Today I watched a brief video of kids engaging in hip-hop dancing expositions. Nothing wrong with that, but it provoked a question: Are any of these kids so deeply invested in this narrow art form that they would struggle to adapt if it was suddenly out of fashion? Can you remember Disco -- the very narrowly tailored music and costumes? Most professional performers know better than to be just a one-trick pony. How many performers aren't professionally employed because they can't do more than this one thing they do best?

More broadly, I wonder how many ordinary people around us are so completely invested in their current lifestyle that their lives would crumble if things changed much. I think about this because I'm convinced our current social context will most certainly change, and is already changing even now. I've watched a few people who, from where I view things, seem to have come apart because their personal financial situation degraded suddenly. You would think that their whole personal identity depended entirely on the situation. There is someone rather close to me who increasingly gets very agitated because their Utopia wasn't permanent.

Sometimes I feel like I'm working in hospice care as I help our society go through the death process. This will become a major element in the exercise of our faith in the coming days. I'd rather not see people's souls die prior to their bodies simply because they cannot imagine life outside their brief window of time in a certain social context. But I know I'm going to see it.

Try to imagine someone with the drive and talent, the sense of mission, of someone like Julian Assange, but with a stronger personal morality.

Over the past week or so, I've been reflecting on my time in Europe and in uniform. Because of my involvement in the NATO Chapel program at AFCENT HQ, I came into close fellowship with a handful of people who had the highest security clearances. No, they never divulged anything they weren't supposed to, but they did unburden their souls of how painful it was to face the jarring disconnect between what they knew and what everyone else was led to believe. One man in particular struggled with his emotions; the deeper he got into that stuff, the more it drove him nuts. He had a conscience, and didn't do well with the necessity of induced schizophrenia that comes with national security. You have to understand that "national security" always means horrible and nasty evil our government does to people. Only those with a real talent for sanity could bear the burden with any degree of peace.

I will also tell you that an awful lot of those spook types went to chapel and it meant almost nothing more than a part of their cover. I'm not saying the felt no need to draw near to God, but that their lives showed precious little result for such efforts. Instead, these folks were known for some of the most repulsive moral perversions you could imagine, and some you could not imagine. My work in criminal justice reporting showed a very high correlation between vice and security clearances.

Apparently it doesn't require a government program for spook stuff to correlate with immorality. Assange is hardly more moral than most of the people he attempts to expose. His greatest weakness is his fame, and how poorly he handles it. One of the fundamental elements in spook agency operations is keeping track of and controlling agents through their vices, in part to prevent enemies from using those weaknesses. Assange's particular choice of mission, and his collection of talents, do not require arrogance, but they do require a powerful self-confidence. My impression is that his sense of purpose and resolve isn't all that strong, that he would pursue something else were it not for the respect he gets from some quarters. The ability to attract funding and support doesn't hurt, either. I think he'll go to his grave vulnerable on the issue of getting attention.

And I don't have the talent of one of his fingers when it comes to computer and information security. I also lack his need for attention. It doesn't take much attention before I've had my fill and I need to get off by myself. On the other hand, I have no trouble giving attention and supporting someone else as the front man. I rather enjoy deflecting attention to others, so it's not that I like solitude some much as avoiding attention. Indeed, I'm praying I can still find work as someone's assistant; I could work with someone like Assange and enjoy avoiding the limelight. I know how it is with front men and I can accept their foibles, especially if I believe in the mission. I'm not for shredding privacy by any means, but there is a powerful moral necessity of exposing a lot of government secrets to the light of day.

To be honest, I'm pretty sure there are people like Assange with better morals, and they aren't as famous precisely because of their morals. There's too much stuff being leaked without attribution for that to be untrue. And I would gladly volunteer for such work without pay in some supporting role. But in case you didn't notice, I've been doing that kind of exposure with religion instead of government. Instead of whistle-blowing bad government, I've been trying to uncover bad religion. There's an awful lot of secrets. I don't see much point in naming names all the time, but it has its place. I've been more interested in exposing the underlying framework, in that church is no different from a government agency with a defined jurisdiction. They still function pretty much the same, and I find it self-evident that church and secular government aren't supposed to be mirror images in terms of fundamental structure.

So I've done my best to leak all the stuff that got buried way back prior to the Early Church compromise with Constantine. But you should know that I would gladly help expose anything that people with questionable morals and intentions have tried to hide.

Hi, my sweet family! 

Pardon my absence or lack of participation, but a LOT has been going on with hubby and doctors.  A week from tomorrow, the 22nd, he will be going in for his 14th (or is it the 16th? or ???) major surgery.  It will be to try to remedy the unsuccessful surgery he had last February and, if it becomes extremely complicated, it may turn into an abdominal reconstruction as well.  So, an hour or so to many hours, depending, he will be "under the knife".  That will obviously determine how long he will be in the hospital and how long his recovery will be.

He is having a really difficult time with all of this as I am sure you can imagine.  And, it has been very challenging for me as well. 

We will really be needing everyone's prayers for this next couple of weeks.

Thanks!

I'm Ed wife and I don't say a lot (except to Ed). We been married for 39 year going on 40 this summer. I work as a kitchen supervisor for a public school in Oklahoma.

This is more or less a "please be patient" announcement. I am very new to forum software in general, so it will take some time to for me to get everything adjusted and buttoned up.

Here's a list of current to-dos:

http vs https
As a general rile, sites should use https over http, for security reasons. I had a solution to forward folks that visited the http version, to the https version. This doesn't have to do with the forum software but is instead a server configuration. 

Member titles
Besides the "Elder" title you see on my profile and Ed's, everything is out of the box myBB functionality. I have changed the titles for now to better suit what we're trying to do here at Radix Fidum but it will need some adjusting.

Permissions on Forums
These can get tricky since permissions can cascade and be overwritten. Some forums are meant only for elders to start threads in, but it doesn't work as such. I will have to review the permissions scheme to get that cleaned up.

Caching
Some people have reported making changes to their profile and not seeing them immediately until a manual browser reload. There is a solution that I had but removed since it was interfering with other things.

Theming
There is an option under your profile management to change the theme of the forum. Right now there are only two: the default Tawny theme and the myBB default. I can install more themes but it is a manual process, so I need to figure out a way to install themes people would want so they can select them. Related to this is the Radix Fidem logo, as it doesn't persist between theme changes.
I added an additional theme, called Flatty. It has a flat design, which I'm generally not too fond of, but some people like those. I've also added logos for all 3 themes, instead of the themes' defaults.

I did make tawny the default theme, but I actually prefer the myBB Default. You can change the theme in use for yourself by going to User CP > Edit Options (on the left) > Board Style dropdown (on the bottom right)

Can anyone post relevant material here, or only elders?

Brethren & Sistren, 
                                My mother in law, Judi, is currently in intensive care. The Doctors say she may have had a stroke with serious complications. Please pray for a speedy recovery, that will bring God glory. I do not know of a more faithful, generous and beloved lady. She accepted me as her own from day one. Also remember my wife, Michelle, she is feeling guilt for not getting her help sooner. A simple prayer I learned many years ago is "Lord, show them how much you love them".

I'm specifically thinking of icons here, which have a very unique beauty to them, in my opinion. I don't use images for purposes of worship ... yet ... but I want to hear some opinions.

A question I have: If praying before an icon (or, praying before a specific object) is idolatry, then is praying before "nothing" (or, no specific object) also somehow an idolatry of negation?

I had surgery in late October to repair a SLAP tear, impingement and to correct damage from arthritis. My rehabilitation is going well and I hope to get the all clear to return to work soon. I'm an upholsterer by trade but, haven't worked as one in a long time. Pray as you feel led, that I may bring Him glory wherever He places me. Amen.

The church I attend declared a 6 week series going over 2017 headlines and the proper Christian response to them, as though there is one proper response to such broad, looming issues. I've decided to save the time and gas money by sitting it out. The head pastor is a great guy and the content of his sermons are mostly agreeable, but with his commentary on social or political issues I maintain cynicism...even when I agree with him. I can already tell by the sermon titles that it would be wasted time.

Not surprisingly, he comes from a Western philosophical view on the role of politics and cultural issues. It's neither conservative nor liberal, nor libertarian nor green, but with key philosophical assumptions that present it as just another version of democratic republicanism that we've endured in America for so long. This is not particular of my church only most churches in America fall under this rubric to varying degrees. The social religion of the looming spectre of 21st Century Nice Guy Jesus: grumpy with religious folk, safely predictable, openly and emphatically not racist or sexist. Someone who would hold a "reasonable view" by today's standards; one that would fit well as a foil between two extreme viewpoints on a talk show.

Instead, I had a quick Bible study with the family in the morning. Nothing elaborate, since my kids are on the younger side. It was more to mark the occasion than anything else; to plant a quick flag in the ground for the month or so ahead. It was better than nothing, and it's certainly better than what I would hear for my normal Sunday routine this time.