Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

     I have been perplexed.  From the rise of Donald Trump to the exit of Great Britain from the European Union.  I did not see the connection in it and the many other events and conflict I saw in the world over the past year or two.  The rise of the ultra-right across the world over the increasingly loud protests of those who counter it. I saw the way people I know and love fell in line, grudgingly, behind Donald Trump. Trump, I believe, is quite possibly the most divisive and dangerous political candidate in recent history. I simply could not explain what was going on here or in Europe. Then I read a scholarly article on Nationalism vs Globalism.  It said that these events were coming from a divide that was growing in the world: Nationalism vs. Globalism. The Nationalists are people who are fiercely loyal to their country and they feel their way of life is being threatened.  Their way of life and values are threatened by the homogenizing of cultures and the influx of immigrants and

     It is impossible to help someone who doesn't think they need or doesn't want help.  It can be a frustrating thing if you love them, because most of us can't see past our own issues.  Our issues, and outlook because of them, traps us in a world view that we cannot easily see through.  It usually takes someone else who we have a relationship with to say something that shatters the barriers we have constructed.  It shatters through the lens through which we look at the world.  But most of us are under the extremely destructive and insulating belief that we can take care of ourselves.  We believe we are self sufficient. Reaching out is a sign of weakness.  But the truth is the opposite.  We are relational creatures.  We need others and reaching out is a sign of strength, and it enables those people who are sitting on the fringes of our lives to stop being silent and provide help.  Because a broken and contrite spirit reaps the rewards of the help offered to us.      I u

     No man or woman alone can save our country. No group of people can, in themselves. The devices of men, as well-intentioned as they may be, cannot turn this nation or this world around. It is the physical law of Entropy - all systems naturally progress from order to disorder when not acted on by something outside the system. Man is part of the system, and however he may try, without some external influence, he is simply contributing to the decay. Only some force outside the system can order it and save it. In the founding of this country, some men looked to God as they understood him to inspire them to develop the inalienable rights and principles that would underlie our democracy. But anyone can turn to God and still inflict harm on the world. Extremism, case and point. Because for man's rational mind, God is what we make of him in our intellect.  Don't we all assign our own characteristics to God, projecting our flawed and perverse human desires on him? God for one man i

     The world we live in is a beautiful and wondrous place.  Just look at the sky at sunset.  The light is refracted at just the right angle to paint the sky with purple and pink.  The same sky above us that, most days, is blue with fluffy white ice clouds over a vast sea of green that blankets the land.  The summers are warm.  The spring and fall especially, are my favorite times of the year.  The spring, when we get the first warm days after a long cold winter.  The fall, when the air gets crisp and I can put long pants and a sweater on for the first time after the long hot days of August. And we, as humans, are perfectly adapted to live through all these seasons through the tools that we have been given. I believe that the creatures of the Earth, including us, are even more amazing than the astounding Earth itself.  Think how complex an ant is.  How social it is.  How it lives and eats with a tiny digestive tract made of muscle and acids, directed by a simple brain. It is perfe

It is not light shining in darkness That has brought me to weep. But the darkness itself In which I used to sleep. In a fathomless black cloud Floating adrift, inside. Wrapped in a shroud Utterly mystified. Falling down again and again Against the current of knowing Far from its peace to gain An invisible river overflowing. Pity my soul divided Between wrong and worse And not knowing how one-sided Was my angry curse: "You don't exist", I screamed. Into the blackness I bellowed. In return the light beamed, But the bitter pill, I swallowed. Unaware of my state, I fell deep Into the confusion of man And troubled at night, I could not sleep And on and on it ran. So were my teens - So close to being my whole life So lost in the in-betweens And riddled sick with strife. But the greatest miracle happened I plunged so deep into darkness, Into the pit of the heart without end As the mockers, they picked

      We live in a youth-obsessed culture here in the United States.  It wasn't always this way.  In the 1950's, advertisers realized that if they targeted the young, they could possibly have life-long customers.  The younger the consumer, the longer the company would be able to sell their product.  Television, which had just arrived in everyone's homes, was the perfect platform for this new marketing strategy.  But showing young, beautiful people buying their products they could influence the entire tv-watching public.  It is a strategy that has been ubiquitous ever since.  Now as television is slowly dying to subscription services and the Internet, advertising corporations haven't missed a beat targeting young consumers, especially the millennial generation.  They are actually having a bit of trouble doing this, I have heard, because millennials see right through shallow attempts to convince them of the need for products so they have switched to marketing through humo

     I wrote a post the other day based on some statistics I had read recently that said that 99% of products purchased by Americans were discarded within 6 months.  And the average American consumer buys 53 times as many products as the average buyer in China.  That it would take 3 Earths to supply all the natural resources consumed if everyone in the world consumed as much as Americans.  And we are busy exporting this "free market" to the rest of the planet.  I think it is not a stretch to say that our lifestyle of consumption and waste, along with military intervention to protect our investment interests overseas, is fueling the radical anti-American sentiment around the world.  Capitalism is too closely tied to our democracy.  In fact the dollar owns our democracy.              I am arguing for Evolved Capitalism.  And it is something we can bring about right now, something that growing unarticulated in the hearts of the Millennial generation. Something that has bee