There was a certain city in the valley whose offenses against Heaven were rank.  Three Immortals met to vow that they would end the city’s crimes.

The first immortal went to the city to lead them away from their evil ways by the purity of his example.  They mocked him in the marketplace and though his example was great and his soul was strong, for a long time he did not even grimace when they did their abominations in front of him, his spirit weakened from their horrid displays.  Spirit weakened, he succumbed to a poison and died. (more…)

Your means should be proportioned to your ends and no matter how reasonable or practical or achievable your means are if they will not accomplish your ends they are inadequate and if means that are difficult or nigh impossible or even impossible are the only way to achieve your right end then that is the means.  The beauty of Christianity is that we do not lie to ourselves about our ends.  Restoration Christianity allows you to rip off the mask and say, yes, I was meant to be a GOD, instead I’m a gross humdrum niggler, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Everyone almost automatically adjust their ends to fit their means.  We do not have the right end of beingMan until we let ourselves know from the inside the full nobility that a human spirit should be able to achieve, until we let ourselves admit that we have tasted something true and pure, and we say that is the end even if our means are wholly unable to achieve it.

Though he slay me, yet will I praise God.

Friends,

in respect for Vader I didn’t post last week.  I miss him a lot.  Consequently I now have a galloping horde  of posts to unleash at you, just when everyone is going to be occupied at the holiday season.  Great gems of beauty will go unread, profound truths uncommented on, pearls of wisdom left to languish in digital print.

Good news, though.  I am reliably informed that our badinage quota has been increased from 100 grams to 80.

[Editors: we have perused the galloping horde.  None of them contain winning lottery  numbers.  You may ignore them at your turkeyed leisure.]

This is a companion post to JM’s announcement.  Comment there. (more…)

Kent died Thursday, November 10. The last entry on his Wanderlusting the Jemez blog, entered Sunday four days earlier, expressed hope in the progress of his recovery from his accident. Tuesday, though, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, and his body failed.

Death holds another captive until the resurrection frees us all.

A wandering jay perched on a stone near where a straggling wolf was gnawing the last scraps off of the bones of a young buffalo calf.

After polite inquiries as to the health of the pack–all fine, the wolf said, they having trotted off earlier after having eaten–the jay observed that surely this calf was from the herd he had seen on his flight in and he was glad that the rumors the jay had heard that this pack disliked buffalo meat were unfounded.

“No such thing,” the wolf asserted. “We vastly prefer elk. Its just that this small herd of buffalo wandered into this area a few years ago and displaced many of the elk. We tried to drive them off directly but in a herd they are too strong. Instead,” the wolf said, “we are whittling them down bit by bit, picking off strays and calves and relentlessly diminishing their numbers.” “It’s a fabian strategy!” the wolf concluded proudly.

“Indeed,” the jay said, “from what I could observe for every animal you have whittled down, they seem to have given birth to two more. You have diminished their numbers so greatly that what was once a small herd is now a very big one.” Then he flew off with a chattering laugh.

Moral: When picking a strategy, first do the math.

It’s a weird experience to gear yourself up for a strong temptation and then it doesn’t happen.

Almost a disappointment.

You are sad when you leave a place because it is yourself you are leaving behind.

Time amputates. The past is a lost limb.

Time is a wave of experience that moves through the water of eternity but the water remains.

The wave here is fleeting–mortal–and then it rolls on.

Behind it are great depths of love.  Before it are great depths of love.

I realized that I am not a particularly nuanced thinker.  It’s just that my simplistic way of thinking is orthogonal to everyone else’s.

Permacrisis v. permacreation.  A useful way of thinking from friend Francis Berger.

I have opinions.  Specifically on history. 54’40” or fight,  Trist betrayed his trust, the Polynesians were too great in seafaring not to have contacted the Americas.

And so I have opinions on history’s follies .

A folly that seems to be a real pattern of the elite class in different times and places is  throwing themselves into the dustbin of history in an attempt to avoid being thrown into the dustbin of history.  Through injured pride they end up losing everything they were proud of.  Through fear of losing their place they touch off the conflict that tears them from their place.  They see a threat, and their attempt to end the threat causes the threat to become real.  This is  the classical tragedy of hubris except doing  nothing would have worked.   If they had bided their time, most likely the threat would never have happened.

They lacked strategic patience.

Let’s check out some examples.  Japan, Germany, Mexico, the Confederacy, Germany again, Russia, Austria-Hungary.  It will be a whirlwind tour.

Firing on Ft. Sumter. The Civil War begins.

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