Francis Berger's Blog, page 31
March 7, 2024
Aerial Photos of My Nondescript Village
I have often referred to the small village I inhabit in northwestern Hungary near the Austrian border as nondescript, which, in many ways, it is.
All the same, the place possesses a certain charm, particularly when seen from the air against the backdrop of The Little Hungarian Plain, an area of flatland characteristic of this region. I stumbled upon these aerial photos of Fertőendréd taken by a chap called Ferenc Holper back in 2007.
Flat though this region may be, Fertőendréd's residents are privy to remarkable views when they gaze west.
There, stretching out the horizon are the rolling highlands around nearby Sopron and behind those towers the Schneeberg -- the last and most eastern Alpine mountain.
For reasons I cannot fathom, the photographer appears to have showed no interest in looking west and incorporating these prominent background landscape features into his aerial photos.
Or maybe he tried, but the day was not clear enough? 
All the same, the place possesses a certain charm, particularly when seen from the air against the backdrop of The Little Hungarian Plain, an area of flatland characteristic of this region. I stumbled upon these aerial photos of Fertőendréd taken by a chap called Ferenc Holper back in 2007.
Flat though this region may be, Fertőendréd's residents are privy to remarkable views when they gaze west. There, stretching out the horizon are the rolling highlands around nearby Sopron and behind those towers the Schneeberg -- the last and most eastern Alpine mountain.
For reasons I cannot fathom, the photographer appears to have showed no interest in looking west and incorporating these prominent background landscape features into his aerial photos.
Or maybe he tried, but the day was not clear enough?
March 6, 2024
Wishing Jesus Had Not Ceded the World
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record how the Devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness for forty days — temptations that Jesus overcame before embarking on his mission. The story does not appear in the Fourth Gospel (more on that later).
Mark only mentions the temptation story in passing. Matthew and Luke describe the three Satanic temptations in some detail — these being turning stones to loaves, absolute earthly power, and achieving authority through miracles.
Had Jesus surrendered to these temptations, He would have gained what Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor defines as “the only three powers on the earth that are capable of eternally vanquishing and ensnaring the consciences of those feeble mutineers, for their happiness — those powers are: miracle, mystery, authority.”
Put another way, if Jesus had succumbed to the Devil’s temptations of miracle, mystery, and authority, He would have become the absolute ruler of the world. Moreover, He could have united the people in peace and kept them well-fed and happy forever. Yet, as the Grand Inquisitor laments to Jesus in the Seville prison cell, “You rejected the first, the second, and the third, and yourself gave the lead in doing so.”
The scorn that Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor heaps upon Jesus for rejecting Satan’s temptations is paralleled only by the old priest’s hostility and candor.
If Jesus had submitted to the temptations, He could have created the perfect System on earth. He could have established a peaceful, hunger-free, happy world in which men did not have to agonize over living up to expectations about love, sin, repentance, and creativity. Men could have meekly surrendered their freedom and bowed before Jesus as Caesar. Christendom would have reigned on earth forever.
No man would ever have to worry about losing his culture, conserving his values, or ensuring the safety and well-being of his grandchildren or his grandchildren’s grandchildren. The System would take care of everything. All men had to do in return was surrender their freedom and bow down eternally before the System and its banners of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. Jesus could have guaranteed so much!
Come to think of it, the Grand Inquisitor has a valid point. I mean, what was Jesus thinking when He rejected the three temptations? Did He honestly believe that we mere humans were capable of spiritually overcoming earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority? Did He think we have it in us to live beyond the this-worldly? Did He sincerely trust that we would be motivated to follow Him freely and judge what is good and evil with only Him as a guide? Did He really hold that we would prioritize His speculative other-world over our lives and concerns in this-world? That we would be inspired to repent?
The Grand Inquisitor is right! Jesus thought too highly of us. He expected too much of us. Set the bar too high. He obviously did not understand our this-worldly issues and this-worldly problems. He did not carefully consider things like natural law. He somehow could not comprehend the necessity of this-worldly dominion and power. He was oblivious to what it means to be hungry, scared, disillusioned, alienated, and apathetic. He never understood the allure of desire, sin, covetousness, and selfishness. He did not appreciate the burden of freedom. It is tempting to say that the Truth is not really in Him.
Thankfully, the world brims with grand inquisitors who have taken it upon themselves to correct Christ’s work. Unlike Jesus, these grand inquisitors know who and what we really are. Hence, they can supply what we really need — earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly miracles. Lots of this-worldly miracles, mysteries, and authority for everyone!
In return, all we have to do is surrender our freedom, bow down before them, and surrender our spirit to their anti-spiritual System. It matters little that the System is anti-Christ — that those within the System work for the Dreaded Spirit and not Christ. What matters is that the System understands us, accepts us for who and what we are, and keeps things real by keeping us focused solely on this-world. Freed of our freedom and conscience, we can expend all of our energy on this-worldly pursuits within the spiritual desert of the System.
Yet Jesus did reject the Devil’s temptations. All three of them. He was in the world yet turned His back on Satan’s promises of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority.
In essence, you could say Jesus ceded the world to Satan. He refused to win the world if winning the world entailed harnessing the power of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. His sights were set on something greater, and His mission was to offer that something greater to man.
He knew He could not impose this something bigger or greater on man because to do so would be to harness the banners of mystery, miracle, and authority and deny man’s sacred freedom. Imposing this something bigger and greater would render it to the level of just another System. Man had to accept the offer freely through love and faith rooted beyond this-world.
As noted at the beginning of this post, the temptation story does not appear in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus often refuses to do miracles to prove his identity in the Synoptics, but in John, Jesus frequently performs miracles that reveal his divinity.
However, the motivation behind the miracles of the Fourth Gospel is not the three-powers kind the Synoptics were so wary of. In John, Jesus performs miracles as signs to motivate unbelievers to believe in Him and His other-worldly offer of Heaven.
Whenever the specter of the three powers rose to taint His signs, Jesus desisted and quickly withdrew, as demonstrated by his actions after He had fed the 5000 (John 6:14 KJV):
14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
Every time Jesus encountered the temptation to become the king of the world, He ceded the world.
Every time.
So, forgive me if it appears that my Romantic Christianity dissuades me from becoming involved in your pressing, three-powers, this-worldly cause of reconciling Nature with Christianity, re-imposing Christendom so that Christians can have territory, participating in anti-Christ politics for the sake of your children and their this-worldly future, yearning for a pugnacious Christian leader we can all bow down to, or dreaming of strong Christian community that makes you feel safe and secure.
Mark only mentions the temptation story in passing. Matthew and Luke describe the three Satanic temptations in some detail — these being turning stones to loaves, absolute earthly power, and achieving authority through miracles.
Had Jesus surrendered to these temptations, He would have gained what Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor defines as “the only three powers on the earth that are capable of eternally vanquishing and ensnaring the consciences of those feeble mutineers, for their happiness — those powers are: miracle, mystery, authority.”
Put another way, if Jesus had succumbed to the Devil’s temptations of miracle, mystery, and authority, He would have become the absolute ruler of the world. Moreover, He could have united the people in peace and kept them well-fed and happy forever. Yet, as the Grand Inquisitor laments to Jesus in the Seville prison cell, “You rejected the first, the second, and the third, and yourself gave the lead in doing so.”
The scorn that Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor heaps upon Jesus for rejecting Satan’s temptations is paralleled only by the old priest’s hostility and candor.
If Jesus had submitted to the temptations, He could have created the perfect System on earth. He could have established a peaceful, hunger-free, happy world in which men did not have to agonize over living up to expectations about love, sin, repentance, and creativity. Men could have meekly surrendered their freedom and bowed before Jesus as Caesar. Christendom would have reigned on earth forever.
No man would ever have to worry about losing his culture, conserving his values, or ensuring the safety and well-being of his grandchildren or his grandchildren’s grandchildren. The System would take care of everything. All men had to do in return was surrender their freedom and bow down eternally before the System and its banners of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. Jesus could have guaranteed so much!
Come to think of it, the Grand Inquisitor has a valid point. I mean, what was Jesus thinking when He rejected the three temptations? Did He honestly believe that we mere humans were capable of spiritually overcoming earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority? Did He think we have it in us to live beyond the this-worldly? Did He sincerely trust that we would be motivated to follow Him freely and judge what is good and evil with only Him as a guide? Did He really hold that we would prioritize His speculative other-world over our lives and concerns in this-world? That we would be inspired to repent?
The Grand Inquisitor is right! Jesus thought too highly of us. He expected too much of us. Set the bar too high. He obviously did not understand our this-worldly issues and this-worldly problems. He did not carefully consider things like natural law. He somehow could not comprehend the necessity of this-worldly dominion and power. He was oblivious to what it means to be hungry, scared, disillusioned, alienated, and apathetic. He never understood the allure of desire, sin, covetousness, and selfishness. He did not appreciate the burden of freedom. It is tempting to say that the Truth is not really in Him.
Thankfully, the world brims with grand inquisitors who have taken it upon themselves to correct Christ’s work. Unlike Jesus, these grand inquisitors know who and what we really are. Hence, they can supply what we really need — earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly miracles. Lots of this-worldly miracles, mysteries, and authority for everyone!
In return, all we have to do is surrender our freedom, bow down before them, and surrender our spirit to their anti-spiritual System. It matters little that the System is anti-Christ — that those within the System work for the Dreaded Spirit and not Christ. What matters is that the System understands us, accepts us for who and what we are, and keeps things real by keeping us focused solely on this-world. Freed of our freedom and conscience, we can expend all of our energy on this-worldly pursuits within the spiritual desert of the System.
Yet Jesus did reject the Devil’s temptations. All three of them. He was in the world yet turned His back on Satan’s promises of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority.
In essence, you could say Jesus ceded the world to Satan. He refused to win the world if winning the world entailed harnessing the power of earthly bread, earthly power, and earthly authority. His sights were set on something greater, and His mission was to offer that something greater to man.
He knew He could not impose this something bigger or greater on man because to do so would be to harness the banners of mystery, miracle, and authority and deny man’s sacred freedom. Imposing this something bigger and greater would render it to the level of just another System. Man had to accept the offer freely through love and faith rooted beyond this-world.
As noted at the beginning of this post, the temptation story does not appear in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus often refuses to do miracles to prove his identity in the Synoptics, but in John, Jesus frequently performs miracles that reveal his divinity.
However, the motivation behind the miracles of the Fourth Gospel is not the three-powers kind the Synoptics were so wary of. In John, Jesus performs miracles as signs to motivate unbelievers to believe in Him and His other-worldly offer of Heaven.
Whenever the specter of the three powers rose to taint His signs, Jesus desisted and quickly withdrew, as demonstrated by his actions after He had fed the 5000 (John 6:14 KJV):
14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
Every time Jesus encountered the temptation to become the king of the world, He ceded the world.
Every time.
So, forgive me if it appears that my Romantic Christianity dissuades me from becoming involved in your pressing, three-powers, this-worldly cause of reconciling Nature with Christianity, re-imposing Christendom so that Christians can have territory, participating in anti-Christ politics for the sake of your children and their this-worldly future, yearning for a pugnacious Christian leader we can all bow down to, or dreaming of strong Christian community that makes you feel safe and secure.
February 28, 2024
February 27, 2024
There is No This-Worldly Christianity in Heaven
Christians need to be much more wary than many are, of the danger of pride that results from a - primarily - this-worldly attitude - an attitude that places our-selves and human institutions as the priority; when the reality is that Christ's Kingdom is Not of this-world.
-- Bruce Charlton, This Worldly Pride of Some Christians
The excerpt above — taken from this post (read the whole thing) — sparked the following thought:
The choice to enter Heaven after death also depends greatly on a Christian’s ability or willingness to “let go of” this-worldly Christianity.
Heaven renders this-worldly Christianity unnecessary. Heaven is not liberation and salvation in the world but from the world, implying that this-worldly Christianity is one of the things we would need to be liberated and saved from after death.
What is this-worldly Christianity?
Berdyaev offers an interesting insight:
Full acceptance of the truth of the Gospel, consent to its actual realization, would lead to the destruction of the states, civilizations, societies organized according to the laws of this world - to the end of this world which in every way is opposite to the Gospel Truth:
therefore men and nations have corrected the Gospel, filled it with 'truths' of this world which were really pragmatic, because they were false and adapted to falsehood.
The inability of this-worldly Christianity to realize Gospel Truth is not a denigration of this-worldly Christianity. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder that there are clear and definite limits to this-worldly Christianity, limits we must be able to recognize and acknowledge when the time comes.
Whatever benefits (if any) we may have derived from this-worldly Christianity will have served their purposes and will no longer be needed.
This world was not created for the actual realization of Gospel Truth. The realization of Gospel Truth required Heaven, the Second Creation of Jesus.
Heaven is not and cannot be organized according to the laws of this world. As such, it cannot support anything that insists on being organized or committed to the laws and truths of this world.
The laws and truths of this world, pragmatic though they may be, have no place in Heaven. The same applies to the laws and truths of this-worldly Christianity.
-- Bruce Charlton, This Worldly Pride of Some Christians
The excerpt above — taken from this post (read the whole thing) — sparked the following thought:
The choice to enter Heaven after death also depends greatly on a Christian’s ability or willingness to “let go of” this-worldly Christianity.
Heaven renders this-worldly Christianity unnecessary. Heaven is not liberation and salvation in the world but from the world, implying that this-worldly Christianity is one of the things we would need to be liberated and saved from after death.
What is this-worldly Christianity?
Berdyaev offers an interesting insight:
Full acceptance of the truth of the Gospel, consent to its actual realization, would lead to the destruction of the states, civilizations, societies organized according to the laws of this world - to the end of this world which in every way is opposite to the Gospel Truth:
therefore men and nations have corrected the Gospel, filled it with 'truths' of this world which were really pragmatic, because they were false and adapted to falsehood.
The inability of this-worldly Christianity to realize Gospel Truth is not a denigration of this-worldly Christianity. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder that there are clear and definite limits to this-worldly Christianity, limits we must be able to recognize and acknowledge when the time comes.
Whatever benefits (if any) we may have derived from this-worldly Christianity will have served their purposes and will no longer be needed.
This world was not created for the actual realization of Gospel Truth. The realization of Gospel Truth required Heaven, the Second Creation of Jesus.
Heaven is not and cannot be organized according to the laws of this world. As such, it cannot support anything that insists on being organized or committed to the laws and truths of this world.
The laws and truths of this world, pragmatic though they may be, have no place in Heaven. The same applies to the laws and truths of this-worldly Christianity.
February 26, 2024
Now With Search Function
I sometimes use the search function on other blogs that include them, but it never occurred to me that it might be a good idea to feature one on this blog.
Go figure.
Anyway, that has changed. I have added a search function on the blog for those interested in finding posts about particular keywords, phrases, or topics.
You can find the search box above the five-year-old photo of my gloriously sunlit mug (which I should update to remain more aligned with reality).
Go figure.
Anyway, that has changed. I have added a search function on the blog for those interested in finding posts about particular keywords, phrases, or topics.
You can find the search box above the five-year-old photo of my gloriously sunlit mug (which I should update to remain more aligned with reality).
February 25, 2024
Saint Icebreaker
Today is the feast day of Saint Matthias the Apostle, who was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth apostle after Jesus’ ascension. Saint Matthias Day usually falls on February 24, but the date gets pushed back to the 25th during leap years.Here in Central Europe, Saint Matthias is regarded as an indicator of a potential early spring. Hungarians refer to him as Icebreaker Mátyás.
The folklore goes like this — if Saint Matthias finds ice on his feast day, he will break it. If he finds none, he will make it.
Temperatures have been mild lately, so there is no ice for Matthias to break. Also, if forecasts are trustworthy, he will not make any in the foreseeable future, either.
That means I had better shake off the winter cobwebs and start thinking about spring projects again.
Incidentally, today is also my son’s name day, though he goes by Mátyás, the Magyar version of the anglicized Matthias.
February 24, 2024
Fighting in Ways Sauron Does Not Know
My recent post on the futility of obsessing about politics and using politics to fight evil led to some interesting comments and connections to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Romantic Christian approaches to “fighting the power” are frequently viewed as passive or delusional. The sternest criticisms declare them “do nothing” approaches because they eschew confronting the enemy on predetermined battlefields using the same weapons and tactics the enemy utilizes, i.e., politics.
For the sake of brevity, I will avoid wading into great detail as to why fighting the enemy through such conventional means is virtually pointless and futile in this time and place. One needs to look no further than the abysmal failures of the past decade to recognize that fighting on any political battlefield does little more than play into the enemy’s hands.
No political battle I have followed in the past ten years has succeeded at stopping or even slowing the advance of evil. On the contrary, most of the political battles in the past decade — the big ones that got many of us, yours truly included, so optimistic about potential victories and turning points, i.e., Trump, Brexit, Orbán — have only served to accelerate or exacerbate evil in the world.
Knowing this, why does anyone continue harboring any trace of optimism about Trump’s possible return, or the rise of some supposed right-wing party in Germany, or the appearance of a new, maverick, anti-woke, libertarian leader in some country somewhere, or a group of truckers or farmers taking to the streets to protest against some draconian regulation?
Moreover, why do people continue nurturing battlefield fantasies about fighting evil in the fields and streets? I mean, seriously. Who exactly do you plan to fight, and who will fight alongside you?
Many people remain convinced that the people will rise when things get bad enough. My response? How much worse do things have to get? Here’s a news flash. When things worsen, people will almost certainly become even more yielding, manipulable, governable, passive, and compliant! Either that, or they will be manipulated into taking to the streets by the same forces they purportedly oppose.
Still, for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that some viable and powerful political force does rise and engage the powers that should not be in open battle out on the field. Do you honestly believe the System has not prepared for such possibilities? That it would not ultimately use such an occasion to its advantage?
That aside, let’s go as far as to imagine that this political force engages the enemy in open battle and wins. Yay, us!
Okay, so the political force quickly takes control of the System. How do you think it will wield that power? How much different will its System actually be? Remember all the failed battles of the past decade because the kinds of people who lost those battles would presumably be the same kinds of people who would or could topple the current System.
Do these people strike you as the kind that could spark a spiritual reawakening among the masses? That’s important because a mass spiritual reawakening is the only thing that might turn the collective world in the right direction. Everything else is just chair rearrangement.
Think about all of that. Deeply.
To return to the main point about fighting the enemy through politics and its connection to The Lord of the Rings, I posit that there are ways of fighting that Sauron knows and ways of fighting that Sauron does not know, and I am firmly convinced that we must focus on the latter rather than the former in this time and place.
To support my point, I’ll turn to what Gandalf reveals to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli shortly after his reappearance in The Two Towers (bold added):
“The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is borne by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our Company that set out from Rivendell, and the kind of each of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly.
He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.
That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not entered into his darkest dream. In which you will see our good fortune and our hope.
For imagining war he has let loose war, believing he has no time to waste; for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes hard enough, may need to strike no more. So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended.
Wise fool. For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the hunting of the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor bearer could long have eluded him."
Some vital points to consider concerning the passage above:
Sauron thinks everyone else thinks like him, implying that the only way to outwit Sauron is to not think like Sauron!Sauron assumes everyone has gone to Minas Tirith because that is what he would have done. He cannot conceive of anyone doing otherwise.Sauron fears the appearance of a strong battlefield enemy that might strip him of his power, but he cannot conceive of any other kind of enemy that could be equally detrimental to his power.Sauron cannot imagine anyone wanting to destroy the Ring. He is convinced that anyone who possesses the Ring would want to rule. This is the foundation of Sauron’s worldview and metaphysical assumptions. It is also his greatest weakness.There’s much Sauron knows, but he doesn’t know everything. When it comes to creative, spiritual thinkers, he’s clueless.
The analogy between The Lord of the Rings and our current situation has limits, but we can draw much wisdom from Tolkien's trilogy. However, it is wrong to assume that Tolkien believed only direct, physical battlefield confrontation could vanquish evil.
Although Romantic Christian approaches to fighting the spiritual war are individual and personal, they have one thing in common — they focus on fighting evil in ways that evil does not anticipate, cannot conceive of, and, ultimately, does not know, replete with the understanding that only such approaches can truly defeat evil.
Destroying the Ring is a deeply personal and spiritual matter in this time and place. It entails overcoming the temptation of wielding the Ring for the sake of power.
It entails not thinking like Sauron!
How delusional!
Romantic Christian approaches to “fighting the power” are frequently viewed as passive or delusional. The sternest criticisms declare them “do nothing” approaches because they eschew confronting the enemy on predetermined battlefields using the same weapons and tactics the enemy utilizes, i.e., politics.
For the sake of brevity, I will avoid wading into great detail as to why fighting the enemy through such conventional means is virtually pointless and futile in this time and place. One needs to look no further than the abysmal failures of the past decade to recognize that fighting on any political battlefield does little more than play into the enemy’s hands.
No political battle I have followed in the past ten years has succeeded at stopping or even slowing the advance of evil. On the contrary, most of the political battles in the past decade — the big ones that got many of us, yours truly included, so optimistic about potential victories and turning points, i.e., Trump, Brexit, Orbán — have only served to accelerate or exacerbate evil in the world.
Knowing this, why does anyone continue harboring any trace of optimism about Trump’s possible return, or the rise of some supposed right-wing party in Germany, or the appearance of a new, maverick, anti-woke, libertarian leader in some country somewhere, or a group of truckers or farmers taking to the streets to protest against some draconian regulation?
Moreover, why do people continue nurturing battlefield fantasies about fighting evil in the fields and streets? I mean, seriously. Who exactly do you plan to fight, and who will fight alongside you?
Many people remain convinced that the people will rise when things get bad enough. My response? How much worse do things have to get? Here’s a news flash. When things worsen, people will almost certainly become even more yielding, manipulable, governable, passive, and compliant! Either that, or they will be manipulated into taking to the streets by the same forces they purportedly oppose.
Still, for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that some viable and powerful political force does rise and engage the powers that should not be in open battle out on the field. Do you honestly believe the System has not prepared for such possibilities? That it would not ultimately use such an occasion to its advantage?
That aside, let’s go as far as to imagine that this political force engages the enemy in open battle and wins. Yay, us!
Okay, so the political force quickly takes control of the System. How do you think it will wield that power? How much different will its System actually be? Remember all the failed battles of the past decade because the kinds of people who lost those battles would presumably be the same kinds of people who would or could topple the current System.
Do these people strike you as the kind that could spark a spiritual reawakening among the masses? That’s important because a mass spiritual reawakening is the only thing that might turn the collective world in the right direction. Everything else is just chair rearrangement.
Think about all of that. Deeply.
To return to the main point about fighting the enemy through politics and its connection to The Lord of the Rings, I posit that there are ways of fighting that Sauron knows and ways of fighting that Sauron does not know, and I am firmly convinced that we must focus on the latter rather than the former in this time and place.
To support my point, I’ll turn to what Gandalf reveals to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli shortly after his reappearance in The Two Towers (bold added):
“The Enemy, of course, has long known that the Ring is abroad, and that it is borne by a hobbit. He knows now the number of our Company that set out from Rivendell, and the kind of each of us. But he does not yet perceive our purpose clearly.
He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind.
That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not entered into his darkest dream. In which you will see our good fortune and our hope.
For imagining war he has let loose war, believing he has no time to waste; for he that strikes the first blow, if he strikes hard enough, may need to strike no more. So the forces that he has long been preparing he is now setting in motion, sooner than he intended.
Wise fool. For if he had used all his power to guard Mordor, so that none could enter, and bent all his guile to the hunting of the Ring, then indeed hope would have faded: neither Ring nor bearer could long have eluded him."
Some vital points to consider concerning the passage above:
Sauron thinks everyone else thinks like him, implying that the only way to outwit Sauron is to not think like Sauron!Sauron assumes everyone has gone to Minas Tirith because that is what he would have done. He cannot conceive of anyone doing otherwise.Sauron fears the appearance of a strong battlefield enemy that might strip him of his power, but he cannot conceive of any other kind of enemy that could be equally detrimental to his power.Sauron cannot imagine anyone wanting to destroy the Ring. He is convinced that anyone who possesses the Ring would want to rule. This is the foundation of Sauron’s worldview and metaphysical assumptions. It is also his greatest weakness.There’s much Sauron knows, but he doesn’t know everything. When it comes to creative, spiritual thinkers, he’s clueless.
The analogy between The Lord of the Rings and our current situation has limits, but we can draw much wisdom from Tolkien's trilogy. However, it is wrong to assume that Tolkien believed only direct, physical battlefield confrontation could vanquish evil.
Although Romantic Christian approaches to fighting the spiritual war are individual and personal, they have one thing in common — they focus on fighting evil in ways that evil does not anticipate, cannot conceive of, and, ultimately, does not know, replete with the understanding that only such approaches can truly defeat evil.
Destroying the Ring is a deeply personal and spiritual matter in this time and place. It entails overcoming the temptation of wielding the Ring for the sake of power.
It entails not thinking like Sauron!
How delusional!
February 22, 2024
Lockdown Creativity (and Humor)
Many have likely seen this before, but it is new to me, so I thought I would share it.
Back during the lockdown, an art gallery invited people to recreate their own version of famous paintings. The following presents some of the "results."
A few more can be found here.
Back during the lockdown, an art gallery invited people to recreate their own version of famous paintings. The following presents some of the "results."
A few more can be found here.
February 21, 2024
Politics Is Always Based on Lies, And That Should Tell You Something
It needs to be said that politics are always based on lies, and, therefore, the expression of moral principle, not Christian but simply human, ought to mean a reduction of politics and their fictitious power over human life to a very minimum.
Politics is always an expression of the slavery of man. The astonishing thing is that politics has never been an expression even of intelligence, to say nothing of nobility or goodness.
-- Nikolai Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom
If Brexit, the failed Trump presidency, and the ongoing faux-populist, illiberal democracy of Viktor Orbán have revealed anything, it is this — there is no hope in politics. None at all.
So why the obsession?
Moreover, politics contains no intelligence, nobility, or goodness either. On the contrary, politics is now a spiritual deathtrap, and anyone who remains fixated on, preoccupied with, and possessed by politics is a slave.
Full stop.
We are far past the point where one can obsess over politics and sincerely claim to be committed to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Far past the point...
Politics is always an expression of the slavery of man. The astonishing thing is that politics has never been an expression even of intelligence, to say nothing of nobility or goodness.
-- Nikolai Berdyaev, Slavery and Freedom
If Brexit, the failed Trump presidency, and the ongoing faux-populist, illiberal democracy of Viktor Orbán have revealed anything, it is this — there is no hope in politics. None at all.
So why the obsession?
Moreover, politics contains no intelligence, nobility, or goodness either. On the contrary, politics is now a spiritual deathtrap, and anyone who remains fixated on, preoccupied with, and possessed by politics is a slave.
Full stop.
We are far past the point where one can obsess over politics and sincerely claim to be committed to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Far past the point...
February 19, 2024
The Inversion of Democracy is Itself an Inversion
Warning: A ranty, immature tone pollutes the following post. I apologize in advance, but I can't take these sorts of things seriously anymore.
Get ready for the big news, folks! You better sit down for this one. Are you ready? Here it is…
DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN INVERTED!
No, really! When you hear democracy, I bet you think of something like “rule of the people”, right?
Well, guess what? That’s not what democracy means anymore!
I know. Mind blown!
So, what is democracy now?
“Oh, it's the military, it's NATO, it's the IMF and the World Bank. It's the mainstream media, it is the NGOs, and of course, these NGOs are largely state department-funded or IC-funded. It's essentially all of the elite establishments that were under threat from the rise of domestic populism that declared their own consensus to be the new definition of democracy.
Because if you define democracy as being the strength of democratic institutions rather than a focus on the will of the voters, then what you're left with is essentially democracy is just the consensus-building architecture within the Democrat institutions themselves.
And from their perspective, that takes a lot of work. I mean, the amount of work these people do. I mean, for example, we mentioned the Atlantic Council, which is one of these big coordinating mechanisms for the oil and gas industry in a region for the finance and the JP Morgans and the BlackRocks in a region for the NGOs in the region, for the media, in the region, all of these need to reach a consensus, and that process takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of work and a lot of negotiation from their perspective.
That's democracy. Democracy is getting the NGOs to agree with BlackRock, to agree with the Wall Street Journal, to agree with the community and activist groups who are onboarded with respect to a particular initiative that is the difficult vote building process from their perspective.”
Boy, talk about epiphanies!
Democracy as a totalitarian power network that exists only to defend and propagate itself while simultaneously censoring, oppressing, and terrorizing the people?
Never in the history of the world has such an inversion of democracy taken place.
German Democratic Republic (1949 to 1990)
To think that democracy has nothing at all with the will of the people. That it’s just a game of smoke and mirrors meant to keep totalitarians in charge. Man, that’s something fresh.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948 to Present)
Here’s the kicker. Criticize the totalitarian power structure in the inverted democracies that comprise the West, and the totalitarian state will brand you a threat to democracy and an enemy of the people.
And let’s be honest, there’s nothing more reprehensible than an enemy of the people.
After all, democracy is there to protect the people from such enemies. When all is said and done, totalitarians are “people” people.
The People’s Republic of China (1949 to Present)
So, what are we to do? Isn’t it obvious? We have to win back our democracies! Our real democracies! Not the fake kind we have been sold by the intricate network of elite totalitarian organizations.
Well, there is one small problem with that line of thinking. It can be summarized as follows:
That aside, this Indian guru’s take is also worth considering.
Granted, he didn’t believe in God and thought Jesus experienced great disillusionment on the cross, but even from the foundation of those limited metaphysical assumptions, guru man was able to express the following insight-- an insight that seems utterly beyond the scope of most modern Westerners when it comes to Of the people, by the people, for the people: Okay, sure...but, we still need to real democracy back. If we do that, everything will be solved!
Listen: I’ll come right out and say it.
The supposed inversion of democracy is itself an inversion.
It keeps individuals focused on the wrong things and prevents them from thinking about the things they really, really, really need to think about.
Get ready for the big news, folks! You better sit down for this one. Are you ready? Here it is…
DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN INVERTED!
No, really! When you hear democracy, I bet you think of something like “rule of the people”, right?
Well, guess what? That’s not what democracy means anymore!
I know. Mind blown!
So, what is democracy now?
“Oh, it's the military, it's NATO, it's the IMF and the World Bank. It's the mainstream media, it is the NGOs, and of course, these NGOs are largely state department-funded or IC-funded. It's essentially all of the elite establishments that were under threat from the rise of domestic populism that declared their own consensus to be the new definition of democracy.
Because if you define democracy as being the strength of democratic institutions rather than a focus on the will of the voters, then what you're left with is essentially democracy is just the consensus-building architecture within the Democrat institutions themselves.
And from their perspective, that takes a lot of work. I mean, the amount of work these people do. I mean, for example, we mentioned the Atlantic Council, which is one of these big coordinating mechanisms for the oil and gas industry in a region for the finance and the JP Morgans and the BlackRocks in a region for the NGOs in the region, for the media, in the region, all of these need to reach a consensus, and that process takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of work and a lot of negotiation from their perspective.
That's democracy. Democracy is getting the NGOs to agree with BlackRock, to agree with the Wall Street Journal, to agree with the community and activist groups who are onboarded with respect to a particular initiative that is the difficult vote building process from their perspective.”
Boy, talk about epiphanies!
Democracy as a totalitarian power network that exists only to defend and propagate itself while simultaneously censoring, oppressing, and terrorizing the people?
Never in the history of the world has such an inversion of democracy taken place.
German Democratic Republic (1949 to 1990)
To think that democracy has nothing at all with the will of the people. That it’s just a game of smoke and mirrors meant to keep totalitarians in charge. Man, that’s something fresh.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948 to Present)
Here’s the kicker. Criticize the totalitarian power structure in the inverted democracies that comprise the West, and the totalitarian state will brand you a threat to democracy and an enemy of the people.
And let’s be honest, there’s nothing more reprehensible than an enemy of the people.
After all, democracy is there to protect the people from such enemies. When all is said and done, totalitarians are “people” people.
The People’s Republic of China (1949 to Present)
So, what are we to do? Isn’t it obvious? We have to win back our democracies! Our real democracies! Not the fake kind we have been sold by the intricate network of elite totalitarian organizations.
Well, there is one small problem with that line of thinking. It can be summarized as follows:
That aside, this Indian guru’s take is also worth considering.
Granted, he didn’t believe in God and thought Jesus experienced great disillusionment on the cross, but even from the foundation of those limited metaphysical assumptions, guru man was able to express the following insight-- an insight that seems utterly beyond the scope of most modern Westerners when it comes to Of the people, by the people, for the people: Okay, sure...but, we still need to real democracy back. If we do that, everything will be solved!
Listen: I’ll come right out and say it.
The supposed inversion of democracy is itself an inversion.
It keeps individuals focused on the wrong things and prevents them from thinking about the things they really, really, really need to think about.
