it’s not yours. You’re just “renting” it.

Plan 3: The US won’t be the world’s leading superpower. A handful of countries will dominate.

Meaning: The first part is true. With the economic shutdown of most of the free world—not in China, did you notice—China’s economic growth trajectory will make its economy larger the that of the USA well before 2030. But “a handful of countries will dominate”? Dominate what, and whom? How many is a handful? And what exactly does “dominate” mean? Economically? Militarily? Hitler dominated. Stalin dominated. Mao dominated. Something like that, perhaps? Most likely.

We are left to guess which countries might get to be included in the “handful” and why. More likely, the WEF will dominate, just as it’s doing right now by using a climate fraud and an epidemic fraud to control every government in the world. It looks like their plan is right on track. 2030 here we come!

Plan 4: You won’t die waiting for an organ donor. We won’t transplant organs, we’ll print new ones instead.

Meaning: This is a meaningless bit of optimism. A relatively tiny number of people die waiting for an organ donor. Even fewer of these are young people with rare medical disorders. Most are near the end of their life. It’s a personal tragedy none-the-less. But the very inclusion of this item is meant to make you fearful of something that is a completely insignificant risk in life. The WEF specializes in creating fear about nothing. It’s a very useful tool for controlling people.

With all the genetic complexities and differences between people, how could they just use a 3D printer to make a replacement organ? And why not a whole replacement human? Maybe they’re working on that too. Maybe that’s part of where this vaccine comes in. The real evidence (not what you hear in the media) already shows that the vaccine is useless both in preventing you from getting Covid-19 and in transmitting it. Israel vaccinated the whole country and saw a huge spike in cases right afterward. During that time period, they had orders of magnitude more deaths from the vaccine than from Covid-19. That worked well.

After all, it’s not a vaccine. It’s an experimental gene therapy treatment. It changes your genetics. You are being genetically manipulated. Some of you don’t want to eat food that’s been genetically manipulated but you’ll let the world’s elites genetically manipulate you—out of fear of what is little more than the flu. And which organs are they talking about? Can they print a brain? The scarecrow will be happy. I can think of a few people I’d volunteer for the treatment.

Plan 5: You’ll eat much less meat, an occasional treat, not a staple—for the good of the environment and our health.

Meaning: This is a tricky one. What are they after? Is it anything beyond their plan to destroy modern agriculture and drive everyone into poverty? All of us have noticed the ramp-up in propaganda about meat in recent years. Some people have pushed it as an environmental issue, but that’s utter nonsense. Like most “environmental” issues, it has nothing to do with the environment. There’s something else behind it. Does anybody know?

I recall reading a bit of psychological evidence that a non-meat, high carb diet helps to make people more malleable and controllable. There’s no real health evidence for avoiding meat and why would they care about your health anyway? The WEF is doing everything they can to get rid of people. Health is a red herring. And, as always, (it’s part of their socialist philosophy) the WEF elites think they know better than you do what’s good for you.

Plan 6: A billion people will be displaced by climate change. We’ll have to do a better job at welcoming and integrating refugees.

Meaning: Now we’re getting to the crux of it. The WEF wants to get rid of people. So, now they’re setting a goal of 1 billion fewer people by 2030. What do they mean by “displaced”? I’ve been watching this supposed climate emergency unfold for over 30 years without any emergency or any displacement of people. The Maldives were supposed to have sunk years ago. But it seems rich Saudi investors recently put a billion dollars into high-class resorts there. And other South Pacific atolls that we were told were going to disappear and the poor people would have to relocate to Tahiti (where do I sign up?) are still high and dry.

The only climate-related “displacement” I know about is my fellow Canadians (the ones who are richer than me) who fly south with the geese every winter to escape the damn cold up here. People move around for lots of reasons but I haven’t heard of a single person yet who was “displaced by climate change”. We’ve got a long way to go to get from zero to 1 billion in less than 9 years. I wonder when it’s going to start?

Then they come to the refugee scam. The vast majority of true refugees are fleeing wars, mostly financed, supported, and proxied by these same WEF wealthy industrialists and their militarist and socialist comrades. But even this is a tiny part of the migrant issue. Most migrants are economic migrants. They are people looking to start a new life in a land with more opportunity, because their own countries are corrupted and run into the ground by the very people and policies that are part of the WEF. And the elites are facilitating this mass migration to help destroy the concept of the nation-state and bring the Western world to its knees so they can more easily foist their one-world government on all of us. It sounds like the same charlatan that is selling the snake oil is also spreading the disease.

Plan 7: Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide.

Meaning: The WEF and their comrades at the Club of Rome and the UN have done a great job selling this fraud to the world. Most of you believe this. I don’t have enough space here to set you straight and you probably won’t listen anyway. If you haven’t noticed yet that the climate isn’t changing in any serious way and that carbon dioxide has little or nothing to do with it, maybe you’ll never be open-minded enough to actually look at the real science. Energy is the foundation of Western industrial civilization. Destroy our energy and you destroy our civilization. That’s the plan. It’s working beautifully. Of course, it’s only certain producers of carbon dioxide who pay. China doesn’t pay. Russia doesn’t pay. If you’re communist you don’t pay. Do you notice a pattern? In Canada, Quebec doesn’t pay.

Plan 8: There will be a global price on carbon, and this will help to make fossil fuels history.

Meaning: More of the same. All life on this planet is carbon-based. Carbon is life itself. Is there a price on trees, on animals? The whole point is to destroy the Western Democracies and collect almost all power and wealth into the hands of a small group of elites. Guess who?

In just one little piece of this puzzle, the global carbon market is a corrupt scheme for trading an invisible substance where nothing is delivered to no one. But many people are becoming fabulously wealthy trading this market. The money comes from taxpayers in the free world and goes into the pockets of the rich and powerful and nothing changes in CO2 production or in the climate. That’s exactly the point.

Closing: You could be preparing to go to Mars. Scientists will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space. The start of a journey to find alien life? Western values will have been tested to the breaking point. Checks and balances that underpin our democracies must not be forgotten.

Meaning: Wow! There’s a lot to unpack here. Lots of glitzy and random nonsense. Mars? Not going to happen. They won’t even let you leave your country. I wouldn’t trust scientists to keep me healthy in space when by following the “best” scientific eating advice we have produced the fattest, sickest population in history. Did you notice that I’m a bit skeptical of “experts” who make things worse?

Alien life? I’ll resist the temptation to make personal attacks on Klaus Schwab. Western values have not been tested to the breaking point. Klaus Schwab and his fellow communists are destroying Western values to the point that almost nobody has seen them for years. Checks and balances don’t underpin democracy, voting and free speech do. It’s exactly the “checks and balances” dupe they’ve been pulling for years to move power into the UN, the WEF, and the Club of Rome and out of democratically elected legislatures. That’s what we shouldn’t forget.

But maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? I’m just one random guy rambling in the wilderness. But I’m writing a book that explains all this craziness in more detail. It should be available later this year. Keep an eye out for it. Until then, keep both your eyes wide open!

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Where Is God?

Are you looking for God behind bushes and under rocks? Look no further. See what I mean in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.

Where is heaven? Where is God? To paraphrase Baroness Orczy’s silly poem in The Scarlet Pimpernel,

They seek Him here,

They seek Him there,

Those Christians seek Him everywhere.

He is hiding in plain sight.

Our leading physicists have, in recent years, posited that the universe actually has more than four dimensions, the three dimensions of space plus time. Einstein made it clear that time itself is also a dimension. I don’t even come close to understanding modern physics. I can barely grasp the basics. But it’s interesting that since the time of Newton, physics has always led the other sciences in bold thinking and mathematical sophistication. It’s also fascinating, and somewhat ironic, that the ideas of physicists are coming ever closer to the ideas of the world’s great spiritual teachers.

Our perception of the world around us, of reality, we might say, is mediated by our five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. It is only through these that we are able to perceive reality. And we know very well that our sense perceptions are limited. Dogs hear higher pitches than we do. Eagles can see much farther than we can, and so on.

But in addition to these, we also have “psychic” senses. All of us have these, but a few people have developed these senses more than most. Perhaps they were born with a greater aptitude for psychic awareness, similar to the way that some people seem to have an aptitude for music, or painting, and hockey. Of course, these aptitudes need to be developed, and even those of us without any obvious “aptitude” can still develop reasonable skill. Everyone learns to read and write in school, but only a few people become famous writers. In every case, skill needs to be developed and practiced even if one is gifted with an aptitude. So it is with psychic gifts.

Every physical sense has a corresponding psychic sense: vision and clairvoyance, hearing and clairaudience, touch and clairsentience—that’s the ability to experience the emotions of those around you. If you’ve ever walked into a room and “felt” the emotions in the room, you’ve tasted clairsentience. It’s pretty common.

I am a musician and I often think in musical metaphors. Consider this one. As we get older, like me, our hearing tends to decline, as mine has. (Just ask my wife.) Our perception of the higher frequencies declines the most.

Say I was at a concert with my grandson and the band played the famous Sousa march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever”. It’s got a fabulous piccolo solo that is absolutely thrilling. Since I don’t hear the higher pitches much, I might turn to my grandson and say,

“I just love that march. It’s too bad they left out the piccolo solo.”

“They didn’t leave it out, grandpa. It was there. I heard it.”

“No. They left it out. I didn’t hear it at all.”

In truth, the piccolo solo was there. It existed in reality. I just didn’t perceive it. But anyone with better hearing did perceive it. We might think of spiritual reality—or call it psychic reality—in the same way. Some people see auras, talk to angels, have out-of-body experiences, etc. I don’t do any of that. Does that mean that these other people are crazy? If I don’t perceive what they perceive, does that mean they are loonies?

No, just like I couldn’t hear the piccolo solo because my sensory perceptions were limited, I don’t see auras or talk to angels for the same reason. But I do often pick up the feeling in a room, or in a person. We call it a “sixth sense” for exactly this reason. It is a sensory perception that goes beyond our usual, four-dimensional senses.

Perhaps in this way we are “perceiving” dimensions of reality that exist right here but are not perceptible by our other five senses. Maybe, as modern physicists think, we are living in a universe of multiple dimensions and only perceiving four of them. Maybe, as spiritual leaders have been saying for centuries, heaven is right here, right now, and we just need to adjust our awareness to be able to perceive it. Jesus told us, but so few believe it, “The kingdom of God is within you,” (Lk 17:21).

It is ironic that we pray to “go to” heaven. We look for God here, there, and everywhere. But He is as near as our breathing. Heaven and God are right here, right now. It is for us to quiet our bodies and minds—to listen for that “still, small voice within”—to hear the voice of God and see the face of God, within the dimensions of reality we usually ignore.

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

St. Valentine’s Love

Ah, Love! But what is the real meaning of Valentine’s Day? Check out this week’s edition of

Ah, Love! It’s as perennial as the grass. So reads a line for the Desiderata. But what is love—really? St. Valentine’s Day presents us with a timely opportunity to look more closely.

St. Valentine was a kindly and generous bishop, so it’s interesting that his feast day has become a celebration of romantic love. I guess that’s what commercialism will do. Nobody buys chocolates, flowers, and cards out a great love of mankind. Such a love is not great for business but it’s sure what the world needs! That’s what St. Valentine was all about. Love is so confusing.

Part of the problem is that we only have one word for it in English—love. The ancient Greeks knew better. They had three words: eros, philia, and agape. Eros is romantic, sexual love. That’s the love you felt so strongly as a 16-year-old. Remember? Philia is brotherly love—the love you feel for your parents, siblings, and children. But St. Valentine’s love was the next one.

Agape love is what St. Valentine demonstrated in his life and actions. And that’s a key point—agape is about love in action, love directed towards others, not self. It is a self-sacrificing love, a love that lacks self-interest, self-gratification, and self-preservation. Agape love is motivated primarily by the interest and welfare of others. In the New Testament, agape is the Greek word most frequently used for the love for God, the love for mankind, and even the love for enemies. It means that we act in a loving way towards others. It means we use our mind and our might for the benefit of another, without regard for ourselves. It is not based on our feelings.

Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offense or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

(1 Cor. 13:4-7)

That’s a lot of things to keep in mind. During this week of St. Valentine, how about you try taking just one part of that as a daily mantra? Maybe, “Love does not take offense.” Even just that would be a challenge for most of us.

As always, the choice is yours. You can pick one aspect of love to work on, or none. Whatever you decide, I’ll love you just the same!

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Do You Take the Lord’s Name in Vain?

Ironically, we really cannot use God’s name in vain. See why in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.

Today I am returning to the Ten Commitments. This is the perspective of Neale Donald Walsch in his channeled book, "Conversations with God". He says, there are no such things as the Ten Commandments. The Word of God was a covenant, not a commandment. It’s ironic to think that God would command that to which He gave free will. It’s also ironic that we really cannot use God’s name in vain, as Neale explains. From his book…

So God talked with Moses directly and said, “You will know that you are on the path back to the experience of your own Divinity—which is the path back to God—because there are certain things that you will do and not do as a result of being on that path. So, God said, look for these signs that I promise I will give you. This is my covenant. This is my commitment.”

You shall know that you have taken the path to God, and you shall know that you have found God, for there will be these signs, these indications, these changes in you. I promise you, you will see these signs. These are my Ten Commitments…

And, you shall know you have taken the path to God because:

2. You shall not use the name of God in vain. Nor will you call upon Me for frivolous things. You will understand the power of words, and of thoughts, and you would not think of invoking the name of God in an unGodly manner. You shall not use My name in vain because you cannot. For My name—the Great “I Am”—is never used in vain (that is, without result), nor can it ever be. And when you have found God, you shall know this.

We traditionally think of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” to mean swearing or cursing. For example, to say, “God damn you!”, would be considered a curse. Often the Lord’s name is used as an expletive (an exclamation or swearword; an oath or a sound expressing an emotional reaction rather than any particular meaning. Thefreedictionary.com)

When we realize that calling on God actually works—God is here, He listens, He hears, He responds—then we will naturally not do so frivolously. We will shy away from saying something so powerful when we don’t want that power.

For there is great power in words. The ancients understood this, well before the time of Jesus. Recall that God “spoke” the universe into existence. “Let there be light,” and there was light. Recall also that St. John tells us the “Word was with God,” even then, and that, “The Word was God.” That’s pretty powerful, regardless of how you interpret that phrase.

Our own words echo that power of God and call it forth in our own lives. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21, New King James Version). We know this. We use words in prayers, affirmations, and mantras. We post inspiring words of wisdom on our refrigerator doors. All of us have felt the withering wind of harsh words spoken in anger and the uplifting and transcendent words of a great sermon or speech. Words have ended wars, and started them; ended marriages, and started them; ended careers, and started them. “I will.” “I promise.” “I believe.” These are all words of power. Use them wisely.

The same is true of “God help me.” Use these words wisely also—never in anger, always for a holy endeavor. And know that you are calling on your oneness with God when you declare his name with yours in, “I am…” Choose wisely what follows the verb. Make sure you are claiming an attribute of God, as is your birthright as a child of God. “I am loving.” “I am peaceful.” “I am a channel of blessings.” All these are statements of Truth. They use the power of words to bring life, as Proverbs would say. They use God’s name rightly. To use God’s name (I am) otherwise is to attempt to use it in vain, that is, without result. But it is never used without result. It is powerful. It has the power to create and to destroy; to bless and to curse; to bring God, and to push Him away.

This power is in your hands—in your words. You will know you are on the path to God if you use this power carefully, for it cannot be used in vain.

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Spiritual Surrender? No Damn Way!

The idea of surrender has always offended me. I have a better metaphor. Check it out in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.

The metaphor of surrender is common in Christianity as well as in newer ideas of spirituality. That is, “surrender your will to God’s will”, or “join your immolation to the immolation of the crucified Christ”. This is not a very appealing metaphor, especially for us men.

“Surrender” has a military implication. I think many men, like me, would rather say, “No damn way I’m gonna surrender. You can peel my gun out of my cold dead hands after I’ve fired every lasts damn round of ammunition I have at YOU!” The idea of surrender engenders defiance. I don’t think this is what God has in mind. Let me propose a different metaphor about the will of God.

I’m a musician and a band director. The greatest, most fun, thing in the world is to play in a band. Any such chance is an opportunity for joy! When I show up to a band rehearsal and the conductor hands me the folder of music, my response is, “Yes! Let’s play.” I hope to get the first clarinet part, but even if the conductor hands me the second or third clarinet part, it’s still a joy. I don’t complain and say, “I want the first clarinet part or I’m not playing. I want to play the melody. In fact, I want to play a solo.” I don’t say, “I like the trumpet parts. I want to play the first trumpet parts on the clarinet.” If I show up with my clarinet, I play the clarinet part. I do what the conductor asks without argument or complaint. I eagerly let the conductor be the boss, knowing that whatever he does, good or bad, I’ll learn something and experience joy.

In the end, the part I play doesn’t matter all that much anyway because it’s the sound of the whole band that’s important. It’s the whole musical experience I want to be a part of. As a band, it’s what we create together that really makes the experience worthwhile. I could sit at home by myself and play the melody all day long. But that’s a completely different experience. That’s lonely. That’s one-dimensional. Not only do I miss the harmony and countermelodies and different timbres of each instrument, but I miss the joy of the people, the cooperation, really the “communion” with the other musicians. There’s a dynamic that operates in a musical group where each person joins their skills, their creative efforts, their talent, their personality, even their mood at the moment into a whole that is more than just musical. It’s a social experience, an intellectual experience, a multi-sensory experience, and even a spiritual experience. It is so much more incredibly multi-dimensional than just sitting at home and playing the melody all by myself. That’s what makes the experience of playing in a band so fantastic.

Every musician understands this. No one goes into a rehearsal or a concert with the attitude that they are giving up anything, surrendering anything. Of course, in a sense we are. Each musician gives up their free will, their freedom to play whatever they want, whenever they want, and willingly cooperates with the other musicians and the conductor to create something beautiful together that no one could have done on their own. But no musician sees this as a “surrender”. We might see it as a self-discipline that brings incredible fruits. We might see it as a joining of our skills and creativity within a certain form or structure for a definite purpose. We might see it as an opportunity to express our own creativity in a specific way. But no one sees it as a surrender of the will. We follow the will of the conductor not out of surrender but out of joy, knowing that chaos and frustration would result if we didn’t follow the conductor’s will.

This is the situation with the will of God. God knows what we truly want to experience, even better than we do ourselves. God gives us our part and gives us the opportunity to express our own skills and creativity in the context in which we find ourselves. We are certainly free to argue and complain and rebel and refuse—to play what we want, when we want. But this will never result in a beautiful creation in which we will find joy, fulfillment, and an opportunity to express our creative power. Only by joining our will with God’s will can we achieve that.

We can draw on a famous saying of Jesus to shed even more light on this idea. Both Matthew and Mark record this passage where the apostles are astonished that it is so hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. They ask Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replies,

“With man it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” (Mk 10:27 and Mt 19:26)

Maybe I’m putting too much emphasis on a preposition, but note that Jesus didn’t say, “for God, all things are possible” but rather, “with God, all things are possible.” It is when we join our will with God’s will that all things are possible for us together. For God is powerful but He doesn’t have a physical presence in this material world. We do. We are the only hands and feet in the world that God can use. It’s when we join our physical presence with God’s power that together we can do all things. St. Paul echoes the same sentiment when he says, “I can do all things through Him/Christ who strengthens me.” (Ph 4:13)

This day, and every day, try joining your will with God’s will and I bet you’ll find that, together, all things are possible!

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

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· You can watch my short book trailer here.

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Violence Will Increase—Here Is a Way Out

“The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Our world is much like this today. I may have a way out in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.

Let me begin at the end. The Answer is Love.

Today’s blog post is the sequel to last week’s post where I tried to explain the Marxist philosophy behind our “social justice” movements of today. If you haven’t read that, please check it out first. Many people have misunderstood it. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. These ideas are new to most people and are easy to misunderstand, so let me review them.

The dominant philosophy underlying our culture today is known as Critical Theory or Post-Modernism. This philosophy believes there really is no such thing as objective reality, morality, , language, or social progress. All of these are “socially-constructed”—not objective. If this seems bizarre to you, it is.

Last week I pointed out that one of the key fallacies in Marx’s thinking is his idea of groups as the unit of action in society rather than individuals. Thus Karl Marx saw in society, not the struggles of individuals, but a constant battle between social classes (proletariat vs bourgeoisie) for wealth. Marx’s ideas have mutated into the current ideas which see society as a battle between groups (racial, gender, etc.) for power.

Philosophical and political systems based on these ideas ultimately deny the individual and deny God. God, existing outside of society, cannot be “socially constructed”. God must be objective. But nothing really objective exists. So there is no God. This, and the error of group action, is why Marxism and all its derivatives are opposed to religion and opposed to all beliefs in a transcendent god. All religions recognize each human being as an independent creation of God, endowed with free will and capable of independent action, thus having the power of his own individual redemption.

This humanity-destroying nature of Marxist ideas was attested to by Pope John Paul II. He spent almost his whole life living under Marxist ideology, first under Hitler’s socialist NAZI regime in Poland, and later under the communist regime of the USSR. He described it as “the pulverization of the human person”. It led him to develop his own philosophical ideas of “personalism” which emphasize the fundamental importance and sanctity of the human person.

These Marxist ideas of group identity rather than individual identity underly much of the social upheaval in our world today. They have infiltrated virtually every movement that aims to improve the human condition. This is both ironic and perverse, since these ideas are completely opposed to the ends they seek.

Bishop Robert Barron does an excellent job of tracing these ideas through the main philosophers of the 20th century in his lecture, “Ideas Have Consequences: The Philosophers Who Shaped 2020” Many people have asked him the question that is on everyone’s lips today, “What is going on?”. Like me, he says we “have to put on our philosopher’s caps”, because that’s where it’s coming from.

The great economist, Ludwig von Mises, concurred when he said, “the fate of civilization rests upon the ideas that motivate the masses. If we fail to win the battle of ideas, we will see the horrors of history repeated.”

Ludwig von Mises was the clearest and most eloquent economist to refute the non-sensical economic ideas of Karl Marx. In speaking about Marx’s ideas of the class struggle, von Mises said, “As a corrective of these fancies the truism must be stressed that only individuals think and act.”

In trying to understand the relationship of the individual to the group—the ultimate group being the whole society—von Mises said, “Let us first examine the concept of society in general. Men cooperate with one another. The totality of interhuman relations engendered by such cooperation is called society. Society is not an entity in itself. It is an aspect of human action. It does not exist or live outside of the conduct of people. It is an orientation of human action. Society neither thinks nor acts. Individuals in thinking and acting constitute a complex of relations and facts that are called social relations and facts.”

To understand what appears to be bizarre and unjust behavior in some people, we must realize that they are coming from a philosophy that tells them their violent actions are justified because they will overcome the ingrained, institutional racism and sexism of others, who are often not even aware of it themselves because their world view has been “socially constructed”. There is no objective morality, nor objective truth, nor objective human nature. Not even reason can be relied on as a guide to truth because even reason is “socially constructed”. And the main goal is power! Therefore, whatever I do to achieve justice, as I see it, for my group is perfectly moral and good—even if that seems racist or sexist or oppressive to these other people who are the real oppressors.

Get it?

So the violence will get worse. Marxism always leads to violence. It is a gospel of violence. Marxism accepts violence as necessary for social improvement. Bishop Barron explains this in his video. Marxism is an antagonistic social theory. Violence is exactly the point. You need to foment antagonism and violence to create a revolution and break the unjust “system”. This is exactly what we see happening around us.

But we know that violence begets violence. There is no end to it. In Marxist philosophy, there is an eternal conflict between groups that can never be resolved. And individuals don’t matter. Again, as Bishop Barron explains, Nietzsche, building on Marx, realized that this leads to a clash of wills and inexorably to the emergence of a “strong man” who crushes all opposition and dominates all others with his own will. Marxist ideologies lead to societies in which no one is free and millions of people die in the process. This is the road we are on.

So where can we go from here? How do we get off this road? How can we heal the wounds and divisions in our society? Only with love.

The Way Out of Violence – A New Level of Thinking

Einstein is credited with saying, “Problems cannot be solved on the same level of thinking that created them.” Almost paradoxically, to solve the problems of the world, we must go beyond the world. To solve the problems of philosophy, we must go beyond philosophy. And to solve the problems of man, we must turn to God.

Modern philosophy is built on a denial of God. We must turn again toward God. However we conceive God to be, we must open ourselves to Him, to It, to the Divine, to the Universe. Pick your favorite name.

In the same vein, we must learn to look at each other not as human beings, but as divine beings; not as bodies—but as souls. We must look past the physical, the race, the sex, the culture, the clothes, the hair—to see the soul within. While modern philosophy exalts and even worships the ego, the individual will—the way out of this is to exalt the divine, both within and without us.

The only way to solve racism is to transcend it. The only way to solve sexism is to transcend it. As long as we define people by their race or sex, we will have racism and sexism. There is no way around this.

Look beyond the surface characteristics, because everyone has different surface characteristics. See every person as a soul, as a child of God, as your brother or sister—because that’s what each person is. Every person. Love each individual as yourself. Haven’t we heard this before? Love your neighbor as yourself? Maybe it’s just too simple.

Jesus didn’t say to love the Romans as yourself, or love the Greeks as yourself, or love the Samaritans as yourself. It’s not groups you are called to love—it is every individual. If you treat every single individual as an equal sibling of God, and ignore all surface characteristics, you will bring love and peace into every single relationship in your life. That is the only way to bring love and peace into the world, one relationship at a time.

The only solution to racism is to not see race. The only solution to sexism is to not see sex. People will misunderstand this. I do not mean we should close our eyes to the real unfairness and injustice we see around us or within us. We must see these. And we must turn away from injustice and violence always. But as long as we see each other (and ourselves) as bodies, we will react to the characteristics of the body. We must see everyone not as bodies but as souls—as manifestations of the Divine Being.

Our underlying philosophy conditions how we perceive the world—much more than society conditions us. We are much more “perception-conditioned” than we are “socially-conditioned”. And how we perceive the world conditions how we respond to the world. We must fundamentally change how we perceive the world. That is the beginning of change. Today’s post is about perceiving differently. Next week I’ll have more thoughts about acting differently.

Love and respect every individual person you encounter. Love is the Way. Love is the Answer. Love is all there is.

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.

Social Justice is Incompatible with Christianity

This might seem ridiculous. It’s certainly ironic. But before you write me off, read what I mean in this week’s edition of

What is social justice today? Of course, the term means many things, but it’s not your “summer church camp—Kumbaya—peace and equality for everyone” experience of yesteryear. Today’s beast is something completely different. The images you’ve seen on TV of social justice warriors rioting through cities, vandalizing black-owned businesses in the name of racial justice, assaulting passersby for their “white privilege” even if they’re not white, and screaming “racist” at everyone who disagrees with them, did not spring from summer church camps. From whence did they come?

That requires a little understanding of philosophy. Let me digress into Critical Theory. It’s necessary.

I’ve recently come across a few articles and interviews that have helped me understand what seems incomprehensible to most of us. One is an article called, The Cancel God, by Peter Limberg and Lubomir Arsov. They propose that our cancel culture has actually created a man-made, nihilistic “god” who wants to cancel everything. I hadn’t thought about it that way before, and their ideas shined a new light on what’s happening.

Even more helpful to me, was a podcast interview with Keri Smith on the show Triggernometry, titled, “How I Left the Social Justice Cult”. It’s a great interview. I encourage you to watch the whole thing. But like I said, before we can understand these, I think we need a little background on the philosophy behind the world’s currently dominant ideology that you’ve probably never heard of: Critical Theory.

Critical Theory

From Wikipedia:

In sociology and ,political philosophy , "Critical Theory" means the ,Western-Marxist philosophy of the ,Frankfurt School , developed in Germany in the 1930s and drawing on the ideas of ,Karl Marx and ,Sigmund Freud .

Keep that in mind. This ideology is a variant of Marxism, a fatally flawed set of ideas that have been completely debunked in theory (Read “Socialism” by Ludwig von Mises) and totally disgraced in practice (Read “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn).

…it argues that ,social problems are influenced and created more by ,societal structures and ,cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors. Maintaining that ,ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation… it seeks "to ,liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."

That is, the problems humans face are outside themselves, created by society not by themselves, therefore, only by changing others can an individual solve his own problems. The ridiculousness of this should be obvious. How can all of us solve our own problems by trying to change everyone around us, while everyone else is trying to do the same thing?

All religions begin by understanding that our problems are within us. Only by changing ourselves can we solve our problems. All religions aim at individual personal transformation (or conversion) as the route to both personal enlightenment (or salvation) and for progress in society as a whole. Therefore, Critical Theory is fundamentally opposed to all religions. There is no reconciling these two divergent views of reality. And they lead to completely different results in society. I would almost be tempted to call them heaven and hell. (More on that next week.)

Let me put these heady intellectual concepts into practice for a moment. If you believe, “that ,,social problems are influenced and created more by ,,societal structures and ,,cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors” then it’s logical to believe that the black high school dropout who just got busted for selling illegal drugs is a victim. It’s not his fault that he fell in with the wrong crowd, went along to get along, fried his brain with cocaine, choose not to get the free education that the state provided him, and turned to a life of crime instead. Oh no. He’s an innocent victim. He doesn’t need to change himself. All his problems are caused by institutional racism, white privilege, or whatever other bogus names you can invent as excuses. It’s all you folks who need to change. And I’m going to tell you how to change! This is the practical outcome of the insane philosophy of Marxist Critical Theory.

Keri Smith’s Experience in the “Cult” of Social Justice

But let’s return to the experience of Keri Smith. In her interview, she described social justice.

“Social justice (or Identitarianism) is a mutated form of Marxism that is based around identity and power rather than around wealth and class.”

She was indoctrinated into this ideology in university 20 years ago. In “Women’s Studies”, she learned about critical race theory, queer theory, and every other variant of Critical Theory. It became a kind of religion.

“It’s a way of feeling like you are doing good in the world. It gives you a moral plan for how to operate in the world. It contradicts itself a lot. It’s not internally consistent. But for a lot of people, it functions in the place where religion might be. I was in it for 20 years and it operates like a cult.”

We are starting to get a sense of the quasi-religious aspect of this ideology. As with all forms of Marxism, it is aggressively atheistic to the point of being anti-religion.

Here’s another thing. If you, like me, wonder why the words are always changing—why “global warming” became “climate change”; why “homosexual” became “gay”, and then morphed again and again until now we don’t even have a name but an acronym, “LGBTQ+”; why “colored” became “negro”, then “black”, then “African-American”, then diverged so much we have another acronym, “BIPOC”, read on. It’s about confusion and control, just like George Orwell wrote about in “1984”.

“They are very concerned with language. You can control people if you can control their thought and you can control their thought if you can control language.”

Ah, so this philosophy is not about freedom and equality and respect. It’s about control. That sounds like the Marxism I know.

“Early on they redefine terms, such as, ‘Racism and sexism are prejudice plus power.’”

This is institutional racism and sexism. Simple racism is different, it’s not real racism, she says. “So I can call you all kinds of slurs as a white male and that’s not racist or sexist.”

I’m starting to understand why all the “racism” talk is so obviously slanted, even racist—why people can think that a name like “Black Lives Matter” is not racist but “White Lives Matter” is incredibly racist.

The Problem with Ideological Marxism

As with all ideologies, it is a world view, a way of perceiving and interpreting the world, a pattern of thinking. But as with all patterns of thinking, it is both a blessing and a curse. It helps us to understand certain things about reality, but by doing so it constrains our minds so that we do not perceive other aspects of reality. We perceive in the world around us that which we have already created in our minds. That’s a spiritual understanding. If you prefer a psychological understanding, we could see it as the confirmation bias at work.

Critical Theory uses Marxist thinking about groups rather than individuals as the actors in life. Most normal folks recognize that it is individuals who act in the world. But Marx figured otherwise. He thought only groups act. Groups are the locus of identity, not individuals. In Critical Theory, the focus is on groups struggling for power rather than classes struggling for wealth. Therefore, instead of the classical Marxist desire to redistribute wealth, the social justice warriors want to redistribute power. Keri says,

“The best way to look at the world is as a struggle for power. Power is at the center of this belief system. The world is a struggle for power between identity groups, and we need to redistribute power.”

You will likely remember the three temptations that Jesus faced in the desert. They are the classic temptations of the world—the biggest temptation is that of power. All religions teach us to turn away from these temptations. Critical Theory teaches its adherents to covet it.

The Connection to Cancel Culture

Keri says,

“Today, several times a day, there will be news articles about somebody being outraged over something. It’s all a part of this belief system that tells people, “you need to find this hidden racism and sexism and homophobia in everything.’”

Social Justice—Critical Theory encourages people to cultivate their “oppressed” identities, even ones they don’t have, because it’s a badge of moral superiority. Herein lies part of the current glamor of the popularity of sexual deviancies, addictions, finding your oppressed heritage, your skin color, your counter-cultural beliefs (as long as that’s not Christianity), even obesity. It’s a narcissistic, self-destroying ideology where you raise your social standing by exaggerating the worst, most base, and primitive aspects of who you are.

You are encouraged to “identify” with all that is negative, weak, evil, joyless, despicable in yourself. Yet all religions, especially Christianity, encourage people to find the best in themselves and others. Turn away from the seven capital vices and turn toward the seven theological and cardinal virtues.

This Social Justice ideology of evil encourages pride instead of humility; lust instead of purity; avarice instead of charity; anger instead of joy; sloth instead of industry; envy instead of justice; gluttony instead of temperance. It replaces a supernatural God of religion with a “god” of human origins that more resembles what we think of as Satan.

As Winston Churchill astutely observed many years ago, this, “… is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Since all your problems are caused by others, all those other people need to change—to suit you. Hence the cancel culture, the eternal offense-taking, the constant blame-finding and shaming of others. Social Justice Warriors are always looking for someone to resent. They will find you.

Most of us are operating from the church camp—Kumbaya mentality. We think, “Sure, we want to be respectful to everyone, treat everyone fairly, don’t discriminate against anyone.” So we go along with an ideology that is nothing like what we imagine. That’s how we end up at a Black Lives Matter march, thinking we are supporting equality, and are surprised when people beat up bystanders, vandalize buildings, even take control of part of Seattle and set up a new “country”.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Sheri got out of the cult of Social Justice. After 20 years, she realized she was now being asked to justify censorship and violence. It started to wake her up. Maybe it will wake up others. Maybe the riots and violence of 2020 are starting to wake you up. Maybe the cancelling of people you know, like Don Cherry, Rex Murphy, Jessica Mulroney, Michael Kornberg, Stockwell Day has you questioning how this can be “justice” in any meaningful sense of the word. Perhaps people will gradually come to see that true tolerance means being tolerant of everyone, especially those with whom you disagree. True peace means attacking no one, not even those you think are attacking you. True love means being kind even to those who mistreat you. Is this starting to sound familiar? Isn’t this what Jesus taught? This isn’t what Social Justice-Critical Theory teaches.

Social Justice—Critical Theory has become the dominant belief system in media, in education at all levels, in government, and in our “elites” throughout the Western World. Yeah, that list represents the control of just about everything. So is there hope? I think so.

I’ve been saying for years that we are reliving Germany in the 1930s. At that time and place only a tiny minority of people really supported Hilter’s ideas. The vast majority just “went along” because they didn’t want to make waves, didn’t want to lose their jobs, didn’t want to be shamed. They didn’t to stand up to the bully, so they were eventually destroyed by him. We can’t do that again. We can’t just “go along” with this insane ideology any longer. What happened then is summarized in the famous poem by Martin Niemoller.

,First They Came For The Communists

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

The first step in dealing with a bully is to call him out. That’s what I’m doing right here. I’m calling a spade a spade. Social Justice is bullying. It’s a Marxist ideology that is anti-God and anti-humanity. Just like other forms of Marxism, it is inherently unjust, leads inexorably to violence, and ends up destroying people and civilizations.

There are other steps we need to take. But those are for subsequent posts. This one has been far too long already. For those of you who still think social justice is about doing good and saving humanity, and not about grabbing power, let me end with this comment by the famous and insightful journalist (back when journalists were still insightful), H.L. Mencken.

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.”

God Bless You!

· If you enjoy reading my take on life’s ironies, but sure to subscribe to this blog.

· Click here to get a short excerpt from my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. It’s a collection of short modern-day parables to help you along your spiritual journey in life.

· If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher, Booklocker.com or at

· Amazon.

· You can watch my short book trailer here.

· The only place to get my new “Pocket Guide to Spiritual Growth” is right here.