Not Today, World

I was going to write about a crazy woman who says she considered suing a veterinarian for refusing to treat her deluded, entitled, ruined son, who say he’s a cat. I have decided not to, because I don’t think it would do any good. I don’t feel like engaging because I expect no reward for my efforts.

“Cat” is a gender now, according to certain leftists. It is not clear whether they realize cats come in two sexes or whether it matters to them, but it is very clear there is no point in asking them.

I was feeling worried about the future earlier in the week, for no good reason. I knew what the problem was. When I pray in tongues a great deal, I feel good, and things go well. When I don’t, I get jittery and problems pile up. I start to feel overwhelmed, which makes sense, because people who don’t pray in tongues are trying to shoulder their own problems, which is disobedient to God.

Over the last couple of days, I have managed to put a lot of time in. I have prayed in tongues quite a bit. I didn’t leave the bedroom today until around 11 a.m. I feel much better. On the other hand, I feel more distanced from our insane, demon-controlled world.

I have made a little effort to watch the Fani Willis scandal unfold, and today I decided to Google Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer who threw Willis in the fire. As expected, Ms. Merchant is not a Trump attorney. She represents a codefendant.

Trump seems to hire his attorneys on the golf course and perhaps at barbecues peripheral to CPAC instead of making an intelligent effort to find competent people, so he hires a lot of nuts and nincompoops. He hired Rudy Giuliani after he became senile. Of course Trump’s own high-priced lawyers failed to notice Willis’s ethical problems. It would be bizarre if a Trump lawyer did anything intelligent.

I’m not worried about Giuliani suing me for calling him senile, because he can’t afford to pay the fees for filing the case and serving process. And he is, in fact, senile.

For a while, my opinion has been that Giuliani would have done a better job in his youth, because he was a great prosecutor and mayor, but now that I think about it, you don’t have to be a genius to be a prosecutor who puts disgusting mobsters in prison. Maybe Giuliani was always a bad lawyer, but he had easy cases.

Let’s see. He was cum laude at NYU, a very good law school. He was on the law review. He had to be reasonably competent.

He’s senile.

I was looking at information about Ashleigh Merchant, and I saw the usual stuff we hear about lawyers. Her commitments to the profession. The community. Truth, justice, and the American Way. It makes me wince to think about it.

When I was in law school, they pushed that kind of nonsense on us. I didn’t want to be there, but most students did, and most came from non-legal families. Many were extremely proud of their status. Professors and speakers filled their itching ears with spin about the nobility of the profession and our duty to the public. They described lawyers like they were saints and martyrs, but the truth is that nearly all of us were there to line our pockets. I certainly was. I wasn’t out to do anything immoral, but my only reason for attending was to provide for myself.

Lawyers are like movie stars. In front of the public, we virtue-signal like crazy, but behind the scenes, it’s all cynicism and self-promotion.

So far, I have personally witnessed two lawyers–students, actually–talking about our civic duty when they weren’t being paid to do it. One was sincere, and the other was making a stomach-churning, clumsy, fumbling, phony, woke speech in order to get another law student to have sex with him. She appeared to be eating it up, although that doesn’t mean she believed a word of it.

Women like marrying lawyers. This is especially true of women in law school. My mother went to law school for the purpose of getting married.

I will digress.

My grandfather was a big man in Kentucky. He had no sons. He wanted my mother to be a lawyer. She wanted to have fun at school and spend his money.

She was an undergrad at the University of Kentucky, and he told her he would buy her a car if she went to law school. She jumped on the deal. But she had no degree.

She was given an appointment with the law school dean. As a favor, he signed a paper waiving the degree requirement for her. As he did so, he said, “Go on over there and get married.” And she did. I think she quit after one year. If she knew anything about law, it was never apparent to me.

She eventually wrecked the car near Middlefork, an unincorporated area in Powell County, Kentucky, on a curve on Highway 15. She had a bunch of friends in the car. When my grandfather sued the Greyhound company, he claimed their bus crossed the center line. It may even have been true.

I have no idea what kind of person Ms. Merchant is, and I’m not criticizing her personally. I’m just reacting to seeing the “noble profession” stuff repeated one more time. It’s almost always BS, and it’s a plate of BS I have been served many times in the past.

While I was Googling, I saw something about people having a duty to take certain jobs in order to save the world. Boy, do I reject that. If you’re drafted to protect your country, you should serve, but other than that, no. I reject the notion that everyone who has an ability is obligated to use it to do this or that for society. No one will ever be able to make me feel bad about quitting law or failing to pursue medicine and sew up little cleft palates in Haiti. The world is too crazy for me.

Truthfully, I believe I do more by minding my own business, interceding, and giving than I ever could have done taking some kind of service-motivated job. And I am not constantly embroiled in the psychosis that has taken over the world.

Kid says he’s a cat. He really says that. Mom agrees. The right blue-state jury would agree.

Garfield v. Reality. Affirmed, per curiam. Costs and fees to the plaintiff.

My sister had a mental (demonic) break once and decided she was a frog. She jumped into my dad’s pool and wouldn’t come out. My parents didn’t bring her a plate of flies.

To get anywhere in service-motivated jobs that use your talents, you have to jump into the mosh pit and curry favor with the people who run Satan’s world. You have to network and socialize with people you neither like nor respect. You have to deny your beliefs. These days, you have to proactively extol our new Satanic morals. It’s not for me. The world will have to go on without me.

I have to wonder what would happen if I took a pro bono case and refused to call a perverted judge or attorney “she.” Thank God I will never find out. Good luck, little pro bono clients. You’re on your own. Someone else will have to help you get your uncontested divorces, undeserved green cards, and DV restraining orders.

I looked at Rachel Levine today; the fat old Jewish guy who wears a dress and serves as Assistant Secretary of Health. His picture should be on the American flag. Get rid of the old flag, which is clearly performative and transphobic. Give the new flag a pink field. Put Rachel’s picture in the middle, and make sure he’s wearing rainbow body paint and nothing else. That’s America. Everyone salute.

Trump may win. Great. A few things may change for the better, temporarily. America will still be lost and no longer worthy of my misguided secular participation.

Yeshua has been rejected. The Holy Spirit has been rejected. Everyone who belongs to them, including me, has been rejected. I’m not going to keep trying to join Satan’s club. If new cheerleader tryouts are held, I will not attend.

Here’s something interesting I just realized: I have never heard anyone in my family talk about our obligations to society. No one ever told me to run for first grade class president or become a hall monitor. My grandfather was a circuit judge, as was his less-gifted son-in-law, and neither of them ever talked about public service. My dad’s first cousin was a circuit judge. My cousin is a prosecutor. His sister got a degree in psychology. My sister was a prosecutor. I never heard any of them talk about our duty to improve society.

My mother got a degree in social work, so there’s that. While doing practical work as a student, she found out that poor black people could be ungrateful and dangerous. One huge crazy guy forced her to run her hands over his face and tell her she and he were the same. Maybe that’s why she quit. She liked helping the individuals who didn’t terrify her, but to get to them, she had to be around the others.

Anyway, I don’t feel like writing about the cat guy in any depth. I might as well go outside and make mud pies, for all the good it would do.

Trump Go Fund Me Established to Vex Sadistic ‘Flakes

I have been saying someone should open a website to collect money to pay Donald Trump’s bills. I don’t mean his legal fees. I mean the verdicts themselves.

He has a PAC called Save America, and it has paid toward his fees, but I see no indication that it will help with the actual verdicts. It doesn’t do him much good to avoid paying his lawyers if he’s still on the hook for $400 million.

A lady in Miami has started a Go Fund Me to pay off the verdicts, and it’s up to about $450K. If everyone who voted for Trump sent 10 dollars, Trump would be in the black by nine figures, even after gift tax. I have no problem with this. It’s legal to give strangers money.

The bulk of the verdicts will go to New York City, which will lose it paying off illegal aliens, so I don’t care about that. Some will go to the lady who seriously claimed it was possible to rape someone at Bergdorf Goodman during business hours. Oh, well. She’s cursed no matter what she gets, so I can live with knowing I sent her money.

The Bible says we should not give to the rich, but this is a special case. This guy is our friend, and he was victimized because of it.

Leftist-controlled Go Fund Me has not taken the page down yet. Maybe they’re afraid to do that. If you’re interested, here is the link the MSM will never publish: LINK.

The verdicts will probably be slashed on appeal. I don’t care. Go buy yourself another jet, Mr. President. Enjoy life.

Living on Charity

I feel so blessed.

Far from crowds. Far from turmoil. Best wife possible. Two prayer sessions a day, with my wife and the most wonderful God anyone could ask for. Funny little bird by my side watching me type. Excellent strong wheat ale from a recipe I wrote in 2004, improved by using Bergamot hops.

I hope everyone reading this gets close to God and receives the desires of their hearts.

In Heaven as it Was on Earth

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I am physically separated from my wife, but we spent a long time together using video chat. I have great friends, so we had presents to open and people to message and chat with. Even though we were both technically alone, we had a holiday of love and warmth, and we were encouraged by the knowledge that we would probably get together for good soon.

On Christmas Day, I had a wonderful revelation about Christmas.

I realize December 25 probably isn’t the date of Jesus’ birth, and I have heard all the overthought arguments against celebrating Christmas. Some of them aren’t true. For example, it isn’t true that we got Christmas from the pagan holiday Saturnalia. I don’t think Christmas trees honor the devil. There are plenty of real problems with our modern traditions without making up new ones.

Christmas is imperfect, but it’s still very important. We need to acknowledge Jesus as a nation and as families. The fact that most people think Christmas is about elves and going into debt doesn’t mean you and I can’t do it right.

When I was a kid, my life was miserable. My dad was a wife-beater who drank too much. My mother was a defeated pessimist who failed to introduce her kids to God. My sister was a jealous, sadistic sociopath who resented my existence. Our house was a depressing place of fear and dreary expectations. Nonetheless, I loved Christmas, because we used to visit my mother’s parents in Kentucky. They were wealthy, they had a big house, they always decorated, I got to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and I was their favorite grandchild. Kentucky was a place of escape for me. The impression it made in my heart was overly idealistic. It wasn’t hard for Kentucky to look like heaven after what I went through in Florida.

We always had lots of presents and two big dinners. We got to play with great toys. Sometimes there was snow, so we could ride a sled.

It was very comforting to feel I belonged to a loving family. Every branch of the family was somewhat dysfunctional, but at Christmastime, we all came together to form a much more pleasant-looking whole.

On Christmas Day, I started thinking about the passage where the Bible says that through the Holy Spirit, we cry out, “Abba, Father!”, to God. “Abba” is a Hebrew word, and it’s an affectionate term meaning “father.”

Sometimes preachers talk about it, saying it means “daddy.” Personally, I never called my dad that. It always seemed childish to me. It was okay for girls, but “mommy” and “daddy” sounded awful coming from boys. I called my parents “Mom” and “Dad.”

I could never call God “Daddy,” because it would be insincere and make me feel uncomfortable, but I can call him “Dad.” There is no one else here to answer to that now.

I decided to make a special effort to use “Dad” in my prayers. The Bible says Spirit-led Christians are literally the children of God, so we shouldn’t be reluctant to call him what he is.

I had tried this in the past with limited results, but doing it on Christmas day, I felt a real connection. I got a stronger revelation of who I am; what my identity is and what my rights and privileges are. It gave me a sensation of belonging.

It made me think of those Christmases in Kentucky. We gathered at the home of a wealthy, powerful male figure, and we enjoyed his generosity and the warm oasis he provided for us. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I felt that special connection only family members feel. If you’ve ever felt you could show up at your grandparents’ house or an uncle’s house uninvited and unannounced, use your own key to get in, raid the fridge, make long-distance calls from the phone, and move into the guest room, you know what I mean. I felt we were more than separate individuals. We were woven together so none of us had to face the world with only our own strength.

People who say they have seen heaven tell us there are countless radiant beings around the throne of God, inside walls and gates of pearls and precious stones, looking at their father and praising and thanking him with love pouring from everyone, in every direction.

This Christmas, in my heart, I realized what we experienced in Kentucky was a picture of what residents of heaven enjoy every day. It made me feel warm and safe. I was in my big house all by myself, my grandparents were dead, my aunts and cousins generally were no longer interested in relationships with me, my wife was nearly 8,000 miles away, but I had the same basic feeling I used to get in my grandparent’s family room as the kids tore wrapping paper off presents.

Now that I think about it, my house, more than any of my aunts’ or male cousin’s houses, is like my grandfather’s house. I have no kids, but I have brothers and sisters my father in heaven gave me, and I have two godchildren and a bunch of other kids who care about me. They are always welcome to visit. They are safe here, to relax and enjoy each other’s company.

When I was young, I had the feeling I was my grandfather’s son. My dad had this feeling, too, but he would never have said it. He knew his bad behavior had made it impossible for me to look up to him the way I looked up to my grandfather, and when he got older, he developed the habit of saying “your father” when he really meant my mom’s dad.

In my heart, I felt my dad was a problem, not an asset. He was just someone I had to manage and humor in order to avoid problems. My grandfather was different. I was proud to be his grandson. Everywhere we went, people gathered around us to talk to him. Men wanted his counsel and his help. Women wished they were married to him. With my dad, it was different. When I walked around our neighborhood, I knew everyone there had seen police cars outside our house, and maybe they had seen him half-dressed, taunting the police because they knew he couldn’t be arrested for public drunkenness or disturbing the peace as long as he didn’t leave his doorway. I knew the other dads bought their wives and children more things than my dad bought for us, and no one was afraid when those men entered a room. My dad was not very violent with me, but because of the way he had treated my mother in front of me, I couldn’t help being scared of him.

My dad became a loving, doting, Christian father during the last years of his life, but things were different when I was young.

My grandfather didn’t have any boys. He had 4 girls, and he made considerable effort to get the same things from them he would have gotten from sons. He tried to interest two of them in the outdoors, which didn’t work. He sent my mother to law school, where she promptly selected a fiance, got married, and quit. His first male grandchild was older than I was, but my mother was his favorite daughter, so the first male didn’t get the bond I got. I was the one. The next male that arrived was a terror the adults fantasized about slapping, so among the first 4 children, I looked pretty good, and my position was safe.

Now that I’m an adult, I feel I am more of an heir to my grandfather than the others. I didn’t inherit any more wealth than they did, but my place among the people close to me is more like his.

My life is largely shaped by my experiences with him. The pleasure I got from being with him shaped my desires. Like him, I love the country. I live on a farm. He had cattle; I have cattle, although the ones on my farm belong to a tenant. I have tractors because he used to set me on the fender of a Massey-Ferguson and let me ride while he raked and mowed. He used to put me in the driver’s seat and let me drive while he shouted instructions. I love guns because he and I shot and hunted together, and like him, I have a gun room in my house.

I think of myself as someone who turned out barren, but I am more of a patriarch than my 4 male cousins, all of whom had kids. Like my grandfather, I participate in other people’s upkeep. He let my divorced aunt live on one of his farms rent-free for years. He bought cars for his daughter. He paid my sister’s high school tuition even though my dad was wealthy. He gave my mother money to invest. One of his sons-in-law was a hateful, black-hearted drunk who was very hard to like, but my grandfather invested a lot of money trying to keep his car dealership open. He gave his grandchildren calves and paid them the proceeds when they were auctioned. When I was a kid, sometimes he would slip me a fifty when no one was looking. He loved doing things like that. He never expected me to do anything for him.

When I got married, it never occurred to me that my wife should work. I would have been ashamed to let her do that. She doesn’t pay for anything. Yesterday, a cousin who still talks to me said that was remarkable. I was surprised. I had always assumed people would look down on me if I let Rhodah look after herself in Zambia.

When I call her every day, I love hearing her tell me she has spent her day relaxing. That’s exactly what I want to hear. She should shop, cook nice food, read the Bible, pray, minister to others, drive around to see people, and watch good teaching. She should enjoy the home she lives in by herself. The less work she does, the better I like it. I don’t think my male cousins have that attitude. Two are divorced, and I believe the wives of the other two work. The cousin who was surprised I supported my wife is divorced, and her husband abandoned her son. I have another female cousin who seems to have done better. Her first husband was man of good intentions, and I hear complimentary things about the man she married after he died.

Sometimes when I ask my wife what she has been doing all day, she grins and says, “Sitting!” I always tell her I hope she didn’t overexert herself.

I think it’s okay to say I do things for my wife. Jesus cautioned us against telling others about our charitable deeds, but supporting your wife isn’t alms. It’s the fulfillment of an obligation. Bragging about doing things for your wife is like bragging that you brush your teeth. No one should be impressed.

When my mother and father got married, my grandfather bought them a new DeSoto. It was extremely ugly. It was grey with an orange roof. He paid to have the paint improved. He put a red roof on it! At least he tried. Of course, he paid for the wedding, including my dad’s clothes. He rarely drank, but he had a few drinks at the wedding, and before my parents drove off, he took all the money in his pockets, which would have been a lot, and he made them take it for their honeymoon.

That’s the kind of person I want to be.

Maybe God gave me my grandfather and made me a little like him so I would understand what it felt like to be the patriarch. To be a patriarch is to be like God. It’s a very good thing to provide abundance, safety, and shelter. It’s good to overcome the selfishness of my youth so it can’t disgrace me in my old age.

When we are together in heaven, it won’t be like being in church. When I used to go to church, I liked the people around me, but the bonds weren’t that strong. Many of them were hypocrites who didn’t really belong to God’s family. Most of them didn’t know me. When I stood among them during services, it was not much different from standing among total strangers. In heaven, we will feel a family bond like the one I felt in my grandparents’ house as we stuffed ourselves and opened presents. It will be a family reunion, very literally.

Sometimes I have been concerned, and occasionally resentful, about the demands people have made on me. It has annoyed me to hear new requests from people who weren’t making much effort to fix their lives. I believe that feeling is evil, and I try not to cling to that mindset. I always tell Rhodah it’s much better to be the one who gives than the one who takes, because if people are coming to you for help, it means you have, and they don’t. You are more blessed than they are. Rhodah feels the same way.

I can see why leftists, who hate the principles of God’s kingdom, hate Christmas and work so hard to erase it from the public’s culture. Their father is Satan, and Satan doesn’t want us to know we can be a family. He doesn’t want us to love patriarchy, because God is a father, and men who worship God correctly are patriarchs. He doesn’t want us to see the parallel between Christmas togetherness and the unity and love we will one day feel, assembled around the throne Satan will never again see.

Satan’s children want us to be a family, too; the fear-driven, self-centered, ruthless children of the global government and the Internet. He wants to hide the breast and give us a pacifier dipped in poison.

If my revelation from God helps you, then let it be my Christmas present to you. You have 364 days to prepare to receive the benefit.

Trump Admits He’s not God

I suppose I should blog about God a little bit.

First of all, I wonder how many people have seen Trump’s recent remarks about God. He was in Minnesota, giving an unscheduled talk beside Air Force One. He was talking about the economy, and he said this:

“You know what that is? That’s right. That’s God testing me,” Trump explained. “He said, You know, you did it once. And I said, ‘Did I do a great job, God? I’m the only one who could do it.’ He said, ‘That you shouldn’t say. Now we’re going to have you do it again.’ I said, ‘OK. I agree. You got me.’ But I did it once. And now I’m doing it again. And you see the kind of numbers that we’re putting up. They’re unbelievable. Best job numbers ever. Three months, more jobs in the last three months than ever before.”

I think this is great. I believe he talks to God. I don’t think he’s lying. There is too much evidence out there to deny that he has turned to God in recent years, whether or not you think he’s a good example to other Christians. I am pleasantly surprised to see him show some humility. I didn’t think he knew pride was bad. If he believes God told him he shouldn’t take credit for his success, it’s an indication that he’s growing.

We all know his faults. There is no point in denying them. But Christianity is a process, not a state. We accept Christians who do yoga and have illegitimate babies in strings, but we get upset because Trump owns casinos and has a history of adultery. Who knows what he’ll be like 5 years from now? If your direction is right, your location can’t stop you.

Here’s another thing: I got a nice revelation yesterday, and it looks like it’s surprisingly powerful. It’s very simple. When I interact with another person, or I think of another person, or I see another person, I think, “What can I do for him?” Generally, there is nothing I can do by earthly means, but I can still pray, so that’s what I do.

It sounds like a big nothing, but it isn’t. When you ask yourself what you can do for someone else, it changes your inclinations. Maybe the person is someone who makes you angry. Maybe it’s someone you like. Maybe it’s someone you feel a counterproduction sexual attraction to. When you ask yourself what you can do for that person, your attention shifts away from selfish ideation, and you get a chance to pour God’s benevolence into the world through prayer or other means.

I believe in charity. It’s extremely important. It’s important to do things for people. I have felt this way for many years. Having these beliefs isn’t as powerful as asking yourself what you can do for people. I can’t explain it, but I suggest you try it. I’m making it a habit.

Praying for people isn’t a negligible service. Prayer is more powerful than anything else you can do. You shouldn’t feel you’ve done nothing because all you did was pray. That’s crazy.

The Bible says faith works through love. My sense is that love behaves like a supernatural lubricant that allows faith to flow. I suppose this is because we should be exercising our faith to get things we pray for out of love, not selfishness or duty.

We always wonder why our prayers aren’t answered. Maybe a lot of answers are stuck in the pipe because there is no lubricant. I’ve seen healers tell people they can’t be healed because they don’t forgive. It’s consistent with the notion of love as a supernatural grease.

This morning, I thought about a Bible passage:

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.

The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

The second verse says the generous “soul” shall be made fat. To me, that suggests it’s important to be generous in your mind and heart, not just in your actions. If you make a practice of asking yourself what you can do for other people, you make your soul serve God.

The word translated “made fat” can mean “oiled.”

It all makes sense. The Bible says we are servants. What do servants say when they meet people? What does every clerk in every store say when you walk up? “How can I help you?” They know they’re servants, and Christians generally don’t have the same mindset. We’re always running around squawking, “God heal me! God protect me! God give me stuff so I won’t be poor!” We’re too busy on defense to think about offense. Conquest is all about offense. You can’t conquer by sitting behind a wall, hoping your enemies go away.

Anyway, try it. See what you think. It costs you nothing, and it’s as easy as a thing can be.

Final thing: something wild is going on with my shoulder. My gallbladder is not exemplary, although it’s not bad enough to cause attacks or require surgery. The main problem it causes me is shoulder pain. For some reason, gallbladder issues can generate referred pain in your shoulder, neck, or back.

For quite a while, I’ve had a problem putting my right arm behind my back. I didn’t go to a doctor. I try to get God’s healing and correction when I have a problem, and doctors are useless when it comes to gallbladder disorders. Generally, their kneejerk response is to remove your gallbladder, leaving you unable to digest fat, with a high probability of continued pain from stones. They don’t even try to fix gallbladders.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the shoulder itself.

The other day, I moved my arm around to loosen it up, and I heard crackling sounds. I wondered what was up. Maybe my gallbladder wasn’t the problem. Maybe the cartilage in my shoulder had disintegrated. I wondered whether I would have to give up and go to a witch doctor (my term for MD’s). I moved my shoulder vigorously, trying to reproduce the sound. The more I moved it, the less noise I heard. When I stopped, my shoulder felt better and had more mobility.

For the last few days, I’ve been doing this from time to time. It’s better than going to a witch doctor and letting him cut up and damage something God might be planning to heal.

This morning, I reached behind myself for some reason. I can’t remember what it was. Maybe I was scratching. Anyway, I realized my arm was way back there, and I wasn’t feeling pain. I did it without thinking. So now I can reach maybe a foot farther back before I feel discomfort. The change coincides with the revelation about doing things for people.

Thought I should put it out there. I don’t know what will happen next, but I’m thrilled to be feeling better. I went to a Last Reformation event in 2019 and asked for prayer for my shoulder, and I didn’t get results. Maybe God was telling me I needed to think about other people differently.

Yesterday I bucked and moved a tree by myself. I think I took 5 tractor loads to the burn pile, and a lot of the wood had to be lifted onto the tractor by yours truly. I’m out of shape. I don’t exercise. I’m old. I feel great today. I’m not sore or stiff. That’s a blessing. I’m thinking of cutting the rest of the tree down today.

I cut the tree in the middle of the day in August, in Florida. It was not raining. The temperature should have been 98 degrees, and I should have gotten a sunburn. My clothes should have been drenched with sweat. The sun was very gentle. I don’t think we ever broke 90. I didn’t sweat much at all. No problems.

I think I’m doing well for my age. I may look like Wilford Brimley’s dad, but I have a lot of energy, and everything works pretty well. I’ve seen other people my age, or younger, whose condition scared me. I keep hoping I can improve my body’s state by finding out what God is trying to get me to confess and repent of.

People get mad when you say their physical problems come from sin and ignorance. Where else would they come from? Are diseases rewards for righteousness? If the suggestion that your sins or your ignorance are making you sick makes you angry, you have exactly the kind of problem that perpetuates curses. You need to grow up and stop playing the victim.

It may be time to fire up the pole saw. Can’t wait to get the rest of that tree out of my life.

Obituary Appears

I hate to keep writing about the death of my friend Travis long after people have lost interest, but things keep developing.

A nurse who worked in the building where Travis died found out about me and provided some information. She was a friend of his sister when she was a kid. She says the hospital was locked up tight with regard to visitors. She says she prayed by his bed. Toward the end, her impression was that he would live. So his friends weren’t crazy when they found it odd that he had passed suddenly.

She’s a black conservative. How about that? You may not understand the hostility she is up against in her milieu.

She knows how I feel about the people who dragged Travis down, and she agrees that sometimes a Christian has to cut people loose.

Travis now has an obituary. Looking at it is like dreaming while I’m awake. Can it really be true?

It says he was born on June 30 and that he lived in Miami Gardens. He was born on June 3, and he lived in South Miami. That’s about all it says, and it’s still wrong. People who know about the errors are telling me how upset they are.

To me, the errors are just more confirmation of things I already knew.

After Travis moved into the house I owned, I told him he wasn’t from Miami Gardens any more. I said he should tell people he was from Coral Gables. Miami Gardens is everything he was rising above.

People are asking about funeral arrangements. So far, the story has been that the epidemic will prevent a real funeral. That’s fine. I don’t want to go to Miami for any reason, and I don’t want to stand among people who patted him on the back in life and did little or nothing for him. I think the others will understand. I certainly don’t want to see conceited pastors who treated him like a sharecropper.

Funerals and tombstones mean less to me than they do to some people. I believe I have only seen my mother’s grave during three trips since she died, and that includes my dad’s funeral. Maybe there were four trips. I don’t think about visiting. There is no one there. My parents are no closer to the graves in Kentucky than they are to me here in Florida.

Talking to the dead is a sin. I don’t try to communicate with my parents. I won’t talk to Travis in this life.

You should be good to people while they’re alive instead of going to a funeral, competing to see who can show the most grief, and climbing into the coffin.

As far as I am concerned, this business is over with. There is a ton of money available for expenses, so my help will never be needed again. I will surely write more about Travis, but I don’t want to go on and on about the earthly business surrounding his hospitalization and death. He is far away. He can’t hear me or see me. He doesn’t know what I’m doing. He will not count the people who go to his funeral. He doesn’t care what happens to his belongings or what kind of funeral he gets. He is doing fine, and he knows who cares about him.

Regarding the concept of leaving people behind, God gave me a new way of looking at the world’s future. I always say the world will become much more vicious toward Christians and Jews and that persecution will be open, violent, and socially acceptable. That’s accurate, and we’re already seeing it, but it’s not the most effective way to describe the future. A better way would be to say that the world is going insane, literally.

One of the benefits of being connected with the Holy Spirit is that he prevents you from being deceived. He counters people and spirits that lie to you and try to control you. He counters spirits of delusion and rage. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re just a sleeper, waiting to be activated by spirits you can’t resist.

As we move toward the end, such spirits will develop great power among the majority of human beings. Maybe they already have. People will literally become insane. They will live in utter delusion, just as the Germans and Austrians did under Hitler. Just as the Cambodians did under Pol Pot. Just as Antifa kids and BLM rioters do.

Just as many nominal Christians do.

People will be insane, and they will prefer it, so conversion will become rare. When that happens, there will be no good reason for God to leave us here, and that explains the rapture.

This is an update on my friend Travis who was shot accidentally on April 9. His recovery has been going well, but right now he is having a setback. I don’t have details because communication is very bad. Prayers would be appreciated.

Tithe Your Way Out of God’s Blessings

For some reason, I keep running into Judaizers. These are people who try to convince Christians they should obey the Jewish law. It’s a dangerous heresy (or maybe apostasy), because it makes Christianity much harder than it should be, and it also tends to convince Christians they are the “real Jews.” It bolsters anti-Semitism and replacement theology, which is the dangerous belief that Christians are supposed to replace the Jews on earth.

I was watching Derek Prince videos, and he talked about a lady who was full of demons of false doctrine. I wrote about her a couple of days ago. She submitted to exorcism, and while he cast the demons out of her, they said things. One kept saying, “No pork! No bacon!” It was a false-doctrine demon that wanted to make Christians keep kosher. Another demon supported “eternal security,” which is the false belief that Christians can’t lose their salvation.

I came across a couple of videos by other Judaizers. One was a young man with a street ministry. He prays for people to be healed, and he also promotes prayer in tongues. Unfortunately, he also believes we are under the dietary laws. He says we have to keep the sabbath and observe the Jewish feasts.

The next video featured Bill Wiese. This is the man who wrote 23 Minutes in Hell, which is a fairly credible account of an experience in which Jesus sent him to hell so he could tell the rest of us what we were in for.

Wiese may have had a legitimate experience in hell, but does that mean he’s automatically right about all doctrine? Obviously not. One of the dangers of listening to people who say they’ve had extraordinary supernatural experiences is that you may assume they now know everything. Sometimes they seem to assume it themselves. It’s not true.

Wiese pointed to Matthew 23, where Jesus said the pharisees were right to tithe on the herbs and spices they grew in their gardens. Obviously, this has no application to us. These men were Jews still under the law. They were not allowed to eat pork. They couldn’t wear garments made from more than one fiber. They couldn’t cook on Saturdays. They were nothing like us. Furthermore, Wiese was not suggesting we should tithe on produce, like the pharisees. He was talking about money. If we have to tithe on money (something many Jews dispute), then we also have to go out in our yards, count the fruit on our trees, and bring 10% to church. No one does that.

Actually, I did it once, and then the tree died. It was a tangerine tree, and like most citrus trees in Florida, it caught citrus greening, which is incurable. So much for God favoring tithers.

Wiese said he tithed, and he said his bills were always paid. Well, guess what? I have had to lend money to people who believed in tithing, and they could not pay me back. Remember, I am the guy who criticizes tithing. God should be cursing me with lack, if the tithe-pushers are right.

Christians are supposed to give. That being said, we are not supposed to tithe. The law of the tithe has never applied to gentiles. Before Jesus came, gentile servants in Jewish homes were not required to tithe.

I’m not saying giving is bad. Giving is important, especially when it involves the poor. Psalm 41 says God will reward people for it here on the earth. Am I pushing Jewish law when I mention this pre-Christian writing? No; the psalm doesn’t establish a law. It doesn’t say, “Go into the streets and give 10 shekels to the poor every week.” It simply documents a principle.

We have to give, and sometimes we will be commanded to give to ministries, but that doesn’t mean we have to tithe. God may tell you to give more or less than 10%.

We are supposed to obey God’s commandments, but that doesn’t mean we observe the 613 Jewish laws, all of which are commandments. It means we obey the commands of the Holy Spirit. Often he will agree with the law, but often, he will not. He allowed the 12 disciples to pick grain on the sabbath. God fulfilled the law, so now our burden is lighter.

Satan choked Holy Spirit awareness out of the church, so most of us don’t hear from God. As a result, we rely on the law. It’s not a good substitute.

I saw an article from Christianity Today, in which the author tried to support tithing. In reality, he condemned it without realizing it.

The article said “nearly” a third of tithers are free of debt. If tithing works, they should all be free of debt. God doesn’t keep his promises to a third of his people; they apply to all of us.

Tithers rely on Malachi 3, which describes phenomenal prosperity, not just survival without crushing debt. It says tithers will be so blessed, there will not be room to contain the blessing. Clearly, this does not happen today. If it did, every Christian on earth would be storming his local church, shoving his tithes through the door in order to become a financial titan.

Christians who think they’re obeying the Jewish law make themselves somewhat ridiculous. They don’t know the first thing about the law. I know very little about it myself, but I know enough to tell you, for a fact, that the Jewish law is extremely complicated. There is a reason why brilliant Jews spend their entire lives studying it. Observant Jews have to have bona fide sages to go to for guidance. It’s not possible for a normal person of average intelligence to understand and apply the law without help.

If you’re not tithing on your garden, you’re not a tither. If you’re not giving 10% of the offspring of your livestock, you’re not a tither. And what about this: tithes were supposed to go to the Jewish temple. Where is the temple? How much have you sent there?

Judaizers teach a silly caricature of Jewish observance. They think that if you give up cheeseburgers and pork and stay home on Saturdays, you’re keeping the law. Not even close. This is the kind of observance knowledgeable Jews make fun of. Many Jews take the same route and then claim they keep kosher, and the Orthodox ridicule them.

Do you go through your house before Passover, make sure there is no leaven in it anywhere, and then perform an inspection? Are you and all your sons circumcised? Do you build a booth of branches and sleep in it on Sukkot? Do you only eat kosher meat inspected by rabbis? Do you practice ritual immersion on a regular basis? Do you drive on Saturdays? Do you have a mezuzah on your doorway? If you can’t give the right answers to these and many other questions, your observance is a joke. Remember, the New Testament itself says that if you break the law in one area, you violate all of it.

I saw an article which complained about the lack of tithing in the church, and God told me something: the tithe discourages people from giving.

It is believed that only something like 5% of Christians tithe. Preachers love to talk about the things they could do if all of us tithed. Bigger yachts, I would think. Think about this: what if everyone gave three or four percent? Churches would thrive. People who are giving too much could cut back and take better care of their families. Christians would be less burdened, and they wouldn’t be filled with guilt about withholding the tithe.

When you tell people they have to give 10%, the message many get is, “If I can’t give 10%, I might as well not give.” Then they give little or nothing.

The last church I went to had around 150 people in attendance every week. Maybe 75 of those people were adults. Maybe 40 of the adults were members. The pastor got mad and told us only 40% of the members tithed, so how many is that? Somewhere between 15 and 30 people? Less, because some members were married, and a married couple only produces one tithe.

This was a fanatical church, mind you. The situation is worse in lukewarm churches.

When I went to Trinity Church in Miami, I dreaded the offerings. They sometimes had several offerings during a single service. It was like we were olives in a press, being squeezed over and over.

A young man named Alex Nicolas drowned, and the memorial service was held at the church. The head pastor, Rich Wilkerson, collected an offering at the memorial!

It’s too bad preachers can’t see the people who stay home because of the constant milking.

I don’t tithe. Right now, I’m not giving to ministries at all. I eat pork. I don’t worry about the fibers in my clothes. I collect interest on my savings. I use electricity on Saturdays. I don’t observe a single Jewish feast. I don’t even know where the nearest mikveh is, and if I did, they wouldn’t let me use it. I am not a Jew. I don’t own a share of Israel. I will never replace a Jew. God still loves the Jews, and they are still his chosen people.

Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light. One of two things has to be true. His yoke has to be easy and his burden has to be light, or Jesus must be a liar.

Paul told early Christians to eat whatever meat was sold in the markets, as long as it was drained of blood, hadn’t been strangled, and hadn’t been offered to idols. Jesus said we can’t be defiled by what we eat. God showed Peter unclean animals in a vision and told him, “Kill and eat.”

We are not Jews. We just aren’t.

Judaism is very complicated, and it requires a lot of sacrifice. Christianity is very simple. A person of below-average intelligence can be a very sound Christian teacher, as long as he hears from the Holy Spirit. We don’t need high-IQ scholars who pen themselves up in libraries. Paul said not many wise had been called. How can that be true if we have to understand the Jewish law?

I hate to see Christians run to take back the heavy yoke. Life is hard enough without it, and it tends to block God’s help. God doesn’t like false doctrine. He keeps trying to do things for us, and we keep telling him we’ll do it ourselves. He wants to carry our burdens for us, and we need to let him.

I Transgress in my Sleep

The publication date on this post is approximate. It was published months after it was written.

Every day, you learn something obvious which was somehow concealed from you in the past.

This morning while I was praying, I heard my dad yelling from downstairs. Our house is large, and he has a huge bedroom suite on the south end, on the first floor. My bedroom is on the second story at the extreme north. Perhaps you are reading something into that, and if so, you are right. There are things I don’t want to hear or smell.

I use a white noise machine when I sleep, because the crows here show up at dawn every day and have a party in the yard. It also helps block incredibly loud TV noise from downstairs. I was praying with my machine still on, and I also had Julie True music playing on my phone. I was not in an optimal position to hear people yelling downstairs, and this was by design.

When I realized my dad was hollering, I walked out to see what was up. The day had not even started, he was already angry with me, and I had done nothing wrong.

He complained that he hadn’t been able to find me. I always sleep in the same room, because there isn’t one farther away from his bedroom, and it had probably taken less than a minute for me to respond to his shouting. He was very upset with me.

He wanted to know if I had “a plan” for breakfast. This is his way of saying, “I want you to take me to a restaurant to eat.” He never asks me to take him. For some reason, he always wants me to say it’s my idea. He asks about twice a day, and obviously, I say no most of the time. You can’t blow $20,000 a year on restaurant food, and even if I could, I don’t want to spend half of every day in restaurants.

Dining out with a dementia patient is not a wonderful experience. I park. I walk to the restaurant door. I turn and wait, in the sun or rain. My dad gradually makes his way to me. We go in and sit. He asks what I recommend. If I’m trying to read the menu to see what I want, he bombards me with questions, most of which he could answer for himself. “What do they have here?” He asks that while holding a menu in his hand, and he seriously expects an answer. “Veal piccata. Is that any good?” “Eggplant. Have I had that before?” You can imagine what it’s like, trying to choose something while this is going on.

While the food is being prepared, he always complains. He gets very angry. “Damn!” “They’re slow here!” “They must have sent the staff home!” He does this every time.

He always demands that I provide a topic of conversation. “What’s on YOUR mind today?” I always say, “Nothing. What about you?” If I volunteer anything, he will shoot it down as though I had said something stupid, and I will have to repeat myself over and over because he doesn’t hear well and doesn’t listen.

As soon as his food arrives, he seems to forget I exist, and he dives in. Sometimes he will say, “Lotta food,” before he goes at it. While he eats, he will be completely silent. As he winds down, he may say, “Lotta food,” another three or four times.

Sometimes I don’t order anything. I am not that interested in restaurant food. When I do order, I have to be careful where I look while I eat, because he displays chewed food a lot, and things fall onto his shirt. I have to be careful to make sure my beverage is out of his reach, because he may grab it so he can look at it, and if he does that, he will smear God knows what all over the rim of the glass. If there are condiments, I have to make sure I use them first, before he contaminates them.

Once he’s done eating, he wants to talk again. Immediately. He gets cranky if I don’t prevent him from experiencing a brief hiatus between eating and being entertained.

When we leave, it takes him a long time to get to the car, and then he invariably tries to get me to go to the grocery store.

It’s not a recipe for great digestion. It’s why I eat my meals upstairs at home.

Anyway, this morning I told him we weren’t going anywhere, and I went back to my room. Then I had a thought: he was mad at me from the instant we started interacting, I hadn’t done anything wrong, and this was not unusual.

It’s remarkable how much time my dad spends being angry with me.

He gets angry because he’s bored. He’s going to have to live with that. Dementia produces boredom. It’s unavoidable, and it’s going to get worse. He also gets angry because of his medical issues.

He has a back problem. He tried to carry a bunch of stuff up a boat ladder in 2014 because he didn’t want to make two trips to his car, and he fell and injured his back and head. His doctors recommended surgery, but he didn’t want it, so now he has chronic pain. It’s mild, but he isn’t willing to put up with it.

It’s probably too late for surgery. I don’t think any responsible doctor would operate on an 86-year-old man with dementia unless there were no choice. Imagine how hard it would be to care for such a person during recovery. “You have to stay in bed.” “WHY???!!!” “Because of your surgery.” “WHAT SURGERY???!!!”

He watches a huge amount of TV. He always has. He keeps seeing infomercials for quack back cures. A few times a month, he decides to order a Dr. Ho back belt. This is a ridiculous belt gullible people buy. Dr. Ho says Medicare will pay for it, and my dad likes likes the idea of getting free medical supplies. Old people love free stuff, and Medicare scammers know it. I guess they’ve seen old people at restaurants, emptying the napkin dispensers into their purses and pockets.

He has managed to get on the phone a couple of times to try to order it, and I have always succeeded in putting the kibosh on it. I don’t want these people calling me on the phone, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life helping my dad with a back belt that doesn’t work.

He has called other quack outfits in the past. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent on the phone with Chinese people in boiler rooms, telling them to stop calling.

According to one customer, Dr. Ho charges Medicare $1300 for his belt, which appears to be worth about $25, and then you get a copayment bill which may be in three digits. The belt has a 57% one-star rating on Amazon. I am not sure why Dr. Ho is not in prison.

This week my dad got mad because I couldn’t fix his back problem. There are only two options, according to his doctors. The first is surgery, which is not realistic now, and the second is opioids. That’s it. There is no third choice. If magical back belts worked, he would already have one.

He asks me for painkillers, and I tell him not to take them unless the pain is severe. I explain that they cause addiction. This makes him angry. As if addiction were my invention.

He asks me how many pills he’ll have to take before he becomes addicted, and I tell him I don’t know. I tell him no one knows, which is true. It’s common sense. He gets mad and tells me I refuse to answer his questions.

I tell him there are some problems doctors can’t fix, and he gets even madder. He says we need a second opinion. He doesn’t remember the doctors he has talked to already. I have to remind him. Then he says we need to go to more doctors. Obviously, I can’t go along with this. I can’t get in the car and go to a new doctor every time a dementia patient forgets or refuses to believe his diagnosis.

When I refuse, he gets mad because I refuse.

He has decided all medical problems can be fixed. I remind him that my mother died from cancer. I remind him of other people we know who died from incurable diseases. He doesn’t care. He’s positive I’m wrong. All diseases can be cured.

Sometimes I tell him we’re not going to the doctor or a restaurant, and I leave and refuse to talk any more. I go upstairs, or I run an errand or work on the tractor. He’s still angry, but I take off, and I don’t give him any explanation. It sounds awful to leave a grown man standing there, irate and demanding answers, but I do it, and when I do it, I think of the terrible truth: when he sees me an hour later, he will have no recollection of what happened. In reality, it doesn’t matter what I say. I could refuse to talk to him at all, and he would forget.

This is one of the weirdest things about dealing with demented or insane people. They sound a lot like the rest of us, but you can’t take them seriously. When they talk, it’s as if it were raining. You don’t reason with rain. You wait for it to end, and then you go on about your business.

We’ll be discussing Dr. Ho again within the week. Probably today.

Dementia is insanity. Above, I said, “demented or insane,” as if there were a distinction, but to be demented is to be incompetent, just like a schizophrenic. If you’re demented, people can’t treat you with the same dignity they give rational human beings. They can’t let you take the lead, ever.

In normal relationships, you listen to what others say, and sometimes you do what they want to do. This is true even when you deal with children. When a demented person offers ideas, suggestions, commands, and threats, it’s different. You may get useful information you can use to improve their quality of life. You may realize something is bothering them, and you may be able to fix it. But you don’t let them tell you to do this or that, because their ideas are almost always off the wall, and they will repeat them several times a week.

I’m getting pretty far afield. To get back to my original topic, the revelation I got was that my dad is a very angry person, and it’s not good for me to be around him too much.

I knew that already, but I didn’t feel it the way I feel it today. I feel a little bit like I’m living next to a factory that gives off dangerous fumes.

My dad is usually, not occasionally, angry when he is dealing with other people, and he feels no compunctions about venting on them. When the food comes too slowly or his back hurts, it’s okay to yell at me. It’s okay to curse and bark and make lunch unpleasant. It’s okay to say mean things to waitresses.

This is nothing new. My dad has been like this all his life. My sister the felon is the same way, only much worse. I can’t comprehend it. How can you feel entitled to be nasty to people all the time? If I behaved that way, I would expect to get punched in the mouth about twice a week. It reminds me how difficult it is to pick a fight. Lucky for some people.

It’s remarkable how bad behavior works against demented people and others with disabilities. The amount of time able people will want to spend with you will diminish in proportion to how badly you treat them.

The other day I had to tell my dad something obvious, which he doesn’t seem to think about. I said, “No one is obligated to spend time with you.” I was trying to get him to work on one of his bad habits, and I had to tell him people complained about him. Instead of thanking me for telling him, he demanded to know who they were! They were the problem!

I didn’t tell him, of course. I’m not going to spy on people and betray confidences. Besides, he would forget.

My dad has gross habits, and I had to tell him he simply needed to do what other people do. That was the solution. He didn’t have to climb mountains or slay dragons. He just had to do what the rest of us do all the time, every day, without complaining or even thinking about complaining. I said, “You’re not special.” I felt like I was feeding him a big, bitter pill. Most people wouldn’t have had a problem with it at all.

He’s really in a pickle, and I can’t do much to help. I can’t fix it, and it’s not my fault if I have to limit the time I spend with him. His ship is destined to sink in the near future, no matter what medical science does for him. I’m going to go on living for quite some time. I can’t strap myself to him and sink with him.

When I was in law school, there was a crippled student in my class. His name was Andrew. He was horribly deformed. He was about three feet tall, and he had very short arms and legs. He lived in a wheelchair.

Andrew was obnoxious, or at least the people I knew felt he was. He seemed to feel his condition entitled him to favors. Clearly, that was wrong. Life doesn’t work that way. People aren’t nice to the handicapped because they have to be. It’s a choice made out of compassion.

I didn’t really know Andrew, but some of my friends did. I remember watching one of them interact with him. Her name was Carol. We were eating pizza in the student lounge. Andrew rolled up and said he wanted some, in a presumptuous way. Of course, he hadn’t been around when we paid for it. Carol told him we were eating all of it ourselves, and she was very blunt about his bad manners. Andrew said, “Well then I might just leave.” He thought that was a real threat, but he was making a pest of himself, so the thought of him leaving was hardly distressing.

Carol said, “Okay. Goodbye.”

She was absolutely right. This young man thought he was going to be a lawyer. Supposedly, he expected to be treated like other people. He wanted the same rights and courtesies. If you want to be treated like an adult, you have to act like one. He was acting like a spoiled child, and Carol treated him like one.

Carol did him a favor. She gave him a wake-up call. If he was really going to practice law, he was going to have to get used to a world in which people held him accountable every day. Disability can get you a lot of favors, but in the end, you have to make some effort to do what’s right, because your disability is not someone else’s obligation.

When you get old, even if you’re disabled, people will only go so far to make you happy. You will have to work with them a little, because a person’s capacity to put up with bad behavior is limited. People need to get away and recharge. They can’t put up with abuse around the clock, even if they want to.

Other people aren’t your diapers. That’s just how it is.

I want to be a pleasant person when I get old. I really do. I don’t want to be the old guy who hurts people’s feelings. It’s bad enough, being the guy who cares for the old guy who hurts people’s feelings.

Archaeology Begins at Home

There is nothing like a relaxing Saturday. I’m blowing off steam by cleaning my dad’s bathroom, bedroom, and closets. Resorts should offer activities like this.

Perhaps I jest.

If you have an older relative who is starting to tune out, you are in for interesting times when you have to go in and deal with his or her mess. I am finding things that blow my mind.

I would guess that my dad has 30 pairs of shorts, dating back 35 years. How many are worth keeping? Realistically, maybe seven. Some are too small. Some are worn out. Some are just too short; they gave my mom fits. Some are white.

You don’t want your older relatives trailing along behind you in public places, on sunny days, wearing white. Things show through.

Years ago, he had to have his roof fixed over his hall closet. There was a hellacious leak. Yesterday I was throwing things out, and I found mold on the wall and ceiling. Nice. The ceiling was done, but the mold was not removed. Today I had to clean it out with bleach. Along the way, I found his c. 1982 racquetball racquet plus a Homedics foot spa and maybe twenty pounds of pennies. Grist for the Salvation Army mill.

One nice thing about having absolutely no help is that my word is now law. I have decided which items of clothing he likes. The rest go to the trash or charity. My mother would have killed for this power. I wish she could be here to see me throw out the sheets she bought before she died in 1997. She would stand up and cheer.

I don’t think anyone wants detailed information about his bathroom, but I can say that I threw out maybe two hundred tourist-size hotel soaps and shampoos. He is one of those people who clean out hotel bathrooms every day of their stays. I’ve never understood that. A big bottle of Suave shampoo is three bucks at the drugstore, and it will last six months. Soap runs maybe ten dollars a year, if you’re a heterosexual. I think it’s unethical to take things from hotels just because you can. It’s like scooping packets of Splenda into your pockets at Denny’s. If it was really free, they’d put it out front in an open box.

He will need sheets, so I searched for a good deal. I am disgusted by today’s snowflake sheets with thread counts that require scientific notation. I have expensive dress shirts with a thread count under 200, but you can buy sheets that go up to at least 1800 per inch. Ridiculous. If you’re such a sissy you can’t deal with 200 threads per inch, you should go live in a bubble. I’m no textile engineer, but common sense tells me that the thinner the threads are, the thinner the sheet will be, and the sooner it will wear out. Nobody makes a 300-TC work shirt. Why would you pay more for something that doesn’t last as long?

Maybe I’m wrong. The deep mysteries of sheet making are closed to me.

I finally found good old white sheets at a great price. It’s harder than you think. Guess who sells them. Guess. I’ll tell you. IKEA. You can get queen sheet sets for $25. If you don’t know what a deal that is, look around. Decent sheets from good manufacturers start at around $120. I blame Norma Rae.

The IKEA thread count is 140 per inch. Now that’s a sheet. It ought to last forever. And I’m getting white. The only color a man should have. It matches everything, and you can bleach it. SOLD!

I might go totally nuts and go for the $40 set, with 300 threads per inch, but I am pretty excited about 140. People got by with worse for centuries, and they didn’t mind at all.

Here’s a neat feature IKEA sheets have: the ends tuck in. American pillowcases are open at one end, so if you use slippery bug-proof pillow protectors (also spill-proof), the pillows slowly slide out of the cases while you sleep. European pillowcases keep the pillows where they should be.

I use bug-proof pillow protectors to keep mites out. Over time, they slowly ruin pillows by filling them with allergens. I even covered my mattress with a bug bag.

Sheets are complicated these days. Mattresses used to be maybe 8 inches thick, but now some go 18. For that, you need “deep pocket” sheets. You also need deep pockets to get 1800-TC sheets, but I digress. Deep pocket sheets fit big mattresses, but they’re loose on normal mattresses, so you have to buy sheet straps to hold them on. Annoying.

I found out Coral Gables lets you put one big item of furniture in the trash per week. I think I wrote about that already. I put my dad’s cardboard office credenza out last week. This week, he will forfeit the mattress from his middle-aged convertible couch. Next week, maybe, the couch itself. By spacing it out, I make the couch easier to carry. I am thinking I should keep the cushions to pad things when I move. I’m sure I’ll have to move a lot of things personally.

I’m all rested now. Writing this entry served its purpose. I’m off to IKEA, where I hope they will let me shop even though I’m not gay.

Onward and upward, or at least northward.

Miami Departure Countdown Clock in Action

My big thrill for today is waiting to see whether my dad’s offer on a house has been accepted.

It’s hard to decide what I want. The house is great, and boy, do I hate Miami. Yesterday I got a sudden impression of what it would be like to be a couple of hundreds of yards from the new house, parked in a lawn chair under my own trees, with a beer cooler by my side. It was overwhelming. That makes me hope the offer will be accepted. Then I think about the possibility that my appraisal was too high, and I sort of hope we’ll be rejected so we can start over.

I found another place with potential. It’s 10 acres near Reddick, Florida. The lot is heavily wooded, with maybe seven acres cleared in the middle. The cleared area has blueberry bushes and apple trees. It’s more remote than the offer house, but “remote” is a tricky term up there. It’s remote in the sense that there are fewer small properties near it, but it’s just as close to important stuff as the offer house.

The Reddick house is next to a 10-acre lot covered with trees. If I could get ahold of that, how sweet life would be. I could shoot all I wanted. I would never see the neighbors unless I ran into them at Winn-Dixie or my ghillie suit slipped. Super nice. Also, I would be closer to Gainesville, which has certain attractions, such as real hospitals.

Today I read about a shooting on Miami Beach. It happened near the Fontainebleau, which used to be the number one luxury hotel on the Beach. I don’t know what happened, but many people who commented on the story had the same idea: the increase in black tourism may be the problem.

I hate to get into racial issues, because everyone deserves a fair chance to be evaluated as an individual. Nonetheless, facts are facts. Since the Beach became a popular black destination, things have gone downhill. Violence has increased a great deal.

In the past, the Beach was popular with foreigners. For some inexplicable reason, they think Miami Beach is a great place to visit. The beach itself is mediocre and crowded. There is no natural beauty. There is nothing to do except drink and sit in the sun. The traffic is an abomination. Virtually any of the better islands in the Bahamas is vastly superior. Nonetheless, Europeans kept coming. Then the rap kids started showing up, and guns started going off at all hours. People were scared. According to some online source I found, 70% of the money that pours into the Beach comes from foreigners, so when American blacks started showing up in numbers, it was very bad for the local economy. They don’t spend. Germans get drunk in expensive bars. Our new tourists drink from their own bottles and smoke dope. They like free entertainment, like walking and standing around.

The demographic change on the Beach has also freaked out the locals. The Beach used to be a refuge for gays, Jews, and liberal flakes. Now they have a problem. Their standard of living has dropped, and they’re afraid of violent crime, but their liberal fantasies make it impossible for them to discuss and acknowledge the reason. They can leave, but they can’t talk about what’s happening.

Various people are trying to change the cultural climate. At least that’s what journalists claim. Supposedly, movers and shakers who see where things are headed are quietly promoting events intended to draw white people and disrupt Black Beach Week. Of course, they’re being accused of racism. Whatever. It won’t work, so it doesn’t matter.

The Beach’s problems are getting a lot of attention, but all of Miami is a mess. Once you leave the southern part at the end of I-95, you are pretty much in ghetto territory until you get to the next county. The business areas aren’t too ghetto, but the residential areas are. There is a small ghetto directly north of my area. There is another small ghetto to the west. Down south a few miles, you run into another ghetto which is larger. Miami is being swallowed up. Cubans have pushed out to the west, and it looks like their areas will be the closest thing to large normal neighborhoods for the foreseeable future.

I don’t want to be here when times get bad. People who think ghetto think victimhood. They look at people who have more than they do, and they think it was stolen from them. They forget about their felonies, laziness, and riots, which actually caused their poverty. When life gets hard, they will be in my neighborhood, trying to take whatever they can, and they’ll see local residents as the bad guys. It won’t be looting. It will “reparations.”

I read about EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapons today. I think their danger is exaggerated, but maybe it’s not. Anyway, some experts believe that if EMP weapons go off here and affect transportation and electricity, people in suburbs and cities will starve while the problems are fixed. Imagine that. Folks who are used to getting EBT cards and buying all the chips and soda they want will be hungry. Most folks do not realize how fragile the food supply system is. If it went down for one week, most city people here would begin to starve. The food you see on grocery shelves looks abundant, but when deliveries stop coming, it can disappear in one day. I doubt a serious EMP strike will happen, but other types of logistics disruptions are possible, and I don’t want to be around if they occur.

The farm I’m looking at has enough ground to grow food. It has its own well. It has a generator. I can have chickens there. I can have cattle. I would be surrounded by nice Christian people who would cooperate with each other instead of invading each other’s homes. They would even cooperate in armed defense. That sounds pretty good to me.

Sometimes people can be perched on the edge of catastrophe and not know it. Maybe that’s where dependent city dwellers and suburbanites are right now.

If I’m out in the country when all goes sour, what will my neighbors and I do about friends who want to come join us? Scary thought. I want to be helpful, but if too many people get in a lifeboat, it sinks. When that happens, preparations become completely worthless. Shouldn’t responsible people be allowed to benefit from the rewards of their forethought? One would think so.

It would be almost funny to see city dwellers come out to the country to attack. It’s hard to find cover in the country. It’s hard to approach a house without being seen. They don’t know how to shoot. Their firearms tend to be cheap, and they rely on pistols, not rifles. If you come at me with a pistol at rifle range, you will be dead long before I can make out your face. I can kill your vehicle before you make it up my driveway. Country people have scoped rifles, and they buy ammunition in bulk. It’s nothing to have 5,000 rounds on hand. Big buys are not always motivated by fear. Buying in bulk is responsible, because it cuts down on shipping costs. I have a huge amount of ammunition, and I wasn’t even thinking of defense when I got it. But now it’s there if I need it, so…

It would be nice to see urban and suburban Americans repent and give up the liberal victimhood lie. That’s the preferable outcome. Brotherhood is the best option. It won’t happen, though. The entitlement mindset is too entrenched. A small minority will come around, and I say thank God for them. The rest, well, you can’t help them. They’re like the people who stood in shoulder-deep water, clawing at the hull of the ark.

I hope I’m out of here soon. Please pray for me, and pray for all the people in America who need to drop their denial and come to God’s side.

Rum Wears Out its Welcome

I had a lot of fun fooling around with tiki drinks this week, but I think I’m done for a while. I’m starting to think there is something poisonous in rum.

When I was in college, I thought drunkenness was a good thing, and I worked at it. It was very unusual for me to get sick, but I managed it a few times. I also got sick once after I graduated from law school. The two worst hangovers I ever had were from dark rum. It won’t just make you sick the day you drink it; it will make you sick for half of the following day.

I had some Jamaican friends when I was in law school, and one of them told me they don’t drink dark rum. She said it was for the tourists. I guess the Jamaicans know something.

Anyway, I had maybe four rum drinks this week, which is not exactly binge drinking, and today I feel sort of off. I really think there is something in that stuff, apart from alcohol, which the body does not like.

I didn’t use dark rum; I used Flor de Cana golden rum, which is about the color of brandy.

Interesting.

I had a few days of nostalgia, and I really enjoyed cooling off after working on plumbing and so on, but I would not want to drink this stuff every week.

A lot of Christians are very worked up about alcohol. I don’t worry about it. Every once in a while, I have a drink. On rare occasions, I have two. I think I’ll be okay. I would not encourage anyone else to drink, if it’s a problem.

Some people rewrite history. They claim Jesus was a teetotaler who drank fresh grape juice and called it wine. Yeah, okay. And for five bucks I’ll sell you a keychain made from a fragment of the cross.

I used to brew my own beer, and it was wonderful, but I don’t do it any more. When you barely drink, what do you do with five-gallon kegs of beer? They sit and go to waste. The extra fridge takes up space.

The down side of giving up brewing is that it’s nearly impossible for me to get a really good beer. There are a few beers that are good; I like Flying Dog Snake Dog ale and Dogfish 60 Minute IPA. But it’s nothing like having four or five utterly magnificent beers on tap.

It’s not a big sacrifice. I don’t care much about it.

I did a lot more work on the house yesterday. I removed a lot of useless PVC from the pool pump, and I replumbed it. I broke down and bought a reciprocating saw, like a Sawzall. I got a DeWalt. They get good reviews. It did a wonderful job of hacking pipes out so they could be thrown on the trash heap.

I’m still bummed out that I can’t find anyone competent to take my money. I would be satisfied with work that is merely good. It doesn’t have to be fantastic. Good is too much to ask in Miami. Everything is done to the Latin American standard, which is very low. There is a reason why BMWs are made in Germany instead of Honduras.

Call me a racist if you want. Cultural differences are not imaginary. Defending your sick culture is a sure path to loserhood. Admitting its faults is the beginning of improvement. If you want to hear some heavy criticism, ask me about the backward, defeat-oriented culture I came from.

Yesterday one of my Cuban friends used vile language in a text message to tell me how much he hates Miami. He has plans for bookshelves, and he can’t find anyone who can build them. Ridiculous.

I’m trying to figure out what to do about the pumphouse’s electrical ground. There is a bar hammered into the ground outside the pumphouse, and there’s a big wire next to it. It’s not connected. Is that because some idiot knocked the clamp off, or is it because it’s bad for the pumphouse to have its own ground? I’m trying to find out. I’m tempted to call an electrician, but then I think about all the potentially deadly electrician errors I’ve found and fixed.

As far as I know, there are only two wires connecting the house and the pumphouse, and neither is a ground.

I am Googling around, and it looks like the ground rod should be connected. I think I’ll hook it up and see if anything explodes. I would rather have grounding than no grounding, even if it causes some comparatively minor issue with the electrical service. When I say “comparatively minor,” I am using “instant death on the pumphouse floor” as a reference.

The plumbing is not right. The pipes are generally on the floor or close to it, inviting breakage. People step on things. Also, the pipes are not supported. I looked it up, and PVC at 100 degrees has to be supported every five feet. I’m going to figure out how to do that. Whatever I do may not be the recommended method, but it will work, and it will be better than nothing.

Things keep going well in my prayer life and personal development. God keeps moving me to higher levels.

I’ve started to get a better feel for the degree of brainwashing mankind has experienced. We feel self-conscious about God. Why is that? Why don’t we think God is cool? He creates galaxies. He confers invulnerability and power. He is in charge, and if you’re aligned with him, you’re in charge, too. Why do we think that’s something to be ashamed of?

Being right is cool. Being powerful is cool. Not wasting your life is cool.

Our perceptions are completely warped. But with time, prayer, and submission, it changes.

The longer I live, the more I realize the people around me are foolish. Look at this place, though. We run around in circles, doing things that don’t matter. We devote our lives to things God is eventually going to burn. We love man’s temporary, cobbled-together solutions to problems. We hate God’s solutions, which are perfect and come without regret. This place is horrible. It’s like Sodom. We can’t do anything right. We hate the very notion of doing things right.

I can’t respect humanity. It’s too much to ask. I was a mistake to try. It was a rabbit trail. People have a lot of knowledge, and you shouldn’t ignore all of it, but it’s stupid to put human beings on pedestals. As far as we know, Buddha is in hell. Alexander the Great is in hell. Albert Einstein. Aristotle. All sorts of human beings we think of as superhuman. You can push respect way too far.

We ruin everything down here. The worst part about it is that we destroy human beings.

I thought about that this morning while I was watching a show about technology. They were talking about a special ship that upends itself and turns into a research platform. It reminded me of an experience I had when I was a kid. Don’t ask me why.

My dad represented the Alcoa aluminum company. They had a special aluminum ship which was built for research. It was docked in the Bahamas or somewhere–I forget–and they invited my dad to bring me to see it. They took us on board and gave us a tour.

Today I thought about how little I got out of that experience, which should have been very rich.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of everyone. I had no self-confidence. I could not talk to people. I had been raised in a house of abuse, and my response was to wilt and hide.

Some kids are not like that. They choose to be as aggressive as their abusers. I believe Freud called this “aggressor identification.” You could also call it a generational curse or a cycle of abuse. Kids decide it’s better to be the abuser than the abused, so that’s the path they take. My sister went that way.

I couldn’t cope with life. Mainly, I wanted to be left alone. I was so used to losing, I was highly motivated to avoid trying. A lot of my encounters with my dad consisted of him verbally abusing me until I gave up and left him alone, which was what he wanted, so you can imagine how I felt about approaching people. He actively, deliberately worked to make me back down, feel bad about myself, and leave in fear.

I think this is why I love tools so much. Tools represent power and success. They counter feelings of being unable to cope.

Parents are supposed to prevent kids from growing up to be as I was. When a kid falters, his parents are supposed to notice it and take him aside and teach him how to stand up and respond to life’s challenges. I was afraid of my dad, and my mother was not much better off than I was, so I just sat back and decayed. When I was in my twenties, I started trying to compensate, but change was extremely gradual. The chains we put inside ourselves are heavy, and it takes a lot of time to cut them and push them out.

My dad didn’t seem to realize he was supposed to do anything to help me or my sister in life. As long as food was on the table, he felt like his job was done and that everyone should be grateful and obedient. It’s strange, because his own father was not like that.

I wonder if the men on the ship noticed the destruction in me. I notice it when I meet kids who can’t engage. I wonder if they tried to interest me in the ship and the research and then pulled back, realizing I had been ruined.

I don’t think shyness is normal. I think it’s a flag that exposes abuse. No matter how much you pretend in public, if your kids are shy, there has to be a reason, and you’re probably it.

You can have sympathy for other people’s kids, but usually, your ability to help them is limited. If you want to help, you have to look for opportunities to do or say something effective. Vigilance is important.

We ruin our children. We don’t submit to God. We put our flesh in charge. Our flesh puts Satan in charge. The result is that we become poisonous to people we are supposed to help.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot today. I can’t undo my childhood. I have been able to help a few younger people, though. Maybe that’s an acceptable exchange. Satan screwed up my youth, so I am being used to screw up his plans and help several other people. His evil is being multiplied back to him.

Interesting stuff.

I should have done better, but here I am, as I am, so I work with what I have.

Today I plan to make some adjustments to the pool pipes and put a clamp out the pumphouse ground. After that, I think I’ll relax and knock off some more of The Odyssey.

I have to say, I’m disgusted with mythology and the characters of Greek literature. People like Odysseus and Achilles were the scum of the earth. They were pirates, and “pirate” is not a flattering term. They were murderers, rapists, thieves, and slave masters. They were sadistic. They were greedy. They thought nothing of pitching babies off of city walls. It’s strange that we see them in a positive light. If there is a significant difference between these characters and the drug gangs in Mexico, I am hard-pressed to see it. The more I read, the more I root for them to lose.

I hope you’re enjoying your Saturday. Go easy on demon rum.

Planned Parenthood has Company

If you pray in tongues, God will eventually start filling you with all sorts of smart thoughts.

You don’t have to be a naturally bright person to benefit from God’s wisdom. It generally sounds like common sense once you hear it. The main breakthrough is not an increase in intelligence; it’s a new ability to hear the obvious.

One of the things God has shown me is that you have to be careful whom you choose to lead you.

If you go to a fool’s church and then listen to, and support, foolishness, you will be an accomplice. God will eventually hold you accountable. You’re supposed to get baptized with the Holy Spirit and develop a prayer life, and when that happens, the clouds will start to part. If you don’t do this, it’s your own fault, so you pay the price.

I am very sorry I helped prosperity preachers and feel-good preachers. I am very sorry I helped preachers who were proud and stubborn, and who taught that God would bless people without correcting them.

Earlier today, I said I felt as though I had worked at abortion clinics.

Right now, Christians are upset because they just learned that Planned Parenthood executives try to profit from the sale of organs taken from murdered babies. It’s right to be upset. But the same thing happens every day in the offices of misguided preachers across America, and we treat them like gods. They eat the flesh and drink the blood of God’s children.

I felt that I should look at Habakkuk today. Here is some of what I saw:

“Write down the vision clearly on tablets,
so that even a runner can read it.

For the vision is meant for its appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and it does not lie.
It may take a while, but wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.

“Look at the proud: he is inwardly not upright;
but the righteous will attain life through trusting faithfulness.

Truly, wine is treacherous;
the arrogant will not live at peace
but keeps expanding his desires like Sh’ol;
like death, he can never be satisfied;
he keeps collecting all the nations for himself,
rallying to himself all the peoples.

Won’t all these take up taunting him
and say about him, in mocking riddles,
‘Woe to him who amasses other people’s wealth! —
how long must it go on? —
and to him who adds to himself the weight
of goods taken in pledge!

Won’t your own creditors suddenly stand,
won’t those who make you tremble wake up?
You will become their spoil.

Because you plundered many nations,
all the rest of the peoples will plunder you;
because of the bloodshed and violence done
to the land, the city and all who live there.

“‘Woe to him who seeks unjust gain for his household,
putting his nest on the heights,
in order to be safe from the reach of harm.

By scheming to destroy many peoples,
you have brought shame to your house
and forfeited your life.

For the very stones will cry out from the wall,
and a beam in the framework will answer them.

“‘Woe to him who builds a city with blood
and founds a town on injustice,

so that people toil for what will be burned up,
and nations exhaust themselves to no purpose.
Isn’t all this from Adonai-Tzva’ot?

For the earth will be as full
of the knowledge of Adonai’s glory
as water covering the sea.

“‘Woe to him who has his neighbor drink,
adds his own poison and makes him drunk,
in order to see him naked.

You are filled with shame, not glory.
You, drink too, and stagger!
The cup of Adonai’s right hand
will be turned against you;
your shame will exceed your glory.

For the violence done to the L’vanon
will overwhelm you,
and the destruction of the wild animals
will terrify you;
because of the bloodshed and violence done
to the land, the city and all who live there.’”

This message is about believers, not the unsaved.

People like Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland have taught despicable lies in order to make their neighbors drunk and strip away their protection so they can be plundered. The prosperity gospel doesn’t make us rich. In fact, it keeps us poor by giving God incentive to work against our success. The liars on TV teach it, not from a loving desire to help us, but from simple greed and, sometimes, the evil pleasure of making other people seem like fools.

Yesterday I was reminded of the story of Belshazzar. He inherited the kingdom of Babylon, and he had a drunken party at which he and his friends used the golden vessels of the temple to drink to their false gods. A hand appeared and wrote a message of condemnation on the wall, and even as Daniel was interpreting it, the city was being sacked.

Vessels are people. Vessels from the temple are people who are dedicated to God.

The pimps we see on TV drink our blood and leave us empty. They treat that which should he holy as though it were common; this is said to be the essence of blasphemy.

These people fooled me many times. I supported some truly disreputable preachers. Even Robert Tilton! You can’t sink any lower than that.

As I got more discernment, I saw the problems with the preachers who were obviously idiots, but I was still fooled by people whose issues were more subtle.

Brains didn’t help me. Hell is full of intelligent people. The Holy Spirit changed my perception gradually, and one benefit of the slowness of the process is that it prevents me from thinking I did it myself. If brains could have saved me, I would never have believed any of them. I would have been quick to spot the frauds.

Who makes you most angry in this world: people who have always hated you, or people who hate you and pretend to be your friends? Who causes you more rage? A random enemy, or a traitor who once had your trust?

God is the same way. When he complains about the whore of Babylon sitting on seven hills, drinking the blood of the saints, he’s not talking about Buddhists and witches. He’s talking about Jews and the church. We were supposed to be on his side, helping his children grow. Instead, many people who were supposed to serve the Lord aborted his children and consumed their wealth.

I couldn’t see this clearly a few years ago. It gets clearer with time. God tells me things while I pray.

He also told me that before I listen to a preacher, I should look at his wife, his children, and his business. If he is a fool as a father, husband, and manager of his church, he is going to teach me to be a fool, too. It’s hard to rise higher than your master.

The men who lead the church I left in 2012 and the church I was squeezed out of recently have serious issues as men. They mismanage. There are problems with their families. There are spoiled children and wives who don’t know their place.

You can’t force your wife or children to become mature, but these men haven’t really made a good effort. You can’t force a church to succeed, but you can avoid stupid mistakes and a Mickey Mouse approach. You can have real bookkeeping. You can publish reports. You can disclose and explain. You can listen to good counsel instead of persecuting people who try to warn you.

These lessons apply to me, too. I really have no character. I do okay, but I lack self-control. I am not really responsible; I just do what I have to do in order to avoid chaos. I am not brave. I am impulsive. If I had a wife and a child right now, what would I be able to offer them?

I sat under people who were a little silly, so I am a little silly myself.

I have one thing that guarantees my success: the right direction. I’m listening to God, I have a strong prayer life, and I am being built up. That’s all anyone can ask for. If your direction is sound, regardless of where you are now, you will eventually be in a better place.

If you’re listening to Joel Osteen or Benny Hinn, turn that crap off. It’s killing you and your family. Tune T.D. Jakes out.

Look at the people you admire. Are they humble? Would you be proud to be married to their spouses or to be the parents of their children? Do you find yourself making excuses for them? If you don’t like the answers to these questions, it’s not disloyalty. It’s common sense. It’s something unbelievers have and Christians lack.

Before you give anything to anyone, ask yourself what they’ve done with what they already have. That’s what they’ll do with your gift. If you give them your heart, ask yourself how many earnest hearts they’ve crushed already. If you give them your money, ask yourself if you’re happy with the things they’ve already done with money.

Trinity Church in Miami once blew over $70,000 on flashing lights for the stage, but they have no real outreach to the poor. The church I just left is trying to open an orphanage in Haiti, but they haven’t even admitted they failed at running two new churches here in the US.

This time, orphans may be affected by their actions; children who should never be given false hope. I can’t give these people money and trust them with desperate children after the failures they’ve already experienced. I’m not going to roll the dice with that kind of suffering at stake.

I’m far from alone. No one will go up to the pastors and speak, because they expect to be scolded or ignored, but a number of people are less than enthusiastic about the orphanage. One is even less sanguine that I am; this person doesn’t even expect the orphanage to open. I figured it would open and then struggle.

I am told the church’s plan to move to a new building failed. That’s even worse than I expected.

God only invests in success. This is why he said those who had a lot would be given more, and those who had little would lose even that. Anyone can bless, and anyone can curse, but many people can’t be blessed. They destroy whatever you give them. God does not invest in those people. Neither should you.

If you don’t know what your church pays your pastor, stop giving money. If you have no idea what their other expenditures are, stop enabling them. There are only two possibilities for failing to disclose this information: irresponsibility or a desire to cover up embarrassing things. If you can’t trust me with an explanation of what you do with my money, why should I trust you with the money itself?

This is wisdom. It’s not from me (perhaps I repeat myself). It’s from God. Do not invest in failure. Look for momentum. Look for some indication that the people you invest in are moving in the right direction.

The prosperity preachers and their sheep are headed for disaster. I don’t know what form it will take, but it’s certain. Why? Because they are weak. They have no strength to react to attacks or defend themselves. They’re not praying in tongues, so they lack faith and prophetic warnings. They lack humility, so they don’t listen to people who do hear from God. When the find out they’re sinking, they will not have enough faith to make their declarations and prayers work. They will have driven off the Spirit-filled people who could have helped. They will be the tail, not the head.

The prosperity people trust in money, which is the same as trusting in Satan. They are trusting their enemy to take care of them. He’s just fattening them up to make the slaughter more fun. It’s like raising a noose to a great height so the prisoner will splatter when the rope is cut.

Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what happened to Judas!

God showed me something interesting a day or so ago. When a leader is proud, he will be the person in the organization who knows the least about what’s really going on. Why? Because no one will tell him anything. They get tired of being yelled at, ostracized, ridiculed, and ignored. So they tell everyone but the leader. When the ice breaks, everyone will be ready except for the people who are in charge! That’s the exact opposite of how things are supposed to be.

A relative of mine got a terrible roof job a few years back. He started having leaks. I told him he needed to get it fixed. He was unreceptive, to put it nicely. Over time, his ceiling collapsed in six places. Finally, he got it fixed. He had to pay for indoor repairs as well as the roof itself. If he had been willing to listen, he could have saved thousands of dollars.

When you get to know a person like that, you learn to shut up and watch disasters occur.

This is the mindset I dealt with at my last two churches.

Last night I dreamed my dad and I were going to the same place. He started running. He was wearing a suit. I imagined I was in a car, and my feet left the ground, and I started moving. Parts of the car started materializing, and eventually, I was driving a whole car. I pulled up next to my dad to see if he wanted a ride, and he waved me off.

That dream may have had relevance to my biological father, but it wasn’t about him.

If you don’t learn to hate pride, you will always be a failure. You will never learn anything in time to profit from it. I screwed my life up pretty well by choosing not to pray. Maybe you’re younger than I am, and you can avoid my mistake.

I am getting used to stepping back and watching people fail, and God is helping me not to have misplaced pity. You’ll have to get used to it, too.

I wouldn’t worry about it. A thousand years from now, no one will be thinking about the self-inflicted disasters we are witnessing today.

Rachel is Out There Waiting

Until I left my old church, I did not know what a nightmare it was. Now that I’m out, I realize how it traumatized me.

I feel silly saying that. I don’t want to come across as a victim. I’m happy that God has revealed this to me; it’s very positive. It will help me understand my situation better so I can make more progress. I should also add that I didn’t deserve anything better at the time. Had I gone to a stronger church, I might have been a negative influence because of my undeveloped state.

While I was attending and serving, I was grateful for the church. For the first year or so, I thought it was a great place. The presence of God was clearly there, and they had special Wednesday services that were centered around prayer, worship, and the Holy Spirit. Over time, the church declined, and God improved me, and these things added up to dissatisfaction.

It’s my understanding that at earlier times in its long history, the church was much more devoted to God. It was small and poor, but God manifested himself there. People prophesied and so on. When I got there, the Holy Spirit was still relatively welcome. During my tenure, the leaders replaced the Holy Spirit’s moves with backward human ideas. It seemed that they were hellbent on building a megachurch and getting themselves on national TV. They started pushing the head pastor and one of his sons very hard. Neither of them had the kind of natural ability that makes a T.D. Jakes or a Joel Osteen. They didn’t have the personal charisma or the cunning, and God wasn’t with them, either, so it was a pointless exercise.

The services became highly scripted, so if the Holy Spirit attempted to interrupt or interfere, he didn’t get much respect. They started printing out schedules allotting time in very small increments, so there was no space in the program. They brought in utterly useless motivational speakers like Brian Klemmer, who used his appearances to sell worthless EST-style seminars that had nothing to do with God. They started preaching prophylactic anti-dissent propaganda, labeling anyone who was disturbed by the church’s path as “negative” and “unwilling to submit to authority.” In legal circles, this is known as “poisoning the well.”

There were anointed people in the church. God provided individuals who could teach and lead. He provided talented musicians and sharp managers. These people were suppressed, and insiders were promoted. The pastor’s oldest son was put in charge of the worship team, replacing a man who had gone to college on a singing scholarship. Two of the best musicians in the church ended up entertaining small children, while people who had a more easily marketed appearance worked in the main sanctuary. One of the top managers in the church was so ineffective, merely mentioning his name caused people to roll their eyes, but he was an insider, so though he failed consistently, he could only fail upward.

The head pastor developed a habit of inviting prosperous people to become Armorbearers, regardless of whether they had any real interest in God. I believe I was one of those people. I was asked to join the team very early. I was a white lawyer from a wealthy suburb, so there was hope I could bring others like me, and they would tithe. I was a pretty ineffective Armorbearer at first, and I think the leaders of the team had very low expectations, because unlike me, they knew why I had been chosen. It’s remarkable that I succeeded in becoming useful. I think I was the only “political” appointee that did.

I failed at everything else I did at the church, because I received no support. I was called on to write books for the pastor, but a strange lady was put in charge of the projects, and she never followed through. I was allowed to cook in the kitchen, but I was undermined in everything I did, and they eventually demanded that I show up to cook even though I was not allowed sufficient display space to earn the church more than a few dollars.

At first, I was oblivious to what was going on. I wasn’t receiving the level of revelation that I receive now. I didn’t realize I had been used and wasted. I assumed the leaders of the church were on fire for the Holy Spirit, just as so many of the members were. But I grew more discerning, and I wised up. I realized that the church was a sort of plantation. A healthy church is dedicated to helping people grow in the work God has planned for them. This church seemed to be dedicated to promoting one family, at the expense of everyone else. Nobody outside of the family went on to a bigger ministry within the church, except for one pastor who was allowed to run services at the church’s old campus, which was remote and very small. Even then, the original plan was to send video from the main church, featuring the head pastor, and he often commuted back and forth so he could teach at both churches. Last I heard, he was still doing that, so I would be surprised if the other pastor has any real authority.

The church failed financially, even though the leaders decided to serve a second master by turning unused space into an office rental complex. They got desperate for money, and they started teaching ridiculous doctrine based on the asinine heresy of Steve Munsey, a prosperity preacher and fundraiser. They started claiming people were obligated to donate large amounts of money on Jewish holidays, and that God would not bless them unless they did. I probably put a stop to that. I debunked the whole business publicly, and they’ve moved to a different set of offerings with different pitches. I probably cost them six figures a year. That doesn’t bother me. I didn’t want to see poor people cheated.

I started praying for God to find me a new church, and I wasn’t alone. Leaders who were serious Christians started leaving, even though they wouldn’t admit anything was wrong. There was a remarkable exodus. I think the church is still reeling from it. The insiders pointed fingers and lied about the folks who left, trying to stop the bleeding, but the move came from God, so it couldn’t be resisted by carnal means.

The man who was in charge of all 700+ volunteers left. He was also an Armorbearer. The head Armorbearer left. His successor left. When I heard how much the successor loved his new church, I started interrogating him. It sounded promising. I thought it was up near Coral Springs, which would have been too far to drive, but he told me it was actually south of the old church. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me sooner! Right away, I started visiting. Then I had a falling out with the head pastor of the old church, because I was discrediting the Munsey nonsense, and I decided to make the move permanent. I was at New Dawn Ministries to stay.

I tell that long, boring story to get to this: now that I’m at New Dawn, I can’t get used to it. I’m so accustomed to carnality, obstruction, abuse, corruption, and disappointment, it’s hard for me to get used to being in a healthy church.

When God gives me a revelation, and I mention it to the pastor, he doesn’t say, “That’s great, Steve,” and walk off while clearly hoping I won’t continue the conversation. He doesn’t say something weaselly, like, “That’s not the direction we’re headed in at the moment.” He usually agrees with me. Often, he has already had the same revelation. Sometimes he mentions these things in his sermons, naming me in the process. Last week, he had me preach for ten or fifteen minutes. He didn’t take a good idea and steal it, so he could present it and get the credit. He let me deliver it personally.

I’m not claiming I should be credited with discovering God’s secrets. I don’t come up with God’s ideas, but I suppose that if he chooses me to receive an idea, he expects me to present it. Generally, the prophets’ names are on the books they wrote, even though those books were filled with the word of God. There is no prophetic book labeled “The Book of Anonymous.”

When I talk to other church members, they don’t look at me like I’m from Mars, they way they sometimes did at the other church. They nod their heads and add their own revelations. We confirm each other’s God-given notions. We don’t struggle and bicker. We don’t always agree one hundred percent, but overall, we’re focused and united.

We act on God’s word. The other church didn’t do that. We evangelize and give things to the poor. At the old church, the charity wing did virtually nothing for people. Once in a while, they would receive a gift of turkeys or boots or something, and they’d pass stuff out in front of cameras, but it was all intended to generate publicity. The church had a paid PR director who was not a member, and she contacted news organizations to draw attention to things we did.

The Holy Spirit is all over New Dawn. Half the time, Pastor Albert can’t even preach. He’ll have a sermon worked up, but the Holy Spirit will put a stop to it, and we’ll end up hearing prophecy or praying or doing something else God has planned for us.

I don’t have to explain simple things to these people. They know prayer in tongues is key. Most of them understand that Obama is an enemy to Israel and the church. They understand that we have to support Israel. They know there’s a lot of poisonous crap on TBN. I don’t have to fight them all the time. At the old church, people are stuck in preschool. You can’t make progress there, because few people ever get past the fundamentals. They’ve been taught that all God wants to do is take their money and make them healthy and successful. They don’t understand that they have to let God change them. They think they’re doing everything right, because no one has the guts to tell them they need to grow.

Our church has a new affiliate in Winter Haven. We helped launch it. Yesterday, the pastor went on Facebook and put up a photo of himself standing with two people I don’t even know. He said they went to New Dawn to learn about the Holy Spirit, because they read my blog. I couldn’t believe it. I used to have a hard time recommending the old church. I got to the point where I recommended other churches. Now I have a church I can sell with confidence, and people are actually listening, and the pastors are with me.

I don’t know what to do. I feel like a dog that just climbed up on the couch. I literally feel as though someone should be scolding me, telling me it was all a mistake. I wait for the other shoe to drop, but there is no other shoe.

At my old church, I was treated with contempt. I had an inkling before today, but I’m just starting to understand how deep it ran and how much it damaged me. I feel like a refugee. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s always bad to find out you’ve been used, but it’s particularly painful when you learn you’ve been used while you were trying to serve God.

To explain this kind of sensation, I like to refer to a kibbutznik I knew. He sometimes worked in the dining hall on Kibbutz Geva. He had lived through the Holocaust, and he had known starvation. When he worked in the kitchen, people had to go behind him and search the cabinets. He used to hide food in them, compulsively. It was 1984, and poverty was forty years behind him, but in his heart, he could not believe it. That’s how I feel at New Dawn. I keep waiting for a slap that will never come.

Oppression is a hateful thing, and it can also be extremely insidious. If I had continued going to the old church, and I had not prayed in tongues and received revelation, I would still be there right now, blaming and condemning myself. I’d be a slave and a prisoner of my own mindset. Like a battered wife. Like the Hebrews who longed to abandon Moses and go back to the cruel mercies of the Egyptians.

The injury is bigger than I thought. And if I have it, so do many of my friends. It makes me want to consider other past injuries incurred in the same way. It makes me want to look for other ways in which I need to get free.

Like I’ve said before, no one is without sin, but not everyone is a jerk. There are plenty of people who don’t even know God, yet who will bless you and improve you instead of turning you into a slave. There is no reason to stay where you’re supposed to become part of the body of a selfish man instead of part of the body of Christ.

There is no shame in slavery, if the master is perfect. God is always right. He is always generous. He always leads you into the things that will bring you fulfillment and success. It’s right to be God’s slave. Submitting to a man is another story. It’s very dangerous. You will always have to put limits on your devotion, because no man is a perfect master.

I don’t write these things in anger or bitterness. I am writing out of amazement. I am amazed how strong my church is, and I am amazed at how much hidden harm the other church did. I have no interest in getting even. I’m contemplating and exploring the prospect of getting free.

If a pastor is handing you a line of BS, telling you you’re the problem, and you’re in touch with the Holy Spirit, and you know better, get out. You can do better. I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes staying home is better than going to church. If you have no other choice, stay home and pray. Don’t suffer under the hand of Laban.

If the yoke isn’t easy, someone other than God built it. I hope people will take that to heart and serve God instead of successors to Pharaoh.

Plus a Pork Tour de Force

I should be working on my amp cabinet, but I just can’t. I’m high on pork.

I made an impulse buy at Costco the other day. How shocking. They had two pounds of smoked pulled pork for eight bucks. How could I turn that down? Besides, I think I would buy a leaky bag of anthrax spores if it said “Kirkland” on it.

Today I decided to prepare it.

I was considering putting it in a calzone. It would work as lechon asado, so I could make pan con lechon with Swiss cheese. That’s an unbelievable sandwich. Or I could experiment: BBQ pulled pork calzone.

In the end, I went with Texas toast.

I made a loaf of homemade bread, which takes about four minutes of work. I threw some cole slaw together, and I bought a baking potato, which I nuked (cheating) and then stuck in the oven to finish. I made my own BBQ sauce, and I sliced an onion.

I fried the onion in some old beef fat/peanut oil I used for fries. I used cast iron. I tossed the pork in, flambeed it in Jack Daniel’s, and tossed it with sauce. I fried two slices of bread in butter, which is just plain wrong. Then I sat down and ate.

Oh, man. I can’t describe it. As sold by Costco, the pork is not quite as good as pork you smoke on your own. But it’s more than adequate. It’s tender, and it has a nice hickory flavor. The stuff I put in it just melted into the meat. The bread was crunchy and drippy and buttery and yeasty. I think I may faint.

The cole slaw was also a cheat. I bought shredded cabbage and carrots in a bag and added my own stuff. I don’t think it makes much difference. I can’t shred cabbage any better than a factory can.

The potato was not quite right, but the wonderful thing about potatoes is that screwing them up can make them better. This one ended up with parts that were a little too chewy, and it may sound stupid, but they were wonderful. If I were cooking seriously, I wouldn’t go near the microwave, but this was just lunch, and the potato was great.

This sandwich was so good, it was sobering. Sometimes food makes you giddy. When it’s really good, it’s almost scary. It will make you serious. It will make you wonder how good food can get. That’s the situation I am dealing with today.

I can’t believe God lets me cook like this. What is the purpose? I can’t eat it all. I threw out a lot of my lunch because you can’t eat like that and expect to live.

I have an idea. My new church is thinking about feeding the poor. I’m all for this, and I’ll help, PROVIDED they do it right. There is no reason the poor can’t have the best food in Miami. The cost of food has no relationship to the quality. It’s all in the preparation. I’m thinking pulled pork sandwiches might be a good way to go. At most, the pork will cost $1.50 per pound. Homemade bread is almost free. Sauce ingredients aren’t expensive. Neither is slaw. For three bucks a head, we should be able to pretty well stun the poor, as well as the volunteers and anyone else who comes around.

We would need a couple of chafing dishes plus a big propane skillet. That’s about it.

Speaking of the poor, I learned something about a local nonprofit today. My old church has a charity wing. I know someone who went to them for help. He claimed they sat him in front of a computer and showed him links to places that could help him out. Did they give him money or groceries? He said no, although he had given money to the church in the past.

In the recent Pentecost fundraising drive (“Five Victories of Pentecost”), the leadership said they were going to give the special Pentecost offerings to the poor, via their charity wing. I ran that by my dad, the non-Christian attorney. He said, “So he’s paying HIMSELF.” The conflict of interest was not subtle. If you run a church, and you ask the congregation to give money to a charity, and you run the charity, and the charity pays you, what are you really doing? Maybe you’re not taking any money out, but what if you are? Shouldn’t donors be told how much and for what?

Out of curiosity, I Googled, and I came up with a PDF of some Canadian government documents. They say the church’s charity wing lost its nonprofit status in Canada in 2010, because they failed to respond to requests that they open their books and show that they were doing what charities do.

Okay, let’s be fair. This could be irresponsibility. This would not be a big surprise, given what I have observed personally. So far, what I’ve said doesn’t prove dishonesty. But here’s something one of the letters said: “The Organization’s only expenses for the period under audit were for non-charitable ‘Professional and consulting fees.’ The Organization did not report any expenses in support of the ‘ongoing programs’ as described in question C2 of its T3010s.”

You run an outfit which is supposed to be a charity; it’s supposed to give stuff to the poor. But as far as the Canadian government can tell, ALL–not some–of your expenses are for “Professional and consulting fees.”

You can see why it disturbed me. “Consulting” is a good excuse for organizations to funnel money to people who don’t really do anything of value. Michelle Obama made huge money “consulting.” And I think it’s fair to assume that none of the fees mentioned by the Canadians were paid to the poor (who are rarely hired as consultants). If a charity pays consultants, yet it gives nothing to the poor, what, exactly, is the point of the consulting? What are the consultants helping them do? Consultants are supposed to give advice. I think the obvious suggestion would be, “Stop giving all of the money to consultants and professionals and give something to the needy.”

Other websites say the charity received six figures a year. How can all of that money go to consulting and “professional” services?

Maybe there’s a legitimate explanation, but it doesn’t look good, does it?

A full-blown grifter–a charlatan with no intention of doing anything but getting rich–might leave a trail just like this. Money in, no services provided, and lots of expenditures for vague “fees.” So while the PDF doesn’t prove anything crooked is going on, if something crooked WERE going on, it would not look much different. I have decided to show the PDF to some friends and see what they think.

In any case, it shows I was right to quit giving them money. A long time ago, I realized they asked for money and then told donors nearly nothing about how it was spent. By “nearly nothing,” I mean I did not receive accountings showing how much money was taken in and how it was spent. I cut them off, apart from church offerings. I found transparent, trustworthy ministries and charities to give to.

They didn’t tell me where the money went. That’s bad. Reputable charities send out reports accounting for their donations. But failing to cooperate with the government of Canada…that’s another level of bad. It shows they don’t deserve money from anyone. If they’re that irresponsible or incompetent, how can you expect them to spend their money effectively?

What if they’re really helping the poor? Shouldn’t they keep books that prove it? What’s the down side? Jesus told us we were to keep quiet about giving, but he was referring to individuals, not ministries. Besides, before Pentecost, the pastor got up and told the congregation he and his wife were giving a thousand dollars in the Pentecost drive. Obviously, he is not concerned about hiding his good deeds.

This isn’t the only nonprofit that keeps things quiet. Kenneth Copeland refused to open his books when Congress came calling. On Youtube, there’s a video in which Copeland explains that Congress is full of evil people who do Satan’s bidding, and that he, as God’s representative on earth, is not accountable to them. That’s not really what he said, but it’s not that far off. If he’s not open with Congress, he’s not open with his donors, either, because if the donors had the information, it would have been impossible to keep it away from Congress, so he would have complied.

How can anyone give money to a man like that? What possible reason could he have for refusing to tell retirees and people on disability what he does with their money? He is incredibly wealthy. It didn’t all come from penny stocks and brilliant commodity trades made on a pastor’s salary; I guarantee that. Why won’t he tell us how he got where he is?

It’s sad, but Christians are so brainwashed about submission to authority, they can’t see it when the devil himself walks up the aisle and picks up the collection plate. Jesus said we should be as harmless as doves, but he also said we should be as wise as serpents. A man who won’t explain himself to his flock has no business handling other people’s money.

I pray for God to help the leaders at my old church get it together, but I also pray he throws them out and brings better pastors in. I hope they improve, but I don’t think the congregation should suffer while they learn. They’ve had a long time to get it right, and it’s not right for thousands of people to have poor leadership just so a few folks can hold onto their jobs.

My faith tells me God is replacing them, and as I have noted before, the scuttlebutt is that the head pastor is on his way out. I didn’t hear about that until after I prayed for the leaders to be replaced.

In other news, my latest amp now almost has a home. Here’s a photo.

I am not a great upholsterer, but it looks wonderful. I don’t know how to handle the inside corners in the ivory panel. I am considering experimenting with a heat gun. The vinyl will have to be stretched, if the job is to look professional. As it is, I may have to mask it with some sort of metal or plastic things I screw into the corners, over the vinyl.

The amp sounds magnificent. I can’t stop playing it. It sings. I still have some 120 Hz hum to get rid of, but it’s not bad enough to be a major concern. Once I get it fixed, I’m moving on to my 4-EL84 version.

Stay away from that Costco pork. I am just now starting to come down.

More

I’m really not sure what’s going on. I have been re-reading the Canadian government’s documents, which you can find here:

Link to Canadian gov’t documents.

The organization that had its nonprofit credentials revoked is headquartered in Miami, and it belongs (or belonged) to the head pastor of the church. But it doesn’t have the name the church’s charity wing uses. The Canadians were puzzled by this, too. In trying to get information, they looked at the current charity’s website.

Now I have to wonder: is it even the same outfit? Is it possible they let this organization lapse (irresponsible, but not inherently crooked) while setting up the new one? That would explain why they ignored inquiries from Canada.

If we were talking about a responsible organization like The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, there would be no questions. They publish and mail an annual report to their donors, and it accounts for all of the money they receive. I know Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s salary, because of that report. With my old church and its affiliates, who knows? Maybe they generally let people look at their books, but for some reason, they decided to shut Canada out. Maybe everything they do is legal and ethical. I have no idea. I don’t recall receiving any annual reports.

The organization the Canadians disqualified used this language in describing its purpose:

[T]o evangelize and educate young people and their families regarding drugs, suicide, and moral values

That doesn’t sound like what the current charity is purportedly doing. As far as I know, they occasionally round stuff up and send it to Haiti, and as I’ve said, they refer poor people to organizations that give them assistance. So maybe it’s a different body entirely.

Here is how the charity’s website describes its activities:

When a person in need enters our office we will immediately hear the person’s need and respond with appropriate resources. Often the response will be a referral to another resource. [Italics mine.]

Anyway, I don’t want to be unfair. The church’s charity has one name, and the organization in the Canadian documents has another, so they may be different entities, and it is completely possible that the church’s charity is doing more for the poor than I suspect.