Technical Issues and Other Observations

 As I am typing this now, I am on my old computer rather than the school-issued one I just paid a hundred bucks for but isn't working correctly.  I have been having a lot of technical issues with both of these damned machines the past couple of days, and to be honest, I have spent a lot of time cussing out the Chinese, Bill Gates, the city of Baltimore, my useless landlord, and my former employer for all being issues in my dilemma.  Part of what I have had to do is set up my thermal printer yet again to get it to work right, and in the past 48 hours I am starting to think that "going off the grid" is not a bad idea.  Technology is a mixed blessing - it is integral to life now, but it is also the biggest pain in the butt to deal with too.  If that was not enough, the toilet in our bathroom here at the house also has backed up again, which meant snaking it out, plunging it, etc. - that is becoming a ritual every two weeks now.  That is the consequence of having a cheap landlord with a sketchy history who wants to play handyman to cut corners, and then blame his tenants.  It has made me about reach my limits in all honesty.

Despite all of these stupid technology issues, all is not bad though.  I have been working on my Genesis study, which is almost done once I add the question sections to it and also finalize the table of contents and the bibliography.  I have about 21 more chapters to add questions to, and should complete that by the end of this week provided there are no more technology glitches involved.  Fortunately, I have that saved on a flash drive, so it is preserved regardless, but it has still been painful.  It is one of two books I want to complete this year, and once they are done and in bound printed volumes, then I can sit back and relax a tic until I start a new project.  The good news about Genesis and the cookbook is that the bulk of the work has been completed, and all I have to do is mainly formatting.  However, formatting is not as easy as it looks, especially when technology is not cooperating well.  I know, I know - I perhaps should be less flustered and more grateful, and truly I am the latter, but it still is a challenge trying to get things done.  Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let me get to a few thoughts for this week.

The first thought I have has to do with a research project I may have for a future article here.  As you know, Pentecostal/Charismatic history has been an interest of mine for well over 30 years now, and when people delve into that, one tends to look at predecessor movements that foreshadowed a given movement.  In the case of Pentecostalism, it was primarily the Catholic Apostolic Church (also called "Irvingite") movement of the 1830s that is seen as its most notable precedent, but charismatic phenomena have been a part of Christian history since the earliest days.  Yesterday, my replacement copy of an important book arrived that shed some light on some of this, and the book was Sergey A. Ivanov's Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (New York: Oxford, 2006).  This important book was published originally in Russia in 1994, and then translated into English by Simon Franklin later before its release.  I had a copy of this before in Hagerstown but lost it with so much else, but thankfully I was able to obtain another for a fairly decent price last week on Ebay.  The book deals specifically with a certain group of Eastern and Western saints called in Slavonic Yurodivi, or "fools for Christ," and the thing that sets these individuals apart was eccentric - and by normal standards, downright psychotic - behaviors that are seen as gifts rather than illnesses.  Many of them did some odd things, including walking around naked in the winter, sleeping on heaps of dung, and throwing rocks at people they understood as corrupt.  Yet, they also were holy people who lived exemplary lives, and thus why they are saints.  Many of these individuals also were possessed with spiritual gifts of some sort that could be comparable to Pentecostal phenomena, and that includes speaking in tongues.  Indeed, Ivanov records such an instance of this in the book that I will get into at some point, and what is interesting about it is that it is not the typical glossolalic utterances one associates with Pentecostalism - rather, it was in a language unknown to the speaker but understood by the listeners as their native tongue.  Oddly, this was the way this particular gift and manifestation was originally understood by the early Pentecostals too, and at least one legacy Pentecostal denomination - the Apostolic Faith Mission in Portland, OR - still understands tongues in this way, as did a number of Wesleyan/Holiness antecedents to Pentecostalism. It is also of note that at least one noted Assemblies of God author, Ralph W. Harris, actually wrote a whole book on this specific manifestation of speaking in tongues back in 1973 entitled Spoken By the Spirit, and it is a catalog of various events where languages unknown to the speaker were evidenced by native speakers of those same languages - it also emphasizes that tongues may have an evangelical dimension as well.  The valuable insight Harris has was surprisingly affordable at the time of its original publication  - it sold for $1.25 then.  I was able to print it for a lot less - free! - thanks to availability at the Flower Pentecostal Research Center in Springfield, MO, where my good friend Dr. Darren Rogers is a curator. I shared this information to just make a couple of clarifying observations about my own position now on all this.

If I were to be classified, it would be as "post-Pentecostal" because I am a former Pentecostal who became Catholic almost 30 years ago, and in all honesty I have not attended a Pentecostal or Charismatic congregation regularly since 1995, although I have been to a few revivals and conferences here and there.  I say "post-Pentecostal" because I do still believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I even practice some of them myself, but I am not by any stretch a Pentecostal anymore, viewing myself instead as a fairly conservative and somewhat traditional Catholic who just happens to take the supernatural seriously.  And, to be honest, there is no conflict with my acquired Catholic identity either, as in Catholic history there are instances of saints who could do some supernatural things which could be identified as "Pentecostal" to some degree.  I am also very influenced by the 1830s CAC movement as well, and have adopted a lot of what I saw in researching it into my own faith where it doesn't conflict with Magisterial teaching.  Given also my background in Convergence as well, I believe there is a way to incorporate revivalism and a more spontaneous aspect of Christianity with traditional Catholic practice, and a big part of what I have been doing in recent years is to try to formulate a model to make that reality - Catholics actually do have a type of revival meeting during the year called a "parish mission," and there is potential with that as some people involved in Catholic Charismatic Renewal may have been a catalyst for those being a regular aspect of parish life too.  And, this is where the more long-term idea is coming in - I want to eventually be able to formulate something that can be a model for both Charismatic and traditional Catholic practice without compromising either (especially the latter), and I feel it is possible, and even integral, to the health of the Church.  There are problems to sort out though which require more in-depth examination, and I wanted to deal with a couple I see now.

One of the problems is worship.  I am of the opinion that reverent, traditional liturgical worship and practice is more than sufficient for one's religious practice, so there are not any "improvements" necessary there.  Also, the trajectory of many Pentecostal/Charismatic churches in recent years has been almost chaotic, with dark sanctuaries, loud rock music in the name of "worship," and also some weird and sometimes unbiblical theology associated with the more hypercharismatic wings of those movements  - things such as esoteric New Thought-influenced "word of faith" stuff as well as the potentially abusive aspects of the modern "Apostolic Reformation" movement which itself is a variation of the controversial Discipleship/Shepherding Movement (and its Fundamentalist counterparts like Bill Gothard).  For more on that from a nuanced yet sound perspective, I would recommend apologist Melissa Dougherty's book Happy Lies, as well as her extensive and very informative YouTube videos, as this girl has really done her homework and I would highly recommend her work.  Those concerns, as well as my own survival of an abusive Foursquare church years ago, are why I think how I do, as I want to preserve the potentially good and Biblical in a movement but also know how to discard unhealthy garbage that has attached itself to Pentecostalism, particularly in the past 30 or so years.  And that leads to my second observation.

Recent issues in the Roman Catholic Church have also gotten me thinking too - I have seen some disturbing social trends, including the recent controversy with Leo and the SSPX, and I am frankly concerned for the official Church as a whole.   While many Catholic parishes are sound in their teachings and are faithful to the Magisterium, I worry that theological and political liberalism is tainting our faith after seeing it firsthand at the Jesuit school I worked at.  Evangelization is either being jettisoned or even redefined as "social justice" by some influential Catholic figures, and it also seems like the heresy of "liberation theology" is on the rise again.  I am in the discernment process now of seeing whether or not I want to stay Roman Catholic or not, at least as far as the official Vatican Church is concerned.  I am still faithfully Catholic, and that won't change, but the Catholic faith I have is historic and sound, and I am not changing it because of what Popes Leo or Francis said in an unofficial capacity.  For me right now, the SSPX is on the correct side of that debate, and Leo is wrong in what he is doing - for those that think every Pope's actions must be accepted without criticism (I am growing sick of that too, as it seems like the "Christian Zionist" crowd has a similar view of Israel - both of these are wrong), I challenge you to read Magisterial documents, read Scripture, and do your own "deep dive" into what authentic Catholicism is and then measure Leo's and Francis's papacies against that. Where the current and former Popes have been right, we can accept - where they erred, we can reject.  For those who think every fart out of Leo's backside is divinely-inspired, let me say something to you - the Pope is still a human being, and even a representative of Christ on earth can fall short due to human limitations.  As a Catholic, it is integral this fact is understood, because it will save you a lot of heartbreak later.  Anyway, at some point I will have more to say on this, but you get the idea for now. 

I have went on and on this morning about some sundry things, but you get an idea of my mindset recently.  Also, before I wrap up today, I need to ask your prayers for my own personal situation, as I have some decisions to make as well as needing some divine guidance.  Thanks again, and will see you next time. 

Learning of a New Cult

 It is mid-week as I write this, and I am for one thing very exhausted right now - with the school year winding down a couple of weeks ago as well as getting some stuff moved here out of storage, the fatigue is catching up to me and I want to just sleep a lot.  But, there are things to be done so that cannot happen, although I am going to bed earlier so I can get a more productive rest at night.  The reason I wanted to talk about this topic today has to do with a podcast I saw by a young lady named Sommer Sanchez.   Sommer's podcast profiles some obscure cults and strange criminal cases that arose from them, and her research has ranged from the more higher profile cases such as the Matamoros occultic sacrifices of Adolfo Costanzo in 1989 to lesser-known groups that few have heard of.  This young lady has done her homework for sure, and she touched on one of these groups that got my attention.  As you know, I have researched Pentecostal history very extensively, and in doing so I thought I knew practically every sect that existed, but this one Sommer touched upon was something totally new to me.  So, I wanted to share some about it here. 

In the earliest days of Pentecostalism there was a great surge of this movement that happened in the Appalachian region, and it produced two different Pentecostal traditions.  The first was the Wesleyan/Holiness groups such as the Pentecostal Fire-Baptized Holiness Church, and the larger group that shares its history, the Pentecostal Holiness Church.  The second was a group in western North Carolina that later became the various Church of God denominations.  The Church of God tradition was one that had some interesting offshoots, as the serpent-handlers came out of that tradition (or one group of them - a Oneness group of serpent handlers had a different origin in the state of Alabama at around the same time as the Church of God faction, the latter led by a preacher by the name of George Went Hensley. In time, the Oneness faction would become the dominant group of serpent handlers, but Church of God heritage serpent handlers do still exist).  The serpent handlers were also noted for other equally risky practices such as drinking poisons like battery acid and strychnine, as well as handling live fire.  As risky and odd as those practices are though, they are limited to those who possess the faith and a strict code does exist among them about making sure they are "in the Spirit" when they undertake those practices.  I have actually gotten to know many of the people in that movement as personal friends over the years, and basically they are pretty decent folks despite the stigma that surrounds their unique religious expressions. Other groups, such as one called the Neverdies in my home state of West Virginia, believe in a form of reincarnation (where they got that from I am not sure - there is very little information on their group, if they even still exist).  In many cases, many of these practices are not anything controversial outside the hype, and their beliefs can be somewhat heretical but still not anything to worry much about.  Then, I watched Sommer's video, and perhaps the most bizarre group of people calling themselves Pentecostal got my attention.   This is a group that ventured into the unthinkable, and they are the focus of this discussion. 

This movement, called I believe the Church of the Unknown Tongue or something like that, no longer exists but it was confined to the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky when it did.  The man whose name comes up first is a more conventional preacher by the name of William Duty who had begun conducting Pentecostal revivals in the area of Johnson County in Eastern Kentucky.  While Duty claimed to have been part of an earlier group inspired by the Azuza Street meetings, it turned out that he was essentially a pecuniary-minded opportunist who saw revivalism as something to exploit and gain some cash from, and he honed his skills to make him appear as a powerful evangelist.  At one of these meetings, a young farmer named John Mills was impacted by Duty's "ministry" and enthusiastically became his disciple.  In time, Duty wanted John to plant a church in the latter's hometown, a place called Tomahawk, and for a while it worked until some congregational disagreements led in John's leaving the church, then striking out on his own and gathering a small group of followers in nearby Martin County.  Things went pretty normal for a while, as John was just a typical mountain Holiness preacher with a devoted following, but the death of his daughter in 1929 caused him to snap, and the group he "pastored" fundamentally changed for the worse.  This is the part, four years later, that creates the uniqueness of this story.

The group John founded was noted for ecstatic dancing, a lot of tongues, and long periods of fasting.  John took on a totalitarian mantle over the group, and even the slightest dissent or disagreement brought dire consequences.  As John became more unhinged and his group became more isolated, he began to manifest these weird "prophetic words" to do some bizarre things.  One occasion was noted as John directing his followers to strip completely naked and dance around a bonfire while shouting in tongues, and this aroused some noise complaints from neighbors.  In 1933 though, this climaxed when, after an extended fast, John got this "prophetic word" to offer a human sacrifice to God - the original target was his old mentor Duty, but later his mother was the victim.  After selecting several "virgin sacrifices" to be offered, two of whom were young girls escaped and alerted the local authorities to what was going on.  When the cops arrived at the house where John's group was holding "church," they saw a group of John's followers dancing around the strangled body of John's mother Lucinda, who had been ritually strangled by her son.  He was sent to prison for life shortly after, although he was released on parole in 1941 before moving first to Akron, OH, and then back to his home turf where he was in several marriages that ended in divorce before he died in 1968.   Those are just raw details of the story, as for more on this you can read H.H. Reed's book, Tongues of Deception (Groveport, OH: Cruiser Press, 2023), as well as a more summative account at https://cultencyclopedia.com/2026/01/28/cult-of-the-unknown-tongues-1933/.  The story was shocking, and it demonstrates that more than one type of sect identifying as "Pentecostal" exists, although most mainstream Pentecostals would disavow such sects as they would not dream of such atrocities.  John Mills also puts me in mind of Yvonne Navarro's fictional teen character Jason Spiro in her 1995 novel Deadrush, as the two share a lot of similar traits. I find this story both of interest to Pentecostal/Charismatic studies as well as the broader field of Appalachian Religion, as it adds some interesting flavor to the narrative too.  However, I also see the danger of stereotypes of mountain religion based on individuals like this, so the person who researches this would need to have some level of knowledge of both these disciplines in order to properly understand the context. 

The main issue with Pentecostalism as a whole is that it seems to be a harbor for the sensational, be it fictionally created or actual individuals.  The expressive nature of Pentecostal practices opens a door for excesses and misunderstandings, and while the vast number of actual Pentecostals don't go to extremes, the stigma of things like this still hangs over Pentecostalism as a movement.   Of course, huckster TV preachers who embrace unbiblical things like "Word/Faith" theologies don't help either, as many televangelists share a lot in common with the huckster William Duty who corrupted John Mills rather than representing authentic Christianity.  A lot more could be said on that, but I just wanted to conclude with a couple of my own thoughts on this.

I grew up in a Pentecostal tradition, and thus I understand it.  Also, there are things about Pentecostal faith I feel are necessary - the emphasis on the role of the supernatural, for instance, is something many Enlightenment-minded mainstream denominations have lost, and there is a challenge to live out faith in a more vibrant way.  In that regard, I never lost my Pentecostal roots, although my Catholic faith today has helped me to refine them a lot.  However, on the other side of that, an emotionally-charged religious setting can be an open invitation for excessive practices, heretical teachings, and even opportunistic fraudsters who find ways to profit off of religious faith.  In order not to create more John Mills types, it is time that maybe we contain the influence of hucksters like Joel Osteen and Robert Tilton that help create them.  Any rate, this will probably not be my last reflection on Pentecostalism, but it does help to share some interesting things I discovered in my own research.  Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time. 

Feeling Out of Place

 This weekend has been a busy one for us.  We finally removed the rest of our belongings from the storage unit in Martinsburg, and the living room downstairs has a mess of bins that need to be organized now.  That work saved us about $80 monthly in storage fees, and I also wanted to give a shout-out to our parish over in Charles Town, St. James, and our wonderful priest there, Fr. Timothy Grassi.  They were gracious enough to loan us a large moving truck to get the rest of the stuff over here, and I am eternally grateful for that.  This also leads the way for an imminent move for us from Baltimore, and that cannot come soon enough.  The process of moving yesterday, for instance, led to an issue out on the street here with a certain demographic of people who live here - I won't get into that, but in all honesty, I am really wanting to go back to someplace where I feel more like I belong, as Baltimore as a city really stinks.  Let me explain what happened.

Since moving here back in late 2024, I have had more than my share of rude, nasty people in this city, and it unfortunately comes from a certain demographic.  Again, I won't elaborate on what that demographic is, because it would cause a considerable amount of controversy if I did.  The situation came to a head yesterday when we were attempting to unload our moving truck out here.  Let me get into that story.

 We live on a pretty narrow street in this section of town, but it is a narrow street that people seem to labor under the delusion is a thoroughfare.  This means that parking is at a premium, and it is not uncommon to have to park across the street from your own house - that is something that needs to change, first off. However, in addition, there is not much room for deliveries, moving vans, or other large transportation to do what they need to do, and that caused a problem yesterday.  We had to park in the middle of the street yesterday, and due to Barbara's health issues, she was somewhat limited as to what she could do, so it was up to me to singlehandedly unload a significant load of our stuff off the truck.  With one person, that takes time, and what complicated things further were people who don't even live on this street all of a sudden thinking this was I-95, and they were trying to come down this street in droves.  Some of these nasty, uncouth people got very combative with us, and I was not having it - I told these idiots to essentially either help out or shut up, and while we got cussings, horns blown at us, and other things, I didn't care.  This attitude with people in this city is inexcusable, and it is one reason why Baltimore is actually one of the crappiest cities in the country to live.  Compared with the rest of Maryland - and even the Baltimore suburbs - inner-city Baltimore is one of the nastiest, rudest, and dirtiest places to live, and the day I move out of here officially will be a day of celebration for us.  I actually made a quip to Barbara that the US would be a better place if cities like Baltimore ceased to exist.  And, the incident yesterday was only one of several incidents and individuals I could mention in the past year alone.

Between dealing with things I had to deal with at my former school I taught at (both from administration and some students - long story!), a micromanaging landlord who shows favoritism (and also has a bit of a legal skeleton in his closet), and the attitudes of others in this city - a short woman at the DVD who reminded me of an ill-tempered daschund, the various bums, porch pirates, and other buzzards one deals with at stores and elsewhere, and delivery people who don't care whether they do their jobs or not - make me pray to get out of here soon.  I may have noted some time ago that moving to this area of the city was not a first choice, and it felt temporary from the day I moved in to be completely honest.  So, feeling like this, what does it mean?  Let us explore that somewhat.

In the course of life, you start to understand that a season is about to end - you just feel it happening.  I knew, for instance, when our time in Florida was done in 2016, and although it wasn't under the best of circumstances, I now see it as the same when we moved from Hagerstown. As unpleasant as living in Baltimore has been in the past couple of years, I am of the understanding that for a season this was where I was supposed to be, and I accepted it. That is why my tenure at my school ended after 2 years, and to me that was a sign that this season was about to conclude.  At this point, I don't have a clue as to where I am going to be going, and a lot is contingent upon the job I land.  In that regard, I am open to what God wants, but the waiting is hard - I described it as being like sitting at a stale red light waiting for it to change.  There is an out coming soon I know, but may God give me the patience for waiting for it.  It seems clear that overall Baltimore is about as sick of me as I am of it, so moving out of here will be of mutual benefit, I guarantee that.  Any rate, just wanted to share that today.

Thanks again for allowing me to vent - it has been a bit frustrating lately, and I am starting to feel the weight of that more.  I will be back again soon, so feel free to visit anytime. 

Changing Dynamics

 I wanted to share some thoughts about something today that is on my mind, as it has been a bit of a recurring thought for me recently.   If anyone knows family dynamics, there is something about them which defines what a cohesive family is, and that is something I wanted to touch on now.  The common misconception is that family is just DNA or blood, but that may not be the case, and I wanted to get into that now. 

I come from a fairly large extended family, although my immediate family is small and I am technically the only surviving member of that - I currently have no direct ancestors that are living, and the reality of that sunk into me over the past few years.  As far as extended family though, I have a huge number of cousins, many of which live within a short distance of me.  However, I never see them, they don't really talk to me, and I might as well not exist to them in all honesty.  This is why I say that DNA  and blood can define biological family, but not necessarily true family.  You need something more for that, and I wanted to touch on that now. 

Barbara is my ex-wife, yet we are still amazingly close and are there for each other.  Will we ever be romantically linked again?  At this point I doubt that, but we are by any definition family.  This new dimension of family I have entered into starts with her, but there are some others who I will bring into it later as they are the foundation of a new chapter of life for me personally, but also for Barbara.  If I were to describe my life with Barbara now, she is like a sister to me - we love each other still like brother and sister, and we do look out for and care for each other.  It sort of invalidates a common assumption that ex-spouses must hate each other - I think that fallacy has poisoned society, and it causes a lot of unnecessary tension that doesn't need to be necessary.  Barbara and I both know that something happened in our 27 years of marriage where we didn't really have that intimate bond a husband and wife should have - we were both victims of circumstance, and from the earliest days of our marriage interference from outsiders who had no business in our lives created a situation where we never fully connected in the way a husband and wife should.  But, before we even dated, Barbara and I were friends, a friendship that will soon encompass 40 years.  I want to talk about a little bit of that story now, as it has a big role to play in the current family dynamic I wanted to talk about.

I first met Barbara in early 1990 - I was in my second semester at what is now the Baptist University of Florida (then it was called Florida Baptist Theological College) in the small peanut-farming town of Graceville in the Florida Panhandle.  Being that our school was a Christian college, we had segregated dorms, with the girls housed on one end of campus and the two men's dorms in the middle of the campus then.  The girls' dorms looked like military barracks, and they were shared with a few married couples' housing units.  Barbara, who had arrived on campus in 1984, approximately 5 years before I did, was housed in one of those units with two other girls who had started when I did - they were both local girls named Daphne and Rachel.  I actually kind of liked Rachel then, and we even had a sort of informal date one night with Daphne and her then-boyfriend Rob, as we were all new students at the time and had a sort of bond between all of us.  Rachel was a sweet local girl, and she was beautiful in a sort of modest way that made her endearing.  After a couple of months, I finally got the nerve to ask her out officially, and went to where her dorm was on the other end of the campus.  Back then, if you visited the girls' dorms (and vice versa), your conversation was limited to the front step.  I had this whole spiel planned to ask Rachel to be my girlfriend then, and when I got to her door, I knocked on it.  The person who answered was a slightly chubby girl with Coke-bottle glasses and her hair in curlers from a recent shower, and she was chowing down on pickled herring for a snack - that was my first formal meeting of Barbara.  We ended up talking, and turns out we had a lot of things in common, but I didn't feel romantic in any ways toward her - rather, I just liked talking to her as she seemed to take me seriously as a person.  You have to understand the 20-year-old me then - I was a shy, skinny West Virginia boy with a squeaky voice and I dressed like I was 60 then despite my much younger age.  I didn't think many girls would take an interest in me, because I embodied the classic geek look.  Later, I found out that at least 3 girls were eyeing me on campus then - one was a demure little Laotian girl named Chia, and the other one was another new girl who had started on campus at the same time I did.  Chia was cute too, and in retrospect I may have found her to be a perfect soulmate.  But, I ended up talking to Barbara, and we developed a very platonic friendship.  In time, Barbara actually started attending the Foursquare church in Alabama where I was a member, and she would also eventually leave the school and would spend the next year or two living in a roach-infested apartment in Dothan, AL, during which time our relationship became official.  When we did eventually marry in 1992, she still lived in that place, and it was our home until we left that summer to move to Lakeland, FL, where I would finish out my college education at Southeastern University there.   As to how we ended up going from friends to dating, I will save that story for another time.  However, that is how Barbara and I met, on the doorstep of her dorm room on a cool Florida February night.  

Almost 40 years knowing each other tends to create a strong bond, and although we did end up married and stayed married for 27 years, our friendship preceded our marriage and long outlasted it too.  As it seemed like everyone in my family was either dying off or just lost contact, I was starting to feel frighteningly alone - the one constant though was Barbara, and we remained close even when adversity tried to divide us.  We ended up essentially becoming each other's family, as our own families just sort of distanced themselves from us.  In reflecting on this recently, this is where I began to understand that a new family dynamic was being created, and other people are in that orbit now although they are far away at this time.  However, I feel God will somehow bring us all together, and out of a group of broken, misplaced people will rise a new family dynamic.  Some of these newer people are destined to become family now - I am actually seeing someone special, and will reveal more about who she is later, but she is an amazing woman.  Barbara also has a situation where she might be having a new family situation in her lap as well, and that too is up to her as to when to reveal that.  Nonetheless, we all have a close networking between us now, and it will be exciting to see what that will look like once everything falls into place.  

The lesson here is a simple one - family doesn't have to be defined by blood necessarily, as often a loving support structure can evolve that includes people not biologically connected, and it has all the attributes of a family.  In some cases, that dynamic is stronger than blood ties because people genuinely care for and look out for each other, even when their own blood forsakes them.   It is similar with the Church too - when we accept Christ and are baptized, we become part of not just a religious community, but also an extended family.  If the Church functions as the Church, a solid familial structure will take root and it encourages and strengthens all who are part of it.  While generations of biological families can belong to a church too, it is the community a church fosters which is its greatest strength.  That, I believe, is the ultimate lesson to take away from this.

That was mainly what I wanted to share today, so I will see you next visit. 

Relief and Decompression

 What brings this post to mind was the other day when I was finishing up one of my finals for a class, and one of my students, a nice young man named Jaylen, asked me what I was planning for the summer.  I told him one word - decompression.  He readily understood and agreed as well.  Over the past two days, I had to grade approximately 83 finals for 83 students, and despite a couple of technical glitches, I completed that yesterday afternoon.  Given this is also my last year at that particular school, the relief I felt was palpable.  While there were no instant celebrations at this point, there is a feeling of relief, accomplishment, and beneath that, a little uncertainty about what comes next.  But, it is a good feeling too.  This past academic year was challenging - the particular demographic of kids I was charged with teaching were one of the most intense groups of kids I have ever encountered, and the stress that was on me from dealing with them each day was palpable to anyone who observed me.  Adding to that a general lack of encouragement or support from the administration of the school where I taught, it was a relief to finally realize it was over.  In some ways, it is a bit surreal - I haven't fully grasped the depth of it being finished yet, but I feel it may sink in soon now that grading and last-minute details are taken care of, as those kept me pretty busy over the past couple of days after my last in-person day of proctoring finals this past Wednesday.   I won't go into a lot of the experience, but to summarize the overall feeling, it is a relief, and now the decompression of a year's worth of tension begins.  

Decompression can be likened to letting the air out of a car tire - it doesn't deflate all at once, but rather the gradual exit of air takes some time.  It is the same way with emotional decompression too - it will be an adjustment as I settle into a new and less-stressful routine now.  Granted, there are some things I will miss - the pay was acceptable and was perhaps the most I have ever made in a lifetime, and also there are many colleagues I have made friendships with as well as a number of students I generally will miss.  But, the overall situation is that I am just relieved to be out of there in all honesty.  As I have a professional protocol to follow and also want to make sure I don't reveal identities of anyone or anyplace, I won't get into details of that here, but for those who worked with me and found themselves in a similar situation, they will understand this completely.  That being said, let me get into a couple of reflections for today.

The one thing most people feel after leaving a position they have been at for a long time but is often the last feeling to surface is the uncertainty of what's ahead.  I have described it over the past few months as several metaphorical images - the unknown horizon, the green light I am waiting for, etc.  Uncertainty is a feeling one does not fully appreciate until it is viewed in posterity, but it is a real thing.  You wonder what opportunity you can receive, which one you should pursue, how your financial situation will shape, and so many other things.  That can be overwhelming when you think of it, and many of us don't at first - for some, including myself on occasion, it can also be faced too late.  Uncertainty is inevitable with any change in situation, but it is how you prepare for what's ahead which determines whether it is a simple nagging feeling or an overwhelming fear.  In my case, I made a number of preparations, including starting my job search several months back and also getting certain of my financial affairs in order just in case.  With minimal debt, it makes a transition smoother, so my objective was to pay off or keep caught up as many expenses as I could as well as trying to trim unnecessary charges to aleve a potential financial snafu.  Being prepared is the first step in making an uncertainty more manageable, because although the uncertainty is inevitable in many cases, how one is prepared to face it makes a world of difference.  Thankfully, I am in good shape financially for the summer, and also I am anticipating some calls for new opportunities soon.  It makes things much easier that way, believe me.  But, in my situation it isn't just about finances, but another interrelated matter comes to surface - residency.  Let me explain that one.

It will soon be two years since I moved to Baltimore to take my current position, and in all honesty, I don't like cities and I wasn't exactly thrilled about moving into the place I live now at all.  Here are three reasons I don't actually like living in a city:

1. The crime rates

2. Radical politics

3. Crowds

There is a movement called anti-urbanization, and I definitely consider myself part of that.  I recently came across a book entitled Down With the Cities, authored in 2012 by a Japanese guy named Tadashi Nakashima.  There are a number of evils that Nakashima notes with urbanization, so let me list those here for you:

1. Deforestation (environmental impact)

2. The plunder of farmland

3. The covering of the earth with concrete

4. Theft of the farm population

5. Squeezing food out of the farmers

6. Destruction of the seashore and plundering of marine resources.

7. The copious consumption of resources and energy

8. Excessive consumption of oxygen and water

9. The imposition of the sacrifice of others to appropriate water and other resources.

While I see Nakashima's points and can agree to an extent with them, I want to add a couple of my own that he didn't consider, those being the human dimension.   In Baltimore in particular, I see a lot of urban blight - the iconic rowhouses in many neighborhoods are abandoned, in severe disrepair, and also magnets for both criminal elements as well as vermin such as rats and roaches.  The second evil I would note is polarization - Baltimore is polarized by race, by politics, and by crime perpetrated by opportunistic individuals who could rightly be described as human parasites.  Many of Nakashima's concerns can be summarized as the effects of urban blight in particular, and I wanted to give some thoughts on that now.

"Urban blight" is described as neighborhoods that are overriden with abandoned houses, pollution all over the place, and just a general lack of care for anything to improve the community.  There is a racist element to this too, as for decades a number of corrupt politicians on the political left have more or less encouraged it - they oppose efforts to clean up communities as "gentrification," and they make empty promises to citizens while robbing them blind in tax revenue which often lines a politician's pockets rather than being used for the betterment of the cities they are supposed to represent.  Any effort to clean up a neighborhood is seen as "systemic racism," and the bad behaviors of certain populations are incentivized as "cultural expression" and thus untouchable.  Those certain populations themselves are at fault too - I have seen them urinating on buildings and street signs, and also carelessly throwing litter about all over.  If that is considered "cultural expression," then perhaps it is time to rethink culture.  I have seen this urban rot in other cities too, but Baltimore is particularly infested with it.  These certain populations, who want to now cry "racism" at any suggestion to better themselves (thanks to their modern slaveholders, rich White liberals who live a whole social class above them), are in reality some of the worst elements of the population in this city, and I am not going to sugarcoat why - just walk around these neighborhoods here and look at it for yourself.  Then look at who lives in those neighborhoods, and then you draw the conclusions.  If these certain populations were taught to maybe emphasize the good aspects of their heritage instead of incentivizing the bad ones, many cities would be transformed overnight.  But, as I mentioned in a previous discussion, they are being conditioned by others - in this case, a group of elitist White leftists, many of whom are very wealthy, who profit off chaos to gain control.  As mentioned, it is about the Nietzschean concept of struggle, and if conflict is maintained, so is the status quo for those who stand to gain the most from it.  That is the political Left in a nutshell - do you think they care about actual racism, the environment, or all these other talking-points they like to beat people over the head with??  Hell no!  They know they are running a highly successful con game, and too many people buy it.  If it were exposed, it would threaten their stranglehold on power.  Therefore, they use vast resources to maintain the narrative, and they have an effective propaganda machine that pumps out the lies like a fat person with diarrhea on a small toilet. But, if cities are to be transformed, the narrative must be corrected and changed, and those who hold power need to surrender it to people who really need the change in their communities.  Until that happens, our nation is on a bad trajectory.   I say all of that to get back now to why an eventual move from Baltimore in particular for me would be the ultimate decompression.

While I am not adverse to moving to another city should a door open, there are things I expect.  First, I want a good quality of life.  Secondly, I don't want a toxic work environment.  Third, the opportunity I take must be worth the effort to relocate and recalibrate.  These are things I am asking God for specifically, as it means a better quality of life overall for me as well as feeling like I am making a real difference both for myself as well as for others I may work with.  Decompression from a former situation also means that one has time then to reflect upon and plan out next courses of action, and that is the place I am in now.  Any rate, those are my thoughts for today, so I will leave it there and will see you next time. 

The Desert of Patience

 As I am writing this now, I am facing an issue that is requiring a lot of patience, and I wanted to just share a little about it here.  Have you ever been in that position where you were waiting for something, and yet it seems like it's hopeless?  Today, someone very special to me reminded me that God listens in the silence, and is working behind the scenes on everything.  If something is meant to be, it will be, in other words.  Let's get into that today.

Imagine if you will a desert, and the nearest place to rehydrate is a ten-mile walk.  Your body is limited, and a certain amount of hydration is required for you to function, especially when exerting energy to walk.  This will stretch you to a limit, and the odds are really against you as you trudge through the heat, the sand, and possibly deadly creatures like scorpions and sidewinders.  This makes me recall a song that was recorded by Billy Vaughn's orchestra in 1953 with Ken Nordine's narration - the record was two-part, and it was not in essence a song, but rather a story set to music.  The title of it was "The Shifting Whispering Sands," and the story is about a gold prospector who is stranded in the desert in the American West, and it went something like this:

listen to the age old story of
The shifting, whispering sand)
Yes it always whispers to me
Of the days of long ago
When the settlers and the miners
Fought the crafty Navajo
How the cattle roamed the valley
Happy people worked the land
And now everything is covered
By the shifting, whispering sand
Oh the miner left his buckboards
When he worked his claims that day
And the burro's broke their halters
When they thought he'd gone to stay
How they found the ancient miner
Lyin dead upon the sand
For months they could but wonder
If he died by human hands
So they dug his grave and laid him
On his back and crossed his hands
And his secret still is hidden
By the shifting, whispering sands
This is what they whispered to me
Way out in the quiet desert air
Of the people and the cattle
And that miner lying there
If you want to learn his secret
Wander through this quiet land
And I'm sure you'll hear the story
Of the shifting, whispering sand
The shifting, whispering sand

(lyrics by Vivian Clarke Gilbert and Mary Margaret Hadler)

The story is somewhat tragic, and when you listen to it you realize that we face a lot of deserts in life.  Some we come out of, but wiser.  Others we may not survive.  The deserts of life are long, desolate, and lonely, much like what some Church saints and Fathers called "the dark night of the soul."  God provides for us though some Scriptural way-stations to refresh ourselves, and one of those is in Romans 8:28 - all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.  In other words, it takes a vision for us that needs to be rekindled to move us forward.  The miner in the above story somehow missed that as far as his physical needs were concerned, but some of us miss it spiritually as well at times, and I am the first to be honest and say I am guilty of that.  In another part of the story that is not included here but is spoken narration, even the donkeys that escaped didn't survive, as the traveler found "their bones picked clean by buzzards."  Let's talk about those "buzzards" a little, as they seem to swarm us on occasion.

When one thinks of buzzards (or turkey vultures, as they are properly called), one thinks of an opportunistic scavenger that will greedily take advantage of a carcass it finds.  There are human buzzards too - Baltimore is full of them, as we call them porch pirates because many of them (of a certain demographic I might add) will steal packages right off of a porch and then sell what they steal to obtain drugs like crack and fentanyl.  The adjectives opportunistic, greedy, and corrupt can describe these types of human buzzards easily.  In the wild though, an actual buzzard is in reality the garbage man of nature - they are created to essentially dispose of potentially dangerous biological waste such as animal carcasses so they don't contaminate the wild.  Human buzzards are not that useful unfortunately - they are parasites who profit off the stolen goods of others.  Buzzards can also be situations we face in adversity too - when you are struggling for money and the IRS somehow slaps you with a tax penalty, or when you have only so much in your bank account and the teledoctor who you have to depend on to renew a vital prescription hits you with a bill that doesn't go to your insurance but rather overdrafts your bank.  Those things are buzzards in that they see a dying carcass that is your personal adversity and they start picking at it.  I have a whole other thing about the current medical profession to talk about later, but essentially medical professionals can be the ultimate buzzards because they profit from keeping people sick a lot - if someone dies in the process, they always have someone waiting to be drained in the same way, both in health and often in money, and the evil cycle of Big Med continues.  On a long and rigorous life journey, there may be buzzards ready to pick at you - they are circling as they know you are weak and vulnerable, and then they just pick at you until you collapse.  There needs to be a deterrent against this, and God gave us that very thing - our faith.  Let me clear up a few things about that though, as this also has been abused by religious buzzards who seek to capitalize on people. 

Faith is not a force, it is not a god in itself, and it is not a fix-all cure to anything, but it does strengthen us and we can grow in it.  In order to do that though, we need something else - supernatural grace.  A faith that is not nourished by supernatural grace becomes hard to maintain, and as a result we seek to fortify it with false substitutes like these so-called "affirmation statements" which "positively confess" things that God never explicitly promised us.  We cannot speak wealth into existence - if we could, we would be a planet of millionaires, wouldn't we?  It does not mean God does not provide, as he does help with our needs.  The way he does so, however, is by challenging us often to use the resources he has already given us - our minds, our talents, our religious faith in proper context.  If we are faithful then to use what he has already given us, he will provide the increase and open the door in a reasonable way and not like some televangelist tells you to "blab and grab" a swimming pool, Mercedes, and room for a pony.  A reasonable need will be met, in other words, if we truly seek guidance of how to use what we have to make things happen.  Let me explain.

Just yesterday, the daily reading in the lectionary was from I Kings, and had to do with the story of Elijah and the widow.  Remember what he told her - make him a small cake, and they would not go hungry.  By encouraging the widow to use what she had available, Elijah was able to promise her that her fundamental needs would be met too.  She was not covered in wealth or earthly prosperity, but her needs were met.  This is what we need to remember, and believe me, I have to remind myself of this constantly.  Another aspect of this is having protection to keep the buzzards away too from stealing what little you have, and that is where Ephesians 6 comes in.  Surviving a desert - literal or figurative - means then we have to be resourceful and use what we already have, and if we do so then it can increase in a reasonable way to sustain us.  That is not "positive confession" either, but rather just using what one has to make something productive. 

I grew up in an environment where one learns to use ingredients on hand to create a sustainable meal, and over the years I have learned the secret of always having on hand a certain amount of basic ingredients so that in a pinch I can make a filling dinner for myself and my family.  This means that a kitchen should always be stocked with some pretty basic items - cooking oil, flour, corn starch, sugar, and a variety of spices and herbs.  If you have those and know how to use them, you might be surprised what you can do with the simplest of ingredients, such as a pound of hamburger, a package of turkey necks, or some other cheap but ridiculous base ingredient.  Also, know your surroundings as well, because unbeknownst to most people, there are probably at least five edible things that grow right in the front or back yard, and if you know what you are looking for and how to use them, you can create a feast fit for nobility.  Some of the most expensive dinners served for up to $100 a plate in 5-star restaurants started out humbly - lobster is a perfect example.  Lobsters used to be considered garbage by fishermen, and often they were used as bait or something else instead of eaten.  But, once the meat was consumed by an unsuspecting poor fisherman due to hunger, the lobster rose in status to the elite entree it is today.  The lesson here is that you never underestimate the simplest of things - today's garbage may end up being tomorrow's treasure.

Those are my thoughts for today, and hopefully I can help someone going through something with this practical wisdom I cannot claim myself - it comes from listening to others over the years too.  Thank you, and have a good rest of your day until next time. 

The Exam

 Today is the next-to-the-last day of the school year, and I am proctoring final exams this week.  Tomorrow my classes will be taking theirs as well, and I am frankly just ready for everything to wrap up.  The group I am proctoring today are freshmen for a history exam, and they can be challenging - a couple of them are proving to be somewhat problematic as they like to talk and screw off, so fortunately their teacher is close by.  Thinking of exams, it reminds me that in life we have our own exams to face, and just like an academic setting, real life is a series of tests and hurdles at times which can either make or break us.   And, that is today's reflection essentially as I begin.

I am doing a re-read of Anglican Thomistic scholar E.L. Mascall's book The Secularization of Christianity, and it sort of fits this topic well because one very important evaluation of life is whether or not our faith has a solid foundation.  Scripture is full of warnings about a dichotomy in faith - there are the false and the true among us, and at times they can look identical on the surface.  It is easy, for instance, to totally miss the point on Christian virtues like love when we decide that love should equal an affirmation of false beliefs and bad behavior.  As I have documented a lot in the past months, I see this all the time at the high school where I teach, in particular with the campus minister, who is a piece of work.  Even as I am proctoring this exam now, I am sitting in the classroom of the 10th-grade history teacher, and on his whiteboard are pictures of Lenin and Stalin, which in itself is odd for a Catholic school to be displaying.  However, that is due to a recent phenomenon called cultural Marxism, in which the "class struggle" aspect of traditional Marxism is reframed as racial or ethnic, and thus you start to have the development of something called critical theory.  Critical theory is not something that is monolithic, and by its design it cannot be anyway - at the root of it is the Nietzschean concept of struggle, and the idea of struggle needs adversaries to make it work.  Therefore, you can have two opposing forms of critical theory - let's say Black liberation theology and Latin American liberation theology - that strive toward the same thing but see each other as enemies.  When Vincent Bugliosi, the attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson in the early 1970s and wrote a book about it called Helter Skelter, noted Manson's maniacal ramblings, the one thing he said Manson did was say he wanted a race war - he hated Blacks himself, as come to find out Manson was notoriously racist, but he wanted to use contrived Black grievances as a tool to achieve his own ends, and thus he promoted the Black Panthers and other Black-supremacist groups.  The idea of "helter skelter" itself (which came from a Beatles song and itself was based on the Nietzschean struggle theory) was in itself Marxist andsor Fascist in emphasis, as it was based on what many Leftist thinkers ranging from Antonio Gramschi to Saul Alinsky espoused in their writings.  Create the struggle, deconstruct the social order, then a "savior" can come in and create the proposed utopia.  These types of ideas are not new, as they  even preceded their Nietzschean inspirations by a couple of centuries with roots in some Enlightenment ideas such as those of Descartes, Kant, and Spinoza.  And, as many writers have noted, those Enlightenment influences were what led to a secularization of society.  As Mascall notes on page 109 of his book, the problem arises from a radical inversion of the Gospel mandate for evangelization, which seeks instead to convert Christianity to the world instead of converting the world to Christianity.  It is one reason, why beginning with thinkers like Spinoza, that religion was seen as an ostacle to "progress," and thus must be pigeon-holed in its own sector and limited in its influence, except where maybe a Machiavellian utilitarianism could find it useful to promote the advance of an agenda.  It is not then a long stretch to get from Spinoza's compartmentalization of religion to Marx's outright elimination of it from the public sphere.  What that tells us then is that this stuff is nothing new, but has been an evolving worldview that goes back centuries. 

So, where does the life exam come into this?  Basically, we are given the impetus for that in 2 Timothy 2:15, where we are told to "rightly divide the word of truth," and it also relates to Psalm 119:11, which talks about how embracing the Word of God is the best remedy to overcome sin.  Our test then is also given in the Gospels, where one sees these parables of contrasts:  sheep vs. goats, wheat vs. tares, bad fish vs. good fish, etc.  Satan is the ultimate manipulator, and he is a marketing genius in a depraved way - he knows how to make things enticing for the unsuspecting, and there is even a verse in Scripture that warns that even the very elect can be deceived by Satan's tricks.  Let me give an example of that, being the word "justice."  Justice in itself is a noble thing, and it is considered virtuous.  However, it is also one of the most abused concepts anyone has experienced, because there are things done in the name of "justice" that are anything but just.  You see that with liberation theology, as at its center is the idea of "social justice."  "Social justice," as it is communicated nowadays, is just another word for cultural Marxism - at its core is this Nietzschean idea of the struggle, and from the struggle then control can be achieved, and often those fomenting the chaos and seeking control are in reality some of the most unjust people to exist.  I have beat this proverbial drum many times before, and essentially the point is that all of the most evil dictators of recent history had as part of their platforms this skewed idea of "justice."  This then logically concludes that a lot of the most egregious injustices committed in the world were done by those hollering "justice" loudly.   For the religious person caught up in this, the false "justice" becomes an idol that replaces the true God with an ideology, and it then follows that those who would espouse this would in essence rewrite theology and spirituality with less of a Christocentric focus and more of a political focus.  However, the language can be deceptive - when is compassion not considered a virtue, for instance, and invoking a "Jesus" or two would appeal to some, right?  And, there is where our life exam comes in - we need to see past the facade and look to the intention of that message, because if we fall for the misguided intention, we fail the exam.  That is likewise why a good, solid grasp of Tradition and theology is integral, and apologetics is often a lost discipline in Christian circles.  After all, even look back at the first sin - in the Garden in Genesis 3 - and you see that what seduced Eve was not something obvious.  Rather, it was taking something, knowing just where to manipulate it, and then the lie was born.  It has happened over and over throughout the history of humanity, and that leads to something else.

Theology is a discipline that also is integrated with other disciplines - to understand theology, you need to understand philosophy, true science, and language and rhetoric.  A sentence, for instance, can be factually true, grammatically correct, and on the surface perfect, but it can still be a deception - a slight inflection, a reversal of word order, or any other subtle change can make a huge difference.  Let's do a short language lesson here to show you what I mean.

Let's take a basic sentence:

            The boy has gone to the store.

Where is the emphasis here?  If you emphasize "boy," or the subject, it would look like this:

            The BOY has gone to the store.

The emphasis here is on who is going to the store, right?  In basic grammar, that is called emphasizing the subject, and most people will read it that way.  But, there is a verb, an action word, that also is there, so let us emphasize that now and see if it changes the meaning:

           The boy has GONE to the store.

The verb, or the act, is now the emphasis instead of the subject of the sentence.  Reading it like that even changes the meaning slightly doesn't it?  The suggestion for this could be that someone was looking for the boy, and he is no longer at the place he previously was but is absent.  This could inflect mood or some sort of urgency about where the boy is.  Now, there is the last part of the sentence, so let's show the emphasis there:

        The boy has gone to the STORE.

The emphasis is now on destination, isn't it?   The important part of that sentence then is not who the boy is, what he is doing, but where he is going, and that changes ever so subtly the meaning of the whole sentence.  On the surface, all three of these look identical, but when they are spoken they emphasize something totally different and change meanings.  That is how deception works too - an absolutely true and even innocuous statement can be spoken in such a way that it becomes suggestive, and only the slightest change can have tremendous consequences.  While this basic sentence was only one example, it can happen even more so with more precise language too - people do that with Scripture all the time.  That is why another element to the equation is integral, that being context.  Context can make or break a statement depending how context is applied, and Satan's biggest weapon over the centuries has been the error of context.  A classic - and somewhat absurd - example of this has to do with taking two unrelated passages of Scripture, cobbling them together, and it then takes on a whole other meaning than original author intention.  There is a verse in the Gospels for instance that factually documents Judas Iscariot hanging himself after betraying Jesus on the night the Passion of our Lord began.  It simply says "Judas hung himself."  In another passage of Scripture, Jesus is teaching people about doing the right thing, and his concluding admonishment is simple, "go and do likewise."  Both of these passages are totally unrelated to each other, and must be read in the context of the sections of Scripture where they are located.  To string those two together, one could reach the conclusion that suicide is a good thing, and that could create a whole other issue.  Hermeneutics, like apologetics, is an underestimated but valuable tool for the believer, and it should be studied more, especially by those in Church leadership.  The old School House Rock mantra, "knowledge is power," carries some weight here, because being educated the right way will benefit us later.  Then, when those challenges in life - the exams - come, we have the means to succeed in a way that is logical and will be the right way to do something and cannot fail.  Passing a life exam though doesn't mean things will be easier - as a matter of fact, if you do the right thing often you will be given a lot of opposition from those who are doing it wrong.  But, it is the end that is important, and not temporary challenges.  Those in themselves are also exams as well.

I know this has been lengthy, somewhat confusing, and probably more could be said for clarification, but the bottom line is that we live in an imperfect world, and we encounter things that will test us.  Can we pass the test?  That is what we need to strive for.  Similar to these freshmen in this classroom taking their finals this week, the outcome will determine how we move forward.  If a freshman passes their exams this week, they will more than likely return to school in a couple of months as sophomores.  If they don't it could mean retention as repeat freshmen, or even dismissal from school.  Stakes are always high in any type of exam, so preparation is the key to success.  We should prepare ourselves by diligent study, paying attention to details, and also keeping things in context to avoid miscommunication.  Doing that ensures a level of success.  We won't always get everything right, but at least we are moving forward, and that is ultimately the idea.   Thank you for allowing me to share, and will see you next time.