Delicate Truth
I write my webzine with one purpose in mind: to draw people to Christ. The most prominent thrust in this effort is to showcase the wildly distinctive contrast between the Kingdom in which Christ reigns with love and mercy; and the World System set in motion by God millennia ago and today administered by sworn operatives in Cain's legacy of the most ruthless sin management.
The trick is to see the difference, as well as to approach the characteristics of the contrast not with ferocious remonstrations against what must be or with meek resignation enduring obsequious enslavement.
It is to understand.
Even as He says in the ninth chapter of Jeremiah, it is to boldly "understand and know God" for the purpose of being introduced to the bounty of His Truth and Grace.
I do the very best that I can with that, in large part on the work I do with my webzine's home page piece, which this month has touched on the idea of wealth renunciation. It is that concept that I wanted to touch on briefly here, because since I posted it I thought about how much it can be so misunderstood. I'm also not going to get too much into it because so much can be and has been said about it.
A great pretext for this is Alan Greenspan's recent piece in the Council on Foreign Relations publication titled, amazingly, "Never Saw It Coming." I haven't read the entire piece yet but I've scanned through it, and right out of the gate he brings up something I'd never seen before, and he does it so cavalierly.
Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.
He says this "explosive" provision allows the Fed to "lend nearly unlimited cash to virtually anybody." He shares this in the context of the surprise he got in March of 2008 when Bear Stearns tanked, so it is easy to see where this is going.
Thing is, I wrote in my home page piece about Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testifying in Congress that he'd like to have, pretty much, unlimited spending power.
So you've got the Fed chair saying he's got unlimited amounts of cash, and the Treasury secretary saying he should spend unlimited amounts of cash, but the tricky thing is, there is a limit. That limit, however, is really only what the people can see and can hold the most powerful exploiters to. The problem there is that without the secure value assignment grounded in Christ reigning in your heart, you will only see it to the extent that you want to be an exploiter yourself or you will work to keep the exploitation going through whatever deceptive means that keep others from holding you to that limit.
And this is where the most basic truth about the wealth renunciation issue comes in.
Wealth in and of itself is a wonderful thing, a gift from God allowing us to have fulfilled lives -- enjoying homes and meals and vehicles. The question is, from where did that wealth come? How fun it is to get deep into the Nozick-Rawls debate, and I encourage you to go there. Very intense.
But the Bible does the best job of laying it out. You may see that God arranged it through the productive value you demonstrate every day from 9-to-5 and the productive value of those who labor just as eagerly. Furthermore those who genuinely get that thank Him for that bounty every day however much it is.
Or you will do another thing the Bible says people do. You may make all kinds of rationalizations about how much you are owed or how much you should have or how much people in powerful places must do this or that, or even if you are in a group like the Franciscans you may realize how hard it is to not exploit others so you make vows against it because you are so incapable of managing wealth properly because you simply cannot love others.
Essentially it is difference between covetousness and acquisitiveness. Even simpler, it is about whether or not you are willing to graciously and joyfully sacrifice yourself and any pretense that you are anybody except for someone God loves with His life, for the magnificently enriching purpose of making someone else better off. It is about whether or not you are otherwise immersed in the practice of value extraction, getting yours for you and only you because you fear -- the essence of modern human sacrifice. What the Fed and Feds are doing is merely the greasing of the institutional gears to make that happen.
Again, remember, grasping this truth is about understanding, not seething at these people. It is about entering through the Narrow Gate, Christ Himself, not doing foolish things by the broad gate, the counterfeit Christ of the World.
It is about the proposition that the Kingdom is better -- a hundred times better! For a hundred times the wealth.
But that requires Kingdom people to gather in assemblies and work in organizations that abjure the realm of Cain's accoutrements and to sow Christ's bounty into the lives of those they really love with Christ's love.
I look at this stuff about Section 13(3) and think of how many people know about "Rex 84" and the very little understood procedure for massive federal administration of folks upset about things going bad. They may see what the deal is with the procedure and get steamed, or just shrug because they realize it is indeed a necessity for Caesar to do his job, or...
They can understand.
As it is I have to mention that I'm seeing the markets really start to gyrate in ways people are not able to comprehend. People can't get a bead on $85 billion shoved into the system every month and really know the value of things. But then, unlimited spending power with no real meaningful productive value attached to that is impossible to figure out. A top finance dude even called it "Bernankecare." How funny is that. Whatever it is, Obamacare, Bernankecare, whatever...
The World taking care of everyone.
Cain: "Lookit! Lookit me! I can be your keeper! You're my brother, and I can be your keeper! Watch! Anything you want, just ask me!"
And how many millions and millions and millions just schlurp it all up.
By the way, Greenspan concludes his Foreign Affairs piece with a very interesting point. He brings behavioral economics into it, saying if we could only gauge precisely the way people behave -- and we can! -- we'll get at this finance thing. He's right! You can gauge the way people behave, it just isn't that hard -- if you're willing to see the truth about that.
Problem is the World will still lie to you about that behavior. It'll say to it's dying breath -- literally -- that there is no such thing as human sacrifice, that it doesn't really happen. Greenspan even makes the silly claim, very typical, that there is something that is irrational exuberance, that there is even a thing that is irrationality.
No, sorry, Mr. Greenspan and all other World operative voices are spewing the worst kind of System propaganda. The truth is there is no such thing as irrational. The claim that there all kinds of pesky irrationality out there and we've got to make sure the agents of Cain are the only ones who can manage it somehow someway is another lie from the pit of hell.
The truth is, everything is rational. Every single thing.
It just may not be righteous.
And the only way to know that is through the eyes of Christ. And wow...
He is nowhere near these guys.
Is He near you? Is He so near that you'd let Him in, and make it so you could see? But hey, if you stay with Cain, you'll do all kinds of rationalizing with wealth -- like it, not like it, good, bad -- but it'll all be about human sacrifice. They'll say it isn't, they'll screech that it isn't.
But it is.
And if you step away from all that, and into the Kingdom, into the embrace of Christ who'll make it so you can see, you'll see it.
The trick is to see the difference, as well as to approach the characteristics of the contrast not with ferocious remonstrations against what must be or with meek resignation enduring obsequious enslavement.
It is to understand.
Even as He says in the ninth chapter of Jeremiah, it is to boldly "understand and know God" for the purpose of being introduced to the bounty of His Truth and Grace.
I do the very best that I can with that, in large part on the work I do with my webzine's home page piece, which this month has touched on the idea of wealth renunciation. It is that concept that I wanted to touch on briefly here, because since I posted it I thought about how much it can be so misunderstood. I'm also not going to get too much into it because so much can be and has been said about it.
A great pretext for this is Alan Greenspan's recent piece in the Council on Foreign Relations publication titled, amazingly, "Never Saw It Coming." I haven't read the entire piece yet but I've scanned through it, and right out of the gate he brings up something I'd never seen before, and he does it so cavalierly.
Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.
He says this "explosive" provision allows the Fed to "lend nearly unlimited cash to virtually anybody." He shares this in the context of the surprise he got in March of 2008 when Bear Stearns tanked, so it is easy to see where this is going.
Thing is, I wrote in my home page piece about Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testifying in Congress that he'd like to have, pretty much, unlimited spending power.
So you've got the Fed chair saying he's got unlimited amounts of cash, and the Treasury secretary saying he should spend unlimited amounts of cash, but the tricky thing is, there is a limit. That limit, however, is really only what the people can see and can hold the most powerful exploiters to. The problem there is that without the secure value assignment grounded in Christ reigning in your heart, you will only see it to the extent that you want to be an exploiter yourself or you will work to keep the exploitation going through whatever deceptive means that keep others from holding you to that limit.
And this is where the most basic truth about the wealth renunciation issue comes in.
Wealth in and of itself is a wonderful thing, a gift from God allowing us to have fulfilled lives -- enjoying homes and meals and vehicles. The question is, from where did that wealth come? How fun it is to get deep into the Nozick-Rawls debate, and I encourage you to go there. Very intense.
But the Bible does the best job of laying it out. You may see that God arranged it through the productive value you demonstrate every day from 9-to-5 and the productive value of those who labor just as eagerly. Furthermore those who genuinely get that thank Him for that bounty every day however much it is.
Or you will do another thing the Bible says people do. You may make all kinds of rationalizations about how much you are owed or how much you should have or how much people in powerful places must do this or that, or even if you are in a group like the Franciscans you may realize how hard it is to not exploit others so you make vows against it because you are so incapable of managing wealth properly because you simply cannot love others.
Essentially it is difference between covetousness and acquisitiveness. Even simpler, it is about whether or not you are willing to graciously and joyfully sacrifice yourself and any pretense that you are anybody except for someone God loves with His life, for the magnificently enriching purpose of making someone else better off. It is about whether or not you are otherwise immersed in the practice of value extraction, getting yours for you and only you because you fear -- the essence of modern human sacrifice. What the Fed and Feds are doing is merely the greasing of the institutional gears to make that happen.
Again, remember, grasping this truth is about understanding, not seething at these people. It is about entering through the Narrow Gate, Christ Himself, not doing foolish things by the broad gate, the counterfeit Christ of the World.
It is about the proposition that the Kingdom is better -- a hundred times better! For a hundred times the wealth.
But that requires Kingdom people to gather in assemblies and work in organizations that abjure the realm of Cain's accoutrements and to sow Christ's bounty into the lives of those they really love with Christ's love.
I look at this stuff about Section 13(3) and think of how many people know about "Rex 84" and the very little understood procedure for massive federal administration of folks upset about things going bad. They may see what the deal is with the procedure and get steamed, or just shrug because they realize it is indeed a necessity for Caesar to do his job, or...
They can understand.
As it is I have to mention that I'm seeing the markets really start to gyrate in ways people are not able to comprehend. People can't get a bead on $85 billion shoved into the system every month and really know the value of things. But then, unlimited spending power with no real meaningful productive value attached to that is impossible to figure out. A top finance dude even called it "Bernankecare." How funny is that. Whatever it is, Obamacare, Bernankecare, whatever...
The World taking care of everyone.
Cain: "Lookit! Lookit me! I can be your keeper! You're my brother, and I can be your keeper! Watch! Anything you want, just ask me!"
And how many millions and millions and millions just schlurp it all up.
By the way, Greenspan concludes his Foreign Affairs piece with a very interesting point. He brings behavioral economics into it, saying if we could only gauge precisely the way people behave -- and we can! -- we'll get at this finance thing. He's right! You can gauge the way people behave, it just isn't that hard -- if you're willing to see the truth about that.
Problem is the World will still lie to you about that behavior. It'll say to it's dying breath -- literally -- that there is no such thing as human sacrifice, that it doesn't really happen. Greenspan even makes the silly claim, very typical, that there is something that is irrational exuberance, that there is even a thing that is irrationality.
No, sorry, Mr. Greenspan and all other World operative voices are spewing the worst kind of System propaganda. The truth is there is no such thing as irrational. The claim that there all kinds of pesky irrationality out there and we've got to make sure the agents of Cain are the only ones who can manage it somehow someway is another lie from the pit of hell.
The truth is, everything is rational. Every single thing.
It just may not be righteous.
And the only way to know that is through the eyes of Christ. And wow...
He is nowhere near these guys.
Is He near you? Is He so near that you'd let Him in, and make it so you could see? But hey, if you stay with Cain, you'll do all kinds of rationalizing with wealth -- like it, not like it, good, bad -- but it'll all be about human sacrifice. They'll say it isn't, they'll screech that it isn't.
But it is.
And if you step away from all that, and into the Kingdom, into the embrace of Christ who'll make it so you can see, you'll see it.
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