When I lend a listening ear to the problems of the people I care for it’s clear that most of the anxiety, stress, and overload they experience is the yoke of their own self imposed standards and life choices. The call is coming from inside the house and it’s spooky indeed.

I often relate that I too used to be type A, used to have the accompanying anxiety, and used to exhibit OCD… until I quit. My father modeled OCD for me growing up and I caught it for a while until one day I decided to quit. It really was as simple as choosing that I wasn’t going to serve dictatorial compulsions anymore. That wasn’t going to be my life and that was that but giving up low grade chronic anxiety proved to be more a process of renewing the mind.

Let’s talk about some beliefs and behaviors which cause an inflammation of anxiety in life. Here’s how to quit anxiety and give up your life to get it back.

(Give up) Fighting against reality

I often witness anxiety due to fighting against reality and wishing that circumstances were other than they are. It’s always a waste of emotional resources.

A student came to me recently short circuiting about an upcoming exam and all the ways she would inevitably fall short and wishing she could be released from the obligation. I told her that the exam was happening. That she should accept that fact and that I was sure she could do it and do it well but that the first step was acceptance.

See if she thinks she’s getting out of it that means she’s nurturing that hope rather than accepting and preparing for what’s to come. Accept the truth of what is happening in your life right now.

(Give up) Trying to control others or your immediate circumstances

Much inner turmoil is created by wishing other people were different and trying to control them in one way or another. But if you’re a Christian you should know that no amount of external coaxing, coercion, or dictates can change someone. If anything it only causes that person to harden their heart against you. Wisdom says that the only person you have control over is you and that if you want to change the world you have to start with yourself.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5

Now if I want breakthrough in a situation with another person I pray about it and put it in God’s hands first. Changing hearts is not a power that I hold but I know someone who does.

(Give up) Clinging to your life

Another problem that I see in those around me is the desperate curation of so called “my life”. I should have a boyfriend or husband already, I should have this promotion, I should have a baby by now, etc. When you’re so absorbed with yourself and the way your life isn’t how you want it to be you’re less concerned with how you can make other peoples lives better for them. It’s better for you (and everyone around you) when you go through life asking how you can doula others. This includes those you loathe!

And have you ever thought that maybe it’s not actually your life?!

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

&

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. Matthew 16:24

Stop clinging to “your” life! It’s giving desperate and daughters of the King aren’t desperate. We’re favored.

(Give up) Inviting the vampire in

I’ll keep this short but be honest with yourself. How have you invited in the things that are sucking the life out of you? Did you marry that man when deep down you knew it wasn’t right? Did your unbridled tongue or actions cause a cascade of unfortunate events in your life? Did you disobey your conscience and then blame God for the consequences? Did you surround yourself with fools and expect the fruit of wisdom? Are you sure it’s not your own sloth, pride, or vices plaguing you? Perhaps you need to revoke access to those demons who walked through doors you or your parents opened…

The vampire can be evicted and peace restored but first he must be seen for what he is.

(Give up) Believing what you think

Have you ever considered that it’s a terrible idea to believe everything that you think or to assume that the thoughts you have are yours? Humans are frequency transceivers — we’re constantly receiving and emitting thought frequencies to and from our minds. Living in the world means we’re constantly receiving worldly and often demonic frequencies but being “not of the world” means that we have the Holy Spirit to filter out all the garbage. It means that we’re aware of spiritual warfare and the need to take every thought captive because we wrestle not against flesh and blood.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Sometimes anxiety is the state of someone who allows any ole homeless reprobate thought to take up residence in their mind without resistance. It’s the state of someone who is passive and doesn’t take authority over their mind with The Truth.

(Give up) Comparison and seeking the approval of man

I recently read Delivered From the Elements of the World by Peter Leithart. In the following passage he eloquently suggests that the human instinct to strive and grasp for power and position is the result of living kata sarka meaning according to the flesh. Those who live according to the spirit have peace by fact that their power and position are secured — though not by their own efforts.

More abstractly, we can infer a profound and profoundly clever inversion in Paul’s theology of flesh and Spirit. Flesh is weak; Paul himself preached to the Galatians in “weakness of flesh” (Gal 4:13). But the works that flesh produces are all expressions of strength. We have been toying with that paradox throughout this book: Weak flesh compensates for weakness by displays of strength; fearful flesh deflects fear by acts of bravado, by exhibitions of the libido dominandi. Flesh becomes rebellious flesh when it rebels against creatureliness and seeks to be as God. Flesh is sinful flesh, we can say, because it refuses to accept its own fleshliness. The Spirit permits flesh to be flesh, and in that sense those who are ek tou pneumatos (from the spirit) are more fleshly than those who walk kata sarka (according the the flesh). In the Spirit, people who are in flesh can boast of their weakness, their afflictions, their wounds, because those who are in the Spirit know that their power is not from flesh but from God. Mimicking the faith of Abraham, those who walk by the Spirit look to the God who raises the dead and speaks of things that are not as though they were. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, those who walk by the Spirit rejoice in a world of vapor, exult in their wispy weakness, where every achievement is temporary and every life ends in death. The Spirit came so human beings can become comfortable in our own flesh.

This suggests that the institutional patterns of the church are, in a sense, more weak and beggarly than the elements (the law and ordinances) were. When Christians started meeting to break bread from house to house, they could look up the hill and see the impressive temple complex, gleaming on the Temple Mount, apparently immovable for all eternity. It took an act of faith to say that the temple was childish and the little gatherings of disciples were mature. It took an act of spiritual bravado to say that the little gatherings of disciples were the thing of which the temple was only a shadowy figure. But that was the bravado of the early church. They claimed that the base metals of the old world had, by the spiritual alchemy of Easter and Pentecost, been translated into the gold of the new. All the elements were still there, but they had been altered beyond recognition. We see this pattern of thought everywhere in Paul’s letters: the patterns of stoicheic life are not lost but transposed into a new key. Early Jewish Christians continued to worship in the temple, but the sanctity of the temple was packing up and moving elsewhere. The only holy space that Paul acknowledges is the holy space of human beings and human communities, those that are consecrated as temples by the indwelling Spirit of Jesus.

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Amidst our worldly efforts to promote ourselves in the eyes of men do we ever stop and wonder what position God created us to fill and that perhaps it is a more humble one than we imagined for ourselves (maybe it’s greater but you’re sabotaging it?) Self imposed striving and grasping and the turmoil and chaos which often accompany are not the MO of God and indicate the need for surrender and spiritual reorientation.

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

Progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.

(Give up) Identifying with Martha

Two thousand years later Christian women still identify primarily with Martha and the radical implications of Galatians 3:28-29 remain misunderstood. Being the disciple of a prophet and sitting at the feet of one such as Jesus would’ve been considered a man’s space. Martha’s from every corner of the internet extol the righteousness of women returning to the kitchen, making babies, and abdicating “men’s spaces” and there is nothing wrong with these things, in truth they are good, but the problem arises when these become works by which women grasp for approval, status, and salvation. Grasping for salvation by works belies a lack of faith that you’ve already obtained that which you seek. The kingdom of God is within you. Mary understood that simply BEing with Jesus was greater than anything she could do for Him — for what could she truly offer God other than her devotion?

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. Acts 17:24-25

Women across the world are tackling their lives from a fleshly place influenced by productivity culture and, as Peter Leithart discuss in depth in his book, the stoicheia tou kosmou meaning elements of the world. The elements of the world are the elementary principles of laws and ordinances mixed with the doctrines and commandments of men which, self imposed, lead to self defeat and bondage.

For women operating from the flesh, under these elementary principals, can look like performing from an inner place of masculinity (DOing) rather than embodying femininity (BEing) resulting in stress, depletion, and dis-ease. As Jesus’ bride you’re called to embody spiritual femininity. This means resting in the peace, protection, provision, and love of your husband, especially when you are “worried about many things.”

Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:41-42

In this life you can lose everything. The dwelling you’ve just cleaned top to bottom will be a mess in three hours, the job you worked your whole life for snatched away, even your husband, children, and health are not yours (see Job) and can be lost. Everything you build in this life is temporary.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain. Psalm 127:1

There is only one eternal thing that if aspired to won’t be taken away from us. This is who Mary prioritized. May we be women who choose that better thing. Amen.

I’m recently working through Iain Provan’s Discovering Genesis and I can’t recommend it so far with the exception of Chapter 6 which is now on the reading list for my Imaginary Mystical School of Women’s Studies for The Kingdom. This chapter touches on important questions like — was Eve more culpable than Adam for the fall? Is it the pain of childbirth or sorrow of conception which God says will be the result? Are women corulers or subordinates? Are humans helpless against the powers unleashed in the garden? Poor interpretations of the first three chapters of Genesis have shaped the psyche of humanity for six-thousand years causing undue pain and suffering, especially to women. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the language used in Genesis is a first step toward much needed religious deprogramming and freedom.

The Temptation

The subtlety of the serpent is quickly revealed in his clever words. His initial question already has a note of skepticism in it (‘Did God really say?’), and it reframes the divine command of Genesis 2 in an entirely misleading way. In Genesis 2.16 God says, ‘You are free to eat from any [= every] tree in the garden’ (Hb. mikkol ‘ets-haggan ’akol to’kel), and he then exempts only one tree. His vocabulary, that is, suggests mainly freedom. In Genesis 3.1, however, the serpent’s ploy is to suggest to the woman that she is dealing with a God of unreasonable prohibition: ‘You must not eat from any [= every] tree in the garden’ ( lo’ to’kelu mikkol ‘ets-haggan). The focus falls now, not on God’s generosity in what he allows, but on the one thing that God has disallowed. In the ungenerous and suspicious attitude to God that the serpent thus inculcates in the human pair, we see their first step away from a right relationship with God, which biblically speaking is one of implicit trust and obedience. We may contrast Abraham’s later faith and obedience to God’s command, in one testing instance in Genesis 22, with the human failure in Genesis 3, in the midst of their own test, to put the prohibition in the larger context of God’s blessing. The woman happens to be the one who replies to the serpent (cf. 2 Cor. 11.3; 1 Tim. 2.14), but we should not imagine that the man is elsewhere and uninvolved. His presence is explicitly indicated in Genesis 3.6, where his wife gives some of the fruit of the forbidden tree to her husband, ‘who was with her’. These words have not been given sufficient weight by many readers throughout the ages, with the consequence that the woman has tended, at different times and in different places, to attract much more blame than the man for the human revolt against God. In the earliest period, for example, Tertullian’s writings typically blame both parties for the debacle, but in his Apparel of Women he certainly focuses on the woman. In such a way of reading Genesis 3, Eve easily becomes, not just the occasion of Adam’s sin, but the cause of it – she is the temptress who leads her husband astray, and even bullies him into eating. All sorts of reasons are then developed for why the serpent chose to approach the woman and not the man. Perhaps she was weaker and more frail than he – an idea that became well entrenched by the fifteenth century, when The Triumph of Women by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón (c.1398–1450) attacks it by suggesting that ‘the serpent approaches the woman before Adam, not because of her supposed frailty, but because he was jealous of her glory and marvelous beauty’. In the Middle Ages the theme of Eve’s credulity, in particular, was often ‘repeated in the temptation scenes of the mystery plays’. All such reading depends on the explicit or implicit assumption that the woman is alone with the serpent; but the story does not suggest that this is so. It only suggests that the woman carried on the conversation with the serpent, and that the man was a silent partner in it. What does the human reply to the serpent suggest? It suggests that they are already moving in the serpent’s direction. ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden’ (mipperi ‘ets-haggan no’kel, Gen. 3.2). These words are a poor representation of God’s generosity as expressed in Genesis 2.16 (‘You are free to eat from any [every] tree in the garden’, mikkol ‘ets-haggan ’akol to’kel). They do not stress that the fruit is indeed to be eaten (the infinitive absolute form, ’akol, which lies behind the English ‘free’, is omitted), nor that the humans may eat from any tree. What is more, the woman adds to the divine prohibition in respect of the one forbidden tree, asserting that they are not even to ‘touch’ it. The God of prohibition is looming larger. The serpent’s response to the woman’s reply then takes the whole matter further: ‘You will not surely die.’ This is now a direct contradiction to God’s words in Genesis 2.17, ‘you will surely die.’ An alternative scenario is presented: ‘your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ Humanity, claims the serpent, will achieve wisdom, independently of God. The human pair believe the serpent’s words, set the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on the same level as all the other trees (they see that ‘the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye’; cf. Gen. 2.9), and eat. What happens next is surprising, for things work out (apparently) just as the serpent had said. The human pair do not die; their eyes are opened; and they do become like God. God himself will explicitly acknowledge the last of these realities in Genesis 3.22: they ‘become like one of us, knowing good and evil’. It seems for a moment, then, that it is God who has not been telling the truth in this story, and that it is the serpent who is the truth-teller. Yet there is already an indication in Genesis 3.6–7 that the ‘advance’ made by the human pair is problematic. The wisdom that they have acquired appears to bring with it a desire to hide from each other. A disruption of some kind has occurred, relationally; and as we read on, we discover its full dimensions, which were not known in advance, but were themselves ‘hidden’ in the simple consequence, ‘you die’. The man and the woman were created to be one flesh, naked but not ashamed (2.24–25); now they are concealed from each other (3.7, by the fig leaves). Something has come between them, and nakedness is no longer unproblematic in the midst of unity and innocence; it has become something shameful. This hiding from each other in due course leads on to hiding from God as well, when they hear him ‘walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (i.e. in the afternoon, when the sun’s heat is not so oppressive). This is turn leads to a painful conversation in which blame for the disaster is shifted from person to person, and from creature to creature. The man blames the woman, but also God: ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit.’ The woman blames the serpent, recognizing that she has been deceived.

Consequences (Gen. 3.14–24)

Hitherto in the Genesis story God has been resolutely a God of blessing. Now we discover the antithesis – that God can also curse. First the serpent is ‘Cursed . . . above all the livestock and all the wild animals’, and the soil will later be cursed as well (Gen. 3.17). The serpent thus faces the consequences of his actions, but it also seems that in some degree all animals are affected by his actions (since the wording implies that they are caught up in the curse). What does the curse mean for the serpent in particular? He will ‘crawl on his belly and eat dust’. This is not to be taken literalistically to imply that normal snakes at one time did not crawl on their bellies; this snake is, after all, far from being a normal snake. The idea is this: that just as normal snakes do crawl along the ground, so this ‘serpent’ who thought himself so wise and exalted – and who represents the forces of darkness arrayed against God and against human beings – will be brought low and (metaphorically) will ‘crawl on his belly and eat dust’. He will be humiliated. Indeed, where kinship between humans and animals was the hallmark of the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2, enmity will be the keynote of this snake’s world from this point on, as he strikes at human heels and, in turn, human feet seek to destroy him. The long-term, biblical battle between humans and the forces of chaos and darkness that seek to destroy them has now begun. In Christian tradition, beginning in the NT, this battle will not come to an end until Jesus Christ returns at the end of time to lead his armies to victory over all the dark powers – having entered history once already as ‘the last Adam’ who saves his people from their sins (Rom. 5.12–20; 1 Cor. 15.12–58). It is this twofold victory of Christ over evil that is already read into Genesis 3.15 itself by several of the early Church Fathers. It is referenced again and again in later Western literature, beginning with the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman Jeu d’Adam (‘one of the oldest and best examples of the transitional or semi-liturgical drama’), and other medieval mystery plays from England, France and Spain. One of the most famous examples is Paradise Lost by the English Puritan writer John Milton (1667), in which Jesus offers himself as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of humankind so that God the Father can be both just and merciful, anticipating that once the debt is paid,

Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule, For ever with corruption there to dwell; But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue My Vanquisher.

Paradise Lost was shortly afterwards dramatized by John Dryden in his The State of Innocence and Fall of Man (1677), transforming Milton’s blank verse into rhyming couplets of the kind that Milton himself greatly disliked and that certain commentators of the time greatly criticized. The same approach to the question of evil is evidenced in Christian art right from its beginnings. For example, the oldest extant church building in the world at Dura Europos (third century AD) contains pictorial representations of Adam and Eve, standing on each side of the tree of knowledge, and above them

the Good Shepherd of St. Luke’s Gospel, bearing a huge ram on his shoulders . . . The candidate for baptism might well reflect that Adam’s transgression calls for the Saviour’s arrival to seek and to save that which was lost.

The sacrificial victim in other early Christian art is often a lamb; for example, on Vatican Sarcophagus 104 (fourth century AD) we find the serpent coiling its way up the tree of knowledge while, ‘as if to show that there are grounds for hope, a lamb stands on its hind legs in front of Eve’. Later, we find Masaccio’s moving Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden (c.1424–7) juxtaposed in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence with his Tribute Money (1425), in which St Peter plays a prominent role, suggesting a connection between the fall of humankind and subsequent salvation in Christ.17 As the hold of the Christian tradition on Western life then begins to loosen in the modern period, and as prevailing opinion about the true nature of the human ‘problem’ therefore begins to alter, the emphasis of artistic and literary interpretation inevitably begins to change. Thus George Bernard Shaw’s Back to Methuselah (1921) uses the Adam and Eve story, not to speak about moral evil and the human need for victory through Christ, but as the starting point for a narrative that envisages a benevolent ‘force’ directing evolution towards a future perfection. Archibald MacLeish’s poetic drama Nobodaddy (1926) uses it to ponder the condition of human self-consciousness in an indifferent universe, and in his Songs for Eve (1954) he ‘glorifies Eve’s sin as a kind of Byronic rebellion, seeing the unfallen state as tedious and insipid and, hence, disobedience to God as an act of transcendence’. For Marcel Proust, ‘the creation of woman according to the Bible is [itself] the story of the first crime, perceived as the foundation of all crimes powering the imagination and psychology of the culture of the West.’ The problem lies not with the entrance of evil into the world, but with the taking of the rib from Adam in the first place, which compels man

to set out on a search in order to restore the loss, which for the narrator [of Proust’s La Prisonnière, 1923] is the ‘restoration of stolen property’. Proceeding to the bitter end, that sometimes ends in the death of the woman.

What happens to the woman?

The woman also suffers consequences in Genesis 3, although they do not yet involve death. These consequences have often been understood in much the way that the NIV suggests in its translation of Genesis 3.16 (for similar translations see for example NRSV, the English Standard Version (ESV), The Message and the New American Standard Bible (NASB)): ‘I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ The second part of this verse is relatively unproblematic, although there has been much discussion over the centuries about the precise nature of the woman’s ‘desire’. The near context makes it all but certain, however, that we are reading about a desire to dominate and to conquer; Genesis 4.7 uses exactly the same rare Hebrew word, teshuqah, to refer to sin’s desire to gobble up Cain. In all probability, then, Genesis 3.16 refers to a female desire to control, even to consume, her husband. Intended for partnership in Genesis 1, the human pair will no longer pursue it. She will try to dominate him, and he will seek to ‘rule’ her (Hb. mashal). This word mashal also appears in Genesis 4.7, ‘[Sin] desires to have you, but you must master it.’ Another important instance is found in Psalm 8.6–8,

You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

So in Genesis 3.16, infected now by evil, the man will relate to the woman as if she were a part of the creation over which humans are given dominion, rather than co-ruler over creation along with the man. This reading implies, of course, the prior reading of Genesis 1 and 2 offered in my Chapter 5 above. Some have argued differently, claiming that female subordination to the male is already envisaged in Genesis 1 and 2. Therefore, the argument goes, Genesis 3 is not speaking about the beginning of subordination; it is just that, once evil enters the human heart, male headship becomes harsh and exploitative instead of caring and nurturing. I follow the lead, however, of John Chrysostom, when he paraphrases Genesis 3.16 in this way:

In the beginning I created you equal in esteem to your husband, and my intention was that in everything you would share with him as an equal, and as I entrusted control of everything to your husband, so did I to you; but you abused your equality of status. Hence I subject you to your husband.

The first part of Genesis 3.16 is more problematic. It has often been understood as a reference to childbirth: the ‘pains’ in question are labour pains. However, a review of other OT uses of the rare Hebrew terms ‘itstsavon and ‘etsev that lie behind NIV’s ‘pains’ and ‘pain’, along with their related forms, inspires no confidence in this interpretation. The verbal root ‘tsb is never used elsewhere in the OT of birth pangs, with one possible exception in 1 Chronicles 4.9; and this turns out on closer inspection not to be an exception at all. Conversely, there is a well-established vocabulary for birth pangs in the OT that comprises quite different words (verbal roots like tsrr and chul, and nouns like chevel). Moreover, NIV’s ‘childbearing’ is a very strange translation of the Hebrew term herayon, for elsewhere in the OT herayon clearly refers to conception or pregnancy, and not to childbirth. It is quite unlikely, then, that labour pains are in view in Genesis 3.16. It is much more likely that the ‘pain’ envisaged is bound up with the difficult circumstances into which the woman will now bring children as they are born: ‘I will greatly increase your pain and your conception; in painful circumstances you will give birth to children.’ The old KJV is similar to this (‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception . . . in sorrow . . .’), and it is interesting that already back in ancient times the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of Genesis 3.16 also read the line as referring to generalized pain – it makes no reference to childbearing. Whence might come this generalized pain? The context in Genesis 3 suggests that it is most immediately connected with the change that occurs in the woman’s relationship with her husband. She now finds herself embroiled with him in a struggle for dominance; she will therefore experience family in the context of pain. This same reality of marital dysfunction may indeed also explain the reference to the increase in the number of her conceptions. Possibly the idea is that sex will become detached from sensible, responsible dominion of the world, which should involve among other things a commitment to the well-being of all human beings (including all women). It is worth noting that the woman is not envisaged in Genesis 3 as only beginning to experience pain after evil enters the world. Suffering does not begin at this point in the biblical story; it only increases. Suffering as such, in the course of bringing children into the world and raising them, is not considered incompatible in Genesis with life in God’s good creation before the serpent appears. Nor for that matter is pain in general. God’s good world is not envisaged in Genesis as lacking in challenges and problems that human beings must overcome in order to live a blessed life in it, and to bring blessing to creation itself. This is already implied in the language of ‘ruling and subduing’ in Genesis 1. There is work to be done in the world; it needs to be controlled and shaped in various ways. The human relationship with the remainder of creation, therefore, is inevitably marked from the beginning by struggle. The embrace of evil simply makes the struggle more intense.

What happens to the man?

If the immediate context for understanding Genesis 3.16a is provided by Genesis 3.16b, then certainly the slightly broader context is provided by Genesis 3.17. The woman suffers pain (‘itstsavon) in the home, it now turns out, not only because she is in conflict with the man, but also because the man is in conflict with the earth, and the entire community suffers as a result: ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain (‘itstsavon) you will eat of it all the days of your life.’ Food production becomes more challenging. It is not that there is work, now, where there was none before – work is part of the human vocation as it is described in Genesis 1—2. In biblical faith, human beings are created (as we have seen) to ‘serve the garden and keep/guard it’ (2.15); they are created to rule and subdue the earth, which (as we have seen) implies that the earth requires ruling and subduing in the aftermath of divine creating. Effort would always have been required, whether in agriculture or in the raising of children. So work is already part of the human vocation; but now it will involve more pain than hitherto, for the ground has been cursed by God. It will still provide food, claims Genesis 3, but only at greater cost – that is the implication of verse 18, where ‘thorns and thistles’ suggests a rather desolate place (as in Hos. 10.8) in the midst of which it might yet be possible to grow ‘green plants’ (Hb. ‘esev hassadeh, lit. ‘plants of the field’) that are good to eat. These thorns and thistles are themselves not newly created after evil enters human experience. They are already part of the vegetation of the earth, assuredly coming under the heading of Hb. siach, the inedible plants noted in Genesis 2.5 (NIV’s ‘shrubs’). Both edible and inedible plants already exist, as we get to Genesis 3 (note the ‘esev mazriya‘ zera‘ and ‘esev zorea‘ zera‘, ‘seed-bearing plants’, in Genesis 1.11–12, 29), and both will continue to grow as we look ahead from Genesis 3. However, much harder work will now be required to grow enough of the former to survive. In sum, a change will come about in the circumstances of both the man and the woman, in respect of core aspects of their vocation. The man’s creation calling involved working the land; the woman’s, conceiving, birthing and raising children. Both callings are now marked by greater pain (‘itstsavon in Gen. 3.16 and 3.17) – which includes the pain of living with each other.

What happens to both of them?

Beyond pain there is death. We have been awaiting a reference to death since Genesis 3.6 (‘When you eat of it you will surely die’), but we do not encounter one until Genesis 3.19. Even here, it is not a report of death, but only a promise of it. The tree of life had offered the possibility of a different ending to the human story. But now, the normal processes of life will be allowed to play themselves out, and instead of eating the fruit of the tree that God had provided, and knowing life, human beings will eat food only until they ‘return to the ground’. The human destination is not now different from the human origin: ‘for dust you are and to dust you will return.’ Human beings will return to the dust with which they have spent their whole working life struggling. They are set on this pathway, as Genesis 3 closes, by way of banishment from the place where the tree of life grows (3.22–24). They no longer live, as it were, within God’s sanctuary, but outside it. That is the implication of the note about the ‘cherubim’, pictures of which are said elsewhere to adorn the Tabernacle and Temple (Exod. 26.31; 1 Kings 6.29); two of which form the throne of God on top of the ark of the covenant (Exod. 25.18–22); and two of which guard the inner sanctuary of the Temple (1 Kings 6.23–28). However we may construe the symbolism of those cherubim in Tabernacle and Temple, there is no ambiguity about the intention in Genesis 3. The cherubim here are intended to keep humans out of the divine sphere, rather than to welcome them into it. They exist to guard the way to the tree of life, rather than allow access to it. That is also the function of the mysterious ‘flaming sword flashing back and forth’. Before we get to the banishment, however, we encounter a new name and new clothes (Gen. 3.20–21). To understand the significance of the former we must first understand something about the meaning of Genesis 2.23. Many have read this verse as involving a ‘naming’ of the female by the male that indicates his claim to authority over her – because, it is claimed, authority is what the act of naming typically signifies in the OT. However, although the ‘naming’ of people is often carried out in the OT by those who have authority over them (e.g. parents in respect of children), it cannot be demonstrated that the act of naming people in itself involves an assertion of authority. A strong example that points in the opposite direction is Hagar’s naming of God in Genesis 16.13. So in general, there is no strong reason to thinking of naming as ‘taking authority’. And in Genesis 2.23 itself, the naming certainly carries no connotation of any claim to authority. Note, first of all, that in spite of how this verse is often characterized, the man names, not only the woman (Hb. ’ishshah), but also himself (Hb. ’ish). Does this imply that the male is taking authority over himself? Surely this is not what is intended. Second, the names that the male chooses indicate the mutuality that exists between the two persons who were just beforehand one being; they do not imply any kind of hierarchy. He is ’ish, and she is ’ishshah. These nouns are, linguistically, in the closest possible relationship with each other; consonantally, only an ‘h’ separates them. And finally, the naming in Genesis 2.23 must be read against the background of the earlier naming of the non-human creatures in Genesis 2.19–20. That naming is certainly not about taking ‘authority’ either. Throughout the ancient Near East, ‘naming’ was simply part of the process by which something came into existence and was assigned a function. Thus an Egyptian text, the Ritual of Amun, tells us that prior to creation ‘no god had come into being and no name had been invented for anything’. The Mesopotamian text Enuma elish likewise speaks of the period when ‘no gods whatever had been brought into being, uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined’. In this ancient worldview, the birth of the gods is intrinsically bound up with the assigning of their functions and roles in the cosmos; more generally, to create something is to name it, and to give it a function within an ordered world. With this background in mind we quickly come to understand that, in naming the creatures in Genesis 2, the human being is joining with God in creating the world, not least by assigning these creatures roles in the world. Their names speak not so much of what they are as of where they fit in the cosmos. In Genesis 2.23, likewise, the newly created human beings who find themselves in the closest possible relationship to each other assign themselves a place in the cosmos. They do so as the two aspects of the ’adam that is to rule the whole creation (Gen. 1.26–28). This is where men and women ‘fit’ in the cosmos – together with each other, and ruling over the kingdom they have been given to govern. Just two chapters further on in Genesis, Eve will name Cain; and again, the naming is not about taking authority. It is about where Cain ‘fits’ in the story (4.1). This intimacy of ’ish and ’ishshah in Genesis 2 is symbolized in the fact that they are ‘naked, and they felt no shame’ (Gen. 2.25); and this reality brings us back to Genesis 3. With the entry of evil into the world, we are told here, comes shame – precisely because of nakedness. This leads initially to hasty and ill-thought-out attempts at clothing (chagorot, loincloths made of fig leaves, 3.7), so that nakedness may be avoided. Now, in Genesis 3.21, God accommodates himself to this new reality of human shame. If there must be clothing, at least it shall be proper clothing (kotnot, ‘tunics’, made of animal skin). At the same time, ’ishshah becomes chawwah, ‘Eve’ (v. 20). The name is ambiguous. Its choice is connected explicitly by the author to the fact that chawwah becomes the mother of all the living (cha). This might be seen as reflecting something positive: God’s blessing of fertility continues in the midst even of the problems that the human actions have created. On the other hand, the name chawwah, along with the statement that ‘the man named his wife’, reminds the reader very much of Genesis 2.19–20, where God brings every ‘living creature’ (chayyah) to the earth creature and yiqra’ ha’adam shemot – ‘the adam-creature called names’ for them all. It is when the earthling finds what it is looking for that ’ishshah, ‘woman’, is announced (Gen. 2.23, not using the Hb. verb qara’, ‘called’, which we find in Gen. 2.19–20 regarding the animals). This first naming of the female in Genesis 2 signifies, then, that the female is one with the ’ish who is speaking (she is ’ishshah), rather than distanced from him. In the second naming in Genesis 3, on the other hand, the man ‘names’ his wife (Hb. qara’) as he has previously named the animals (Hb. qara’); and he names her with a name (chawwah) that reminds us of the animals (chayyah). This is a naming that speaks of a distancing between male and female (now known as ’adam and chawwah), just as ’ish and ’ishshah spoke of their closeness. Therefore: God’s ongoing blessing is certainly evidenced in the name ‘Eve’, but so too is the disordered nature of the world in which God’s blessing will now work out. Indeed, the woman is essentially defined in Genesis 3, even as the chapter reminds us of God’s blessing, in terms of one aspect of her vocation in the world (motherhood), rather than in terms of her entire vocation, which is to rule over creation alongside the man. ’Adam, male and female (Gen. 1.26), has now become ’adam, male, and chawwah, female. It seems clear that our Genesis authors do not understand this new form of existence outside the garden in positive terms. Yet there has always been a line of interpretation that finds the glass to be at least half full – that finds the first sin to be a felix culpa (a happy fault). Ancient Christian perspectives on this idea, going back as far as Ambrose and Augustine, are micely illustrated by Milton’s Adam, who wonders whether he should repent of his sin or rejoice in it, given that greater good and more glory for God will eventually result from it. Here the emphasis lies on the great salvation that ultimately arises from the transgression. Contemporary writing tends to focus not so much on ultimate as on present benefits, however mixed they may be. For example, in her poem ‘The Expulsion’, Katha Pollitt pictures Adam as happy, now, that in Eve he has ‘someone to blame’ for all the things that later occur in human history, while Eve is also content that from this point onwards Adam will always need her.

Reflections on ‘The Fall’

Genesis 3 has commonly been read as referring to a ‘Fall’ from the originally perfect condition in which human beings found the world, and the consequences of this ‘Fall’ have often been considered to be the ‘givens’ of current human experience. On this view, we live in a world bequeathed to us by our first ancestors, and there is little or nothing that can be done about it. Indeed, to seek to overcome the God-ordained ‘givens’ of life is to rebel against God. This view of Genesis 3 has in turn produced a particular view of human life. In this worldview, passive suffering has often been commended, hierarchy in male–female relations mandated, slavery promoted and technology resisted. Human beings sit under the ongoing judgement of God, and we can only endure it until we die. To seek to change the world is to be impious. It is important to recognize that the remainder of the OT does not interpret Genesis 3 in such a manner. First of all, it does not view the events of Genesis 3 as having significantly affected the nature of creation as God’s good creation – a place blessed by God and entirely wonderful in its nature. As we read the great creation psalms of the OT, for example, we find them describing creation in exactly the same way as Genesis 1—2 – and this is the creation that the psalmists are currently experiencing, even after moral evil has entered the picture. It is a place in which the goodness of God is everywhere to be seen and experienced. Second, the remainder of the OT specifically does not view the events of Genesis 3 as inevitably leading to ongoing relational problems between God and human beings. In subsequent chapters of Genesis itself, Abel has a good relationship with God, and both Enoch (5.24) and Noah ‘walked with God’ (6.9). Even Cain is clearly presented with a choice in Genesis 4 – submit to sin or master it (4.7). There is nothing inevitable about his submission. Even after his murder of Abel, Cain is described as living in God’s presence and talking with God (see esp. 4.14, 16, which speak of him then leaving God’s presence). So the expulsion of the human beings from the garden does not mean that they cannot commune with and walk with God. Further (and predictably, if disharmony between God and humans is not biblically inevitable), the remainder of the OT does not regard the other consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve as inevitable either. Increased pain is associated with pregnancy and children in Genesis 3.16; but the predominant note struck by the OT when mothers and children are described is joy, and not pain (e.g. Pss. 113.4–9; 127.3). In part this may be because there is nothing biblically inevitable, either, about the cursing of the ground. To the extent that female ‘pain’ concerns economic circumstances, then, it is not inevitably increased (note Ps. 128; Deut. 33.13–16). The OT as a whole continues to know God as a God of blessing in these respects – one who blesses the land, and one who blesses the family. Specifically in our opening chapters of Genesis, Noah is regarded as overcoming the curse on the ground in Genesis 9.20, where as ‘a man of the soil’ (a farmer) he is the first to plant a vineyard. In this way he fulfils his father’s hope that he would give human beings relief in respect of ‘the labour and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed’ (Gen. 5.29). As to the struggle for supremacy in relationships that Genesis 3.16 envisages, again this is by no means seen as inevitable. For example, the woman who in Genesis 3.1–6 takes the initiative and introduces alienation into the relationship with her man becomes in the Song of Songs the woman who, in taking initiative, draws the man into intimacy. In sum, the remainder of the OT does not view the events of Genesis 3 as cataclysmic events that somehow inevitably change everything about the world in which we live. Indeed, the rest of the OT does not ever again even refer back to the events of Genesis 3 as important for human beings in the present, when it comes to understanding the world in which we live, or how we should live in relation to God and the rest of creation. It does know that sin, chaos and darkness are threats to creation, and have been so ever since the beginning. It knows, further, that human beings can and do embrace sin, chaos and darkness, and become implicated in it – indeed, that they are catapulted into the midst of it, and touched by it, simply by virtue of being born (the notion of original sin). But the OT does not regard it as inevitable that we must live in the world of Genesis 3, and indeed it urges us not to do so, but in turning to God to know a different world. There are two pathways upon which we can walk in life, Genesis claims. One involves obedience and blessing, the other disobedience (autonomy) and cursing (e.g. Deut. 30.15–20). We should choose life.

All quotations are taken from Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted unless otherwise stated.

The Wasteland.

The Wasteland is the hollowness inside us, for we are reflections of the hollow world we live in. To embrace it might mean that we spend our lives doing work we hate in order to feel secure, defining ourselves by that work which we’re paid to do for others, wondering then why our hearts are breaking.

As someone with Scottish/Irish heritage and a nascent interest in Celtic mythology I recently devoured Dr. Sharon Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted—which takes readers on a journey from what Blackie calls the wasteland of modern society—alienation, environmental destruction, and a loss of meaning—toward a more rooted, connected way of being. Blackie draws on Celtic mythology, folklore, and the stories of wise or powerful women from myth to weave a path back to embodiment, sovereignty, and stewardship of the earth. None of my negative biases against feminism or environmentalism were triggered by Blackie’s balanced, genuine, and passionate pursuit of meaning and connection to her Celtic heritage after years as a corporate girl boss for big tobacco.

Her book will resonate, I imagine, to women from all walks of life. She is not unique in her feeling that much is lacking in the commercial wasteland of productive modern society and I also believe that a return to land, stewardship, community, and myth is water for parched souls. That being said the Celtic folk tales she relates inspired some musings from my Christian perspective. Firstly that Sovereignty—more than a buzzword bandied about by new age, free birthing, medicine women online—is an ancient Celtic goddess and that women professing to embody sovereignty are dabbling in goddess worship.

Sovereignty.

Celtic mythology is highly goddess-centered the creative essence of the universe was female, not male; women represented the spiritual axis of the world. The Celtic divine female in her various incarnations was deeply grounded and rooted in place, indivisible from her distinctive, haunting landscapes. In the story of the coming of the Wasteland, the well-maidens are manifestations of Sovereignty, a quality of the goddess of the land who was its guardian and protector. Sovereignty was the spirit of the Earth itself, the anima mundi, a deeply ecological force.

On the surface level, as it is often used, sovereignty means—the supreme power or authority to govern oneself or a state—and I do believe that by God’s design of placing our individual souls into our own vessels He meant to give us primary authority over them but supreme power? Only God has supreme power. Claiming supreme sovereignty is tantamount to worshipping oneself as goddess. I would caution any woman seeking to claim the mantle of sovereignty for herself that “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

That being said I acknowledge that women have often, historically and presently, been stripped of sovereignty and have been the victims of what I’ll call the luciferian illegitimate patriarchy—an ancient and anti-life power which operates in stark contrast to the benevolent patriarchy of Christ who descended self sacrificially in order to elevate women, slaves, and gentiles. I empathize with the nearly universal feminine desire to shrug off the counterfeit patriarchy by our own power but women should take solace in the knowledge that this counterfeit authority was prophesied by God in Genesis 3, not to be overcome by bloodshed on the battlefields of men, but by the seed of woman brought forth victoriously in the battlefield and blood of birth.

I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.

Genesis 3:15

God gives women victory over the counterfeit patriarchy through his incarnate, martyred, and resurrected son.

Wellspring.

Wellspring. The word, like a good well, runs deep. It conveys so very much more than simply the source of a stream or spring: it says something about the source of life itself. According to the Collins English Dictionary, a wellspring is ‘a source of continual or abundant supply’ – which tells us why wells, along with certain rivers and lakes, have been recognized as sacred by nearly every culture on the planet, and throughout every age.

The following story, which Blackie shared early in her book, was resonant, echoing a time of abundance and virtue before the world went dark through subtle pollution of human bodies and souls. The story of the lost voices of the wells brought to mind the Genesis 6 incursion which tells of the demonic body snatching of women and forceful insemination of evil into soul and soil.

The Loss of Voices of the Wells.

Do you know the Tamar, the great river which once cut Cornwall off from the rest of the world, until they built a big bridge and let the others in? Do you know its story, the story of the water nymph Tamara, who was turned by her father into a stream and then grew up into a mighty river? I was looking for the source of the great Tamar one day, up among the willow trees by Woolley Barrows, when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a grey heron standing in the boggy waters from which the river is known to rise. At least, I thought it was a grey heron, but when I turned to look at it, in the place where I thought the heron had stood was a tall, skinny old woman, all dressed in grey, and with straggly white hair. I imagined at first that she hadn’t seen me, but then suddenly she turned her head and began to speak to me. ‘I don’t imagine you remember,’ she said, quite apropos of nothing, ‘that once the court of the Fisher King could be found along the banks of the Tamar?’ I was taken aback, but found my tongue and answered politely that I had never heard such a story. She laughed, a curious sound; more shriek than laugh, if truth be told. ‘It’s no story, girl,’ she said. ‘In the kingdom of Logres – for that was what this land was called, in those days – were all the riches of the world, and they all came from the court of the Fisher King. Gold and silver, splendid furs, nourishing foodstuffs and beautifully woven cloth – the people did not lack for health and comfort and beauty. But more than this: from the court of the Fisher King came falcons and merlins, goshawks and sparrowhawks; wolf and bear, badger and fox. All the beautiful wild things of the land. In those days, when the King’s court could still be found, there was such an abundance of riches throughout this land that everyone was awestruck by it.’ I don’t know quite how it happened, for I didn’t see her move, but all at once she was standing very close to me, her face just a couple of feet away from my own. Her eyes were black, black and shining as pools of tar, and I felt oddly vertiginous, as if I were being drawn in. ‘It’s not like that now, is it?’ Caught off-balance, I simply shook my head. ‘You want to know what happened?’ I nodded, of course; I’ve always loved a good story. ‘Well, then, I’ll tell you what happened. You won’t like it.’ She shrieked that strange not-quite-laugh again, head tilted up to the sky, and closed her eyes. She lifted her bony arms to the sky, as if to call on it as witness. And then she sighed, lowered her arms, and began. ‘In the old days, as I was saying, the kingdom of Logres was rich and beautiful, and the land offered nourishment for all, for it was properly tended and cared for. It’s a contract you see, people and the land. You care for it, and it cares for you. The source of the kingdom’s life, the life-giving blood which surged in its veins, was the sacred water of the wells, which flowed up out of the deep potent waters of the Otherworld. The wells were tended by maidens, and these maidens were the Voices of the Wells. And this is how they served: if a traveller in need should pass by a well in those times, a well-maiden would appear and, if he asked reasonably, offer him the food he liked best, and a drink of well-water from her golden grail. This gift was given to all, freely given in the spirit of service to the land. ‘But then there came a king in the land who did not cherish the old customs, or understand his contract with the land and the duties of hospitality, which travel both ways. That king’s name was Amangon.’ The old woman paused and shuddered as she said his name, and I swear to you that a tremor passed through the ground beneath our feet, as if the land shuddered too, to hear it spoken out loud. ‘As king it was his duty to guard the land and those who lived on it; it was his duty to tend it and see that all was in good heart, for this is the sacred contract which maintains the balance of the world. It was his duty to keep the well-maidens safe, for they were the Voices of the Wells, and without the wells the land would lose its heart. But Amangon wasn’t much of a man for duty, and the day came when he broke faith. On that day a well-maiden, seeing him pass by, offered him food and water, as was the custom. After eating the food and drinking the water, Amangon tore off her white dress, threw her across the stone wall which surrounded the well, and raped her while his men looked on.’ Tears leaked from the old woman’s eyes. ‘Can you imagine? Can you imagine it, girl? A maiden from the sacred wells. Can you imagine how the Earth itself must have cried out in horror? How the waters of the wells would have stopped mid-flow, and recoiled from this evil which was visited on the land? ‘But it did not stop there. After this violation, Amangon stole the well-maiden’s golden vessel and kept it for himself – though it did not stay with him, for the well-maiden’s grail might not pass into hands such as his. He carried the maiden off, and made her serve him. ‘Then, seeing what the king had done, and taking their lead from him, all around the country his men began to rape the other well-maidens. So the maidens no longer came out of the wells, and withdrew from the land altogether. And so it was that the people of Logres lost the Voices of the Wells, and the services of the wells ceased. This is how the land was laid waste. The leaves on the trees shrivelled and died, plants withered, fields and meadows turned brown, and the earth lay barren and scorched. The waters of the land diminished and the rivers ran dry, and no one could find the enchanted court of the Fisher King, who had once made the land bright with his treasures.’ She look at me, long and hard. ‘Do you think it was all long ago, girl, if it even happened at all? Do you think, because the land has grown green again, and the great Tamar flows strong and true, that we do not live in the Wasteland still? Have you seen the great scars that men have made on the face of the Earth? Have you seen the starving masses in the scorched lands, and the hungry hearts amidst the richness of the cities? Do you think there are no men like Amangon?’ And I could not answer her, for I knew that what she said was true. ‘The green crept slowly back,’ she whispered, ‘but in its heart the land was still a Wasteland, for the Voices of the Wells were lost, and the maidens and their grails were gone, and along with them passed the riches of the court of the great Fisher King.’ With that, the old woman grew silent, and stepped away from me, staring back into the boggy morass from which the great Tamar sprang. I stood with her for a while and then I turned, and began to walk down the hill. After a little while I stopped to look back at her, but all I saw was a large grey heron, standing on one leg, perfectly still.

Myths of water nymphs, water priestesses, and well maidens are abundant. Women have historically tended the wells which are symbols of life, fertility, and fruitful lands. Biblical women are often at the wells when they first encounter their husbands to be and Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. If I’m being generous well maidens may be viewed as stewardesses of life and land and as prophetic precursors of Jesus—the living water but as 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 prophesies—

as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

In John 4 the perfect came and partial passed away.

Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? “Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Restoration.

Women have lost along the way of history the transcendent feminine anointing long ago bestowed on us by our Creator. Caught in the wasteland of modernity as we are—we are right to feel in our innermost beings that we have been stripped of our dominion, authority, sovereignty, and status as earth-keepers and stewardesses of spiritual mysteries.

The same kinds of acts that are perpetrated against us, against our daughters and our mothers, are perpetrated against the planet: the Earth which gives us life; the Earth with which women have for so long been identified.

There is an undeniable connection between women and the earth. Our destruction is bound together at the deepest physical and spiritual level. Though I am not an environmentalist it is clear the earth is as unWELL as her inhabitants. The entropy and destruction of the earth is foretold—the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and its inhabitants will die like flies.

We are caught not only in an industrial wasteland, but in a Wasteland of the heart and the spirit. The Wasteland is not just outside of us, a sickness in the system, in our culture: the Wasteland is in ourselves.

Our desire as women to exit the wasteland and reclaim sovereignty belies a fullness of being and purpose that we are missing in the depths of our souls and that, truthfully, we don’t have the supreme power to reclaim. The story of Genesis to Revelation, of the alpha and omega, is the epic tale of reclamation, restoration, and revitalization of the earth and her inhabitants. What Blackie yearns for and what I yearn for is for this restoration of the paradise of God and our proper stewardship of it. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently says—If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. We were made for the world that was and the one which is coming quickly but we can’t be part of it by anointing ourselves with supreme power and taking it by force, as the luciferian pseudo feminists and illegitimate patriarchy (the seed of the watchers) seek to do. The world we long for is entered through meekness, humility, obedience, patience, virtue, and the blood of Christ.

I am sharing yet another work which is not my own but which is so poignant and full of truth for the times we live. This sermon by Charles Spurgeon clears away the brush of confusion and religiosity which impedes so many on the path to Truth.

The True Priesthood, Temple And Sacrifice by Charles Spurgeon

At the outset I call your special attention to the connection of the two verses. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone…you also, as living stones, are built up.” Or, “To whom coming…are built up…an holy priesthood.” Everywhere throughout Scripture the connection between the saints and their Head is perpetually mentioned. “In Christ” is the very symbol of New Testament writers. Whatever choice and good things are mentioned concerning the saints, their privileges and honors, we are always reminded that they are only enjoyed in connection with the Lord Jesus, according as the Father has blessed us in Him and made us to be accepted in the Beloved.

Coming to Him as a Foundation, we become a temple! Coming to Him as the Holy One of Israel we become an holy priesthood! And resting in His sacrifice we, also, offer spiritual sacrifices. Coming close to Him–for such is the force of the word–coming closer and closer, we grow up in all things into Him and become perfect in Christ Jesus. Realizing and consciously enjoying our vital union with Him, we obtain promises, receive blessings, possess privileges and exercise offices which can only be ours in union with our Lord. It is only by coming to our great Covenant Foundation and, only in proportion as we daily come to Him and rest upon Him, that God dwells in us as in a temple.

It is only as we are seen in union with the Apostle and High Priest of our profession that the Father allows us to serve Him as priests and accepts the sacrifices which we present. Let this Truth of God be always in your view because there are many who judge us otherwise. The true judgment of any man is how he stands towards Christ, whether he is in Him and believes in Him or not. If he believes on the Lord Jesus, he is in Him and he is, by coming to Him, built up as a part of the spiritual house. But if he is not in Christ, he may call himself by what name he pleases and may assume this or that lofty pretension, but he boasts himself beyond his line and beyond the truth.

Union to Christ is the test of union with the true Church. If we are members of the most orthodox Church in Christendom it will avail us nothing unless we are spiritually joined to Christ, Himself. Without Christ we can do nothing and we are nothing. There are some who judge us because we don’t follow them. They cry, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.” They claim to be “the Church” beyond whose pale there can be no salvation. Brothers and Sisters, regard them not, for if you are in Christ, you are built up as a spiritual house and so are a portion of the true Church. If you have come to Jesus by a living faith and if it is your daily practice to come to your Lord and live upon Him and unto Him, you are priests unto God and need not mind the censure of those who are ordained of men.

There are others who condemn us because we reject the pomp of their ceremonies, the prestige of their State connection and the venerableness of their antiquity. These have weight with the unlearned and unspiritual, but those who are taught of God discern the vanity of their boasts! Be not moved by their judgment, no, not for an hour, for if you, indeed, come to the Lord Jesus, you are built up by Himself into a spiritual house–and that which He does, does not lack for honor or reverence. It is enough of prestige and of antiquity for us to be accepted by our Lord Jesus! “Unto you that believe, He is honor.”

Whether your critics are so or not, you are, beyond question, living stones built up a spiritual house, if, indeed, you are evermore coming to your Lord. There are some who in the serenity of their infallibility, because we cannot endorse their creed or pronounce their shibboleth, straightway cut us off and count us to be mere pretenders. But if we are in our very heart coming to Christ. If He is the end of our conversation. If we make Him Alpha and Omega and if He is to us the beginning and the end of all things, we may make small account of the condemnation or the approval of the best of our brethren, since we are in Christ and so we are a spiritual house built up for the inhabiting of God!

I remember an anecdote of the Jesuit Fathers of the South Seas which illustrates this. When they intruded themselves upon a native population who had been converted to Christ, they began to instruct them in their Popish idolatries by means of pictures and, among the rest, showed them a famous tree. The natives asked, “What is this?” “It sets forth the Church.” “And what is this root?” “O that is Jesus Christ.” “And this trunk, what is that?” “That is the succession of the Popes, who are the vicars of Christ.” “And these great branches, what are these?” “They are the cardinals.” “And these branches, what are they?” “They are the bishops of the Church.” “And what are these small branches and little twigs?” “They are the priests and the faithful.” “And what are these poor twigs which are cut off and are falling into the fire?” “They are the heretics–such as Martin Luther, Calvin, and the like.”

The natives looked at the picture for a while, rubbed their eyes, declared that they did not understand much about it, but with great glee exclaimed–“It is all right with us, for we have the root! We have the root!” So we can say if we have come to Jesus Christ our Lord, we are growing out of the root and we need have no doubt as to our being in the right place. The branch which grows out of Him must be a true branch of the vine! The stone which rests upon Him as a foundation must be a true part of the spiritual temple! Our only hope lies in our being of Him and in Him–we know no other.

Whatever the dignity which men ascribe unto themselves apart from Him, verily, I say unto you, we know them not, neither do we give place for subjection to them. They may tell us of what they are, but we only know what Jesus is! It is written, “The sheep hear His voice and a stranger they will not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers.” We know not the many strange voices which are in the world, of those who would have us follow them and yield to their authority. But we know the voice of the great King in Zion and we rejoice to feel that if we are found in Him we are accepted in Him! And in Him, today, as living stones, we are built up a spiritual house.

I propose, this morning, to show that we who are in Christ have the reality of all that which Ritualism pretends to possess. The votaries of that faith delight in the shadow, but we have the substance! For, first, we are a temple– “built up a spiritual house.” Secondly, we are a priesthood– “an holy priesthood.” And thirdly, we have our own peculiar sacrifices– “to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

1. First then, all those who are coming to Christ–daily coming nearer and nearer to Him–are, as living stones, built up into A TEMPLE. The saints in their corporate capacity are a holy temple unto the Lord. They are called a spiritual house in opposition to the old material house in which the emblem of the Divine Presence shone forth in the midst of Israel–that temple in which the Jew delighted–counting it to be beautiful for situation and the joy of the whole earth. We have nothing to do with material temples now–we are quite clear of that, for the typical has given way to the real and spiritual.

Solomon’s Temple, itself, is always to be spoken of with honor, seeing that God did, for a time, make it the center of His worship, yet it must not be too highly honored, for God never had any great delight in its magnificence and worked but few mighty deeds amid its splendors. You remember that when David proposed to build it, the Lord seemed rather to yield to the weakness of His servant than to rejoice in the proposal, for He said, “For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another. Wherever I have walked with all Israel, spoke I a word to any of the Judges of Israel, whom I commanded to feed My people, saying, Why have you not built Me an house of cedars?”

The Lord sought not for such a palace, nor, when it was built, did He much regard it, for He says by His servant Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord, the Heaven is My Throne and the earth is My footstool; where is the house that you build unto Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things has My hand made, and all those things have been, says the Lord; but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of contrite spirit, and trembles at My Word.” Stephen in the latter day, when he was rehearsing the history of Israel, alludes to the Temple, but he carefully guards himself from being supposed to attach any great importance to it. He says, “But Solomon built Him a house. However, the Most High dwells not in temples made with hands” and goes on to quote the passage from the Prophet which I have just mentioned.

When the Apostles sat down opposite the Temple which Herod had renovated, they were filled with wonder at the great stones of which it was made. But our Lord did not seem at all to sympathize in their admiration of its glories–rather, He said, “There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” Had God cared for the Temple, He could have preserved it to this day, but lo, like a dream of night it has passed away! And no order has since been given to the servants of the Lord to build temples. We have nobler work to do in building up the spiritual house and need not be occupied with gorgeous architecture of buildings made with hands!

I fear that the pretentious architecture which is now so much in vogue for professedly Christian places of worship is only one of those evil signs of the times which indicate a departure from inward and spiritual worship. The Prophet Hosea said of old, “Israel has forgotten his Maker and builds temples.” There is, I fear, too much going back to the beggarly elements of outward and materialistic worship and a receding from pure spiritual adoration. Even the purer sort are hankering after visible show and the delights of music and the fine arts as accessories to worship. God, the Everlasting One, has beneath yon blue canopy studded with a thousand stars, a far more glorious temple than all that architects shall plan, or wealth of builders and skill of masons shall ever be able to build!

All man’s architecture is but child’s play compared with the great universe of God which is the temple of the Infinite! And what seems to us the most enchanting music must surely be but discord in His ears. It is significant that of Heaven, where God is best worshipped, John says, “I saw no temple there.” Where every place is holy, what need is there of a temple? And where every being shall be perfect and forever full of adoring love, there shall be no need of any select shrine or settled hour of assembly! When we become holy, as we should be, we shall count all places and all hours to be the Lord’s! And we shall always dwell in His Temple because God is everywhere.

For one spot to be holy and not another is but to show how much of the earth we resign to the devil! From this dreary superstition, I pray you, shake yourselves loose! We have not so learned Christ as to count one edifice more sacred than another, for we know Him as cleansing all places and things and from now on nothing to us is common or unclean–except only as sin defiles and spreads pollution. We are, then, a spiritual temple in opposition to all material temples, even that of Solomon included among the rest. We are a spiritual temple, but not the less real. That which is spiritual is sometimes supposed to be mythical and imaginary, but indeed, it is not so. The things which are seen are the shadowy and the dreamy–the things which are not seen are the substantial and the eternal!

Our Lord Jesus called His body the Temple of God. He said, “Destroy this Temple and I will build it in three days.” As a Temple of God, the body of Christ was most real. There was no fiction about His humanity. The Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, so that the Apostle John says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth.” His perfect body was a true Temple which God had pitched and not men–and just as true and real is the spiritual Temple of which the text speaks. With equal truth the Apostle Paul tells us that our bodies are “the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in us”–and that not by imagination but in reality, as the context of that expression proves, since he, therefore, bids us avoid all fornication (1 Cor. 6:18, 19). He would not use a mere fancy as a practical reason for guarding the purity of our bodies! The force of the argument must lie in its truthfulness and so the bodies of the saints are really and, indeed, temples of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, the whole Church together, the whole body of the elect, the whole company of the redeemed, regenerate and called are, “built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit,” and this, also, is most real. Read verses 16 and 17 in the First of Corinthians and the 3rd chapter. “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” Surely this cannot relate to a fiction or a dream–or the punishment for defiling a mere notion would hardly be so terrible. Yet while real, the Temple of God in the saints is spiritual. A Church is made up of spiritual men and her temple form is spiritual. Your eyes cannot, as yet, see the Church in which God dwells.

Words have come to be so misused, nowadays that they call a steeple and a building made of stone or brick and mortar a Church–which cannot possibly be correct–for a Church is a company of faithful men. Alas, they have yet further perverted language and make a company of ecclesiastics, whether regenerated or not, to be “the Church.” “Going into the Church” is a current phrase which shows the ignorance of those who use it! Nor is this all–there is no one visible Church which can claim to be the Church. I tell you the Church of Jesus Christ differs greatly from these associations which are called Churches! The visible Church contains a large part of the true Church of Christ, but it is not identical with it. Like its Lord, the Church is as yet hidden and the creation, itself, waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.

The Lord has a people scattered abroad everywhere, whose lives are hid with Him in God–and these make up the real Temple of God in which the Lord dwells. Men of every name and clime and age are quickened into life, made living stones and then laid upon Christ. These constitute the true Temple which God has built–not man! God dwells not in temples made with hands, that is to say, of man’s building–He dwells in a Temple which He Himself has built for His habitation forever, saying–“This is My rest forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it.”

This temple is spiritual and, therefore, it is living. A material temple is dead. A spiritual temple must be alive and so the text tells us, “You, also, as living stones.” I cannot understand why the translators put the word, “lively,” since it is precisely the same word in the original as above where they have translated it, “a living stone.” Those good men wished to infuse a little variety into their version, but this was hardly justifiable in interpreters who ought to have given us the exact meaning. They should have left the sacred style to take care of itself–even its monotony is more refreshing than the variety of any other book! True Believers are stones full of life, so joined to Christ as to be part of the live Rock, filled with spiritual vitality!

God has quickened them from the dead! The Holy Spirit has come to take possession of them and whereas they were dead in trespasses, they now live by the living Seed which God has put into them–and the life that they live in the flesh is the life of Christ within them. “I live, yet not I,” said the Apostle, “but Christ lives in me.” Can your eyes of faith see that Temple of God made up of living men and women–not alive through the life of the First Adam–but alive through that Second Adam, of whom it is said, “The Second Adam is made a quickening Spirit”? Put these live people together in an organization which allows free action to the life within and you have before you the Divine Cathedral in which Jehovah dwells forever and ever! We are a spiritual house, my Brothers and Sisters, and, therefore, spiritually built up!

Peter says, “You are built up”–built up by spiritual means. You cannot force men and women under rule and call them a Church–even if they come together willingly–they will not be a temple for the Lord unless the Divine Spirit shall fitly frame them together. God’s Temple does not build itself, neither does man build it, but it is the sole work of God! The Spirit of God quarries out of the pit of nature the stones which are as yet dead, separating them from the mass to which they adhered. He gives them life and then He fashions, squares and polishes them. And then they, without sound of axe or hammer, are brought, each one, to their appointed place and built up into Christ Jesus!

The old heathen fable says the music of Orpheus was so sweet that as he poured forth the mellifluous sounds, the rocks began to dance around him–and as he continued to play, they piled themselves up into a temple at his bidding! This is true of our Lord Jesus–the music of whose Divine Word by the Spirit brings us stones from different parts of the fields in which we lay and fits us together, stone to His stone, till a holy temple in the Lord arises to His praise! May the Holy Spirit work among us in this manner and may we all become indwelt by the ever-blessed Spirit. As you and I, who have long been brought into the Church, think of how we became built upon the Foundation, let us praise the hand which laid us in our places!

And as we cling closer and closer to the great Cornerstone to whom we are always coming, let us bless Him that the same love which, in the beginning, cemented us to the Cornerstone still holds us in our place so firmly that none shall separate us! We are a spiritual house, dear Friends and, therefore, the more fit for the indwelling of God who is a Spirit. It is impossible, if you consider for a moment, to conceive of God dwelling within walls! The roof may be of cedar and the walls of polished marble overlaid with fine gold, but can Omnipresence be enclosed by a wall or surmounted by a roof? The Infinite, who fills all things and who makes all things–who stretches out the heavens like a tent to dwell in, who rides on the wings of the wind–does He dwell within walls of man’s building?

It can only be in some typical sense that He can be said to abide in a temple–but that He should dwell within spiritual beings whom He has created in His own image–that He should dwell in intellect, thought, love, hope and all those high and spiritual powers which adorn the minds of His people is most fitting! A Spirit dwelling in a spiritual house! A Spirit inhabiting other spirits and making them all to be resplendent with His excellence–this is a beautiful conception and, by no means, impossible to realize. Within the assemblies of the saints, God is known, loved, remembered and consulted. In the Church He is heartily worshipped, for all true worship is in the hearts of His people and all else is mockery. Not at your altars, O you that pile up your hewn stones! Not under your groaning arches, O you who seek to show the skill of the stonemason! But in your hearts, Believers, where God’s skill and power are seen–there is God worshipped, whether you are in cathedrals or by the wayside.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “the hour comes when you shall neither in this mountain of Gerizim, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father, but the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.” Material temples are abolished and a spiritual temple is instituted! It is in the Church that God reveals Himself. If you would know the Lord’s love and power and Grace, you must get among His people, hear their experiences, learn from them how God deals with them and let them tell you, if you have Grace to understand them, the height, depth, length and breadth of the love of Christ which passes knowledge, for He manifests Himself to them as He does not to the world. Has He not said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them”? And it is out of the Church, the spiritual palace of God, that His glory shines forth among men!

The promise of the 110th Psalm is, “The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion; rule You in the midst of Your enemies.” If you desire to see God’s spiritual power, you will discern it best by seeing how it is exerted in and through spiritual men and spiritual women, built up together as a spiritual house! The Church of Christ is the camp from which the armies of the Lord go forth to conquer the nations! It is the pavilion in which the Prince of Peace has fixed His headquarters during this last crusade. If you ask for the center of the nations. If you would discover the eye and soul of this poor world. If you would gladly see the glory and excellence of the sons of men, find out the quickened stones that God has built together and you will see the habitation of the great King!

But I must now bring you back to the point from which I started, that all this is in subordination to Christ, “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed, indeed, of men, but chosen of God and precious, you also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” You live because He lives! You are a building because He is the Cornerstone! You are honored because, “to you that believe He is honor.” Of Him and through Him are all things. You are no member of the Church unless you are a member of Christ! You are not a living stone unless you live by the life of Christ. You are not built up unless you are built up on Him.

“What do you think of Christ?” That is the test of your whole state. Is He your Savior, your All in All? If He is, then, by this sign do you know that God has built you up into His Temple. But if not, you are cast forth as a rejected stone. God grant us Grace to realize as a Church that we are a Temple of God–and realize it best by coming daily to Christ more and more closely–that we may be vitally one with Him.

II. In addition to being a temple, God’s people are said to be A PRIESTHOOD. Observe that they are spoken of together and not merely us individuals. They make up one indivisible priesthood–each one is a priest, but all standing together they are a priesthood, by virtue of their being one with Christ. “For we, being many, are one body in Christ.” Never let us cease to walk in unity and love, for we are all one in Christ Jesus–and what God has joined together let no man put asunder. We are “an holy priesthood.”

This stands in opposition to the nominal and worldly priesthood. I think I see the world’s priests, decorated with many different robes and ornaments! A gallant show, indeed, for fools to stare at! I see them with their garments of all colors. I see them with their shaved heads or unshaven, as the case may be. These are the priests of Baal! They are mere mimics, servants of a visible shrine, servitors of idols! These are not the priests of the living God, who is a Spirit and is served by spiritual priests! It is of these outward priests that He says, “He that offers an oblation is as if he offered swine’s blood and he that burns incense as if he blessed an idol.” There are no priests, now, except those who are in Christ–and this priesthood belongs to all Believers alike!

When a man comes forward and claims that he is a priest, beyond and above the sense in which all Christians are so, we spit upon his lie! We utterly loathe the idea of fellowship with such falsehood and we regard the poor mortal as going back to the elements of old Judaism, if not turning aside altogether unto Antichrist! All men and women who are in Christ, believing in Him, become sanctified by His Spirit, and so they become–not some of them but all of them–priests and kings unto God through Christ Jesus! This they are, not in themselves in any way, nor by any derivation of Grace from men by Apostolic succession and the like, but by the personal and direct union with their great High Priest, in whom, alone, they become an holy priesthood unto God–

“Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
Over self to reign as kings
And as priests.
His solemn praises
Each for a thank-offering brings.”

This priesthood is most real, although it is not of the outward and visible order, for God’s priests become priests after a true and notable fashion. The priests of Aaron’s line were priests by birth and so are we–born-again with a high and spiritual birth which brings the priesthood with it! In that day when we were begotten, again, unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we assumed our spiritual priesthood. We are priests by anointing, too, for if the Spirit of God does not dwell in us, neither are we priests of God by whatever names we may aspire to be called. But where the Spirit of God, with His Divine anointing has descended, that man, that woman, has become a priest unto the living God, for in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, but of whatever sex we are, we are, alike, qualified to exercise this priesthood. If we have been anointed of the Holy Spirit, our orders are received from Heaven and none can make them void.

And we have, also, been consecrated. Brothers and Sisters, I shall leave it to yourselves as to the reality of that consecration, but some of us can solemnly declare that if anything was ever true in our lives, it was the giving up of ourselves to God. The priest of old was touched with the blood upon his ear–and is not your ear the Lord’s to hear His Word? The blood was, also, smeared upon his thumb–and is not your hand the Lord’s, with all its dexterity and force consecrated to Him? He was, also, marked with blood upon his big toe, to show that his feet belonged to the Lord. And is it not so with you? Do you not feel that you would run on His commandments, that you would work in His service and that you would listen to the voice of His Word? You acknowledge that you are His. You confess that you are not your own but bought with a price and, therefore, you present yourselves to Him to be forever His in spirit, soul and body. This consecration is a proof of the actual process by which you are, in very deed, constituted priests unto God.

We are priests, Beloved Friends, in the aspect of priesthood towards God. Priesthood meant in Israel that these men were set apart to speak with God on behalf of the rest of the congregation. They had to offer the daily sacrifices and kindle the fire of the incense. Now, you who believe in Christ are all priests–priests for mankind–to speak for them to God. As man is spokesman for a dumb world, so are you intercessors for a sinful race. Whereas fields and hills and rocks and cattle cannot speak, nor even the surging waves of the sea–man is the world’s eye and heart and tongue to speak for them all! But, alas, men, themselves, have become as dumb as driven cattle towards God! And as dead as the earth they tread upon.

But you, quickened into life, are to be the priesthood of the universe, the ordained intercessors for the sons of men. You are to speak with God on man’s behalf and bring down, each of you, according to the measure of your faith, the blessing upon the sons of men among whom you dwell. You stand before God to speak for your fellow men–take care that you do this with solemn earnestness. And you are priests towards men, also, for the priest was selected from among men to exercise necessary offices for man’s good. The priests' lips should keep knowledge and if you are as you should be, you hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints. The priests taught God’s Word and so, also, must you publish among the people the Divine message of Divine Grace. As lights, you must shine in the world, holding forth the Word of Life. It is yours to be the nation’s teachers! God has consecrated you to the office–do not neglect it, lest the blood of men’s souls should lie at your door.

The priest, in addition to being the instructor of the people, was, also, their intercessor. So must you be. Oh, cease not day or night to pray for men till God shall send forth His light into the darkest parts of the earth! You that make mention of the Lord, keep not silent till the time to favor Zion comes. The priests, also, were to awaken the people and, therefore, they had the keeping of the silver trumpets. It was theirs to blow them on the new moon and to proclaim the Sabbath and the Jubilee. It was theirs to give the alarm of war. It was theirs in the wilderness to summon the tribes together, to bid them march or bid them halt according as the Lord commanded. O, believing men and women, you are to awaken the world! God has quickened you, not for your own sakes, alone, for no man lives unto himself in this priesthood–but that you may have compassion on the ignorant and those that are out of the way–and may seek to awaken the careless and lead them to God.

The priests were to bless the people. It was their prerogative to pronounce God’s name upon them. Oh, live a blessed be like that of the Ascended One! Pray it will be a life scattering blessings among the sons of men and let its closing scene be full of love to those you leave below. Thus shall you be practically the holy priesthood which God would have you to be. This is to be your function and ministry always and in every place. You are an holy priesthood not only on the Lord’s Day when you come into this house, but at all times! What is this house more than any other? You are a priesthood everywhere at all times, owing nothing to the place you stand in or to the garb you wear!

How this invests the Christian’s life with dignity! You are to eat, drink, sleep, wake and all along to abide in your priesthood. For you the chamber, the parlor, the workshop, the open field and the street are to be a place for the exercise of your priestly functions. Do you not see that it must be so, for you carry your temple with you? You, yourselves, make the temple, for you are the Temple of God. You are always in your temple, for your body is your temple. You are always in your temple, for you are built up into it and stones do not move when once built up–so that wherever you dwell, you are in the place of service and worship.

Do you live up to this, my Brothers and Sisters? Do you seek to do so? Do you make your ordinary meals into sacraments? Do you turn the common garments of your toil into vestments? Do you make your speech to be an offering of the sacrifice of thanksgiving? Do you cause your thoughts to be as a sweet perfume of incense unto the Most High? This is why you are called–to be an holy priesthood. Unholiness in you is a slight upon the office with which God has invested you! Unholiness in you is as though the High Priest put off His garments of beauty and glory and robed Himself in the garments of a fool!

Now, Brethren, I call you back to the point from which we started. You are an holy priesthood only as you are in Christ. Christ is the Elect of God and you are elect in Him. He is a King and, therefore, you are a royal priesthood in Him. He is a holy Prince and you become a holy nation in Him. He is God’s peculiar treasure and you become a peculiar people in Him. All this is in oneness with Him. If you can be severed from Christ, you have lost your priesthood. Only as we abide in our Lord do we abide in our condition of honor and privilege.

III. We must now consider the SACRIFICES which we offer–“spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” We offer spiritual sacrifices as opposed to the literal. There were sacrifices of bulls and goats under the Law, as you right well know, yet the Lord never cared much for them, for the Holy Spirit, when He spoke by men of old, frequently set these things in the place of small esteem. In an evangelical frame of mind, deeply penitent for sin, the Patriarch David was able to see the inefficiency of the legal offerings and he wrote thus, “You desire not sacrifice, else would I give it. You delight not in burnt offering.”

And again he says concerning thanksgiving, “This, also, shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.” To the same effect and even more comprehensive, is that expression in the 40th Psalm, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire. Burnt offering and sin offering have You not required.” And what follows, “Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Your will, O my God; yes, Your Law is within my heart.” Upon which remarkably clear passage Paul remarks, “He takes away the first,” the sacrifices, “that He may establish the second,” or set up the doing of the Divine will by Christ as the great Sacrifice forever. You and I bring no lambs or bulls, but we present a real sacrifice which is far more pleasing in His sight, for it is written, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

The text which I have just quoted shows what our sacrifices are, for we imitate our Lord and say, “I delight to do Your will, O God.” This is the true sacrifice! Had not the Lord before spoken by Samuel and said, “To obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams”? So this day, Beloved, when you do the will of God from your heart–when you studiously strive to find out what God’s will is and then conscientiously endeavor to attend to it–you are as priests offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

This sacrificing takes various forms. “I beseech you, Brethren, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.” You are to present yourselves, spirit, soul and body, as a sacrifice unto God. You are, also, to, “do good and to communicate, for with such sacrifices God is well-pleased.” To Him, also, you are to, “offer the sacrifice of praise continually, the fruit of your lips giving glory to God.” To the Lord, also, you must present the incense of holy prayer. But all these are comprehended, I think, in the expression, “I delight to do Your will, O God.” That scribe spoke discreetly who replied to our Lord that to love God with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, with all the strength and to love his neighbor as himself is more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. Oh, you saints, live to do Jehovah’s will! Lay self aside! Put self-seeking far away! Live wholly to make Jesus great, to make His Gospel known and to perform the will of God which is your sanctification! Live unto God and so offer unceasing sacrifice!

We come back to where we began. The text says, “acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,” and so reminds us of our dependence upon our Lord Jesus. You have no sacrifice to bring apart from His sacrifice and it is only as you live in the spirit of the self-sacrificing Jesus that you can possibly offer unto God such sacrifice as He will accept. I have done when I have said this much to you. Beloved Believers, you see your honorable office–rejoice therein! Are you poor? Are you obscure? Have you to work hard for a living? Nevertheless behave not yourselves before the sons of men as though you were of mean degree, for you are priests unto God! I delight to think of God’s priests working in our fields and toiling in our shops, as well as gathered here at this time in a holy convocation! God’s priests as much in one place as in another!

Such holy priests are all around you. You know them not by their wearing a biretta, or by that hideous long coat and Roman dog collar in which the world’s priests drape themselves! No, you know the priests of God by their practical holiness! If you are holy unto God, you have your priestly garments on. And if the world disallows you, as it disallowed its Lord, and rejects you as a stone not to be built into the temple, it does not matter–“The Lord knows them that are His.” He has built you into your place in His spiritual Temple and He will dwell with you, yes, does dwell with you and will abide with you forever!

See, now, your responsibility and walk circumspectly, because whatever you do will be a part of the acts of “the holy priesthood.” The priests of God must be pure! “Be you clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” The Temple of the Lord must not have buyers and sellers and thieves and robbers to defile it. Christ would have it purged. This puts you into such a responsible position that I would earnestly implore you, “Be you perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” You must set apart, to such an office as this, everything about you to be marked with, “Holiness unto the Lord.”

And now, see once more what Divine Grace has been bestowed upon you, that you should become priests, who in times past were enemies to God! You were not a people, but are now the people of God! You had not obtained mercy, but have now obtained mercy! You were sometimes in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord! You were once the servants of Satan, but now you are priests unto God! Go, and so live, that men shall say of you, “They are the priests of the Lord.” May you show forth the virtues of your God and declare His praises!

You have received the office–honor it, live up to it–pray for Grace to fulfill it. Think how it dignifies you, for the text which I quoted, just now, says, “Unto you that believe He is honor”–that is the Greek word. It is your honor to have Christ for your Savior! It is your honor to be Christ’s servants! It is your honor to be like Christ! It is your honor to be priests through His Grace and, by-and-by, it will be your honor to be with Him, world without end! Amen.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about freedom as a value of mine. I wrote that— “I imagine Jesus and the Br…

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Was I systematically taught American values or did I absorb them by way of propagandist osmosis in my formative years? I know there was a period in second grade where we would recite the pledge of allegiance every morning. Either way growing up in the south in the early 90s I latched onto the ideas of freedom (including religious freedom), faith, family, individualism, liberty and justice for all. I felt mildly patriotic but patriotic feeling was secondary to my understanding that all good things come from God and that those values I held dear were His gifts to us. Following from that I also knew that what God gives in the spirit no man can rightfully take away.

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Freedom, a loaded term I know, was a foundational tenant of my Christianity — it still is.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Galatians 5:1

I imagine Jesus and the Braveheart depiction of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie (who happens to be my third cousin 23 times removed) similarly. Both defied death to the face because they knew something death didn’t — that the spirit within cannot be quenched and that martyrdom only fuels the fires of freedom. I’ll spare you the scene in which Wallace is killed for treason. Here is his freedom speech from Braveheart.

If mankind knew that there was an all powerful, self sacrificial, death defying, liberator like Jesus wouldn’t they choose to serve and follow a god/man like that? Sadly the answer is no. Many choose to serve their own petty, prideful, and power hungry aspirations, subverting the gospel of grace, and leaving casualties in their wake. Jude 1 warns of these types:

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:4 also makes reference to those “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”.

Below is the mission statement of the one true God. This is Jesus whose name the world recoils from!

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. Isaiah 61

The word for liberty here is derore:

I adore the imagery of a swallow hidden here. The prince of the power of the air holds no power over the dancing swallow who is at liberty to plumb the width, length, height, and depth of the cosmos.

I started writing this because I lament that so many find Christianity to be burdensome and destructive. I’ve witnessed deconversion due to churchianity and church abuse. I’m especially thinking of an interweb acquaintance of mine — a woman I looked to as being wiser than myself and a sister in arms during the 2020 meme wars. In one of her posts she says “this year I’ve woken up to my potential and have called out the systems that have held me down, kept me quiet, submissive, sick, second-to, voiceless, and powerless. I’m finally able to walk into my own right as a woman and reclaim all that is due to me.” Clearly the patriarchal understanding of Christianity which she desperately tried to adopt and mold herself to became a yoke of bondage rather than one of freedom. Now she wears upside down crosses, goes to raves, left her husband, lives with her boyfriend, and openly mocks Christian’s online. I empathize with her and unfortunately her experience is not unique. The following pieces expound on some of the hypocrisy plaguing churchianity in regards to women. They are well worth your time.

Navigating Grace and Truth: Addressing John MacArthur's Legacy with Love in His Final Days

Doug Wilson, Women, and the Weight of Eternity

Heavy Yokes of Christian Excellence

Women Are Not Merely Your Assistants. They’re Your Partners

The Lord knows I wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as she did dealing with whatever church nonsense she was subjected to. Luckily my experience of Christianity is one of freedom. The freedom to disagree, to leave or stay, to take everything with a grain of salt, to smile and nod as women are so accustomed to, to speak my mind or keep my thoughts to myself, to lightly regard nonsense and legalism, and of course to be free from sin which by right only The Creator can define. I feel for those who get so caught up in church culture and the doctrines and commandments of men that they throw baby Jesus out with the bath water.

I risk losing you here but church has consistently been a source of disappointment for me so I’ve never put all my eggs in that basket. I grew up in a Baptist mega church in which I didn’t fit in, somehow at 8 years old, I wasn’t Christian enough. My “friends” there were patronizing and continuously on mission to convert me which was weird because I was thoroughly converted long before I ever met them. Always an “old soul” in my teen years I had little respect for the shenanigans of non-denominational over grown man children masquerading as youth pastors so I steered well clear of youth group. Experiencing anxiety that my T-shirt would be found to be lacking an inch or so of material at the waist wasn’t uncommon at the Christian high school I attended. From a young age girls in evangelicalism are hyper aware of their responsibility for the feelings and weaknesses of boys and men. I believe I received disciplinary action at least once or twice for such infractions. Churches clearly failed the plandemic spirit test when they adopted segregation, muzzles, closures, and compliance. The last church I went to for a while the pastor admitted he hadn’t read the book of Enoch but that pharisaic rabbinic authorities decided that it should be left out of the biblical cannon so we should trust them. He then advised the congregation not read it — demonstrating a narrow mindset and religious fear based truth keeping out of touch with equipping his congregation to navigate the times we’re barreling into. Facepalm on that one.

My final assessment of American churchianity is that seminaries are infiltrated, funded, and run by wolves in sheep’s clothing. (Please don’t feel the need to expound the virtues of your church or encourage me that “not all churches are xyz” etc. because that goes without saying!) The John 16:13 spirit promised to lead us into all truth is stifled in the churches to keep attendance numbers up, tithes coming in, and congregants in blissful ignorance. The truth has become too risky to admit publicly and detrimental to the bottom line so churches have pivoted to entertaining pigs rather that feeding sheep. We know this right? Despite the clear and predictable failings of man made institutions none of this could put me off Jesus and my hope is that you wouldn’t be dissuaded from Him either.

Jesus is the real deal. He is your advocate and intercessor. Especially you WOMAN. He is the ultimate girl dad. He knows what you’ve had to endure at the hands of men. Hagar was mistreated by a man of God (Genesis 16) but God saw her and came to her aid.

Let us reflect on the significance of this: into a male-dominated world, God begins to reveal his great redemption plan to Abraham, the first of the biblical patriarchs. Yet even as he does so, he comes alongside a woman too. Not any woman either, but one at the very bottom of the social ladder—a slave. Lost in the desert wilderness, with a broken heart, a hopeless spirit and a violated body, God sees Hagar and calls out a future greatness through her that prevailing social conditions should have made near impossible. She responds to God’s affirmation by being the only person in all of Scripture to name her Maker as, “The God who sees me.” Her breakthrough comes from better theology. For the first time, she sees herself, not as Abraham or Sarah or the society of that day does, but as God sees her. She is a seed planted early in the Bible’s long story that will one day come to fruition in Christ, who will raise to greatness in his kingdom not only Jews but also Gentiles, not only free people but slaves, not only the rich but the poor, and not only men but women. - How God Sees Women by Terran Williams

Jesus comes to the rescue of women in multiple accounts in the gospels. He does not condone the mistreatment or belittlement of women. Ever. If the edifice of your faith is built on the sandy institutions of men it will be easily undermined. Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-9 demonstrates this.

I weary of the online pontificating about submission. Husbands and wives are clearly called to mutual submission to God first then to each other. That’s it, it’s simple. If a husband is not operating in submission to God and the Spirit of Truth, if he is negligent, controlling, and abusive his wife is not obligated to submit to, suffer, or stay with him. Unfortunately some of the most renown pastors of our time have pressured female congregants to stay with abusive husbands in the name of submission.

Jesus said “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” but so many women are buckling and balking under the yoke of bondage placed on them by churchianity. This is rotten fruit. Please understand the ramifications of the Gospel as stated in Galatians 3:24-29:

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Jesus dismantled the old paradigms of judeo-supremacy, debt slavery, and female subjugation. So how come evangelicalism can accept the first two but shamelessly cover up harms caused by continuation of the latter? Women receive the same Holy Spirit men receive and are beneficiaries of the gifts Jesus died to bequeath us.

On the Day of Pentecost, Peter explains to the mystified crowd the meaning of the Spirit’s outpouring on 120 men and women. He claims it fulfils Joel’s prophecy declared centuries prior: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.” In the entire Hebrew Bible, there’s no record of the Spirit being poured out on a slave, a Gentile, or a woman—only on free, Jewish males. More specifically, only kings and prophets receive this kind of blessing. And yet Joel’s prophecy, arguably the most outrageous prediction made by a Jewish prophet, declares that there will come a time when the Spirit will be given not only to Jewish kings and prophets but to “all people,” including Gentiles, low status “servants” or slaves, and even “daughters” and “women.” The book of Acts thereafter documents the wildfire of God’s Spirit spreading outward from that Upper Room in Jerusalem as he does what he had promised to do: infilling and empowering women, slaves and Gentiles, too. Even Peter, afflicted by the Jewish ethnocentrism of his upbringing, is later shocked in Cornelius’ home to see the Spirit poured out on Gentiles. Only then is he finally able to believe that Gentiles too could be included in God’s people. As we read the Bible from beginning to end, we should feel a similar awe to what Peter experienced in Cornelius’ home as we witness what once was given only to males being given on the day of Pentecost to women too! - How God Sees Women by Terran Williams

There is no other God who has done as much to liberate and elevate women as Jesus did. For these truths I am eternally grateful and loyal to Him.

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Psalm 84:3

I am the child that bit the stick for throat swabs and had to be held down by medical staff for injections.

I am the teenager who never went on birth control because just no.

I am the young woman who has never been to the gynecologist because why?/ ew.

I am the grown woman who was unmoved by the most extensive propaganda campaign ever conceived by global health.

I am the eccentric elder millennial haunting her city apartment in an unraveling shift dress whose husband refers to her as Dobby his lil’ house elf.

Hear me roar.

JK. I wish I had the energy to roar but despite all of the above and my walks and all the organic food I eat and whole food supplements I take and my history of being a professional athlete for fifteen years my vitality of late feels like it’s hanging on by a thread.

2025 got off to an especially rocky start with a mystery flu something or other that may or may not have been sprayed down from the sky. That lasted officially for about two weeks although the fatigue lingered long into March.

I am unwell.

Since I turned 18 I have never had regular check ups or blood work or whatever it is that people do to track their health and that has worked out so far not to mention being quite convenient but now as an uninsured thirty-something who would like to have a baby and, as I’m sure you’ve all gathered, is passionate about prenatal terrain I felt it was appropriate to get some blood work done and pin down what the heck is going on in my body!

I’ve been wanting to get testing done for a couple years but I don’t have insurance (or a physician) and I didn’t know how to go about it. Perhaps some fear also caused me to put it off because often we know even when we don’t know know and it’s true that ignorance is bliss… until it’s not. Once I learned about Function Health my excuses became moot.

I decided to purchase blood work through Function Health a company founded by Dr. Mark Hyman and others. Function Health is a 365$ per year subscription service which schedules testing for you through Quest Diagnostics and submits your results along with personalized clinician notes to your personal dashboard. 100 biomarkers are tested which provide information about your electrolytes, thyroid health, environmental toxins, nutrients, autoimmunity and more.

As a dancer I am very good at pushing through discomfort and gaslighting myself so it was validating, albeit disappointing, to see my results presented in no uncertain terms. Services like Function Health combined with all the information freely available online offer individuals like myself a starting point for self directed healing. I would recommend this service to anyone - comprehensive testing like this would cost far more than 365$ in the medical system!

The other cool thing about Function is I can order additional tests anytime and I don’t have to go through a doctor. So if I wanted to do a full cancer screening or order a pregnancy test I can schedule and pay for it myself at my own convenience.

If this service is something that interests you and you have more questions about my experience feel free to respond to this email with your questions. I will leave my referral link here - if you decide to sign up for Function Health I would be grateful for you to use my link to help me pay for further testing on my healing journey. #healingjourney LOL

<3 MA

The following are the words of Ashley Gorman. Please give her a follow if you were moved, as I was, by this beautiful insight.

The woman at the well in John 4. Who is she? A harlot who goes through men like water? A victim of cruel men who either die or get bored of her?

The underlying reasons for those questions are important.

But what if we are simply coming to the story with 21st century concerns instead of looking for what the context and its symbols are telling us?

What symbols? John 4 comes right after John 3. And what is at the tail end of John 3? John the Baptist talking in symbols: he's the best man introducing the Great Groom (Christ) who strides forth, coming for his Bride.

And then what do we have at the start of John 4? That very Groom, walking toward another symbol: a well. A well he just "had" to come to (v.4). Why? What was so important about this particular well?

This is when our Old Testament alarm bells should start ringing. It was Jacob's well. He had to go to *Jacob's* well.

Why? Because Jacob is one of Israel's patriarchs. And who, exactly, meets Israel's patriarchs when they arrive at a well? A bride.

Abraham, the father of nations, orchestrates the match between his son and a bride there: Isaac and Rebekah.

Isaac's son, too, meets his wife at a well: Jacob and Rachel. And don't forget Moses and Zipporah meet at a well, too.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses: meeting a bride at a well runs right through all their stories.

So when we see John 3 bring up the symbol of a Groom and John 4 bring up the symbol of a well, our hand should hood our eyes as we scan the horizon. Who will the bride be? What kind of match is the Heavenly Father, the father of nations, striking up for his Son at this well (in broad daylight, by the way)? The fair Rachel? The weak Leah?

No. She's even more surprising. It is fitting that the camera would pan to the Samaritan woman as the symbol of Christ's Bride: a biblical symbol that represents the church.

For as we know, as a Samaritan, she's both Jew and Gentile in one. And so is the church.

Here is the Bride that Christ is interested in: the one who went through so many grooms that failed her, the one no one wants to talk to, the lowly and unexpected. This is the church. She is exactly who the woman at the well represents. She's us.

I’m a ballet teacher. I teach various technical levels for hours each evening. I shouldn’t care so much. I should phone it in and collect my paycheck because the students I teach, for the most part, are not cut out for ballet. There’s little to no chance they will ever dance at a professional level. Every afternoon I tell myself “i’m going to be chill” and every evening I find myself animated like a circus monkey trying to teach them basic steps I’ve already taught them numerous times. I yell and empathize and crack jokes in an effort to trudge an ounce of skill and beauty out of them.

They watch me watching them half ass the steps. I say “it’s weird to watch me watching you” because in ballet even where you look is choreographed. I get the impression they’re just biding the time until their five minute break which they’ll inevitably turn into a ten if I don’t hunt each one down in order for class to resume. I tell them they aren’t on a CW TV show. They aren’t here to gossip by their lockers. They’re here to work. Hard. To transcend pedestrianism. They stare at me blankly.

I spend so much time reteaching class etiquette.

“Ballet is the art of body language so how you present yourself in class conveys your level of respect for your teachers and fellow students”

“Don’t turn your back to the teacher”

“Don’t speak while the teacher is speaking”

“Try the step when you’re given a correction”

“Don’t lean on the barres”

Casual behavior may fly in public school classrooms but it is intolerable in a professional ballet environment. I tell them how I don’t care if they are good or bad at ballet. I care about their character. I explain that ballet requires patience, dedication, discipline, hard work, respect, and passion and that these qualities will make them successful at whatever they do in life. One rolls her eyes in the back.

Very little attention is given when I teach the combinations. I press play on the music. 80% are watching the girl in front of them to follow her steps. She messes up and so do they. I tell them that’s like cheating on a test. I tell them I’d rather they tried and failed on their own brain power. I tell them it’s not a virtue to be a follower and that it’s important for them to exercise their ability to think for themselves. They won’t always have parents, teachers, or friends to do their thinking for them.

It’s concerning how prevalent what I call being a lemming is. If a student is following someone else’s steps then they aren’t in their own body. They aren’t driving their own meat suit. They are the definition of a non player character. They appear to be participating in class but they’re somewhere else. I ask one if she was thinking about what she was going to eat for dinner during the exercise…

I preach about how ballet requires body, mind, and soul cohesion. How their eyes are the windows to their soul and how where they look in each position guides the audience’s eyes and invites them to see beyond the physical frame of the dancer into the spiritual realm being summoned by movement in tandem with music. I can see this level of commitment and imagination makes them uncomfortable. There is one there out of seventeen who is dancing. She is being lead by the transcendent spiritual imperative the music inspires - humbly embodying its call. She’s a breath of fresh air in a vacuum of morality and talent.

The ones who do well do so primarily because of their strong character and not their physical exceptionalism. They are beautiful to watch because their internal order and beauty manifests in technique which leaves their classmates in the dust. A well ordered mind and body is a precious and extraordinary thing to behold.

Back in my day (yes I am that curmudgeon now) we knew exactly what was expected of us. We wouldn’t dare to be late, talk over the teacher, or enter the classroom in our pajamas. We revered and had a healthy fear of our teachers because they were everything we wanted to be one day. We knew every moment with them mattered and that having their favor was integral to our success. We were literate in ballet culture and wholeheartedly baptized into it. Dreams of sugar plums danced in our heads propelling us to work with religious fervor and laser focus. Do children have dreams worth striving toward anymore or do they just want to be popular or have the newest iPhone?

The universal messaging of “come as you are”, “don’t change”, “you’re good enough”, and “your feelings are valid” has lead to a culture in which all are equal. Equally mediocre. The vast experience of accomplished adults is not esteemed by children with limited life experience. Teachers become childlike in order to be relatable instead of calling their mentees to higher levels of maturity. Parents are children so children go unparented and teachers are left to decide how much life force to expend picking up the slack. Children are made in the image of their parents and almost every child is medicated for some malady or mental disorder.

“Oh don’t you know she has a learning disability”

“She has anxiety”

“He has type 1 diabetes”

“She has problems at home”

So we have staff meetings about how to navigate each child’s unique needs. I don’t know what y’all are experiencing out there in the wild but from my vantage point the kids are not okay and I marvel at the rare ones who are.

“The yogic teachings say that all of the parenting occurs in the nine months in the womb. The rest is just behavior management.”

The trajectory of a child is set within the first seven years. I could make an argument that it’s determined at birth. That babies absorb the sins and virtues of their parents in the womb and come pre packaged with all the genetic traits, spiritual quirks, and proclivities that inevitably manifest later. I touch on this a bit in “The Wisdom of Adelle Davis: Growing Blue Ribbon Babies”

A foundational theory of this publication is that repentant, knowledgeable mothers, who are provided safety and security, and birth their babies physiologically could single handedly terraform earth’s spiritual landscape.

Repentance isn’t a hard thing:

"To repent is to smile, not to frown-to look up, not down. It is not just the recognition that things have gone wrong, but the realization that through Christ they can be put right. It is not the sight of our own ugliness but the vision of God's beauty." Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia

C.S. Lewis wrote this about repentance in Mere Christianity:

“Progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

Under the old covenant sins were passed onto future generations (Exodus 34:6-7) but under the new covenant we may be freed from the burden of trans-generational sins (Ezekiel 18:20-21) via grace and repentance.

But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

Individual sins coupled with generational familial iniquity are passed down family lines creating spiritual strong holds and enslavement within families - in this light repentance becomes the ultimate panacea.

John 8:36 – “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Acts 3:19 – “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Romans 8:1-2 – “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

Psalm 32:5 – “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And you forgave the guilt of my sin.”

Galatians 5:1 – “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Isaiah 1:18 – ”‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’”

As a professional ballerina I am fluent in body language. I read mannerisms like a book. The looking down, the fidgeting, asking to go to the bathroom during the same uncomfortable exercise each day. And their eyes… they tell all. I tell them I see through them and I can. I see through their tepid excuses, their sloth and pride. Human nature is painfully transparent. Imagine how foolish we are to think, as Jesus’ students, that we can hide anything from His all seeing eyes.

Lord have mercy.

Becoming a ballerina (or born again) is not a given because your flesh attends class somewhat regularly — the path is narrow and your soul must also partake in the daily rituals. It requires a continual sacrificial offering of blood, sweat, and tears. Your body will feel broken and your spirit humbled. Like a caterpillar in metamorphosis it requires an uncomfortable process of relinquishing your former self, dissolution, reorganization, regeneration, and eventual reemergence into a new creation which is more mature, otherworldly, and transcendent.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Your willingness to participate in the dance of life by having your own babies, and honouring the wisdom of your body to do so spontaneously, is a form of invocation—of calling into presence the spirit of your grandmothers who so courageously created you. Yolande Norris-Clarke

Most may assume that professional dancers constitute a class of women primed for birth because of the level of health and athleticism required to maintain their career. In most cases, that may be true, but to my ballerina sisters and other female athletes these points may pertain to, allow me to suggest that many of the qualities and adaptations which have aided you in your career may hinder matrescence.

Here are some things to consider to optimize your birth experience.

I ) Ballerinas are hyper mobile so the ability to utilize the full range of birth positions will not be an issue. —> Prioritize strength and endurance training and holding static positions.

II ) Ballerinas train their bodies to have external hip rotation but internal rotation is equally if not more important for birth. —> Balance external and internal strength and rotation with parallel and internally rotated hip exercises.

III ) Ballerinas spend half their life engaging their lower abdominals and likely gripping their pelvic floor which is antagonistic to the release and expansion required for birth —> Allow your belly and pelvic floor to breathe, relax, and extend.

IV ) Although not always the case chronic malnourishment, disordered eating, and distorted body image are more prevalent in the ballet world. —> Learn about prenatal nutrition prior to conception and embrace another kind of peak female performance which is the feat of conceiving, carrying, and birthing life.

V ) Ballerinas struggle with many mental maladjustments which if brought into the birth space are anti productive and self defeating. —> Hire therapists, doulas, and midwives who will identify and address these mentalities prior to birth. These mentalities include

—> control tendencies/perfectionism/OCD which stem from being in a highly competitive, detail oriented, and self critical field —> birth is not amenable to being controlled or perfected and requires surrender

—> anxiety/hyper vigilance (reptilian brain state) due to working in high stress environments with volatile artistic leadership and little to no job security —> birth requires tapping into the limbic/mammalian brain

—> internalized misogyny because your value as a female dancer is often tied to how pretty, thin, and door-matty you are —> women should be encouraged to set boundaries and advocate for themselves

—> unstable self worth due to an office culture in which you are never good enough at what you do and because how dancers see themselves is intricately connected to their physicality, productivity, performance, and identity as dancers —> women should come to terms with the fact that birth and new motherhood temporarily shatters all of the above and that’s okay

Although ballerinas are lauded for their gracefulness and femininity it is actually a profession which requires women to operate in their masculine energy. Long days in the studio, grueling rehearsals, performing consistently for weeks, cheerfully pushing through pain, not to mention the performance arts are about giving and giving and giving of yourself and very little is received in compensation. This masculine lifestyle, which can lead to depression and burnout as it is, applied to the childbearing year, is a recipe for postpartum depletion and depression. Ballerinas and athletes of all kinds need support and encouragement to listen to their bodies, embrace their feminine energy, and rest.

Closing Meditation

There are times in a dancers life backstage where you are watching your coworkers do beautiful things and you realize the temporality of the moment. That you will never be here again at this moment, wearing this costume, listening to this music, and watching that artist in front of you move in their unique way and you feel as Ekhart Tolle wrote that “It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” The truth is that now is all we have and each present moment is pregnant with the offering of metamorphosis.

It is this feeling of presence, ephemerality, and gratitude that I would encourage my type A sisters to take with them into motherhood. Yolande Norris-Clarke beautifully articulates a similar feeling of her experience laboring in the ocean - The water is cool and calm, and as I descend into it, I submit to a wave of love and grief and a terrible wild knowing that this is the last time; it's always and forever the last of everything that's here and now. This is the last time I'll be submerged in the ocean with this child in my womb. This may be the last time I'll ever be pregnant again, because who can know the course of life?

Dear Watchwomen,

At the top of my Substack website I’ve added a tag I’m calling ‘follow the pale rabbit’. A reference to the imperative to follow the white rabbit of Alice in Wonderland popularized by The Matrix. The rabbit is pale like the pale horse of The Apocalypse of John which brings death in its wake. The pale rabbit comes with a message of fertility, freedom, choice, liberation, progress, and rebirth but its fruit is dearth, decay, and death.

The bible foretells of humanity’s apocalyptic death spiral in verses like…

Isaiah 4:1 —> “And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, “We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel; Only let us be called by your name, To take away our reproach.”

Isaiah 13:12 —> “I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.”

We are warned in Matthew 24:19 —> “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!”

I am not prepared to expound on the context and implications of these verses but a google of ‘Y Chromosome Disappearing’ shows that biblical prophecy may be accurately predicting the future.

Many of you subscribed to my email list are mothers and birth advocates so I offer this infrequent collection of what will be new world order reproductive news so that you may be wise as the serpents ushering in this infertile world order and keep your ear to the ground.

In my piece ‘We Are the Watchwomen at the Gates of Life’ I invited my readers to be watchwomen (Ezekiel 33:6-7) and blow the trumpet on the transhumanist erasure of men, women, babies, and humanity. As the state of the world declines God does not leave us helpless, hopeless, or orphans. He is raising up helpers and laborers made for such a time as this and you are one of them. It is the mandate of Christian women to take back our God ordained dominion of womanhood.

When the Pharaoh’s put forth decrees to harm children you will be there to obstruct and redirect the agents of the state. You will be the Miriam’s who entrust the baby Moses’s into the hands of providence. You will take authority over the places God sends you and erect walls of prayer which demonic forces cannot penetrate.

This is no time for gatekeeping or telling God how unqualified you are. He is well aware of your insufficiency to meet the things which are coming even so He says I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

New World Order Reproductive News // First Edition

Genetic Intermingling —> There were nephilim in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men (gibborim) which were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:4

The One Remaining Human Line —> Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations (and genome). Genesis 6:9

Earth’s Complete Degeneration —> The Earth was also corrupt before God; for the Earth was filled with CRUELTY. Then God looked upon the Earth; and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted its way upon the Earth. Genesis 6:11-12

Nothing New Under the Sun —> And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. Luke 17:26

On Cruelty

Will There Be a Future For Newborns in Gaza, The Lancet, Fall 2024

The ongoing Israeli military assault on Gaza has led to an alarming humanitarian catastrophe, whereby the onset of famine is coupled with a deterioration of maternal health services, severely impacting the wellbeing of pregnant women and of children. The near-total collapse of the health-care infrastructure, coupled with the lack of access to essential medical services, has resulted in a tragic surge in preventable maternal and neonatal deaths. As advocates in the medical sector, it is our duty to bring attention to these harrowing cases and call for immediate international intervention.

Our teams, comprising international physicians working in tandem with local Palestinian health-care workers, have witnessed first-hand the collapse of Gaza's health-care infrastructure during medical missions. People are being left to navigate an impossible situation: the once-celebratory event of childbirth has now become a matter of survival. Prenatal care is virtually non-existent in Gaza. The rise in premature labour is staggering, often triggered by the chronic stress of displacement, malnutrition, and the trauma of witnessing air strikes. As hospitals struggle to keep up with mass casualties, maternity wards are becoming non-functional. In some cases, women have had to deliver babies outside, in unsanitary conditions, without the assistance of midwives or doctors. —> Continue Reading

On Child Sacrifice

The Satanic Abortion Clinic That’s Pissed Off Pretty Much Everyone...and Might Beat the Bans Anyway, Cosmopolitan, Fall 2023

Rose Fradusco Alito gave birth on April Fool’s Day, 1950. Hundreds of women would die that year from botched illegal abortions in the United States, where the procedure had been widely banned for decades. But here in the Alito household in suburban New Jersey, all was grand. Rose thrilled at new motherhood. She was a schoolteacher, then a principal. Her husband Sam was a teacher too, then a director in state government. Their son, named after his father, would go on to do important things someday; Rose could feel it. When she died in 2013, Samuel Alito Jr. was all grown up, with a big fancy job on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It’s unlikely that Rose ever considered abortion for herself (a few years before she passed away, she told reporters she opposed it). But what if her circumstances had been different—if her own life had been endangered by the pregnancy or if the fetus had a fatal anomaly or if Rose simply hadn’t been ready for a child? What if she’d had a choice and access to safe, legal abortion care? Nearly 75 years later, in a reproductive rights landscape that feels like it’s sliding back in time, one group decided to channel this policy fantasy into a new health care enterprise named in her honor. —> Continue Reading

On Genetic Meddling & Intermingling

Dangerous Designs, The New Yorker, Fall 2023

He Jiankui, a young Chinese scientist known to his American colleagues as JK, dreamed of remaking humanity by exploiting the emergent technology of gene editing. He had academic polish, and an aptitude for securing institutional support. As a student, he had left China for the United States, where he did graduate work in physics at Rice and a postdoc in a bioengineering lab at Stanford. At the age of twenty-eight, he was recruited into a prestigious Chinese government program for foreign-educated talent, and was offered a founding position in the biology department of the Southern University of Science and Technology.

SUSTech was a newly created research institute in Shenzhen, a city in the midst of a biotech boom. JK, who arrived in 2012, likened Shenzhen’s startup culture to that of Silicon Valley—bold creativity was encouraged, and there was plenty of capital on hand. With colleagues from his lab, he often held brainstorming sessions at a café near campus, delineating his plans. In the first ten years, he would tackle a variety of genetic diseases; in the ten years after that, he’d extend the human life span to a hundred and twenty years. In a PowerPoint that he presented at the café, he wrote, “As a result of promoting genome editing, humanity is smarter, stronger, and healthier. Humanity enters an age of controlling destiny.” —> Continue Reading

On Capturing Female Reproductive Power

Why Not Artificial Wombs, The New Atlantis, Fall 2023

In 1924, the British scientist J. B. S. Haldane coined the term “ectogenesis” to describe how human pregnancy would one day give way to artificial wombs. “It was in 1951 that Dupont and Schwarz produced the first ectogenetic child,” Haldane wrote, imagining how an earnest college student of the future would describe the phenomenon. “Now that the technique is fully developed, we can take an ovary from a woman, and keep it growing in a suitable fluid for as long as twenty years, producing a fresh ovum each month, of which 90 percent can be fertilized, and the embryos grown successfully for nine months, and then brought out into the air.” By the year 2074, Haldane imagined, ectogenesis had become a popular technique — with “less than 30 percent of children… now born of woman.” Writing at a time when debates over contraception and eugenics raged on both sides of the Atlantic, his prediction was an understandable outgrowth of these new efforts to control fertility. “Had it not been for ectogenesis,” Haldane prophesied, “there can be little doubt that civilization would have collapsed within a measurable time owing to the greater fertility of the less desirable members of the population in almost all countries.”

Today, we have inched slightly — but only slightly — closer to perfecting the technology that would realize Haldane’s vision, albeit for reasons other than the eugenic improvement of the race. A small knot of scientists in the United States and Japan are experimenting with both live animals and human cells to mimic the functioning of the womb. And while their work is in its early stages, it is worth exploring the scientific prospects and ethical implications of research on artificial wombs. —> Continue Reading

“For the first time in American history, there were sufficient concentrations of corporate wealth to allow for massive, organized philanthropy, i.e., organized ruling-class intervention in the social, cultural, and political life of the nation. Foundations were created as the lasting instruments of this intervention—the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century. One of the earliest and highest items on their agenda was medical “reform,” the creation of a respectable, scientific American medical profession. The group of American medical practitioners that the foundations chose to put their money behind was, naturally enough, the scientific elite of the “regular” doctors. (Many of these men were themselves ruling class, and all were urbane, university-trained gentlemen.) Starting in 1903, foundation money began to pour into medical schools by the millions. The conditions were clear: conform to the Johns Hopkins model or close. To get the message across, the Carnegie Corporation sent a staff man, Abraham Flexner, out on a national tour of medical schools—from Harvard right down to the last third-rate commercial schools. Flexner almost singlehandedly decided which schools would get the money—and hence survive. For the bigger and better schools (i.e, those which already had enough money to begin to institute the prescribed reforms), there was the promise of fat foundation grants. Harvard was one of the lucky winners, and its president could say smugly in 1907, “Gentlemen, the way to get endowments for medicine is to improve medical education.” As for the smaller, poorer schools, which included most of the sectarian schools and special schools for blacks and women—Flexner did not consider them worth saving. Their options were to close, or to remain open and face public denunciation in the report Flexner was preparing. The Flexner Report, published in 1910, was the foundations’ ultimatum to American medicine. In its wake, medical schools closed by the score, including six of America’s eight black medical schools and the majority of the “irregular” schools which had been a haven for female students. Medicine was established once and for all as a branch of “higher” learning, accessible only through lengthy and expensive university training. It’s certainly true that as medical knowledge grew, lengthier training did become necessary. But Flexner and the foundation had no intention of making such training available to the great mass of lay healers and “irregular” doctors. Instead, doors were slammed shut to blacks, to the majority of women, and to poor, white men. (Flexner in his report bewailed the fact that any “crude boy or jaded clerk” had been able to seek medical training.) Medicine had become a white, male, middle-class occupation. But it was more than an occupation. It had become, at last, a profession. To be more precise, one particular group of healers, the “regular” doctors, was now the medical profession. Their victory was not based on any skills of their own: The run-of-the-mill “regular” doctor did not suddenly acquire a knowledge of medical science with the publication of the Flexner Report. But he did acquire the mystique of science. So what if his own alma mater had been condemned in the Flexner Report; wasn’t he a member of the AMA, and wasn’t it in the forefront of scientific reform? The doctor had become—thanks to some foreign scientists and eastern foundations—the “man of science”: beyond criticism, beyond regulation, very nearly beyond competition.

OUTLAWING THE MIDWIVES

In state after state, new, tough, licensing laws sealed the doctor’s monopoly on medical practice. All that was left was to drive out the last holdouts of the old people’s medicine—the midwives. In 1910, about 50 percent of all babies were delivered by midwives—most were blacks or working class immigrants. It was an intolerable situation to the newly emerging obstetrical specialty: For one thing, every poor woman who went to a midwife was one more case lost to academic teaching and research. America’s vast lower class resources of obstetrical “teaching material” were being wasted on ignorant midwives. Besides which, poor women were spending an estimated five million dollars a year on midwives—five million dollars which could have been going to “professionals.” Publicly, however, the obstetricians launched their attacks on midwives in the name of science and reform. Midwives were ridiculed as “hopelessly dirty, ignorant, and incompetent.” Specifically, they were held responsible for the prevalence of puerperal sepsis (uterine infections) and neonatal ophthalmia (blindness due to parental infection with gonorrhea). Both conditions were easily preventable by techniques well within the grasp of the least literate midwife (hand-washing for puerperal sepsis, and eye drops for the ophthalmia.) So the obvious solution for a truly public-spirited obstetrical profession would have been to make the appropriate preventive techniques known and available to the mass of midwives. This is in fact what happened in England, Germany, and most other European nations: Midwifery was upgraded through training to become an established, independent occupation. But the American obstetricians had no real commitment to improved obstetrical care. In fact, a study by a Johns Hopkins professor in 1912 indicated that most American doctors were less competent than the midwives. Not only were the doctors themselves unreliable about preventing sepsis and ophthalmia but they also tended to be too ready to use surgical techniques which endangered mother or child. If anyone, then, deserved a legal monopoly on obstetrical care, it was the midwives, not the MD’s. But the doctors had power, the midwives didn’t. Under intense pressure from the medical profession, state after state passed laws outlawing midwifery and restricting the practice of obstetrics to doctors. For poor and working-class women, this actually meant worse—or no—obstetrical care. (For instance, a study of infant mortality rates in Washington showed an increase in infant mortality in the years immediately following the passage of the law forbidding midwifery.) For the new, male medical profession, the ban on midwives meant one less source of competition. Women had been routed from their last foothold as independent practitioners.”

From Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English

From the 15th to 18th century it is estimated 100,000 lay healers, midwives, and “witches” were burned for unsanctioned service to their respective communities. At the beginning of the 20th century, midwifery, which has existed since the dawn of time, suffered a campaign of disrepute and was subsumed by heavily funded male centered medicine and “the science” as established by the newly founded American Medical Association. In 2020 humanity was given a choice between salvation by pharmaceutical cartels or death - allegedly. Those who offered alternative perspectives and remedies were publicly shamed and persecuted to the fringes of polite society in the largest scale witch hunt humanity has ever seen. On January 7th, 2025 Canadian and traditional birth attendant (unlicensed midwife) Gloria Lemay, a woman who has attended over 2,500 births, was charged with manslaughter for serving at a woman’s birth which resulted in the unfortunate death of the baby. There is nothing new under the sun.

I am not an apologist for Gloria Lemay (I barely know of her or the specifics of this particular situation) as it pertains to the circumstances which lead to her conviction but I am an apologist for what she represents on the world stage which is resistance against the inquisition of scientism. Traditional midwifery is and has always been subject to persecution by powers, principalities, and the rulers of the darkness of this age because our adversary loathes women, babies, and life itself. All birth spaces are spiritual battlegrounds and the cannibalization of midwifery into obstetrics is spiritual colonization.

You may find the following statements to be culturally irrelevant or premature but here goes. As uncomfortable as the possibility and reality of stillbirths are nobody has the authority to tell women under the authority of the creator that they cannot homebirth anymore than they have the authority to outlaw other physiological imperatives such as homesex or homebowlmovements. Likewise nobody has the authority to tell women which special friends they can or can’t have at their births and, although it happens, nobody has the (rightful) authority to charge mother or midwife with murder for being present during the devastating outcome of stillbirth. The life of every woman is interwoven with the life-death continuum by fact of her physiology. This is her joy and cross to bear. It is only in the last century that we have been deceived to believe that scientific progress frees us from the sting of death.

We must remain humble and cognizant as humans that life is not a right nor is it guaranteed. Death is a ubiquitous part of the human experience and anyone who says it isn’t or shouldn’t be is in denial or suffers from pride. The same pride that overcame Eve when she believed the lie that she would not surely die. The same pride which has consumed transhumanist ideologues causing them to go to war with unsanctioned demise and death itself.

It is pride to sneer at the creator for allowing death to happen and pride which decrees that the priests of medicine know better than Him - that by the illustrious power of the medical industrial complex women and babies are held in the salvific and sanctifying arms of science and guaranteed safety from premature and primeval embrace of the afterlife. This is of course a lie. American obstetrics has some of the worst maternal fetal outcomes in the developed world and by the numbers can’t hold a candle to midwifery care.

In We Are the Watchwomen I wrote that -

“There are no human rights if there are no humans. Now more than ever it is essential that we retain the right to decline artificial interventions in the human processes of healing, reproduction, and death and that the right to accept or decline the aid of the medical establishment remain in the hands of individuals, or in this case, mothers. Preconception, pregnancy, birth, and mothering choices must remain a private enterprise between women and their creator. The right to be human and have human experiences, as raw and painful as they may be, must be preserved. Those who wish to honor God as the highest authority of life, not the medical or governing elite class, should steel themselves to do so going forward. ”

Licensed midwifery has largely been absorbed into obstetrics, making the choice between the two often more about branding than fundamental differences. Unlicensed midwives are a last line of defense against the medical head of the beast system. Once they are made compliant or forced fully underground will humans be allowed to have homebowelmovements in peace or will that require medical oversight and regulation as well?

Past, present and future witch hunts against traditional midwives and the women they serve are fundamentally antihuman and therefore antichrist. They are multidimensional warfare wielded by the universal ministry of health against our rights to be and exist as humans and are therefore transhumanist adjacent tyranny.

We are inhabiting an age of multidimensional warfare in which our choices have more impact than we had previously recognized. Their resonance ripples backwards and forwards in time. If you intend to make choices which oppose the medical consensus going forward it is imperative that you put on spiritual armor and erect walls of prayer around you. To neglect these weapons belies naïveté of the spiritual landscape you inhabit.

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Godspeed.

Disclaimer: I have spoken here in generalities and make no judgment against individual obstetricians, midwives, licensed or otherwise, or doulas, certified or otherwise. Your practice is between you and your maker and I do not view any who may take offense as villains or saviors nor birthing women as victims in any capacity.

Prologue: The Game is Good Shepherd vs Hireling

Enchanting Reading: John 10:7-16

Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. “All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. “But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. “The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.“As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. Amen.

1999, The Game is Housewife

Enchanting Reading: Little House on the Prairie

It’s the Deep South on a late spring day. The sun is on full display and a breeze is rustling through the oak trees. There’s two little girls in the yard. Both wearing skirts their mother sewed together. One in a pastel multicolor skirt - we’ll call her Ann. The other in a white skirt with little blue flowers - her name is Beth. Both are adorned with handcrafted crowns purchased from the Fair on the Square. The Game is housewife and there are homesteads of course - it seems each lady has about 40 acres, 4 horses, 3 frolicking children, and one babydoll in arms. There are dashing husbands too but they’re often at war so they don’t bother the ladies much. Anne’s husband looks strikingly like John Stamos.

2025

I’ve recently been roused from my daily habituals by the idea or rather spirit of disenchantment which keeps coming across my consciousness in a parallax effect from the various literary sources I happen to reading. When offered the word to identify it I realized that I too sometimes operate in this spirit. Disenchantment seems to mean the stripping of objective values and meaning from the individual and subsequently collective lives of humans by a subtly strategic and systemic sacrifice of the right brain to the domination of left brain dialect.

Interestingly from The Body Keeps the Score we are reminded that - emotion (from the right brain) is not opposed to reason (from the left brain). Our emotions assign value to experiences and thus are the foundation of reason. Our self experience is the product of the balance between our rational and our emotional brains. When these two systems are in balance we feel like ourselves. So reason only exists in relationship to emotion. If reason usurps dominion over emotion it simultaneously sews the seeds of its own dissolution.

The forefront cultural reference for disenchantment (besides Max Weber’s lecture ‘Science as a Vocation’) is Nietzsche’s lament that we have metaphorically killed God. Not long after reacquainting myself with Nietzsche’s words I recognized their ethos in this paragraph from Mark Gober’s book in which he criticizes the materialist worldview - The mainstream form of metaphysics that emphasizes matter, rather than consciousness, implies a nihilistic worldview. It suggests that we’re part of a random evolutionary process that took billions of years. When we die, that’s the end of our consciousness. Life, from this perspective, doesn’t have any fundamental meaning beyond whatever one makes up in one’s own mind. There isn’t meaning built into the fabric of reality. Therefore, from this lens, spiritual or religious concepts are mere superstitions that don’t describe how reality actually works. This type of mentality is very much in alignment with the Copernican Principle, wherein “we are not special.” If there exists an agenda to deceive the general population, then it would make sense to direct people toward a matter-focused form of metaphysics rather than a consciousness-focused one. This would create an underlying energy of nihilism rather than one in which humans are inherently important spiritual beings. Arguably, that’s exactly what has happened in modern society.

1999, The Game is Indians

Enchanting Reading: Caddie Woodlawn, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison, & Island of the Blue Dolphins

It’s hot sticky summer now and it’s been raining heavily for a few days. The harder the rains the better for playing Indians (yes Indians, no need to correct little girls imaginations from the future) Ann and Beth put on their swimsuits and saris and don their bows, arrows, and spears. The road verge has transformed into an engorged stream teaming with fish which must be harpooned and trekked back for dinner so the tribe doesn’t starve in the unfavorable conditions. It’s a hard life being a half dressed Indian woman of the forest with mouths to feed but someone has to do it.

2025

John Carter’s recent piece The Reenchantment of the World, which I highly recommend reading, was… comprehensive on the topic of disenchantment and included this observation - The lifeworld we inhabit is all owned space, all regulation and control and surveillance. Even the possibility of adventure seems closed off, for adventure implies uncertainty and danger, and we place Safety First, above all other priorities. It is this sense that Adventure Is Dead, I think, that eats at the souls of young men more directly than the death of God.

And then there it was again in Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own plain as day - If by good luck there had been an ash-tray handy, if one had not knocked the ash out of the window in default, if things had been a little different from what they were, one would not have seen, presumably, a cat without a tail. The sight of that abrupt and truncated animal padding softly across the quadrangle changed by some fluke of the subconscious intelligence the emotional light for me. It was as if some one had let fall a shade. Perhaps the excellent hock was relinquishing its hold. Certainly, as I watched the Manx cat pause in the middle of the lawn as if it too questioned the universe, something seemed lacking, something seemed different. But what was lacking, what was different, I asked myself, listening to the talk? And to answer that question I had to think myself out of the room, back into the past, before the war indeed, and to set before my eyes the model of another luncheon party held in rooms not very far distant from these; but different. Everything was different. Meanwhile the talk went on among the guests, who were many and young, some of this sex, some of that; it went on swimmingly, it went on agreeably, freely, amusingly. And as it went on I set it against the background of that other talk, and as I matched the two together I had no doubt that one was the descendant, the legitimate heir of the other. Nothing was changed; nothing was different save only— here I listened with all my ears not entirely to what was being said, but to the murmur or current behind it. Yes, that was it-the change was there. Before the war at a luncheon party like this people would have said precisely the same things but they would have sounded different, because in those days they were accompanied by a sort of humming noise, not articulate, but musical, exciting, which changed the value of the words themselves. Could one set that humming noise to words? Perhaps with the help of the poets one could.

1999, The Game is Academy Pupil

Enchanting Reading: Anne of Green Gables & Harry Potter

It’s a crisp autumn morning and the leaves are turning and falling one by one. It’s a (home) school day which is usually a bore unless you make a game of it that is. Ann and Beth are exceedingly responsible and erudite pupils who can spar easily with any mongrel publicly educated boy. That being said it’s better to complete each subject as efficiently as possible because the outdoors are calling and the wind and freedom too.

2025

I think you get the idea and I think you’ve felt it too - that irking interference on the periphery of your holographic consciousness. Shall we kill ourselves or have a cup of coffee? Woolf’s Manx cat is not unlike the black cat in The Matrix which glitch’s before everything goes off the rails and the facade of normalcy is unveiled.

It must be an especially unnerving kind of dejavu to rouse oneself out of bed every morning under the blight of an (allegedly) rational and disenchanted post enlightenment world. If everything is matter and matter is soulless, if the trees are dead, If we’re all the walking dead, then why anything?

Sometime between 2010-2020 depending on who you’re talking to, The Game is Little Mouse in the City

Enchanting Reading: City Mouse, Country Mouse, The Tale of Despereaux, & The Borrowers

It’s wintertime. The girls are older now. Ann (without an e!) has gone west to work for pretentious misogynists and Beth has gone east to work for her arch nemesis The Government. The game of adulting is not as fun as once imagined in the games of youth. There is no 40 acres, no four horses, no gaggle of children, no lady of a manor with a dashing husband, no little house on the prairie life. Well, some women are playing little house on the prairie but we have no idea how they do it. Instead of little house on the prairie we seem to be playing little mouse in the city. From a little mouse hole called an apartment.

Sometime in their 20s little mice everywhere got on their hamster wheels and ran. They were told if they ran hard enough they’d get somewhere. It didn’t feel like they were getting very far so in their 30s they got off and played wallowing potato mice for a few years to heal from the adrenal fatigue and burnout caused by the hamster wheeling. They still had that damn ‘little poor mouse mindset’ that stopped them from playing little house on the prairie like the ballerinamouse™️ and they probably always would.

The poor mice didn’t have much like they were told they would but they were happy as predicted too. The graces of their faith heartened them to adopt frugality, minimalism, gratefulness, wisdom and the patience to redeem the time because of the evil days. Sure, sometimes they peeked outside and, to their horror, saw ugly people, zombies, and the giants who ruled them stomping around and making everything generally unpleasant but most the time they saw how beautiful everything was. They saw glimmers of enchantment behind the dark glass of foggy gloom meant to zombify them too. They romanticized life’s little pleasures. Cups of tea at eveningtime, long walks under the trees, fantasy books about good vanquishing evil, the laughter of children. Most importantly they were happy because they had the most valuable thing in all the worlds to have. A pearl of great price which was more precious than rubies. See even though everything seemed to be turning grey outside and becoming disenchanted by the evil witches and giants. Many mice knew in there little mouse hearts that magic was alive and real. That there was a wardrobe they’d walk through one day… when the time was right… into The Enchanted Place.

2025

The looming anathema of disenchantment has inspired me to lay hold of my childhood inheritance as reader, scroll eater, and myth maker. Stories and myths, now more than ever, are a tether to worlds of meaning, imagination, creation, and truth. At this point in my life, it is not at all odd for me to see the stories of ancient Greek mythology or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as truer in many ways than the portrayals of history and science written by unquestionable victors. At least these volumes have living trees. The indulgences of mythology and fantasy put fat back on your bones and the wine of merriment in your heart and are a far preferable pastime to squaring the circle of the truth of history and science as presented and sanctioned by academia.

Jordan Peterson, a psychologist with an archetypal approach to meaning and truth, often claims, ‘there’s nothing more adventurous than the pursuit of truth’ and in this instance he’s not wrong. Pursuing The Truth is life’s greatest adventure and providence has not left us helpless on our way. There are maps here, in this realm called earth, written in stars and stones and trees and the flesh of The One who came to guide us home. The Alpha and Omega, author of all truth and all history, has imparted Himself in the words of the Bible. A tome which prompts each of us to choose between the way of Saul the materialist or David the mystic.

The Enchanted Place

Enchanting Reading: The Chronicles of Narnia

Only the portal wasn’t a wardrobe so much as a door with lamb’s blood on the doorposts. Once you walked through you realized you were in The Enchanted Place and The Enchanted Place was in you. There’s no time here and no zombies, witches, giants, or war… so you take a deep enchanted breath and start humming and glowing and singing along with the birds, and trees, and mountains. Within seconds you barely remember the grey city and your mouse hole. Here the dreams which were dashed into a thousand pieces before become real. If it’s the desire of your heart the Prince of The Enchanted Place who is the wardrobe, the door, the gate, the key, or whatever you want to call him, will give you 80 acres and 8 horses and all the family you want for your trouble in the grey place. You feel alive, awake for the first time in your life. That whole God is dead thing the zombies tried to convince you of turned out to be utter nonsense because there He is. Right in front of you and He’s smiling.

The End

Epilogue: The Reenchantment of the World

Enchanting Reading: Revelation 21:1-8, and 22:1-5

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

*

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.

Mark Mylod’s The Menu is a bizarre, satirical, horror film that most wouldn’t think twice about but its plot belies the under currents of…

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The Word (logos) proves

those first hearing it

as numb to understanding

as the ones who have not heard.

Yet all things follow from the Word.

Heraclitus

Science is a Religious Practice & Atheists Don’t Have a Monopoly on Truth

Jordan Peterson: I think I can demolish the atheistic argument permanently. With the death of God many other things die. Things you don’t expect. And one of the things that dies when God dies is science. And no one expected that.

Interviewer: How so?

Jordan Peterson: Because science as a practice is a religious practice. It’s predicated on religious axioms. You have to believe that there’s such a thing as truth. You have to believe that the truth is understandable. You have to believe that understanding the truth is good. You have to believe that there is such a thing as good.

So imagine, to be a scientist you have to imagine that, first of all that the world is comprehensible to the human intellect but more that if you investigate the mysteries of the material world that that will be beneficial. Right? Those aren’t scientific claims. Those are metaphysical claims. And that metaphysical claim is nested in a story. The enlightenment types have portrayed the scientific revolution as something contrary to the religious substrate and that’s not accurate. That’s a French Revolution, Luciferian intellect history. It’s not true. The universities grew out of the monasteries. That’s where the universities came from and science as a widespread enterprise got its start in the universities.

(skipped a few sentences)

The idea that there’s some fundamental contradiction between religious belief and the scientific enterprise… there’s nothing about that that’s true. Part of the reason that we’re losing the scientific enterprise right now is because we’ve unmoored it from its metaphysical substrate and it can’t survive. If you’re going to be a scientist you have to put the truth above all else. Scientists are very rare. You have to believe in the truth to be a scientist. I think Dawkins believes in the truth by the way. He’s an atheist but… he’s much less of an atheist than he thinks. That’s my impression. Lying scientists are atheistic or just malevolent but Dawkins is a truthful scientist and in so far as he’s pursuing the truth and in so far as he believes that pursuing the truth will set you free then he’s walking down a path that’s Christian to it’s core.

The idea that scientists/atheists have some kind of monopoly on logic, rationality, truth, and the correct interpretation of our orientation in the world is a monstrous self righteous delusion born of the enlightenment era, the alleged death of God, and French Revolution. The audacity to lay claim to the reasoning of a sound mind in an ordered, good, and intelligible universe while simultaneously espousing a worldview which teeters on the premises of the big bang (an unrepeatable cosmic accident), relativity, evolution (everything somehow coming from nothing), and a heritage of shit eating monkeys drips of the hubris of God deniers.

Logic, Reason, and Truth Are God’s Attributes Which He Teaches His Children

From uspeakgreek.com -

The word “logic” comes from the Greek word “logos,” which has multiple meanings, including “reason,” “word,” “discourse,” “thinking,” and “vocal word.” In ancient Greece, “logos” referred to the principle of order and knowledge that governed the universe, and was associated with philosophical inquiry and debate.

John 1:1-5 introduces God as the logos -

In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos) was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The scientist who seeks to divorce himself from God unwittingly divorces himself from the metaphysical substrate of logos on which the material reality he seeks to understand is grounded. At this point his pursuit of knowledge is poisoned and decays into the superstition of scientism. His denigration of the religious and spiritual, especially Christianity which one could think of as Logosianity, becomes a projection of his own debased mind.

Evolution is a Freemasonic Religious Doctrine

The premise of evolution is so similar to the freemasonic doctrine ordo ab chao one wonders if what we think of as the scientific theory of evolution is masonic dogma clothed in a garb of scientific authority. Chat GPT summarizes the phrase -

“Ordo ab chao” is a Latin phrase meaning “Order out of chaos.” It is often associated with Freemasonry, where it symbolizes the idea of creating harmony and structure from confusion or disorder. The phrase reflects the Masonic belief in personal and societal improvement, suggesting that out of turmoil or disarray, order and enlightenment can emerge. (Note that the enlightenment came out of the French Revolution. Both occurrences were produced by conspiracies of Freemasons)

Historically, the concept of “order out of chaos” predates Freemasonry and has been found in philosophical and cosmological discussions, particularly in ancient cultures that viewed the cosmos as being born from chaos. The Greeks, for example, saw “Chaos” as the formless void from which the universe and all things came into being.

The mythical and fantastic origins of enlightenment “science” have all the makings of a faith based religion taken on the word of the priests which steward its mysteries. No one was there to witness the big bang and no missing link or proof of evolution has been witnessed or offered beyond what variations we observe within species. Variations undoubtedly occur but there is no proof of whales becoming hippopotamuses. Let’s not forget that evolutionary theory is still just a theory taken as fact largely because the opposing worldview is abhorrent to its acolytes.

Science as a Substitute for God & Salvation

Secular humanists fill the vacuum of belief where God used to dwell with their lofty new religion. The Bible and the earth which speaks of His handiwork are relegated to the nether of regions of the ancient superstitions of primitive man. The subsequent burdens placed on scientism to steward and father humanity become immense. In lieu of the biblical narrative humanists demand that science be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, they require a novel origin story, protection, provision, safety, and salvation. Some even go so far as to seek eternal life from its well of knowledge and thus transhumanism is born.

The false religion of scientism’s genesis was in the garden of Eden. The word for knowledge in Greek, as in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is gnosis. Eve became the first unwitting initiate into the serpents cult of gnosis. Today’s science is as much an institution of the old wise men and sorcerers of Egypt, mystics, gnostics, and sophists as any in times past. 1 Timothy 6:20 says “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (gnosis). If science is fundamentally the religion rooted in Eden which emulates and opposes the pattern of the gospel (the truth) its offer of a false safety and salvation is no surprise.

Scipio Eruditus recent dispatch confirms my diagnosis -

Scientism is not an opinion, it is a worldview. It is a belief system. It is a hermeneutic. It is a rival religion born out of the Mystery cults of Babylon and it is winning hearts and minds. For centuries now we as the Body of Christ have failed miserably to realize this glaring fact: it was the Mystery religion that God’s prophets warned us of all along, not human reason, that spawned the so called Age of Enlightenment.

Before the Greeks ever penned an epic or debated the make up of the cosmos, the Egyptian and Babylonian mystery cults were the perpetrators and keepers of this occult knowledge. From its earliest days, the Mystery religion and the spirit of Babylon have been the driving influence behind this so called secular attempt to understand and master the known universe. It was in the Egyptian temples at Karnak that Greek luminaries such as Thales, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Socrates, & Plato mastered the ancient and arcane mysteries; knowledge that had been passed down and guarded by the sorcerers of Egypt for millennia. It was here where Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, learned the secrets of the human anatomy.

The false safety and salvation mandated by the priests of science during the 2020 plague are the perfect example of the consequences of the pursuit of knowledge and its application gone awry in a CULTure which has killed God. Allegedly.

The bible tells us in Revelation 18:23 that by your sorcery all the nations were deceived. Sorcery in Greek is the word pharmakeia from which we derive the words pharmacy and pharmaceuticals. Weren’t all the nations recently deceived into taking the COVID mRNA gene therapy which resulted in vaccine injury and death on a scale that to this day is being covered up by the powers which should not be. The bible foretells of this pattern of deception.

The ELite class of psychopaths who run the world are sorcerers and magicians masquerading as politicians, scientists, and philanthropists. I recognize that in my articles I often spell the word elite with a capital EL but many of you may not know why. It is in reference to the word elohim which can be translated either as God or as gods/divine beings. In Psalm 82:1-2 we read -

God (Elohim) stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods (elohim). How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked?

The elohim (gods) who judge unjustly are the principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness of this age of Ephesians 6:12. They are potentially like the sons of God who descended on Mount Hermon as described in Genesis 6 and the book of Enoch. From this pre-diluvian incursion we receive the pantheon of deities from ancient Mesopotamia and the myths of demi-gods and Olympians from Greek mythology. Polytheism did not suddenly disappear with the fall of Rome. When I write ELite I mean the echelon of Freemasons and satanists who do the will of the elohim they serve on earth.

Who Are They Really Worshiping?

Pike, writing about the pagan god Thor, reveals that “Thor was the sun, the Egyptian Osiris and Kneph, the Phoenician Bel or Baal.” Bel (or Baal) was believed to be the “lord of the air” as well as a sun-god. Remember also that the god Baal is a synonym for the Devil. (Ibid, p.23)

Since the gods of Masonry (see above) actually represent Satan in different camouflages and since the serpent is widespread in Masonry and the Bible clearly states that the serpent is Satan, we see that the Masons are in actuality worshiping Satan (Lucifer). Of course, Masonic writers themselves plainly confess to us who they worship.

William Hutchinson a Masonic writer gives the following account about the fall of man: “But, alas, he (Adam) fell! By disobedience, he forfeited all his glory and felicity; and, wonderful to recount in the midst of this exalted state, Satan prevailed.” (The Spirit of Masonry, William Hutchinson 1775,  p.310)

“Thus originated the introduction of a serpent among the symbols of Freemasonry… serpent-worship derives its origin from the same source.” Pike brags: “Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light…? Doubt it not!” (Ibid, pp. 24-25)

Masonic testimony is clear that the serpent or Satan (Lucifer) should be worshiped. In fact, the “Lost Word” of Masonry has to do with Satan. Masons have been in search of a so-called “Lost Word,” which is supposed to be the real name of God, but has been lost. In the third degree the Mason is given a substitute word and told to look “to that bright and Morning Star…” (Ibid, p.25)

that Morning Star is Lucifer and this symbol represents the “coming forth of conquering light.” So, when Masons speak of the light of Masonry they are actually referring to Lucifer bringing forth the light. (Ibid, p.26)

Albert Pike, the highest Mason in the U.S. in his day, wrote this: “Lucifer, the Light bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds the feeble, sensual or selfish souls? Doubt it not! For traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one age nor one Creed.” (Morals and Dogma, p. 321).

Then the same author continues, “we must remember that the thing sought in every Masonic initiation is “Light” it is not without significance that this eminent Mason tells us that Lucifer is the source of that light. The Masonic religion should be maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine… Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also God… There is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness… the absolute can only exist as two gods… the doctrine of Satanism is a heresy; and the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer.” (Albert Pike July 14, 1889)

One of the central deities revered in Freemasonry is Apollo/Osiris the god of medicine, prophecy, and the sun. Their “light bringer” Apollo/Osiris makes an appearance in Revelation 9:11 And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. Every cult in history has had at its center a variation of sun worship and the so called Age of Enlightenment and its illuminating scientism is another iteration on the pattern.

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new (novel) under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:8-10

Scientism Goes Full Retard Via Gender Ideology

Scientism has reached its fullest expression to date in the form of tranhumanist human mutilation falsely so called gender affirming care. Abigail Shrier says it best -

Gender Ideology is not a pendulum, and it will not swing back with a little help from inertia. Gender Ideology is a fundamentalist religion—intolerant, demanding strict adherence to doctrine, hell-bent on gathering proselytes. I do not here use the term “religion” metaphorically or lightly.

Induction into this religion begins with a baptism: the selection of pronouns and often a new name, greeted with all the celebration (and more) of a conversion. It evangelizes aggressively: through social media influencers, who claim to know a teen’s truest self better than her parents and to love that teen so much more than they ever could. Therapists, teachers, and school counselors play evangelist to numberless kids at American school.

There’s no physical evidence that any of us possesses an ethereal gender identity, of course. It may actually be disprovable; there is a good deal of evidence against it. No matter. The adherents take it on faith. The notion that each of us is born with a gender identity, utterly separable from our physiology, known only to us, imagines gender identity as the secular version of the ‘soul.’

Exchanging The Truth For a Lie

As usual the Bible has the answers as to what is actually going on on spiraling, unhinged, full blown retard earth -

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they (men) are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Romans 1:18-25

Where We Go From Here

Contrary to claims of evolutionary enlightenment in the material realm men will ignorantly continue to justify scraping babies out of wombs, chopping off penises, and injecting poisons under the auspices of science. Like the blind leading the blind they will not concern themselves with ethical and moral questions of whether they should because ethics and morality are children of the spiritual dimension which is an “irrational fairytale” in their materialist paradigm. From The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis -

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.

The atheist, the materialist, the humanist, the scientist, the Luciferian acolyte will continue to reject the possibility of spiritual repercussions which ripple through the underlying metaphysical realm into eternity. They will not humble themselves before the Logos and recognize that His word and will is the only reason they can kill and steal and destroy and blaspheme Him at all. Again from Lewis - It is not that they are bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artefacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man.

One does not simply abort God without ultimately aborting themselves. For in Him we live and move and have our being. Even less can one self identify as a true truth seeker and scientist apart from Him any more than a fish can identify as an air breather. The restoration of the pursuit of knowledge (aka science) requires that humans admit that God is very much alive and kicking and seated on the throne of heaven. From this framework knowledge and wisdom (which are and have always derived from the Creator) may proceed peacefully in tandem to whomever has the humility to soften their hearts to The Truth.

“Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse.” Heraclitus

“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:9-10

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” Robert Jastrow

Supplemental Reading

CS Lewis - The Abolition of Man

The Truth Fairy by Abigail Shrier - Little Miss Trouble

Classical Ideals - The Medieval Peasant Was Smarter Than You

Dispatches From Reality by Scipio Eruditus - Scientism vs Science

Tree of Life Substack by Mary Mary Quite Contrary - The Gods of Medicine

The Hidden Life is Best - Francis Bacon, Science, Freemasonry, Knights Templar and Empire

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” Osho

I’m walking in the park. The Osho quote above comes to mind. I’m thinking about how love leads to life and freedom and possession stifles and controls.

I’m thinking about how those who say they are feminists and are not, but lie and are a coven of death do not in fact love themselves, their bodies, or life giving capacity and because they do not love themselves by default they struggle to love others even their own babies.

Love and its’ intrinsic requirement to sacrifice the self is utterly foolish to them. No the synagogue of third and fourth wave feminism has trained its sisters in the art of self possession.

My Body, My Choice.

Mine, My Own, My Precious.

Do What Thou Wilt, Woman.

They have plucked themselves off The Tree of Life and denied their source. The source of life. Rebelliously and unilaterally divorcing themselves from Creator and life giver has lead to denying the divine image in which they are made. This denial is the genesis of the dehumanization, denial of divinity, and death sentencing of all undesirables including their preborn children.

The fruit of my body, my choice has resulted in millions of women’s wombs becoming the tombs of their babies. The subversive gospel of self possession is the pesticide laden soil of murder and genocide which has seeped from wombs and homes into the world. The blood of the innocent cries out to God from “medical waste depositories”.

If women embraced the truth. That they are made in the image of God and are themselves the fruit of love. If they actually valued and loved their bodies and life creating capacity, they would allow themselves to flower, despite whatever toxic and concrete circumstances they were seeded in.

They would not sew the seeds of death - perpetuating the ever turning wheel of self possession and genocide by denying their babies the chance to bloom. They would take up the womanly mantle of life and command death to “Go back to the shadow!”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.

Matthew 16:24-27

Witchcraft

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. 1 Samuel 15:23

Although a full study of witchcraft is beyond me one aspect of witchcraft includes rebellion against The Word of God. It is that which controls, perverts, manipulates, or destroys the the natural law and order coded into the fabric of creation by the creator. Some general examples to consider - if natural law is that humans use food and herbs for health and healing then witchcraft plays a part in the unnatural crafting of “food products” and pharmaceuticals which poison humanity. If natural law is that a baby conceived carries to term and is born and lives then witchcraft is the unnatural means by which that course of life is destroyed. If natural law is that the lifeblood of a man remain within his venous system then spilling lifeblood for blood rituals is witchcraft. If the created state of man is that he be free of demonic influence then enabling and facilitating demonic forces is witchcraft. GODCRAFT CREATES AND PROTECTS LIFE witchcraft destroys it. A person aligned with natural law submits their will to the higher natural and moral order of the Creator. A misaligned person requires the higher natural and moral order to submit to them.

It should be noted in light of this perspective that women aligned with nature who make healing food and medicines, birth babies at home or attend home births, and limit the onslaught of unnatural poisons which would permeate their daily lives are not witches but it is telling that the unnatural world order would deem them so.

In the introduction to the second edition of Midwives, Witches, and Nurses authors Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English correct some of the conclusions they made in the 70s as more reputable information has become available stating -

We made the assumption that witches may have met in “covens” or other organized groups, and we referred to Margaret Murray when we said that “some writers speculate that these may have been occasions for pagan religious worship.” Murray’s research has since been discredited, and today most scholars seem to agree that the beliefs of women who were executed as witches cannot be differentiated from those of the rest of the population, and most were avowedly Christian. Some pagan religions or remnants did survive in places but the connection between this and women accused of witchcraft remains unclear.

If many if not most of the lay healers, midwives, and “witches” (possibly 100,000) burned from the 15th to 18th centuries were Christian is true and a house divided against itself cannot stand by what false word were these women condemned? Certainly not by the will of Jesus (The Word) for He was notorious in His day specifically for NOT condemning women. (See John 8:1-12)

Religion

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Colossians 2:20-23

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Titus 1:15

Religion and The Truth are often not one and the same. Secular critics of religion often conflate Christianity with the racist, elitist, patriarchal, conquest and control exhibited largely by the Catholic Church but the spirits which operated behind this iteration of alleged Christianity have far more in common with the racist, elitist, patriarchal, religious leadership which Jesus came head to head with and called out time and time again in the gospels (see Galatians 3:28). Conflating following Jesus with any religious institution of political and spiritual subjugation is ignorant, lazy, and convenient.

The purpose of our lives as humans is not to be handed easy answers by religious institutions but to diligently seek and choose the good, true, and beautiful for ourselves. For many in this increasingly evil, lying, ugly world Jesus becomes the antidote and the answer to our honestly asked questions in pursuit of The Truth NOT “our truth”.

The Truth (Christianity) vs Religion (Churchianity)

The fact that Christianity is so vehemently rejected and mocked by the control monopolies of religion, government, academia, media, and culture should indicate that it is spiritual software which installs freedom and liberation from structures of spiritual oppression.

2 Corinthians 3:17 —> Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Christ was crucified because He threatened establishment power and since His death His followers have been considered a thorn in the side and dangerous to the control world order. Christianity is a belief system which liberates mankind from the commandments and doctrines of men and transfers Christian allegiance from the kingdom of man to the kingdom of heaven. When an individual repents of their way and adopts the mind and vision of Christ they are no longer in bondage to USA Inc, the CIA, the FED, the NIH, WHO, WEF, MSM, religious institutions, ETC but become REVELATIONaries and rebels in the spiritual army of the kingdom of God. Clearly opposing the kingdom of man requires a liberated mind often full of “dangerous misinformation” which threatens the demonic world order’s monopoly of control and influence over the minds and souls of men.

Christian’s are the most qualified to tread the “dangerous” waters of free thought because we are married to eternal omniscient truth and therefore have little to fear because we can always find our way back to the anchor of The Spirit of Truth residing within us. But perhaps for the sanctioned edifices of religion, the fear of the great uncontrollable unknown, of being born again into renewed multidimensional beings modeled after and married to The Word incarnate is too all consuming. Perhaps the dogmatically inclined are doomed to cower in fear before a fiery mountain like those of the ancient wilderness - incapable of crossing the threshold into promised land where the exoteric and esoteric knowledge of God are married.

Churchianity retains a mode of thinking reminiscent of a former epoch which feared what it didn’t understand and required boxes, walls, and veils to protect it from the full impact of the truth and glory of God. John 16:13 assures that “when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth”. Sometimes it feels as if believers would prefer certain veils remain in place, fearing freedom of thought, and the promised ALL TRUTH which it may reveal. We’re advised that there are certain lines of inquiry and revelation which are “settled” and not to be entertained. Inquiry that, if it were possible, threatens The Truth but The Truth cannot be threatened by inquiry. More likely this attempt at thought control is meant to shield us from an ALL TRUTH genie which the gatekeepers of religion cannot return to the bottle.

Myopic, religious, and fearful abstinence from alternative concepts like (but not limited to) vibes and manifestation while simultaneously remaining naive to many of the large scale demonic strategies at play is spiritual blindness. Religious gatekeepers would have the church constrained to tiptoe around swathes of supposedly “woo woo” territory long ceded to the adversary in the name of staying on the straight and narrow while hypocritically acquiescing to the pseudo-authorities of government, academia, media, and culture. Using God to control and manipulate others is the highest form of spell-craft.

Christian’s believe in the God of life and freedom and fearless pursuit of truth, not the gods of one dimensional fear and control. Consider that Jesus is THE SOURCE of all “woo woo” and the all truth reality which is slowly being revealed. Jesus is Himself the synthesis and embodiment of man and divine, flesh and spirit, science (wisdom & knowledge) and the supernatural, works and faith, logic and woo woo and we are made to be like Him.

Godcraft

Follow that chain of scientific genealogy far enough back, say to the 18th century or before, and matters become rather different. In those days there was no such thing as a ‘scientist’, but rather his more noble precursor, the natural philosopher. The natural philosopher had no difficulty whatsoever answering the question of Why. His enterprise was a religious one: to use his rational mind to read the Book of Nature, and thereby draw closer to the Mind of God that had written His billions of names across the infinite facets of His Creation. Research was an act of devotion. The Reenchantment of the World by John Carter

You are worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for You created all things and by Your will they exist and were created. Revelation 4:11

Ancient peoples worshiped the elements: earth, wind, water, & fire and their personified deities. When Jesus, creator incarnate, entered the scene worshiping and serving the creature/creation more than their source became foolishness.

Galatians 4:9 —> But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water - dismissing the vivid spiritual tableau portrayed through the Living Word of creation itself which is a physical manifestation of the elements of the triune Godhead’s nature. Romans 1 says “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they (men) are without excuse.” The truth of God is everywhere - MANIFESTING in the mundane and miraculous fabric of human experience.

The EARTH begins as an empty womb. Void. Dark. Pregnant only with the WATERS of unfulfilled potential.

Genesis 1:2 —> The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Biblically water represents formless potential obedient to commanding frequency, as well as refreshing, cleansing, chaos, disorder, death and rebirth.

After EARTH and WATER the third element reveals itself as The Word of God from the BREATHE of His mouth. It is sound, it is the creative FREQUENCY which VIBRATES over the waters and MANIFESTS things which are not into things which are - creating and commanding light to shine out of the darkness.

Genesis 1:3 —> Then God said…

Genesis 1:3 —> “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Light is akin to FIRE. Biblically God is a consuming fire. He MANIFESTS as a pillar of fire in the desert, a cloud of fire over Mount Sinai, fire amidst a thorn bush, and as fire made flesh in the form of Jesus who said of Himself “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Within the first chapters of Genesis - Jesus - the one who is and who was and is to come.

Who is the Water of Life and Word of God who ordains the secret place of His presence and exhales His spirit - quickening mankind.

Who is the Tree of Life the one who embodies the fruit of the spirit and is the eternal sustaining substance of creation.

Who is the divine spark and Light of the World BIRTHS all that He is - love and passion and life - into BEing. And it is good.

Genesis 1:4 —> And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

The earth was without form and void, nevertheless it was our earth, which has preceded from God’s hand and now lies ready for Him, submissive to Him in holy worship. God is worshipped first by the earth which was without form and void. He does not need us men to prepare His glory; He creates worship Himself from the silent world which slumbers, resting mute and formless in his will. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

All of creation hears the voice of The Word, obeys the will of its creator, and reverberates with joy.

Psalm 96:11-13 —> Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Let the sea roar, and all its fullness; Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD. For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth.

All of creation is vibing (vibrating) to the frequency of God’s voice. It is and has and will manifest The Word which has gone forth from His mouth to accomplish what he pleases and it will not return to Him void.

Luke 19:38-40 —> “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

The human state of discord, distortion, and separation from The Word is unique.

In Leviticus and Numbers there are instances of those in a state of distorted frequency (sin) falling prey to the fire which went out from the LORD and devoured them. Under the new covenant paradigm God sends His son/The Word of God made flesh to take mankind’s distorted frequency (sin) upon Himself and purge it on cross. Belief in Jesus immunizes us in our spirits to the fire which would consume our sinful flesh in righteous judgment. Not only that - we then begin to manifest the mind of Christ and His Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

Everyone vibes to frequency - the question is if it’s to The Word of God or false gods?

Everyone manifests their beliefs - the question is who/what do you believe?

Proverbs 15:4 —> The tongue that heals is a tree of life, but a devious tongue breaks the spirit.

Most recognize the spiritual nature of the created elements - the question is who are they an extension of? Despite the gods who have claimed their power - WHOSE NAME DO THE ELEMENTS OBEY? Read these verses to learn who commands the elements!

—> Jonah 1:4, Mark 11:12-14, Matthew 8:23-27, 1 Kings 18:20-40

Acts 4:10-12 —> “let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. “This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders (the masons/occultists/gnostics), which has become the chief cornerstone.’ “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Earth —> In the flesh we are corruptible - through Jesus name we become incorruptible vessels

Air —> In the flesh we are polluted by the prince of the power of the air - through Jesus name we are recalibrated by the tuning fork of His Word which renews our mind and regenerates us.

Water —> In the flesh we succumb to death and drown in the waters of chaos - through Jesus name we walk on water and tread death underfoot.

Fire —> In the flesh we are burned by the holiness and wrath of God’s consuming fire - through Jesus name we become what He is, we become fireproof, we become fire breathers.

Isaiah 43:1-2 —> But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.

JESUS IS THE ONE TRUE ALCHEMIST OF THE WORLD!

Being a Christian isn’t about being an uptight prohibitionist and speaking churchanese.

1 Corinthians 9:20-22 —> "To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some."

It’s about remembering and confessing in the waters of your being Who you come from and obeying His Word.

(Remember - submitting your will to the higher natural and moral order (God) not demanding that the higher natural and moral order submit to you. For example this is what gender ideologues do when they deny the natural law of sex binarism and demand that others submit to their disordered will)

The pearl clutchers are prone to call things they don’t understand witchcraft. My question is what came first the chicken or the egg? The elemental principles or the perversion of their natural order and use. Our anti-human adversary cannot create. He can only steal, defile, and pervert what has already been created by the Creator. Occult doctrines are a parallel perversion and pseudo-gospel based on the finished work of the Alpha and Omega as written from Genesis to Revelation.

Prometheus (a type of Lucifer/light-bringer) is viewed as a hero who brings fire and illumination down to a destitute mankind. In truth he is like the thief who comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He steals a little knowledge from God which he uses to tempt humanity into a Faustian bargain which leads to death. This is the fire from heaven which represents secret knowledge (gnosis) to the occultists. It’s the knowledge Satan offered Eve in the garden. But its promise of illumination will ultimately fall flat. For thousands of years humanity has sold itself short blindly clambering after a seed of light in the darkness. Failing to see that the source of all fire - knowledge, wisdom, and eternal life - is our birthright and freely given by The One with singular authority to give it.

Unfortunately, in many ways, the occultists understand how this world works better than us. They steal, distort, and weaponize natural law principles like frequency, the healing properties of plants, and the natural inclination of men to venerate and worship (vibe to) those greater than themselves and wield them against the human race. The prince of the power of the air chants his anti-life programming over the waters of the people of the earth day after day through movies, television, radio, marketing, the media, movie stars, politicians, and pharmaceuticals and then has the audacity to tell Christians that it is ignorant, biased, hateful, and anti-scientific to share The Word/frequency of God which manifests in a renewed mind and abundant life.

To discern the spirits of the age look for fruit produced (which is proof of the presence of life imbued frequency) and ask whether something (or someone) is in service to the God of Life and regeneration or the powers of death and degeneration. While the adversary does all he can to drown us in our sins, blast us with his repetitive discordant lies, and extinguish any spark of joy and light in our souls there is a living God beckoning us to tread death, lies, and darkness underfoot. Through Jesus all that was stolen and corrupted is restored to us if we’re humble enough to accept His offering.

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. Revelation 19:11-13

The gatekeepers of history will record Trump as a Hitlerian figure but as a witness of the past ten years and of his stint as a political figure I can attest that he is not. Trump is a businessman. His manners are unrehearsed and irreverent. He is a man of the people, a populist, whose morality is not deeply rooted in a …

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These six things the LORD hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren. Proverbs 6:16-19

God weeps and laughs. He mourns and dances. He feels at times fiercely protective and other times righteously angry. He’s experienced joy, rejection, and heartbreak in pursuit of being loved and for an irrational love which he couldn’t shake he went to the cross and to hell itself. Like any good father He has felt these emotions and… hatred. Passionately. Toward anyone or anything that harms those He loves.

Here are some of the things the Lord hates.

—> He hates ALL workers of iniquity. The bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Psalm 5:5, 5:6

—> He hates robbery for a burnt offering. Isaiah 61:8

—> He hates the feast days of the self righteous and their sacred assemblies. Amos 5:21, Isaiah 1:13

—> He hates evil thoughts and a false oath. Zechariah 8:17

—> He hates Esau. Malachi 1:3

In Psalm 139 David declares “Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men. For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”

These are strong words from David but in 1 Samuel 13:14 the Lord refers to David as “a man after his own heart” and one fit to be King.

The world in its deceit and idolatry either portrays God as all love, compassion, mercy, and acceptance or as all hatred, fickleness, domination, and condemnation. Both these versions of God are idols made in the image of man. Both are false gods which serve the whims of men and whatever blasphemous version of the creator suits them at the moment. The truth is that God is not one to be so easily pegged by self deceived, spiritually lazy people.

In a favorite quote of mine Paul Washer says - “When I speak in universities, they’re always quick to point out, “No, God cannot hate because God is love”. And I tell you God must hate because He is love. You see, I love children; therefore, I hate abortion. If I love that which is holy, I must hate that which is unholy.”

Assuming that my readers are kindred spirits - if I asked you what unholy things you loathe about the present age you may respond with

—> Abortion, murder, and war

—> Exorbitant taxation, communism, the federal reserve and international usury based banking cabal

—> The propagandist and divisive mainstream media and woke academia

And you would be right to loathe these things because God has instructed us not to murder, not to steal, and not to lie. Psalm 97:10 says “You who love the LORD, hate evil!” We loathe evil because God loathed it first. It is not an option for someone in-Christ to abrogate the list above to the realm of political issues beyond their judgement for “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”

You Shall Not Murder

God is the God of life and creator of all living things. Genesis 9:3-6 instructs that “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.“But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”

As Creator, protector, and avenger of life God lays down the law of tit for tat for anyone or anything which sheds man’s blood because man is made in His image. Later in Exodus, God remains consistent and codifies the commandment “you shall not murder”.

In 1 Chronicles 22, King David is prohibited from building a temple for God due to all the blood on his hands. “And David said to Solomon: “My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of the LORD my God; “but the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have made great wars; you shall not build a house for My name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight. ‘Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days.”

Despite the values God tried to instill in His people through prohibition - subsequent generations of Israel shed innocent blood as these verses demonstrate.

Psalm 106:36-40 —> They served their idols,
which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with blood. Thus they were defiled by their own works, and played the harlot by their own deeds.
Therefore the wrath of the LORD was kindled against His people, So that He abhorred His own inheritance.

Lamentations 4:12-13 —> The kings of the earth, and all inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy could enter the gates of Jerusalem— because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in her midst the blood of the just.

Ezekiel 33:23-26 —> Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “Son of man, they who inhabit those ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one, and he inherited the land. But we are many; the land has been given to us as a possession.’ “Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “You eat meat with blood, you lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land? “You rely on your sword, you commit abominations, and you defile one another’s wives. Should you then possess the land?” ’

In a tit for tat world bloodshed begets bloodshed and a cycle of defilement promulgates exponentially. Jesus came to end this cycle for anyone who would believe and appropriate his blood to their blood debt, but those who refuse His freely offered life blood, the prophets, priests, and princes of the world who lie in wait for blood, will by no means build a temple for The Lord, inhabit His land, or enter His Kingdom, and yes, I am throwing shade.

You Shall Not Steal or Covet

In 1 Samuel 8 the people ask for a king that they may be like all the other nations and God warns them that a king will take 10% of their grain, wine, and sheep. God is using the inevitability of taxation under an authoritarian king to dissuade His people from exchanging His spiritual leadership for worldly leadership. Since that time the whole world has come under the yoke authoritarian governments which tax us a rates far greater than 10%!

Not only do we pay out about 30% of our income in taxes - 21st century peasantry is in financial bondage to banks which charge high interest on loans. God anticipated and prohibited this practice. Leviticus 25:35 commands ‘If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. ‘Take no usury or interest from him; but fear your God, that your brother may live with you. ‘You shall not lend him your money for usury, nor lend him your food at a profit.

The practice of usury is condemned as an evil on par with oppression and sits on the list of sins which Israel was scattered and dispersed for.

Ezekiel 22:13-15 —> “In you they take bribes to shed blood; you take usury and increase; you have made profit from your neighbors by extortion, and have forgotten Me,” says the Lord GOD. Behold, therefore, I beat My fists at the dishonest profit which you have made, and at the bloodshed which has been in your midst.“Can your heart endure, or can your hands remain strong, in the days when I shall deal with you? I, the LORD, have spoken, and will do it. “I will scatter you among the nations, disperse you throughout the countries, and remove your filthiness completely from you.

Furthermore, we know that God condones private property and enterprise by the fact that he commands us not to steal. So private property isn’t theft and greed as self righteous and self deceived communists would have you believe - the seizure and redistribution of it is.

Sirach 34:24-27 —> He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor, is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presence of his father. The bread of the needy, is the life of the poor: he that defraudeth them thereof, is a man of blood. He that taketh away the bread gotten by sweat, is like him that killeth his neighbour. He that sheddeth blood, and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire, are brothers.

In God’s eyes taking from the poor, whether for redistribution or, as above, under the guise of righteousness and sacrifice, is akin to murder. Jesus flipped tables in the temple because it had been turned into a den of thieves who were selling sacrificial offerings and taking advantage of the poor for a profit. Salvation should not be sold and cannot be bought - the Lord provides the sacrifice - as He did to cover Adam and Eve in the garden, as He did for Abraham in the land of Moriah, and as He did for all of us on the cross.

The religion of communism is what remains of the religion of Moses once The Way, The Truth, and The Life has been thoroughly rejected. It is a counterfeit perversion which proselytizes the continuation of a system of sacrifice, but in place of animal sacrifices provided by God to The God of Life, the labor and lives of humans are sacrificed to the gods of atheism, humanism, commerce, nihilism, and death in pursuit of an illusory “greater good” which does not show its face or manifest its supposed glory.

Under the spell of this godless, satanic cult adherents foolishly believe that, through subtraction, theft, and redistribution humanity can reach an equality of the highest common denominator but the math isn’t mathing. They fail to see that a system of theft and sacrifice can only offer an equality of the lowest common denominator and that the lowest common denominator for mankind is the grave. Communism is a sacrificial death cult and the fruit of its murder, thievery, and destruction is evidenced by the one hundred million bodies left in its wake in the past century. It is the synthesis of

religion —> spirit control 🏳️‍🌈

government —> mind control 🇨🇳

and commerce —> labor/body control 🏴‍☠️

A beast system. The satanic religion of its merchants and great men and their much anticipated new world order which has at its foundation the bodies and souls of men which are a pleasing burnt offering (the holocaust we should be talking about) to its Prince of Darkness. See Revelation 18.

Proverbs 30:12-15 —> There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness. There is a generation—oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, And whose fangs are like knives, To devour the poor from off the earth, And the needy from among men. The leech has two daughters—Give and Give!

Side Quest: Is the “generation” mentioned above the same mentioned in Matthew 23:33-36?

If you recoil that I have diagnosed this beast system as global communism, fair enough. CJ Hopkins refers to it as global capitalism in his piece Fighting Monsters. Global capitalism is the counterpart to global communism. Global capitalism sacrifices your soul while global communism leeches the life from your body.

You Shall Not Bear False Witness

My husband often brings up the point that nowhere in the Bible does it say that we have free speech. It says a lot of stuff like “Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.” At first I resisted his anti-speech position because my training was that “muh free speech is the foundation of our constitutional republic”. That, and I have a feral tongue. The truth is that if you think about it “free speech” is what’s wrong with the world. The unbridled tongues of the lawless have cast spells of chaos and lies over the earth and put mankind in bondage to them. The media and academia have stealthily gained a monopoly over the power of the airways and spun evil into good, and good into evil by the power of their words which oppose The Word of God at every opportunity.

Although my husband’s position did wake me up to the fact that Christian’s don’t actually have free speech - the secular world does not subject itself to God’s law. If Christian’s took over America and plastered ‘free speech free zone’ signs everywhere they would be as useful as the ‘gun free zone’ signs we already have. Lawbreakers, liars, and murderers aren’t and have never been inhibited by God’s law or by any laws currently on the books. In light of this it is clear the first amendment was secured by our founders to protect Christian speech, preaching of the gospel, and the freedom to worship Jesus Christ in a largely antichrist world.

The bad news is that in the past few years we have witnessed the strategic constriction of “free speech” undoubtedly for the purpose of censoring truth speech which is intolerable under a cabal of liars. The good news is that the gospel was loosed as soon as Jesus’ spirit was loosed from his body and there is no power in heaven or earth which can censor or contain The Word of God. “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11 The censorship we’ve witnessed is defensive spiritual warfare in the spirit of desperation.

Exodus 23:1-9 —> “You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. “You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. “You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it. “You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. “Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked. “And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous “Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

To Those Who Believe Jesus Came In The Flesh,

Modern day pharisees would have you believe that all sins, sinners, and belief systems are equal. They are not. This is the milk-toast preaching of wolves in sheep’s clothing who would have you twisted in knots about the speck in your eye while a log remains in theirs. These would have you stressing over the tips you didn’t claim on your taxes while they hoard gold like dragons, print money out of thin air, and consolidate an international monopoly on currency which lends at exorbitant interest to debtors (slaves) who pay with their life force.

Not only that but these pharisees would have you believe you would’ve been in the crowd who asked for Barabbas and condemned Jesus, that you would’ve been the tax collector stooge of the Roman Empire, that you would’ve been among the throng of hypocrites poised to throw stones at a fallen woman and that is certainly a possibility. But maybe you would’ve been like one of the Gentiles in Romans 2 - “who do not have the law, but by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them” or maybe you would’ve been at the foot of the cross.

Either way, the overarching plot of the Bible isn’t about you, your petty sins, or your guilt which you trudge up as if dwelling on it were a salvific work. The Bible isn’t about you. It’s about Jesus who incarnated on earth with a masters degree in freedom and truth and dismantled the Baal-crap beast system being enforced by an ELite class of prick(worshipper)s with a lethal precision that cuts through soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

Jeremiah 32:17 —> ‘Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.

We’re-all-in-the-same-boat doctrine is a new ageism which leads to diminished discernment and lukewarmness. Some are in the ark, most aren’t. There are only two kinds of people in the world the seed of promise and the seed of the serpent. We aren’t all “children of God”. Jesus specifically classifies some as children of their father the devil.

John 8:44-47 —> You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. “But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. “Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

What boggles the mind is how many Christian’s wallow in their old man identity as if they were serpent seed. You are not! Move on! Be free! Graduate from milk to meat! Discern the spirits! We have bigger LEVIathan to fry!

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 —> Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Of course, any sin great or small results in separation from God which death makes permanent and it is advisable to stay in our respective lanes exercising agency over ourselves and our own eye specks but we can do this AND wholeheartedly reject the moralizations of log-eyers.

If you have resisted the double tongued propaganda of believing simplistic things like God is all love, you should be too, and discerning right from wrong is “judgmental” then be prepared to be libeled as

—> racist for not wanting undocumented foreigners and potential gang members and murderers flooding the city that you LOVE

—> bigot for not wanting the child that you LOVE to be taught gender confusion by liars in public school

—> antisemite for not wanting the country you LOVE to be drained of billions of tax dollars by Zionists for their genocide campaigns

—> and hatefulll because you LOVE The Truth instead of whatever false gospel is being shoved down your throat in the media

You know that you aren’t hateful. You know that we wrestle not against flesh and blood and our battle is in the spirit. You know that your faith restrains you from taking any of the murderous, thieving, lying, actions that are being projected onto you by actual murderers, thieves, and liars. You know that the Lord goes before you and fights for you. You know that vengeance is the Lord’s and he will repay and you know these things because God in His protective, passionate, and perfect LOVE has written His Word on your heart and taught you to hate evil and love good.

Isaiah 5:20-25

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight! Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink, Who justify the wicked for a bribe, And take away justice from the righteous man! Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, And the flame consumes the chaff, So their root will be as rottenness, And their blossom will ascend like dust; Because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, And despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the anger of the LORD is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets.

America’s history is stained with disturbing eugenics movements. In the 50s and 60s black women received “Mississippi appendectomies” and unknowingly left the operating table with hysterectomies. Historically medical ethics and informed consent are lightly cast aside when the desire to sterilize “undesirables” for the “greater good” is concerned. In light of our not so secret racist and eugenicist past championed by Big Brother, Margaret Sanger, Harry Laughlin, and others I am shooketh by the naïveté of normie Americans who cannot fathom that our leaders would perpetrate similar crimes against the current plantation of un-consenting undesirables.

There are two types of people — those who believe in sin and those who don’t. I find that those who deny the existence of God and the reality of sin tend to be more gullible and blind to the conspiring of authoritarians. The average agnostic, atheist, or humanist believes that they are a good person and projects this self prescribed goodness onto others — especially those they view as public servants. This is a HUGE mistake.

While the reader may not view other humans as cattle the ruling ELite have fallen into this mindset. To them, humans are the virus threatening mother earth and have become a gluttonous herd of eaters in need of culling. A problem which wars alone cannot remedy. Enter the totally unforeseen worldwide pandemic that our dear leaders desperately sought to save us from with their emergency use authorization and unquestionably salvific feat of science the lauded experimental gene therapy mRNA injectable. Halelu!

While the efficacy of the project warp speed “gene therapy” went from a promised 99.9% down to a negligible 30% efficacy against subsequent variants — infertility, miscarriages, and birth complications skyrocketed. Many doctors, scientists, and journalists of integrity have blown the whistle on the effects of these depop shots and I will leave you with resources from them below.

To my horror in 2021 my husband opted to get one dose of the traditionally formulated J&J vaccine stating that even if it was toxic he believed that God was able to protect him from it referencing Mark 16:17-18 —

“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

I believe that all things are possible for God and my husband to this point hasn’t had any adverse effects. A prayerful choice by faith is a far cry from the complacency of many Christians who were unable to sus out the venomous agenda behind the 2020 pandemic. Christians are called to be wise as serpents. This means we have to discern the thoughts, intentions, and actions of our adversary. Sadly, many were destroyed for a lack of knowledge and for being wise as doves in a serpentine world.

Nobody wants to tell a woman that her choices may have led to the dis-ease of her fertility or the loss of a baby but that is exactly what happened to thousands of women in recent years and it’s beyond time to put 2 + 2 together before they pull this BS again. And of course it goes without saying that if this was a globalist depop effort they wouldn’t admit to it on the mainstream media. It’s far more painless for all involved to put down chattel in a state of blissful ignorance.

Links

Dr. Naomi Wolf Presents Alarming COVID Vaccine Fertility Concerns - Info Wars

Women said coronavirus shots affect periods. New study shows they’re right. - The Washington Post

CDC Reports Largest Increase in Infant Mortality Rate in 20 Years, Experts Baffled at Trend Reversal - The Western Journal

Pregnancy Problems, Maternal Mortality at All-Time High - The Epoch Times

Pfizer, FDA & CDC Knew Dire Harm to Babies: Dr. Walensky Urged Vaccination for Pregnant Women Anyway - Daily Clout

Spike in Miscarriages and Stillbirths Directly Linked to Covid Shots, Study Finds - Lioness of Judah Ministry

The Covenant of Death - Outspoken With Dr. Naomi Wolf

Autopsy Confirms Infant Died From Over-Vaccination Maine Mom, RN, Paid Ultimate Price Trusting Her Doctor. - Jennifer Margulis

Disturbing Trend: Maternal Death Rates Have Soared 50% Since Vaccine Rollout in America - The Vigilant Fox

Here’s Why the COVID Vaccine Should Be Banned for Pregnant Women - The Defender

MUST WATCH VIDEO: The Verdict Is In — No One Can Claim To Be ‘Pro Life’ While Continuing To Support mRNA Injections - Lioness of Judah Ministry

Canadian Gov’t Database Reveals Catastrophic Reproductive Damage to Men and Women Post-mRNA Vaccine Rollout - Daily Clout

Placental and Cord Blood mRNA Detected - Courageous Discourse

The Pharmacologic Assault on Pregnant Women, Infants and Fertility - Dr. Trozzi

EXPLOSIVE NEWS: COVID Vaccines Contained Viral DNA That Can Incorporate Itself Into the Human Genome - Lioness of Judah Ministry

This Is What Happens When You Don’t Jab Kids: Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Data - The Vigilant Fox

Prenatal Exposure to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 Induces Autism-Like Behaviors in Male Neonatal Rats: Insights into WNT and BDNF Signaling Perturbations - Pub Med