Yeah! Melodrama got your attention. Here's my "sitrep", I, we are quickly approaching a domestic fiscal crisis. I need to find a way to earn money that fits my disabilities, yech I hate that word, but it's true. I ain't going on the public teat, to me that's quitting and I don't quit. I don't require much. Our Lord knows what I need and that's all I want. Please pray as led. I planted some magic beans but the promised money tree didn't grow, all I got was green beans!

It's a symptom: When God's wrath falls, when tribulation comes, there is always a wave of crazy behavior. People start doing the most inexplicable things.

That's because the whole point of wrath and tribulation is revelation. It's God revealing His divine moral nature against sin. It's God pointing out what He calls "sin." It's God calling attention to my sins and yours so that we can repent and come back in line with reality. It's the mercy of God giving us a chance to get right. And when God starts peeling away the layers of delusion about what is and isn't sin, a lot of nasty secrets come out.

Folks can go through years keeping a socially stable exterior, but it's likely they are hiding something from themselves. As long as the economy is okay and there's no genuine political crisis, this kind of thing holds up pretty well. But when the political situation and economy get shaky, folks get nervous. Their carefully cultivated smooth exterior develops cracks. Their stable veneer breaks open and sin comes leaking out.

We who call on God to reveal His truth and pour out His wrath on us first are seeking to have hidden sins revealed so we can repent. We don't want to go nuts trying to hide from His All Seeing Eye. But everyone who isn't looking for His visitation are going to panic as their hidden lies burst out into the open. If you find yourself looking back over your life and constantly facing painful reminders of things you did wrong, haunted by things you wish you had done differently: Rejoice! It's a sign of the Holy Spirit keeping you sane. You know what sin is, and you are sensitive to it. That's God's favor.

The Lord is holding back the storm for a time. I got a gauge on that today in very personal terms. I was out at Draper Lake this morning and I felt called to stop on top of the dam and pray. I've been contemplating that dark moral cloud hanging over the US, and it was a point in my prayer time today. As you might expect, so was the bike, since today was a test ride (and it was good).

I've known for some time that the bike was a gift from the Lord to cover my transportation needs during tribulation. During prayer today the Lord said something along the lines of: You'll have time to get the bike upgraded before the crisis hits. That's at least a few more weeks. Meanwhile, we need to have peace about this. There's nothing we and God together can't handle.

A number of far-right/alt-right Internet personalities have recently been banned from social media sites, or had their blogs taken away, etc. This should have been expected, given the political climate, media protocols, and with who holds a lot of the levers in the tech industry. Naturally, there are plenty of sources you find online that explain things from various viewpoints, but I wouldn't get caught up in the debate unless you have a predilection for that sort of thing.

We at Radix Fidem are neither right nor left--we're not even on the map of approved political views in the democratic West. If anything, we would look like anarchists, based on our rejection on the modern nation-state as a system God approves of. That's fine if others think that. If you're not a little bit mysterious and weird, you might be doing things wrong. Let your heart guide you, but don't outright reject what some political viewpoints might have to say. At the very least, their vocabulary may be useful to us if we're ever going to explain our position.

We're also pretty much nobodies in the grand scheme of the Internet. Although our door is open for anyone to come in and check us out, we basically talk amongst ourselves in the corner. We're barely a blip on the radar, but that doesn't mean we're completely safe; no one online really is. If someone wants to take us down, they pretty much can.

Ed has some great posts on securing yourself online, if you are so oriented and hear the whispers to do such a thing. Your level of diligence should be determined by the parameters of the mission God is calling you to. Don't let others tell you what that should look like. Though Ed and I have different focuses on what all of this could mean, I can offer my advice based on my years of the doing freelance web design and software development.

1 - Buy a domain (i.e., www.whatevername.com, .org). This is both easy and cheap, as most domains will cost you roughly $10 a year for common top-level domains, like (.com, .org, .net) to maintain ownership. You can set up a simple page for free on Github and point the domain towards that, if you don't have a website or blog, that shows your contact information. If you point it towards a blog that gets taken down, you can simply point it to another blog you start. This is secure mostly because this is something you have the most control over, and serious legal action is required to actually take a domain away from you, as opposed to a tech provider banning you and removing your content.

2 - Buy web hosting. This is taking another step further, and there is more cost to this. Buying your own hosting frees you from a lot of the politics of having a site hosted by a third party, i.e., Wordpress, so there is a lot less scrutiny. Hosting providers are less likely to bother paying customers unless you're really obviously trying to cause trouble and draw attention to yourself. As mentioned in #1, you can host things freely through sites like Github, but those options are limiting if you want to make use of a database for a blog.

3 - Set up a second email account. Preferably a non-US-based one, and don't publicize your email. There are free ones like Protonmail and Tutanota, who are better with security and non-snoopiness, compared to Gmail or Yahoo, etc. I would create an email address that doesn't connect back to you; spinxo is a good resource for generating a weird username. If, for some reason, you get your normal email taken away, you can message your contacts with this second one. You'll get bonus points if you have a domain set up and use whatever@yourdomain.com as an address: you can simply point that email to the second address, so there would be little lag in communications there.

I'm referring to a rising tension in the moral realm. I've spent plenty of time in prayer in the past, and felt a powerful hunger for it for many years. But I've never felt it like this before. It's like a depth of tension, as if I'm just rubbing up against the very tip of the tail on something so incomprehensibly large that I couldn't see it from the ground.

Along with this, more blogs are being shut down. I plan to comment on that a little in tomorrow's post. It's escalating on WordPress and I wonder what shape this censorship will take.  I'm keeping my eyes open for other options.

If I had to be a Greek philosopher (heaven help me), I'd be Diogenes of Sinope. Even Diogenes himself agrees with me.

Quote:while Diogenes was relaxing in the morning sunlight, Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight." Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes." "If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes," Diogenes replied.

Quote:In another account of the conversation, Alexander found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."

I thought I'd start a thread to suggest good reading. I found this book on Amazon titled "Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible" by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. IVP Press. It was interesting to read a book by American authors, that doesn't presume God is an American or that the western way of life is Gods idea.
  The authors spent time as missionaries in Indonesia in a society that was more in line with God's than ours. They also brought out some of the failings in western Christianity but, I think  the similarities with us ends there. They just couldn't help categorizing and ended with......wait for it.....YES, three things you can do. If you use your winnowing fork there are a few worthwhile moments.

We at Radix Fidem can't compete with the excitement of Hollywood. We shouldn't try, and we don't. We're not dopamine merchants like plenty of other physical churches you can find on American soil. They are just ersatz entertainment, and people eventually leave them for the real, and frankly better, sources of entertainment and meaning.

We offer something else--something unique and available to anyone seeking it out. God requires you to take the whole package, yet it seems He's something of a gentleman about it, as He lets blessings rush up to meet you when you take the very first step. That's how reality and shalom work, how we interact with the physical domain in our fallen state: the good stuff can start happening immediately, and the good stuff keeps getting better the further you go in. Like a neverending gallery, the paintings get more beautiful as you step towards the eternal center.

Yet, we can expect much. Take a look at the Wisdom Literature videos that I had posted some time back, particularly Ecclesiastes. Notice how the only truly "good things" in life are ubiquitous in that most anyone can partake in them. The more complicated stuff, like fame and wealth, can arrive and vanish via forces out of our control. There's nothing inherently wrong with the grandiose blessings, but they should be held with a loose grip. Clutching them too tightly will drag you along with them as they slide of the cliff. We should be willing to let things go when it's their proper time.

"Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard" the things that are in store for us, but that doesn't mean we can't imagine what it will be like. What were the Leviathan and Behemoth from Job? Some scholars and commentators speculate that they were earthly creatures that God showed Job--ones he had simply never encountered before. But I would be frankly disappointed if that's all they were; that idea disappoints the very large sci-fi/fantasy center in my brain. They appeared to Job too massive and powerful for them to be animals we can sense and categorize. They were quite literally not of this world, but still some part of creation that Job didn't perceive until that point. If Job took all of that in while in dialogue with God, how much many other wonders are out there waiting for us?

Ed is posting a series on the topic of Covenant Manhood. I will post them here at Radix Fidem and provide links.

Covenant Manhood 01
Covenant Manhood 02
Covenant Manhood 03
Covenant Manhood 04
Covenant Manhood 05
Covenant Manhood 06
Covenant Manhood 07
Covenant Manhood: Conclusion

Quote:
Covenant Manhood: Conclusion

You cannot compel anyone to follow you.

The shepherd leads by his voice, not with a leash. People have to agree to your leadership, including your children and your wife. Creation and the Holy Spirit together will call people to follow you if you are following Christ from the heart. Let them choose as they will, but make your choice clear.

In this, your very presence is a healing element. Seek to restore divine justice in every context. You will always be limited, but God’s glory is not limited. This is what they will follow.

Covenant manhood means you are an agent of God’s glory.

The End

Ed is posting a series on the topic of Covenant Manhood. I will post them here at Radix Fidem and provide links.

Covenant Manhood 01
Covenant Manhood 02
Covenant Manhood 03
Covenant Manhood 04
Covenant Manhood 05
Covenant Manhood 06
Covenant Manhood 07
Covenant Manhood: Conclusion

Quote:
Covenant Manhood 07

The Covenant is its own reward.

The Covenant of Christ is equivalent to the term Biblical Law; Christ Himself is the Living Law of God. Your obedience is not simply some burdensome task that grants you a certain religious identity. Your obedience is conforming to reality as God made it. So all of the stuff leading up to this lesson was part of Christ. It’s not simply in your best interest; it is in everyone’s best interest. All of Creation sings in celebration when one more man figures out what God intended regarding manhood.

So it is with your children. Your effort to heal and bring divine justice into your marriage brings that same healing justice to your entire household, your entire domain granted from God.

You cannot make your wife do what’s right. In the final analysis, you cannot make your children do what’s right, either. But you can justly apply more force to them than to your wife. She agreed to marriage; your children had no choice to be born in your household. During their minority, God demands that you guide them more tightly than the adults in your domain. You — and you alone — know from your heart the particulars of what force you should use with them. You have take into account your own strengths and weaknesses along with theirs, the unique character of each person involved, and the cultural background in which you operate.

You will make yourself available for their demands for attention, but never as much as they want. In my case, as a playful clown, I don’t spend as much time with them as I want, either. That’s in their best interest. Don’t ever wear out your welcome anywhere with anyone, including your children. Always leave people wanting more of you, including your children. Make plans to offer daddy-time, but by the same token, make it a treasure. In broad general terms, you don’t seek them out to have time with them. Make yourself the kind of dad they come looking for, always begging for time with you. Make your children and other humans long to be with you.

The key to manhood socially is making the most of whatever natural charisma you have. One of the ways you have charisma with children is taking them seriously, while not taking yourself too seriously. Judge as little as possible verbally; you’ll always have to judge one thing or another, but avoid it until your convictions demand it. Instead, talk to them using adult speech patterns, but words that children understand. Never, ever baby-talk, except when clowning. Talk to them normally and be ready to explain anything you understand. Be honest when you don’t know the answer.
Give them as much freedom as the situation permits. If your reflex is to restrict first, choke yourself until you relax that grip. Only restrict when they demonstrate consistent defiance on something. Most kids will fight with you about one thing or another; don’t take it personally. You have to win no matter how much it pains you, but do your best to avoid growling and howling. Avoid the terrorizing anger until those moments when it is the only thing that works. Even then, don’t lose your cool; be the master. Never threaten what you won’t actually do. A great many effective punishments take more from you than from them. The whole idea is to teach them responsible independence as early as they can handle it.

Here’s the thing most Westerns choke on: You are your daughter’s first romance. The playful stimulation of childhood establishes the physical response to men when she grows up. There is a healthy level you have to portray with her as she grows older, so that she is neither starved for male attention, nor is she bored with you. Observe her responses to various things so you can fit your fatherly care to her personality. She is unique even among siblings. The way you establish boundaries can help her keep them when she’s with other men.

At some point you will apprentice your son to yourself or some other worthy man, depending on your son’s character and personality compared to yours. Be the man he wants to emulate in broader terms of manhood. Let him see how you handle Mom; be ready to explain the secrets that our American society hides from men.

Very early, teach them the heart-led way of communing with nature. Teach them about the madness of the world around us. Unless you expose them to secular childcare early, you’ll have a few years to help them grasp our different approach to reality, and how it makes us so unlike the rest of the world. There’s no guarantee they won’t be seduced by what is termed “peer pressure,” but you can give God a chance to work in their lives by how you grant them a sense of independence so that they aren’t socially dependent, and won’t feel the need to follow the herd.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to be “fair” with your kids. They aren’t the same person; even twins typically develop differences that you can recognize early in childhood. Our culture drums into their heads equality, so you’ll have to carefully teach them that it’s a lie. There are some things siblings will get the same from you, and plenty that should be unique to each. You can’t prevent envy, but you can channel it. “I can’t treat you exactly the same because you aren’t the same.”

Your heart will know when and how much to cut them loose in steps as they mature.