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The Unintended Post

I didn’t mean to open a new post just now, but in exploring the new bells and whistles on blogger, I pushed a red circle and here I am. Whenever possible, I am a homebody. The Covid 19 lockdowns made it more possible for me to chose to stay home without looking weird, and it’s hard to give up. The last month has really changed my online life. It has revealed the darkness of all Salem Communications owned sites, as well as Whatfinger, Liberty Daily, Citizen Free Press and other sites I used to frequent for news from a non full-left slant. Instead they have a mostly pro-Putin / antiUkraine slant! Even Glenn Beck has gotten askew on his facts regarding Ukraine in 2014. Rather than accepting the public record of a legal quorum of the parliament impeaching Yanukovich after he abandoned his office and nation, Glenn calls the Revolution of Dignity a “coup.”  However, he’s not as bad as the others and certainly does not exhibit a heart of cruel indifference to the present situation. He sees th
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At the Confluence of Competing Totalitarian Systems

I  caught a glimpse of Justin Trudeau’s speech this morning with Boris Johnson. Make no mistake, they are trying to find a way to use this crisis to move the globalist agenda forward. They will help Ukraine only so far as it serves this end. They don’t want Ukraine to retain its cultural and national distinctives any more than Putin does.  They, like Putin, want one world with one identity, dictated by themselves, with no borders.  We all are caught in a war between totalitarian ideologues.   If it were not so, the west would throw off their so-called “green” agenda and start pumping more oil from their own lands. This would let our economies roar back (unthinkable to globalists) and take the wind out of Putin’s wings with no military action nor risk of nuclear retaliation. For globalists and Putinists alike, their ideology is their religion, and they will not back down even if it costs every life on earth. Last night on Euronews, they followed up a story on Putin’s desire to erase Ukr

Give Me Oil in My Lamp!

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly I say to

Christmas Eve and Noah's Pudding

Kutia in the pan Toasting almonds Tonight is Christmas Eve in the west, but I decided I wanted to try something eastern as a dessert following the candle light service this evening. So I went through my recipes searching for kutia, a Ukrainian dish traditionally served on Christmas Eve. To my dismay I found that I didn't actually have that recipe among all that I have collected. I knew that it was made from wheatberries, dried fruits, honey and poppyseed; a mixture cooked in milk. Since I'd previously recognized its connection to another recipe, I turned to Feast From the Middle East by Faye Levy and looked up her recipe for Noah's Pudding .  She writes, "It is common in the vast region that was once the Ottoman Empire, especially in Turkey where Noah's Ark is said to have rested on Mount Ararat, near the borders of Armenia and Iran. (pg 358)" She also mentions that Bulgarians and Armenians serve it for Christmas, but then goes on to discuss h

Darkness Descends

Yes, time for another Jeremiad as I see troubles all around me. It seems the meat grinder has been kicked up another gear. A person from my former church sent an e-mail to the congregation today, addressing events from ten day ago, which have since been swept out of the news-cycle by the horrors of Hurricane Harvey. There are those who cannot allow the momentum given to them by Charlottesville to be lost. If must be redredged, reframed, set up as an icon and all must bow to their interpretation or be labeled 'heretic.' Nevermind the thousands of dead in the floodwaters to be lamented; instead let's focus on events from 150 years ago and engage in so called "racial reconciliation" by which they mean a never ending chant of mea culpa from anyone born with white skin. Christians must denounce evil, yes, but they cannot ignore multiple other evils while they focus only on those villains already, justly, pilloried by all. The exploitation of one tragedy and the h

The Red Heifer and Julian of Norwich

Today I read Numbers chapter 19 and was thoroughly puzzled by the Ordinance of the Red Heifer. I was trying to see the prefiguring of Christ in it and really couldn't make it out. Later in the evening we watched an episode of Call the Midwife in which one character quoted Julian of Norwich, "If you ask what God meant by this, He meant love." I thought about how that fit, and  while it was superficially satisfying, it wasn't quite enough answer for my mind. As I perused some of the quotes from the Revelation of Divine Love, this one seemed to be the answer I had hoped for: “...we need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker's marvelous love so fully...”  ―  Julian of Norwich ,  Revelations of Divine Love Needing this ordinance and the other rituals of purification, atonement, and redemption showed the Israelites how utterly dependent we are o