The Meaning of Liberty

 July 4, 2026:

For dear brothers and sisters, we have been called into Liberty. But don't use your liberty as an excuse to overindulge your personal greed, for Freedom is more than a privilege. It comes with responsibilities--to care for the greater good of all. Galatians chapter 5 puts it this way:

"For we have been called unto liberty;

only don't use this liberty as an excuse to indulge yourselves, but by love serve one another." 

That's my take on America. Are we in a sunrise or a sunset? Each of us had to decide.

A Country Losing Its Vision

                 

          This photo of Mount Rushmore was taken last week. I think it's symbolic of where our country is.

We're losing sight of the democratic ideals of our founding fathers, just as they are veiled by fog in this photo. We are in danger of losing our freedom of thought and freedom of speech, as we are being increasingly controlled by an oligarchy who claim they're the only ones who are right.

Beware, folks!  Remember Germany in the 1930s...

Excellent Advice from a Reliable Source

 I just finished reading The Name of God is Mercy by Pope Francis. It's a wonderful work, laced with scripture lessons. One of his key points is that Mercy is greatly missing in our world today. Too many have forgotten how to practice it, or what it even means. Here are some of my favorite quotes from this work:

"The Church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims mercy--the most stupendous attribute of the Creator and of the Redeemer..."

"...in a word, wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy."

"The Lord asks us above all not to judge and not to condemn. If anyone wishes to avoid God's judgment, he should not make himself the judge of his brother or sister."

(See how badly too many "Christians" are missing the boat on this!)

"How many are the wounds borne by the flesh of those who have no voice because their cry is muffled and drowned out by the indifference of the rich!"

"Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help!"

"Corruption is a sinful hardening of the heart that replaces God with the illusion that money is a form of power. It is a work of darkness, fed by suspicion and intrigue... If it is not combatted openly, sooner or later everyone will become an accomplice to it, and it will end up destroying our very existence." 

This is a voice, we all need to heed, regardless of our church affiliation. It looks like Pope Francis's successor is trying to carry this mission on. I pray for him in this ministry, even though I'm not Roman Catholic. Rather, I belong to the "holy catholic (universal) church, which encompasses all Christians.

It's time the politicians quit telling the Pope not to talk about religious doctrine. How ridiculous!  Someone needs to tell the politicians to stop talking politics, to think about the good of all people, not just themselves and their power.

The Meaning in Creation

 I know it's been a long time. Travel and revising a historical fiction book into two books (shown above and below) have diverted my attention from blogging. Now spring has come at last to northwest Montana. 

As I watch the birds at my feeder, the male finches especially, vying for dominance, I see a creation crying out for its  redemption, as St. Paul described in Romans 8:22--groaning and waiting like a woman in labor. Mother Earth wants to bring forth the New Creation God has promised. But it's still not her due date, I guess.

Yet, at the same time, there is still beauty and intricacy--from the tiniest atomic particles we can't see to the huge expanses of the universe we can't fathom with our finite minds. The creation still reveals the glory of God, His power, might, and knowledge, all beyond our understanding.

Ask the Animals and Plants

 I'll keep this short and sweet. I've always been interested in meteorology, and in my youth wanted to be a weather forecaster. I even built my own homemade weather station, and learned to read a dew point chart by the age of ten.

As a result, following the weather is a hobby of mine even now. There have been some very strange events in the past year. All kinds of record setting temperatures in many parts of the world. Tornadoes in southeast Asia, even tornadoes in Illinois in December. Not to mention the massive typhoons.

If you ask true scientists, they will tell you that the ice packs at our planet's poles are warming at unprecedented rates. Animals are moving their ranges into higher latitudes and altitudes as the overall temperature of the earth gradually warms. Plants are showing stress from too much or too little water, even in my own neighborhood. So-called "one hundred year" climatic events are occurring much more often, like every few years.

Humans have free will, which means they can choose to not believe the climate is changing, for their own selfish reasons. But the plants and animals know, if only they could talk to us.

Why Can't People See?

 Recent developments in our nation's capital are getting more and more alarming. Now Trump has taken over the military, telling officers at a meeting in the Pentagon, "If you don't agree with me, you can walk out--and lose your commission." In other words, his favorite line: "You're fired!" Anyone who knows what happened in Germany with Hitler in the 1930s should be alarmed at the parallels. Now the military that is supposed to defend our country will be turned against US citizens to "control internal terrorists"--in other words the people who oppose Trump. Our freedoms will be a thing of the past, while the military becomes Trump's new Gestapo. There's more. Now he's telling schools that depend on government funding that they have to teach his version of history and philosophy. If they don't, he promises to cut their funding.  Again so parallel to Hitler's early moves in Germany. By the way, he's already cut funding to the independent news voices PBS and NPR. If he can find a way around the FCC, he'll start cutting networks, too. It could happen. Look what he's already done to the departments supposed to protect our health and welfare.

How has he gotten away with this? I see several reasons. First, he has some kind of power to make people believe anything he says, whether it's true or not. (Like what Revelation says the Anti-Christ will do, even to believers.) Next he's managed, through force, threats, and plain fear to cripple Congress, and get the Supreme Court in his pocket. The Balance of Powers our forefathers put in the Constitution is being dismantled. Intimidation has made this possible, and some of our forefathers foresaw this possibility.

The other reason I see for people's blindness is the misplaced belief that America is God's chosen people. We're not. The Bible never even hints at that. In fact a careful reading of Revelation doesn't show any hint of a world power that resembles the United States. Perhaps God's plan is to use Trump to take us out of the picture completely. After all, the main thing Hitler accomplished was the decline and fall of Germany. It would not be the power it is now without NATO and the Marshall Plan. Meanwhile, the rising powers appear to be Russia and China, and powers resembling them are seen in Revelation--"the King of the North" and the "Millions-man army of the East".

The most disturbing reason I see for so many people's ignorance of what is happening right under our noses is poor knowledge of history. History has been the most neglected and poorly-taught subject in too many of our schools. World history dwells on Egypt, Greece and Rome. US History starts in the "glory days" of the colonies and the American Revolution. If they're lucky they get up to the 1800s and the Civil War, or perhaps World War I.  I had to read about World War II on my own. I was one of the strange ones who found history interesting. In seventh grade, I read every single book my junior high school library had on World War II. Including the ones about the Concentration Camps, and yes, "The Diary of Anne Frank."

So most Americans haven't a clue what went on in Germany between World War I and World War II. I find it so upsetting that the things imposed by the Allies on the losers of World War I merely set the stage for the next World War.

The average American doesn't know about how parallel the 2020s are to the Roaring 20s of the 1920s. And a few may have been told of what came next, the Great Depression of the 1930s. But the people who lived through that time are almost all dead and gone now. Memories are short and getting shorter. And the 1940s brought World War II. Most of the participants in that are dead and gone, too. I can't help but fear that this time the next World War won't wait until the 2040s. It may be just around the corner.

In conclusion, all I can say is our education system has been so concerned with the future, STEM--science, technology, electronics, and math--that history is totally neglected. And this is a tragedy, for as Mark Twain once said, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And that's exactly what is happening now.  

The Dangers of Draining the Swamp

 Recently I visited my son in Tumwater/Olympia, Washington. Lake Olympia used to be a tidal estuary, but was dammed to make it a lake. Last year, they drained the lake because it seemed unhealthy, and the stench was horrible! Without the tidal flows coming in and out, it had turned into a cesspool. They quickly filled it back up.

It made me think of all the politicians I hear promising to "Drain the Swamp" of our government. But a strange thing has happened as they began that process. The stink and debris they found was appalling. Everyone on any "side" was disgusted, angered, and dismayed. Panic set in and the natural human nature came into play, as everyone pointed to everyone else, saying, "It's your fault!" Humans can never accept responsibility for their own mistakes, especially the rich and powerful. Instead they seek scapegoats to pin the blame on, shifting it from themselves. We all do it, but it's especially common the more power a person has, especially despots. Any study of history will reveal it over and over again. Protestants scapegoated Catholics. Christians scapegoated Jews. Rich scapegoated poor. Individual groups on the outside of "polite society" were further ostracized. Minorities were especially susceptible. Anyone who we could label as "different."

But look at what the bottom of that swamp revealed: genocide and holocausts, slavery, prejudice and bigotry. Downright persecution, to the point of killing and maiming people for no reason, except they were "different" from those in power.

The swamp-drainers quickly found ways to cover up all those awful remains. Pretending it didn't happen if we could hide it again. Perhaps go back a century or two and live "the good old way"--which was what started filling that swamp in the first place. But if it was hidden again, well...was it really there? Denial is a strong human trait:

--There weren't any burning upside down crosses in there, were there? Men hiding their identities in their long white robes and peaked white hoods. Lynched men dangling from ropes on trees. Native children beaten for speaking their native language. Women beaten because, after all, the man was the master of his house, not to mention those who were raped and then blamed for it. Women treated as property and second class citizens, if they were citizens at all--with no right to vote.

--Let's fly the stars and stripes higher and higher, with Confederate flags or skull-and-crossbones next to it. What are we saying when we do that? "I'm right and everyone else is wrong."??? Let's blind ourselves and pretend none of it ever happened. If we keep the blinders on long enough, maybe we can pretend greatness existed in the past. But God saw it all, and He won't forget. One way or another, His judgment will eventually come. "Judgment is mine," He reminds the world, "Not yours."  Far too many of us try to take judgment into our own hands. The ultimate disobedience.