Category: Vision

We Are Too Often Blind; You Must Unlearn All That You Have Learned

May 21, 2024 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 0 Comments

Too often we are ill equipped to embark on a spiritual life. Even if we have been raised in the Church in Europe or America we are overly rationalistic and materialistic. Somehow we decided, largely due to the dominant fiction of Scientism – the cultic belief that science can explain everything of value in the world – that despite the fact that every human society and culture that has existed or does exist acknowledges (or at least explores,) the existence of a spiritual reality of some kind. Even in America we have begun to understand that sometimes health conditions are caused by mental and spiritual conditions. We are, as I have always preached, not physical creatures with a body, a mind, and a soul. Instead the truth is we are body/mind/soul creatures and everything is harmoniously interconnected. At least it is supposed to be harmoniously integrated and interconnected.

Welcome to the Nature’s God Blog for 20240519 Grace and Peace to you.

There is something very, very real about a war between good and evil. If you have been told there is no evil then please stay with me. I was raised with the idea of Spiritual Warfare, angels, demons, and many misconceptions that come with that – one of which you can read about if you read about the exorcism I conducted of a church – an exorcism that I thought was going to be a simple cleansing of residual negative feelings but found…suddenly…that I was facing an actual entity; an evil entity that according to all that I had read and be taught should not have even been able to enter church grounds let alone come to dominate them. I also knew that I was not alone that a Divine power was assisting me and communicating with me throughout the ordeal. The fight was by no means as certain or direct as you would see on TV or sometimes hear from a pulpit. As is so often true in life even if the end is certain because God is With You – that does not mean the resolution is going to be an easy matter or that you don’t have to work for it.

These entities I describe as evil. There is a deep hunger that can never be satisfied. It is a hunger for life that feeds on pain, fear, and suffering. In my mind the best way to describe such an overwheening desire and hunger for suffering and pain is evil. To me, living for the suffering of others or living in a way that causes the suffering of others is evil – or at the very least demonically insensitive.

One thing I have often mentioned is that most of the references to Satan in the English Old Testament are not a capital “S” Satan but a lower “s” satan. Satan means “enemy, adversary, prosecutor, etc.” There IS a big “S” Satan but most of the references to Satan that you read in the Old Testament are “enemies” of life and the Divine and not “The Devil” but devils, efreets, and other creatures just as most “angels” are a variety of creatures and not only the human shaped winged creatures we have been taught to imagine.

So, if you have trouble with “evil” maybe it is due to the over-used and sometimes comical simplicity of how good and evil are portrayed. I want to ensure that you understand my paradigm and definition.

Know that there is a Source of Life that I call God/the Divine/Source of Life/The Ground of All Being/etc. As I have said before I could care less what name you choose to give it if you are speaking of the Entity or Force that strengthens life, maintains or instigated the laws of physics and nature, and whose creative force initiated the Big Bang – quite possibly from the power of the Word. Then we are speaking of the same thing. I would include the Tao although those who follow Tao would say it has no intelligence, I have learned a lot about the Holy Spirit by studying understandings of the Tao. I suggest that perhaps Tao has an intelligence that you simply don’t recognize because it is not human.

The creatures that are evil have cut themselves off from this Source and therefore they are always “hungry” for survival. Since they have cut themselves off from the Source of life. But just as we need to convert food to energy to live they need energy to maintain their spiritual existence. They therefore have a parasitic existence by feeding off of (not the Source itself but by sucking the “life” out of,) the Source’s creatures that are still connected to the Divine Source – even if it is only residually so. They feed by creating “anti-life/anti-existence.” If truly living is having an abundant life they suck the energy of that life away by causing, fear, pain, suffering, and hatred. They do this not only just to survive but because of their jealousy and hatred of all things still connected to and created by the Source. They seem to feel they are exacting a kind of vengeance by twisting, warping, scarring, and destroying life and its quality.

We are born with our connection to the Divine but every decision we make that is “not God” [see also The Vital Truth of Life – ofNaturesGod.com ] moves us farther from the Source and closer to oblivion because we are not strong enough spiritual creatures to even survive in the “outer darkness” where the “evil” creatures were banished after they rebelled against the Divine.

So, that was all for anyone who have not been with us long enough to have “context.”

The battle between good and evil won a great victory for “evil” when the Western World became skewed and convinced in Scientism and the break between the spiritual and physical worlds as if they were different or even worse that there is NOTHING but the physical world. A lie that most of us have, at some level, been taught in America and Europe if we were born after 1900. It is a dead end that we are coming to that the Western World started down just over a hundred years ago. It is not the Western World it is a mutation of the Western World.

We are not physical beings but body/mind/soul creatures that are an organic/spiritual whole. The physical and spiritual are one but we have been raised in a world that directly cuts us off from the spiritual. We were conditioned by an infant “science” that could only focus on the physical and spread the belief of “radical materialism” that there IS no spiritual. This is really a fascinating development when testimony from every human society in every time and age has affirmed that there IS a spiritual world. Now medical science has come to realize that just as 50% of all cures with medicine are actually a “placebo” affect where the person heals themselves because they “believe” that they took a cure. So, they are beginning to understand that perhaps 50% or more of disease (read this as dis – ease) is actually caused by a dis-ease in the mental or spiritual whelm. Life is not physical or spiritual it is like science has discovered with the particle and wave physics (look it up with the particle/wave observer effect). They are both depending upon the observer but the physical reality is that existence is both.

Reality is a physical and spiritual reality that are not separate but a kind of unified field and we are not whole creatures unless we can perceive it as such. Because we have been formed in a world that told us all this is “just your imagination” or “that was a dream.” Then most of us have to do a great deal of work in order to learn to “see” because being raised in “radical materialism” we have to work at something that, when we are born, comes naturally to all of us.

I remember when my son first told me of “an invisible friend.” He was at an age where he could explain it and we could talk about it (about six or so.) I asked, “What did she look like?” He described a girl in a white shift that went down to her ankles. She had black hair beneath her shoulders and dark eyes.” I nodded an asked, “Did you feel scared or did she try to hurt you in any way.” “No she just surprised me and knocked me over. Actually, I don’t know if she knocked me over or if I fell backwards to keep from running into her.” I nodded again. “Yes, I have seen her too. I don’t believe that she means any harm she has just come to us because we are able to see her and most people have convinced themselves that what they are seeing isn’t real. So you need to be careful who you talk to about this because most people, even your mother’s family, are scared of this stuff and will insist it is your imagination because they don’t want to deal with it.”

I tried to raise all of my sons like that, however, my two oldest sons were the product of a marriage that was not a good match and my ex-wife worked very very hard at making sure they understood what she believed was “real” and what wasn’t. My sister maintained regular contact with her and by the time she was older I think she came around but she had rejected much of what we had encountered when married and convinced herself that it never happened. Likewise, when we ran out of gas on a Sunday and all of the gas stations were closed (yes it was a while ago and we were not near an interstate.) We prayed and drove an additional half hour on an empty tank. I suggest you not “test” that because “tests” where we don’t fully believe don’t do well. Somehow, my oldest son, convinced himself that we “had made that all up” for some reason. I asked him why we would lie to him like that? And he gave some vague answer that revealed he simply did not want to believe because belief held other ramifications for him he was not ready to deal with.

Be aware, don’t force this on people. Some cannot deal with it.

I had five parishioners/farmers standing around trying to get my tiller to work to get my garden ready. They all looked at it. We even took it apart. It seemed to be getting air, spark, and fuel so there was no reason why the simple engine didn’t work. But we had all tried it. One by one, farmers drove by and saw the pastor and others standing around the tiller and stopped to help. But none of us could get it to run. They all had to look for themselves and ensure that it had all three elements and that none of us could figure out why it wasn’t working. “Well,” I said. “We haven’t prayed over it and I’m the pastor so lets try that.” We joined hands and I prayed, “Lord, we have all tried to get this machine work and we cannot do it. We don’t see anything wrong with it but there is work to be done. Grant us your blessing and bring this machine to life so that I can get my garden ready for planting. In Christ’s name we pray.” We then tried the cord again and it started on the first pull. Eyebrows went up. There had been some chuckling when I suggested praying but, after all, I was the pastor so they did it. “Hmm” and “I’ll be damned, sorry pastor.” were the only comments I got, and then everyone left.

The physical and spiritual world are not separate. All are one. There is not a “spiritual reality” and a “physical reality” there is simply reality and the radical materialism found and propounded by modern scientism (the belief that science can find and define anything “real,”), and the emphasis on capitalistic consumerism, and communism which are all radical materialistic ways of understanding. Even our religions separate the material and spiritual as if “spiritual” is what you do at church and then you “put it away” to get on with life the other six days of the week. One advantage Catholicism can have is the availability of mass every day of the week in most places.

All of this is in the Bible because a unity and reality and omnipresence of the spiritual was assumed by everyone who wrote the Bible. As Jesus would say, “Let those who have eyes to see, let them see.” or “Let those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” Yet most of us have been taught to not see, and to not hear. We must unlearn, all that we have learned.

If this is very foreign to you you might try reading the Rhineland mystics like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, the Gospel of John, Theresa of Avila, or any of the multitude of Christian mystics. There are other mystical traditions but the Western mind is not conditioned for Eastern thinking and most I have encountered who try make mistakes because they are looking at them through Western Eyes. They don’t have the “full moon sight” as discussed by good Shotokan Karate instructors and other marital arts ways.* Irish and Celtic traditions are closer but many who claim to follow them do not fully attain a Celtic way of thinking. The best introduction in my view is looking at Celtic Christian mystics because they are speaking from a Western way of thinking with a Celtic mindset – only without the blocks of “modern” Westernism. There is no way for us to fully recover ancient Celtic or Nordic thought because it died out due to lack of written record. We may approach it but it will always be colored by the radically materialistic world that we were raised in. Please note, as you will if you begin reading the Rhineland and Spanish mystics of the Middle Ages (although some translations work hard at translating these ideas into a radical materialistic paradigm and are not very useful. English, unfortunately, is an extremely materialistic language and not very good at spiritual matters. If you can fully learn German it will help open your mind – especially when you start reading German philosophy where the physical and spiritual are much more “real” and enterwined. Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft are a basic concept and we only really have half of it in English/American Western Culture. Again, our Western Culture is not real, it has been warped by radical Materialism but it is through Western Mysticism that we can most quickly and easily move back into the spiritual realm.

Christian mystics, Rosicrusians, can sometimes help depending on the prejudices of those you encounter. I am told the books The Burning Bush; Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and the Holy Scriptures: Terms and Phrases by Edward Reaugh Smith can help those well steeped in Christian background find the truths that they can glean from scripture. While Rudof Steiner’s book can. also be good books for beginners. The great morass of spiritual and mystical writing which you can find in an occult bookstore is a good way to spin your wheels and get nowhere for most modern books are written by dabblers who don’t really seem to understand what they are talking about and you will get lost in a surface study and never find your way out of the wading pool of knowledge they place you in.

You are a child of God and God’s Spirit was implanted in you at Birth (or conception,) and if you need help all you have to do is sincerely ask and then pay attention! The answer may not always come in the form you are expecting.

More advanced readers can find practices in Wisdom of the Mystic Masters by Jospeh J. Weed. I caution you though there are not a lot of advanced readers because, in the words of Yoda (and nearly every other mystic master you may encounter,) you must first “unlearn all that you have learned.”

The illusion of multiplicity that the Unity is sometimes presented as and the illusion of Unity of this Multiplicity is another “wave/particle” dichotomy you must come to understand.

The impatience of our society has caused too many students I have spoken with try to rush on to studies they are not ready for and sometimes disaster and destruction in their life has resulted and ultimately they turn away or lose themselves in the oblivion of drink as they are unable to reconcile their worlds, and return (with a vengeance,) to the world and paradigm of radical materialism. They, in the language of Star Wars, were tempted by the Dark Side and, because they were not yet ready for the challenge, they failed.

Somewhere, somehow, you must begin to unlearn your “radical materialist” beliefs to remove the blinders you were almost certainly raised with. People who are born with a deep understanding of this unity of physical and spiritual (in our society,) usually are drugged so heavily to make them “normal” that their “spiritual sight” is completely blinded. I was fortunate in that I had the parents that I had and a sister who was more than a decade older and had “the sight,” as did my brothers but one lost himself in alcohol and another simply seems to have ignored it. Even so, it was not an effortless journey for me and others seem to have a much harder time. I have come to realize that my upbringing and the writings I was exposed to were unique, then again, progressing to reading the Lord of the Rings in Second Grade probably gave me a head start as well as wondering through the dusty books of the stacks at the university among books that had not been checked out in over 70 years that probably helped as well.

There is no physical world and a spiritual world. There is a physical/spiritual world that is all around us. There is no “supernatural” all is natural and part of the Design, it is supranatural to our understanding.

So, I wish you good growth as you unlearn all that you have learned. Grace and Peace to you.

Above I made a comment of martial arts and full moon sight. Here is a more detailed explanation to introduce the idea to you:

*The full moon sight is an example of ideas of East and West and the depth of ideas. Like the existence of cherry blossoms as a sign of the brief and fleeting beauty of life and the immanence of death, in Japanese stories one need only show or mention a cherry blossom and all of those ideas and understanding are brought to the fore but for the Western it is just a flower. The Full moon sight is a simple phrase that Westerners may have to spend months or even years studying to fully understand. he concept of the moon hold significance in various martial arts philosophies (so martial artists may have some concept of this, that was where I first learned of it in Shotokan Karate by Sensei Schmidt and his classes on Martial Arts and Martial Culture through the classes, and practices. Martial Arts that does not try to teach the philosophy is like a child building blocks but never learning engineering.

For instance, in Karate, there’s a stance called Hangetsu-dachi or Half-moon stance1. This stance is part of the Hangetsu Kata, which emphasizes breathing, focus, and the flow of movements that are both circular and powerful, much like the phases of the moon.

Moreover, martial arts philosophies, such as those expressed by Bruce Lee, often draw parallels between the adaptability and formlessness of water and the moon’s influence on i 2. Bruce Lee’s famous quote, “Be like water,” reflects the idea of being adaptable and resilient, qualities that are also enhanced by the calm and reflective nature of a full moon night.

The full moon can also symbolize the peak of one’s martial arts journey, where the practitioner has gathered knowledge and is now reflecting upon it, much like the moon reflects the sun’s light. It’s a time for introspection and understanding the depth of one’s skills and philosophy.

In traditional Chinese philosophy, which influences many martial arts, the moon’s phases are linked to the Yin and Yang, representing balance and harmony, essential principles in martial arts training and executio 3.

Overall, the full moon can be seen as a metaphor for the martial artist’s pursuit of balance, clarity, and the peak of their personal development. If you’re interested in exploring this topic further, I recommend reading about the philosophies of martial arts masters and how natural elements are incorporated into their teachings. All of this, and more, are encompassed in the phrase “full moon sight” but if you weren’t raised in the background of it then you have to relearn all of it before it can make complete sense to you. This is just a fragment of one example for you to consider.

Don’t Be Lawful Stupid – Wesley’s Rules for Life

May 5, 2024 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 0 Comments

It was Jesus that called upon all Christians to “be innocent as doves and wise as serpents.” Those in games and stories who equate the good guys with being “lawful stupid” don’t really understand good, (and having worked in the gaming industry,) they absolutely don’t understand evil. Equally so many Christians, who have fallen for the heresy of what I call “the Barney Gospel” (the idea that everything is about love and principles and violence is always wrong,) this is totally not Biblical, but the lies are regularly told from pulpits throughout Europe and America. [We will discuss Good and Evil and what I mean by those things in a future article.]

Despite the complete Biblical testimony which is balanced and designed for real life, ideologues from all sides have tried to make the Bible into something it is not. Humans like to follow rules and they want life simple. However, life is not simple, and neither is God. Jesus also said that “laws were made for man, man was not made for the law.” By this he was talking about his disciples being hungry and actually gathering food on the Sabbath when the Holy People said there was to be NO work done. Jesus acknowledged the law but said my disciples are hungry and they need to eat. The rules that the human church had made to interpret what the Bible said as “observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy” were not what God intended. He wanted people to take a break one day a week off from all their work (a radical idea in a world that had no days off except on the New and the Full moon.) God did not want people to go hungry when they were doing God’s work on the Sabbath. As a Pastor I regularly worked on the Sabbath, often more than 8 hours. In fact, some pastors have a problem in their 70-hour work weeks in that they don’t take time off for prayer, rest, and study. Burnout is a regular occurrence.

Many Christians have embraced the “innocent as doves” part but fail to be “wise as serpents.” In fact, some use the “innocent as doves” as an excuse to not have to act because it would stir up controversy. Remember, that “if you cannot say anything nice don’t say anything at all” is not a Christian way of life. It is a coward’s way that advises people to “keep your head down, don’t make waves.” Many call these people “sheeple.”

All over the world people attack the Bible for things either taken out of context or because of what Christians they knew have done to them that have nothing to do with authentic Christianity. They mistakenly use actions of Nominal Christians (people who wear a cross or call themselves Christians but do not know the first thing about being an authentic Christian,) as indicating what real Christians believe. Let me know in the comments if you have encountered this anywhere in your experience.

John Wesley was an Anglican Priest in the 18^th Century whose preaching fathered over 185 denominations from the African Methodist Episcopal to the Nazarene to the Global Methodist. He offered three rules to live a Christian Life – 1^st Do No Harm; 2^nd Do All the Good You Can; and 3^rd Attend to the Ordinances of the Church. Now language was used a bit different in the 18^th Century – the 1700s, even the late 1700s were a long time ago so lets talk about them.

The first two really aren’t very difficult at first glance. At least they aren’t difficult to explain – they require constant vigilance and effort to accomplish.

First, Do No Harm – God made the world and called it good. Then we began mucking it up. People like to blame bad things on God but most bad things can be traced back to people and their actions or inaction. Science is even identifying that cancer, hormonal imbalance, and infertility can often be placed at the door of industrialists in packaging, pharmaceuticals, and food production who use chemical ingredients not found in nature and that have not been fully tested for their effects on humans.

There is more to this rule than simply doing “good deeds” there is also the requirement to stand for what is right. That is what served to build Western Society in the way it grew. Repeatedly, men and women chose to stand for what was right against the general push of society.

As Saint Paul said, “He who knows what is right to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.” That, if we are honest with ourselves, is an indictment against all of us. We have all, at one time or another, remained silent when we should have spoken truth to power, or truth to massed ignorance.

These are not problems faced in most primitive societies. Rather, they seem to be problems that have to do with our ‘modern’ way of life. As corporations take cheaper shortcuts in order to make more money by using chemicals and artificial preservatives to give longer shelf-life to their already overly processed and artificial foods those chemicals, as well as the hormones and drugs they give to food animals, genetic modification of crops, and pesticides that carry through the crops and into our cereal boxes. It is in the ‘modern’ world that we find a proliferation of cancer, numerous digestion difficulties, clogged arteries, obesity, unexplained pain and bloating, and much much more.

If your father or mother has a heart attack or stroke you may well ask God why. However, perhaps you would be more accurate to blame the foods available and stresses of the corporate lifestyle than to set the blame at the foot of God. Imagine the way life would be if corporate leaders followed this first rule of the Christian life and really and truly “did no harm.”

When we were predominantly a Christian Country with Christian values there were numerous cases of businessmen who refused to take actions that would increase their profits because they were morally wrong. It is so bad today that universities have started demanding that business majors take an ethics class because we increasingly live in a world where no one knows right from wrong. They increasingly believe the lie that everything is relative when, amazingly across cultures, rules amazingly similar to the Ten Commandments have regularly cropped up. Either there is a universal idea of good, bad, loyalty, and betrayal, or we are hard-wired through evolution to believe these things because those who rejected them were banished from society and their genes couldn’t reproduce. Despite that, every generation has its narcissists and psychopaths. But America and the Globalists seem to want to make those traits into virtues.

Christianity used to hold capitalism in some degree of check. The government, corporations, and individuals knew that if they flagrantly defied Judeo-Christian principles the public would turn against them. Even those who denied Deity and Religion had ideas of right and wrong that were based on the Judeo-Christian principles. Indeed, without religion, (as we are finding out today in our society.) There is no check on the potential wickedness, selfishness, and greed of humanity.

Moses was drafted by God to be that check and to carry his message to the people as were and are the prophets. Christ was sent to embody that check upon our wickedness. Without religion the only moral imperative is survival of your own tribe and to hell with anyone else. This is how the world outside of the West operates. Western Civilization built on the foundations of Rome, Christendom, and the Norse/Germanic egalitarian society traditions where their philosophers and the Havamal came to conclusions that were very close to what is found in the Proverbs and Wisdom literature of the Bible. There was an understanding that in Christendom you could basically trust your fellow Christians (whether, Catholic, Amish, Protestant, Quaker or any of over a hundred other ways to follow Christ, to obey the rule of law, to not bear false witness, and to conduct themselves with honor and respect for life even in war.

“Do no harm” means to NOT remain silent when lies are being spread and injustice occurs. “Do no harm” is a rule calling us to dare to NOT look the other way when crime, extortion, or government or corporate power does wrong. “Do no harm” means NOT stepping over the one who is beaten and bleeding and NOT crossing over to the other side of the street as happened in the story of the Good Samaritan that Christ told. It was the Samaritan, the outcasts of Jewish society in the first century, who stopped and helped the man to an inn and paid for his room, bored, and medical care – even though he didn’t know him. While the “good” people looked the other way and didn’t want to get involved. “Do no harm” means acting sometimes even when we are scared to and fear ridicule, rejection, or legal consequences (such as hiding Jewish families in Nazi Germany.)

Indeed, the song Amazing Grace was written by a slave trader (obviously someone who prioritized money over what is right,) in celebration of his encounter with Christ and his salvation. When he became a Christian he gave up his life as a slaver and spearheaded the campaign in England to make the international slave trade a thing of the past. Not because of secular values but because of Christian values. [See: An Amazing Story – ofNaturesGod.com ] One man acting on principle made a difference in the world.

Indeed, you can trace most of the rights, benefits, and blessings of twentieth century Western Society can be traced back to Christianity, Western philosophers, Rome, or the Germanic peoples. It was people who took their own principles, refused to compromise and made a nuisance of themselves that changed the world. It starts with one voice raised and speaking the truth. We make a mistake when we tell ourselves the whole world feels as we do. This is the heritage of Western Civilization, Western Philosophy, and Christianity and the value it places on all people and life itself.

John Wesley’s second rule of life is Do All the Good You Can. Yet, we are not all wise. Indeed, for some Do All the Good You Can meant to bring the teachings of Western Civilization to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, they did not always respect local cultures. Over all, however, if you look at the nations that are doing the best economically, and have the highest standards of living, they are the countries that are still part of the British Commonwealth or who were linked to them historically. That is because colonizers not only brought domination, they also brought respect for law and order, libraries, hospitals, sanitation, and schools to places that didn’t have them.

Most people don’t know but one of the goals of communism was to attack colonialism and use guilt to get the West to abandon their colonies before the colony was ready to take on the responsibilities of a modern society. Then, in the resulting chaos, the Communists could step in and re-order the society. Despite Marx’ predictions Communism has only been able to dominate in societies that were per-industrial or behind on the industrial curve from the West. This is not the only thing Marx was wrong on. [See: Are We the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Or Did We Lose the Cold War? – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ; and Admitted Goals of Marxists in America – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ]

For some, deluded by the media and government misinformation, “doing good” was acting in ways that browbeat and isolated people who didn’t get vaccinated. The abandoned the principles of Liberty and America (if schools had taught even a modicum of understanding of Western Liberties – or even if they really believed “my body my choice” then they would have rejected these lies). But, as is so often the case, fear over-rode common sense and people acted in ways that were wholly against American Philosophy by marginalizing people who thought differently from them and who sought to exercise their rights over their own body. But even these natural rights are no longer understood in our society. [See also: Denial of Natural Laws and Natural Rights Endangers Our Survival – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ; We Now Live In A Totalitarian State – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ] (those who understood virology and still were thinking critically as opposed to those driven by irrational fear and ignorance.) Such people tell themselves they are good people but they are really self-interested people trying to cover their self-interest in a cloak of virtue. This is not the type of “doing good” that Wesley was speaking of. He was speaking of doing good in a rational and prayerful manner with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This brings us to Wesley’s Third Rule of Life – attend to the ordinances and disciplines of the Faith. Because you cannot have any knowledge of the outcome of your actions – but God does know and by faithfully attending to the spiritual disciplines you learn those ways (although honestly, many who claim to be Christian don’t – as Father Hoolighan told me once: “Mr. Business went to church. He never missed a Sunday. But Mr. Business went to Hell for what he did on Monday.”

Ordinances and disciplines of the faith include studying the Bible and religious teachings, attend worship services, pray and meditate on the scriptures, seek communion with God, and grow in the faith. [If you want to grow in the Faith I have found the writings of the Benedictine Order to be incredibly helpful in living a godly life. See AUSCULA – Listen With The Ears Of Your Heart – ofNaturesGod.com ] Also, included in this was helping the poor and the destitute as Christ commanded and sharing the good news that we can escape this treadmill and the hell of this world we have made.

Christianity has been dumped on a lot with half-truths and out and out lies a lot in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

However, the world was arguably a better place when the West identified as Christendom. As for the Crusades, that deserves its own article but let me make it clear that Europe and Christian countries had been invaded for almost 400 years by Islamic nations before the first Crusade was launched. That is not opinion it is historical fact! And the first crusade was launched not to conquer Islamic countries but it was launched to defend the Christian city of Byzantium that was under attack by Islamic armies. Spain was conquered by Islam as was all of Northern Africa and now they were battling to destroy the Roman Empire whose capital was in Byzantium. Persia/Iran and Afghanistan were not originally Islamic. They were conquered and converted. Charles Martel turned back invaders in France or all of Europe would have been conquered long before now. Rome had been sacked, Christian Russia and balkans were repeatedly invaded, and FINALLY, Christendom rallied to defend Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire. Christians rallied again when Vienna was beseiged by the armies of Islam when an army of Germans and Poles led by Jan and the Polish Winged Hussars saved Vienna and saved Europe from the armies of Islam again in the 1600s.

Today we allow those armies across our border without restraint while Islamic Imams preach that after centuries of trying to conquer the West Jihad has a new form. They should now infiltrate the West have more babies than Europeans and Americans and take over their countries from within. This is not my idea. This is what THEY have said in their temples and websites. Why is it that we repeatedly ignore what our enemies themselves say they are going to do to us. Are we that fragile that we cannnot understand there are people in the world that hate us. That didn’t go well with Hitler and ignoring their aggression and stated intent to destroy America and the West won’t go well today. You can hide you head in the sand but it won’t change the result – it just means that you won’t see the sword when it falls. That is not skepticism that is denial and cowardice.

After the Crusades it was Christians that spearheaded the war against slavery and the international slave trade, not Muslims, not Hindus, not Pagans, but Christians. It was not secular society it was Christian society. Secular society didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves and they have a long history of violating rights not preserving them. The most educated and advanced society in Europe in the 1930s was Germany and we all should know what happened there. While the Left is eager to distance themselves from the Nazis the more I study them the more clearly that they were, indeed, socialists. However, unlike the international socialist/communist movement they were nationalist socialists and after gaining power they broke the power of the right-wing conservative groups that didn’t toe the line of the national socialist worldview.

Oh, witches? Yeah, history has identified a few thousand witches killed by ‘the church’ which was horrible and wrong. But more witches were imprisoned and driven underground by secular doctors who accused them of practicing medicine without a license than were persecuted by the church and we don’t hear about that very much do we?

Its convenient for society not to mention the tens of thousands of Christians killed by pagans and the tens of thousands of Christians and Jews who are today still being killed in Islamic countries. If they mentioned it they may have to do something about it.

Somehow secular society, which has on its hands the 100 millions killed by Communists and the 6 million jews killed by Hitler. As I have said, Jews, like Christians, are still being killed in Islamic countries today. Israel is literally fighting for its right to exist. Palestinians don’t want a 2-state solution. “From the River to the Sea” means there will be no Jews left alive from the river to the sea, they are very clear about that in their own websites.

Selective morality is no morality at all.

Palestinians want to divest Jews of the lands of Israel and Judah that were theirs all the way back to the days of the Pharoah and the Babylonians. The Jews are the indigenous people of the area and the Palestinians the colonizers. They do not allow any Jews in Palestine but Muslims, Arab Bedouins, and more are allowed to serve as judges and in political office in Israel. Israel follows the values of a modern Western State including having one of the largest gay populations in Tel Aviv in the Middle East – one of the few places in the Middle East gays can live and not be killed.

But all of these facts are ignored or twisted by lying “fact-checkers” and other media magnates and their lackeys because they don’t fit the narrative. It’s easier to lie to people when you have stolen their education. [see also: Who Stole Your Education? Were You Indoctrinated in Ignorance? – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ]

The level of ignorance by the Left leaning political organizations of American campuses are disgusting to me. Universities are supposed to be centers of learning and not centers and instigators of anti-semitism. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised with all the Marxist professors because Marx was both of Jewish decent and flagrantly anti-Jewish…in fact Communism opposes all religions. I suppose because religious conflicts didn’t kill enough people to sate the blood-lust endemic to all communist states that have ever existed.

[But as I write this evidence is growing that many of those arrested in college demonstrations may not be students but agents of radical Islam and their sycophants.]

The ignorance of history is endemic in today’s society. As it has been for thousands of years. I guess that is why humans do the same things, and making the same mistakes, over and over again.

Fortunately, one of the ordinances of the church is communion. Communion should be taken only after confession and prayer. You don’t need to go through confession in the Catholic sense but before you become one with Christ through the ritual of Communion you must be sin free. For us humans that means we must repent all that we have done, and all that we have failed to do, that for us was sin. The glory of Communion is that when we repent and decide to turn from our failings that God throws those sins “as far as the East is from the West” and remembers them no more. While humans may nurse affronts and wrongs against us, God is able to completely forget transgressions that we confess and repent to God for.

I love Communion because I am a very imperfect servant of the Living God. I make mistakes regularly. Like King David I am not a paragon of virtue, however, I do love the Living God and my experiences and relationship with that mysterious indefinable but loving entity. Every time I take communion I know (from having read and taught the Bible,) that my sins are forgotten and as I take the elements into my body so Christ re-enters me in a special way and I am made new once again. A fresh start. Clean and new as Christ promised: “Behold, I make all things new.”

That is special and unique in human society. You cannot get that through the legal system. You cannot get it from Universities, and you sure as hell cannot get it from Communism and the Left who cancel, attack with law-fare, and imprison, people “at the drop of a hat,” as they say. But Christianity in each communion service offers a fresh start for all who legitimately repent of their sins. Maybe that is why secular society hates them so, because they know that no matter what they do they will never be free of their own past and Christians get fresh starts regularly.

Attend to the ordinances and disciplines of the Church and seek communion frequently. Especially if you are like me and need to make a fresh start often.

Whether you are Christian or not I suggest you consider at least the first two injunctions of 1^st Do no Harm and 2^nd Do all the good you can, as you journey through life and you will find that, ultimately, it makes a difference in society. Don’t be like those doomed to repeat history due to their own ignorance and stand up for truth wherever you may find yourselves. Don’t run from a “fight” but when truth is called for to oppose evil and falsehood stand in the gap. We don’t put our heads in the sand, or pretend not to see injustice. Draw sabers, ride to the sound of the guns, and cut through the lies to get to the truth, and…

[Edited version, the original was published on Sabersedge.Online another website of SabersEdge Foundation, an educational association that says the quiet parts outloud.]

Tested and Proven in Struggle As Children of the Living God

April 3, 2023 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 0 Comments

It is common verbiage of Christians to ask if someone is “saved” and it was an important question in a society founded on predominately Christian culture and values. But it doesn’t make sense to most people today. It is confusing language. Saved from what and for what? Here, in Romans 5:1-11, Paul refers to us being “reconciled by the blood of Christ” but he goes on to use stronger language and says that we are no longer “enemies of God.”

Romans 5:1-11 – Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This idea that we might be enemies of God will be surprising to some. “Surely,” they may say, “I am not an enemy of God. I’m basically a good person.” But it’s not so much a matter of good or bad but whose side are you on? Are you building a better world according to God’s plan or are you working against it?

To bring this into focus let me tell you a story.

Our society spreads the lie that we and the environment are like machines and so with certain actions, we can predict definite reactions. This is a lie. Neither we nor the environment is machines rather, we are organic and organisms have complex interactions that are hard to predict while machines are…well…mechanistic and much easier to predict.

As for the environment, we know that is not easy to predict because in the early 1970s, we were all taught in school that we were in an ice age and that pollution was going to cause an accelerated cooling that would destroy the world by the 1990s and cover all of North America and Europe in glaciers forcing the entire population of the US to move to Mexico and Europe to move to North Africa. Unless we acted immediately to do what society told us needed to be done – which was to stop killing trees. We needed to switch to plastic bags and cups instead of paper – thus giving our money to the petroleum industry so they could make us plastics. By the 1990s It was clear that no ice age was coming so they changed the emergency. About that time Al Gore began spreading the lie that global warming was going to destroy the world in about 20 years – that was over 30 years ago, but who is counting? We were told that an increase of a few degrees would melt the polar ice caps and flood all the coastal cities of the earth. We have already passed their initial period and the hypersensitive panicky people never bothered to notice that the temperature increase would put us back to the ambient temperature that existed in the year 1000 A.D. A time when humanity flourished and was not dying en masse. No the environment is not a machine nor is it easily predictable. Anyone who watches weather reports should know that. Predicting a week of weather can be hard enough without thinking about years from now. The world is an ecosystem made up of living organisms that must be treated with respect; a respect that the elite of our society does not have. They want us to trust them to fix the problems that they created. This is not only in the environment but in nearly every aspect of society and wholeness yet the experts have presided over the steady dissolution of a healthy environment. Now the plastic they encouraged us to use to “save the trees” (and make them richer) is polluting our oceans. Even those meaning to do well can be enemies of God and creation because they don’t know better and are not led by the Spirit of the Living God. They are strangers to the Divine Plan. And if you don’t know the plan how can you work with it?

In the same way that the world is organic and not a machine so are we. If we were machines we could replace our parts and continue functioning without a problem. But we are not and we cannot. For years I weighed over 350 pounds and had a 54-inch waist. I was too heavy and my back, my knees, and my feet always hurt. I never actually felt good during that time. My body was not made to carry that much weight and even stairs were difficult for me. I lost over a hundred pounds and now weigh closer to 220, but I was overweight for long enough that I gained a fatty liver as my body tried to purge my great mass of toxins by filtering them out. Eventually, when I caught Covid it seemed to attack my already weakened liver and my liver started to fail. If I was a machine we could replace it with another liver and I would be fine. However, I was told that even if my liver was functioning at only ten percent efficiency it would still work better than any transplant I might get. The liver I was born with was created for me and grew with me and would always work better than anyone that was added from another source – as long as it worked that is. Unfortunately, my fatty liver, abused by years of being overweight and eating over-processed foods, did not survive the assault of Covid on my body. It spiraled into oblivion and I was hospitalized more than 27 times in 2020 for my liver. In January 2021 it failed and I was rushed to the hospital from Lincoln to Kansas City in an ambulance.

Now, because I am not a machine but a complex organism, I have to take medicine every day so that my body doesn’t decide that my new liver is a foreign body that it must destroy. In other words, my body, trying to protect me from a foreign body would actually be killing me by attacking the liver that I need to live.

My own body can kill me by trying to save me. It would be my own worst enemy and it would just be doing what it thought was best for me. In the same way, we, a part of this world, can be enemies of God and attack the creation, harmony, and interaction of the Divine Order.

The cells of my body don’t know that if it attacks the liver it will die. My own body can become my enemy – although it doesn’t mean to be. It doesn’t know any better. In the same way, someone who is not “reconciled to God” can be an enemy of God without meaning to be. They can go about what they think is a good or even a compassionate act, and be working against the will of God. Perhaps this is what the Bible means when it says “There is a way that seems right to man, but it is a way that leads to death.” We don’t mean to be an enemies of God (unless we are a psychopath or a narcissistic sociopaths,) we just don’t know any better. Like my antibodies, we don’t know the plan and are acting against it to our own detriment.

As it happens, through meditation, my body has healed more than twice as fast as the doctors said I would need to recover. I believe this is because I can, in some rudimentary way, communicate with my body through meditation and prayer. Something has made a difference that the doctors weren’t expecting and I think that is what it is. In the same way, we need to be open to communication from our Creator, the Living Force if you will, and what it intends for us so that we can learn our natural place in the natural order of life.

The Greek word used by Paul here (that is translated as “reconciliation” is the same word that is used by Xenophon in the work Cryopaedia to signify “being brought into the royal court and introduced to the king.” This is the concept that Paul is using to communicate what happens when we are reconciled to the Living God through the cosmic sacrifice of Christ. Paul goes on to describe that this is necessary for us to live a life of “peace” with God. But not just peace, Paul who was a Jew, understood “peace” to be “shalom.”

This is another place where our language has a poor substitute for the original concept. Shalom is not just peace. Like so many words I have noticed translating from Hebrew, Greek, or even German into English the English language is a poor language for discussing the concepts of philosophy or theology. Ideas that other languages can encompass in one word we need a full paragraph or more to communicate the same idea in English. Our words are just too vague. Shalom, we translate as “peace” but Shalom is not just peace. It is a state of the mutual state of interdependence and universal flourishing in a universe in the truest meaning of the word. By that a mean a universe that is a “one-ness” of interconnected relationships where everything affects everything else in a ripple effect that ties us all together. Shalom describes a ripple effect that is mutually uplifting and enlightening throughout the Creation.

What Paul calls “reconciled to Christ” and what common vernacular just calls “saved” is a rich concept where we are introduced to the Living God (Divine Monarch of all existence,) so that It knows us and we know the Divine not as a stranger or as a slave but as a friend and ally. But more than that. We are taken into the family of the Living God and welcomed as children and heirs of the Divine promise and Realm. This is so complete that we are transformed from being an enemy of the “king” to being an ally and heir as a child of the Living God and by entering into the “kingdom of God” or Divine reality we enter into a state of mind where we can be led by the Divine Spirit and understand the mutual interdependence and flourishing and our place in it. A healthy relationship with, not only the Living God but with all of Creation.

This is a relationship with our environment that secular environmentalists can only dream of.

Through this reconciliation and we are brought into the “Divine Relationship” and a unity with the Living Force that created the Universe; we are united with the Creator of the universe and brought back into harmony with creation (or at least we have the door opened so that we can reach that point – if we so desire.) But, like everything else in life, it takes practice to live in harmony with the Divine and the Creation. We have become alienated from the natural order and, as Yoda says in the epic Star Wars, “You must unlearn what you have learned;” or as Paul says in his letters “you must be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Unfortunately, as Rev. John Wesley once said, most Christians sit on the threshold of the Kingdom of God and never fully enter into it (by which he meant they were reconciled but never fully entered into interaction with the Living God and Creation as we were designed to live). This is where so many Christian churches fail in my opinion. They act as if once you are saved it is all over. Instead, it is only the beginning of a new life in the presence of the Living God. You still need to learn to live in harmony with the Living Force. Only through being reconciled with the Living God can we ever truly reach our full potential in life and live in harmony with the rest of God’s creation. It’s like swimming against the current. Most people in life are swimming against the current but when you learn to walk in the Presence of the Spirit of God it’s like swimming with the natural currents of life instead of against it. Only then is the door open to us to truly be all that we can be.

This passage does not stop with being “saved” (the reconciliation that Paul speaks of.) No, this passage starts there. Reconciliation with the Creative Force that created the Universe and whose Will maintains the natural order is where we begin living the life we were intended to live. But we live in a world of challenges and trials because things are not what they were meant to be. Christianity describes this as a “fallen” world in which so many have turned away from the Divine Plan that the creation itself is “groaning” awaiting the “revelation of the children of the Living God” This passage goes on to describe that as well. But, it says, our challenges and trials (once we are reconciled to the Living God,) help us to become the people we were meant to be.

To use our bodies again for an analogy we are born with bodies that will become able to walk and even run. But we have to learn how. Our muscles must be strengthened and we must learn to coordinate our movements and learn to balance on our feet. If we never faced the trial of falling down and being unsteady, if we avoided this basic challenge and struggle of life that God intended, we would spend the rest of our life crawling (but even to crawl that was something we had to learn.) In the struggles we face in life, we learn how to do more. When we watch our children pull themselves up on furniture and move along it they use the furniture to aid their balance. We know, as parents, that if we don’t let them try and even fall sometimes, they will never learn to walk. Eventually, they try to take a few steps to move from the couch to the table. They always fall. They fall repeatedly and if we didn’t let them try and fall as parents we know that we would condemn them to crawl the rest of their life. In the same way we must learn to walk in life we also must learn to walk in the Holy Spirit. And that starts with reconciliation and living in the Spiritual Disciplines to improve and strengthen our relationship with the Living God.

The word Paul uses for the trials we face in life is thlipsis, a Greek word meaning ‘suffering, trials, affliction, hardships, trouble.’ We all face these things in life, and some people – those not strengthened by the Holy Spirit, may be broken. Once we are reconciled to the God of Nature/the Creator of Nature itself we are not broken by our trials but strengthened by the Spirit of the Living God through those very trials as part of the spiritual body of believers. Through this, Paul says, we have hope and our hope does not disappoint us.

These sufferings, trials, and afflictions that we face in life teach us how to maintain our equilibrium (or balance,) as we walk through life and adversity. Paul says these struggles build our endurance and help us to more clearly see God’s plan for our life and creation more. This endurance leads us to the character we need to become the people that God created us to be and to reach our full potential in life. This character, Paul says, then brings us back to the hope we had when we were brought into the royal court and introduced to the Divine Monarch of the Universe.

Here Paul uses another word, dokimus, it is a word that means that we are now “proven” and “tested.” Here Paul says that through our struggles we have “stood the test” and proven to be trustworthy, or of “sterling worth.” The words he uses indicate the process by which valuable metals are heated and their impurities are burned away to stand pure and of increased value. This is the process of making fine silver, gold, and even iron or steel. In each case, metallurgists test the metals for their impurities that degrade the metal. The heat of the fire burns those impurities away making a finer product. More beautiful gold or silver or weapons and armor that are stronger and more durable. Paul uses this word on purpose because he knows that the trials and struggles we face in life purify us just as the heat of fire purifies the metals. In so doing we become stronger. The impurities and distractions of life burn away and we see more clearly what is important. Only in this way can we be “proven” or “tested” for the life that is to come. This is how we become the person we were intended to be when the Living God formed us in our mother’s womb (as it says in the book of Isaiah.)

With greater endurance and character we become the tools for creating a better future in which we can boldly go where no civilization has gone before. Let’s look at that passage again:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace [shalom/harmony/universal flourishing] with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand [a cosmic sacrifice that wipes clean any wrongdoing or failure in our life and gives us a fresh start, if we but claim it we are “saved”]; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God [as Children of the Living God and Creator of the Universe]. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings [thlipsis, the Greek word meaning ‘suffering, trials, affliction, hardships, trouble.’], knowing that suffering [suffering, trials, affliction, hardship and troubles] produces endurance [testing, purification, and strength], and endurance produces character [we are now proven and purified by the fires of our struggle strengthening our character], and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit [our guide and spiritual source of renewal and strength] that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners [enemies of God working against the Divine Plan,] Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood [reconciled by being introduced and adopted in the Divine Court], will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life [through the death of Christ we were reunited with the Divine and now, finally, can truly start living]. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5:1-11 [Annotated with comment]

We become the tools for the Tikkun Olam. This is the Hebrew phrase that means the repair of the world. Reconciled, proven, and tested, where we now work side by side with the Creator to repair and heal not only the Creation but also our fellow Saints in the spiritual body of believers. In other words, we are no longer “enemies” of God as we go through this life but co-creators with the Living God working together to create a better future and bring things more into alignment with how God intended things to be. Every day we choose to be faithful, or not, to the Divine Plan. In every act, we choose to work with the Divine or against it. We must be faithful to the same Living Force that gave us life and created the very universe itself, no longer as enemies, but as companions and Children of the Living God, heirs to the Divine Realm fulfilling our potential and becoming all that we were created to be until the universe is restored to a state of Shalom and universal flourishing.

A Prophesy or Warning

November 16, 2022 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 2 Comments

I have hesitated to post this. For over a month every time I do Lectio Divina I have received the same message through the Biblical passages I have read and prayed over. Lectio has always had a special place for me and it is one of the spiritual disciplines I use to get closer to God. It became clear to me that I was getting a message for the world and not just one for my own edification. I tried to avoid it but it kept coming up over and over again. Every session of Lectio continued on this theme until I finally came to believe that until I write it out for others I will not be able to move on in my spiritual walk. I have found that God can even be more stubborn than I am…that is saying something.

I told my wife about what was happening during my Lectio. “I have tried different Bibles because I was beginning to think that mine was just opening up in the same areas because of the way the Bibles have worn. Although, I don’t like to dwell on these “judgment” passages.” But no matter which Bible I used, we have lots, and the results were the same. “Here,” my wife said, “use my Bible, I just bought it and it hasn’t been used yet.” I opened it up and read the passages that follow.

First, a word for those who don’t understand Lectio. I used to teach this in my churches and at religious retreats and still have the materials I wrote for the Order of St. Luke retreat we held at the Seminary.

The idea of Lectio is ancient and has roots in earliest Christianity and possibly even back to ancient Israel. Lectio is on a similar principle to the Benedictine saying of “Ora et Labora” that the monastic life was a balance of Prayer and Work. In Lectio, there are the words “Lectio et Actio” which means “Reading and Action.” As it was first explained to me I was told that even if you don’t believe God speaks to you, you are using the Bible to guide your life, which can’t be all bad. However, I have been doing Lectio since I was a teen and it has been spot on so many times that I cannot believe it is anything but a spiritual exercise and communication with the Divine.

In Lectio, you pray and center yourself in the presence of God. You ask for God’s guidance and open the Bible prayerfully and begin reading where your eyes first fall. You read until a passage “jumps out” at you. Or you can pick a passage that is important to you and use Lectio to deepen your understanding of scripture.

Step One – Lectio – This is the Initial Reading. What does this passage say to readers?

Step Two – Meditatio – This is the second reading of the same passage. What does this passage say to you? What parts or words stand out?

Step Three – Oratio – This is the third reading. What part stands out specifically? What is it saying to you in your own life and what would you say to God in response?

Step Four – Contemplatio – This is a deep meditation on the scripture you have read. What is God saying? Bring together all of the thoughts prior so that you let the passage speak to you through you mind, your heart, and a message for your life.

Step Four – Actio- What does this say about how I should be living my life? What am I to do?

Before, I received what I thought were messages for specific people rather than myself. This is the first time in Actio that I believed that I had a message for the world; a message I am not sure how to spread but I am posting it here and leaving the rest to God.

This is what the Divine Presence said to me during Lectio. And I feel I need to share it. I find it disturbing. I have had this affliction of the Lord speaking to me for most of my life and although I tried to run from him you cannot run from God. It is a difficult thing to do what God wants you to do and I have often found his speaking to me to be burdensome and have turned away from time to time. These gifts of knowledge and discernment, and others can be a trial. But the gift of preaching was always a pleasure. I passed this on to Father Dean before publishing this to get yet another opinion. He agreed this was not a message for me but for the nation, if not the world.

I firmly believe that God raised this nation up to be a city on a hill and a light to the nations and there are many today who seek to extinguish this light. But more than that this light was Given to the Western Nations. Through them, an unprecedented level of learning and wealth has come into the world. The principles of the United States Republic came from the teachings of Rome, and the best minds of Europe and America but it is fully in the best of the Western Tradition which is built on the idea that the World was created by the Divine Presence and therefore it has value and each individual is special as a child of the Living God. It seems the west has turned its back on its foundations and simply embraced materialism…how is that going for you?

I started SabersEdge.Online and ofNaturesGod.com because God has directed me to and he is more persistent than I am stubborn. I pray before each blog post and he often wakes me in the wee hours of the morning where we share Lectio Divina and prayer and then I write what he has put upon my heart.

He has impressed upon me that our society has turned against God and our heritage of the greatest culture in the world has been betrayed. God raised up a culture that wove the philosophy of Greece and Rome, the Wisdom of Egypt, and the Word of the Lord so tightly together that it is difficult to distinguish one from another. We are now in a culture war that is also a spiritual battle for the soul of a nation and a world.

We come to the Church because we cannot serve God alone. I believe that we need a worship home, spiritual disciplines, and community to sustain us. Just as the Army has not and never will be an “Army of One” it is a community with a purpose. I believe we all must join a community of likeminded people for as the founders of America said, “If we don’t hang together we will certainly hang separately.”

Here is the Word the Lord has shared with me concerning the Nations for today:

Thus says the LORD concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore the LORD does not accept them, now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

The LORD said to me: Do not pray for the welfare of this people. Although I hear their cry, and although they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I do not accept them; but by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence I consume them.

“Then I said: “Ah, LORD GOD! Here are the prophets saying to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place.’” And the LORD said to me: The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name though I did not send them, and who say, “Sword and famine shall not come to this land”: by sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. And the people to whom they prophesy shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and sword. There shall be no one to bury them – themselves, their wives, their sons, and their daughters. For I will pour out their wickedness upon them. You shall say to them this word: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter – my people – is struck down with a crushing blow, with a very grievous would. If I go into the field, look – those killed by the sword! And if I enter the city, look – those sick with famine! For both prophet and priest ply their trade throughout the land, and have no knowledge.”

Then my eyes fell to the reading at the beginning of Chapter 15 where it said:

“Then the LORD said to me; Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight, and let them go! And when they say to you, “Where shall we go?” you shall say to them. Thus says the LORD:

“Those destined for pestilence for pestilence, and those destined for the sword, to the sword; those destined for famine, to famine, and those destined for captivity, to captivity.

“And I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, says the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth to devour and destroy. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what King Manasseh son of Hezekiah of Judah did in Jerusalem…”

skip….[ Please understand. I cannot explain why the skips or how I know what I read was from God but I know just as I know the parts where he was speaking to us today rather than Jeremiah speaking to Judah. I is very hard to talk to someone about how God communicates directly to someone it has never happened to. However, once you admit it to others people will come to your privately and you will find it is much more common than our society beleives.]

“You have rejected me, says the LORD, you are going backward; so I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you – I am weary of relenting. I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land; I have bereaved them, I have destroyed my people; they did not turn from their ways. The widows became more numerous than the sand of the seas; I have brought against the mothers of youths a destroyer at noonday..”

then relevance continued at verse 13:

“Your wealth and your treasure I will give as plunder, without price, for all your sins, throughout all your territory. I will make you serve you enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

and continued here:

“Therefore thus says the LORD: If you turn back, I will take you back, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall serve as my mouth. It is they who will turn to you, not you who will turn to them. And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze, they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save and deliver you, says the LORD. I will deliver out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

Chapter 16:17 –

“For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight. And I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations….[17:3b] You wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your sin throughout all your territory. By your own act you shall lose the heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever.”

Verbum domini.

There was more. But it is not for me to share. The above is what is key and what I was told to share.

I give this to you because I feel I should. I don’t know why precisely. You are free to share this with any that you feel led to share it with but I ask you do so prayerfully and in consultation with God. If God shares a word with you for me please share it with me, in turn. You can write me at PO Box 433, Leavenworth, KS 66048 or at SabersEdge.Online@gmail.com

At a funeral recently, during the silence of Prayer, God said to me, “Do not hate people because they have been decieved.”

But at what point do those who are deceived become complicit in the destruction of God’s vision of justice and freedom that he raised up in this nation? This is something that I still struggle with and on this, God has remained silent.

AUSCULA – Listen With The Ears Of Your Heart

October 2, 2022 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 1 Comment

The core of spirituality lies in listening. Saint Benedict said that we need to learn to “Listen with the ears of our heart.” In other words, we need to listen to that inner voice of intuition through which the Divine Presence speaks to all of us. If we will but listen. Perhaps this is why the first word in the Rule of Saint Benedict is Auscula, listen.

The example of Jesus is that he frequently retired from the crowds and withdrew into the wilds to pray. And we know how Jesus prayed because he told his disciples not to pray with a multitude of words. So, for Jesus, as for so many great spiritual teachers, communication with God had more to do with listening than with talking. Yet for so many of us, our own spiritual life is very different.

Too often our prayers are not about listening, learning, and then acting upon what God has told us, rather they look more like a want list. This stripped down to its starkest terms can be viewed as similar to saying, “O.K. Lord, this is what I want you to do. This is your assignment list for the next month. Your “Honey-Do List” from me. I would like you to…” once we have run down our list of what we want God to do we say “Amen.” Then we get up and go on with our life. Rarely, if ever, do we continue to sit in an attitude of prayer and allow the Divine Presence to tell us, “O.K. I understand what you want from me. Now let me tell you what I would like you to change in your life. Also, have you noticed that your neighbor lost their spouse? Have you said anything to them or spent time with them? They are very lonely you know. And, I would like you to reconsider the way you treated that phone solicitor the other day – that is a very hard job you know and they are just trying to survive. And you were a bit short with the grocery checker at the supermarket. You do know that was her first day, right?”

John Wesley had several “methods” for helping him in his spiritual life. One of them was his review of his day in prayer at each day’s end. Before retiring this Anglican priest would ask that the Living God show him where he did well and what opportunities he had to minister to others and represent the Divine Creative Force of the Universe to people that he encountered throughout the day. He encouraged all those who followed him “the Methodists” to do the same. In this way, he would learn from God in his prayer time as to how he could improve in his own life.

Meditation is another way to listen, depending on how you practice it meditation may facilitate listening a great deal or at least a little. Lectio Divina is yet another. I have already talked a little about meditation in my blog and my videos and soon I will talk about Lectio Divina.

But another way I want to discuss listening is to be aware as we go through our life that the Divine Presence is always with us. We don’t have to be in “prayer time” to hear God speaking to us. If you look at the accounts of the prophets in the Bible, and often of prophets in other faiths, they could hear God speaking through what was happening in their life. This is not easy. It takes a great deal of practice and openness to the Divine Presence – an openness that becomes a habit and not just something that we do sometimes.

I placed a Holy Water font at the front and rear exit to the house so that when I leave I can use it, make the sign of the cross, and say a quick prayer asking the Divine to show me, as I am out in the world, show me what I can do for you to make the world and the lives of those around me better. It only takes a couple of seconds. But it reminds me to be aware of the Presence of the Divine and what it might be saying to me.

In the Old Testament, the prophets would say things like, God took me down to the Potter’s wheel and I watched and he told me that God was forming us like this pot. And the pot developed a blemish that started small and became larger until it was deformed and the potter broke down the pot and reformed it. So God can renew us. Or that the potter took the unformed clay from the mud of the earth and turned it into a beautiful finished product. The prophets sometimes had dramatic visions in their meditations and during prayer and other times they simply knew that God was delivering the message through what was happening around them.

I remember a woman whose husband had died. Her family was close to her and helped her through the immediate time of the funeral but when she was left alone she was faced with the dramatic silence of being alone. She went to sit at her husband’s grave side and when she left she was starting to drive out of the cemetery and had to pull over because she could not see through her tears. She cried out to God and said “I cannot do this alone!”

Her deepest desire was to get help and reassurance from God. She looked through the windshield and realized that a beautiful butterfly had come and landed upon the glass. It sat there with her for a while and then flew off. She understood the symbols of Christianity and knew that the butterfly (which had fought its way out of the chrysalis to leave behind its worm-ness and become a beautiful butterfly,) was a symbol of rebirth and the presence of the Holy Spirit. She told me that at that moment she realized God was saying to her that this was a new phase in her life but that God was with her and she didn’t have to do it alone.

Similarly, my mother, after my father died found herself sitting on my Dad’s side of the bed in a similar state of despair. She didn’t know how she could go on. She heard what she described as an audible voice that was so clear that she looked around the room and then perceived it was the voice of God. It said, “Do not be afraid. I am with you.”

My father would walk with me and would often see something that prompted him to quote proverbs. He would show me how squirrels were busy in the summer gathering food so that they could live through the winter months. He would often say, “Listen to the trees, Daniel. Cottonwoods will talk to your more than any other of God’s trees. Hear the wind rustling the leaves? God can speak to us through that if we learn to listen.” I asked him once, as he sat on the bank of the lake with his fishing pole if he was catching any fish. “No,” he answered. “Sometimes, I just put the pole in the water because people leave you alone if they think you’re fishing. There’s no bait on the hook. It gives me time to think and talk to God. Come sit with me awhile and watch the way the light sparkles upon the water.”

If we truly wish to grow as faithful, spiritual beings we must learn to take action and live out our faith truly. To live out our faith we must be formed and study what it means to walk the spiritual path. I feel that the best means of study is Wisdom which has been proven by longevity and some of the oldest spiritual writings that have prevailed in the formation of human beings are the easiest to obtain. For over three thousand years portions of the Bible have guided people in their spiritual life and they are easy to find to guide us.

Faith is nothing if it does not include action in every aspect of our lives. If our faith is not revealed in virtually everything that we do and all of our interactions then it is not real. Instead of being an integral part of us, it is just a jacket that we wear when we desire to be seen as “spiritual.” This is a superficial trap. To truly be spiritual we must, as Saint Benedict said, listen with the ears of our hearts and the more we listen the more we will hear.

Action without meditation and divine guidance, as we are told in the Bible, makes us like a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. We will always lose our way on our own if we don’t listen to that inner voice. If we don’t spend a substantial amount of our spiritual life reading, listening, and being aware of all that is around us then we will not realize what God is trying to say to us and we will truly be alone. The Divine Presence is always with us. We just need to learn to listen. The beginning of Psalm 19 tells us:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
Psalm 19: 1-4

This holds true as much with our relationship with the Divine as it does with our relationships with people. My Dad used to say, “God gave you two eyes, two ears, but only one mouth. There is a message in that. You should watch and listen four times as much as you talk.”

Called To Serve

September 15, 2022 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 0 Comments

Today I want to talk about a story that is near and dear to my heart. The story of the Maid or Orleans, Joan of Arc. Her story shows us how one person, in response to God’s call can change the world.

When I was young I saw Joan of Arc on TV (with Ingrid Bergman – 1948; later I saw Leelie Sobieski in the same roll 2001; and one of my favorite actresses Mila Jovovich as The Messenger.) In this story a teenage girl believed she was visited by a Divine visitation and called upon to save France from British domination. For an uneducated teen in the later Middle Ages to come forward (there was also a prophecy of a Maid from Orleans saving France that she seemed to be unaware of,) impress herself on the nobility of the time, and lead the armies of France to break the hold of the British on the Kingdom of France makes me think she really was answering God’s call.

There are many stories of miracles surrounding her story. As expected, scholars who weren’t there, doubt anything that does not match their experience. But in my life, I have experienced miracles and many of the ones surrounding Joan of Arc have the ring of truth. At least in my own experience and study of Divine revelation and experience and relationship with the Divine. I also think the results speak for themselves.

God has a long history of using the weak and the outcast to humble the mighty.

The mighty have a long history of killing (martyring) God’s messengers. Note, they don’t stop God’s plan but they still respond petulantly and violently to being humbled. Some may think that death is a severe price to pay but taken on its whole it is not really. You see, we all will die. However, most of us will not die for a cause that changes history, and the promise of eternal reward in heaven for a death that we all must suffer – whether we serve God or not – is not that high of a price to pay. IMHO. One thing that is true for all of us is that none of us will get out of this life alive. However, it is sad when people die without ever having truly lived.

I think Joan of Arc truly lived a full life – even if it was crammed into a few years. She died at the age of 19 but we still talk about her almost a thousand years later. And, as one of my pastors used to say whenever someone did a good deed, “There is another star for your Crown of Righteousness.” (Perhaps I will talk about the verse that comment comes from some day.)

That is what happened to Saint Joan of Arc. The elite she humbled responded violently and viciously to being humbled. The British captured her and tried her for witchcraft, and if you read accounts of the trial, it seems that these “scholars” of the church at her trial were unable to trick this ignorant girl into incriminating herself. Nevertheless, she was ultimately burned as a relapsed heretic and was accused by the British at the time of being a witch. Later, the Pope declared her a Saint (and being declared a Saint is never something that is done on a whim – despite some popular opinions to the contrary – there is a long detailed process of verification before anyone is declared a Saint.) Anyone who has studied the lives of the Saints will find that nearly all of them are paragons of faith and virtue and we could do worse than to use them as examples for our own lives.

The movies are interesting, and the biographies vary in their quality, but I like studying how things actually were compared to movie presentations. I enjoy movies for their own sake as entertainment even though they all are subject to errors and interpretation.

One thing I have turned to many times in my life is the Prayer of Saint Joan. It reminds me that even when I face trials they are nothing compared to what she faced and yet she remained true to her Divine call and Mission. A mission we all have if we but find it, and that will probably not demand as much from us as it did from the Maid of Orleans.

St. Joan of Arc – In the face of your enemies, in the face of harassment, ridicule, and doubt, you held firm in your faith. Even in your abandonment, alone and without friends, you held firm in your faith. Even as you faced your own mortality, you held firm in your faith. I pray that I may be as bold in my faith as you, St. Joan. I ask that you ride alongside me in my own battles. Help me be mindful that what is worthwhile can be won when I persist. Help me believe in my ability to act well and wisely, Amen.
PraYER TO SAINT JOAN OF ARC

It reminds me of another one who spoke of holding true to a cause, although he was not a Saint, by any means:

Without A Vision The People Perish

August 5, 2022 / Rivan_Elan aka Pastor Daniel / 1 Comment

I think that an ancient proverb from the Middle East recorded in Proverbs 29:18a is a proverb for our time. Everywhere we look there appears to be chaos and we have been cut off from our roots. Without knowledge of where we came from, we have trouble telling where we are and thence don’t know where we are going. In other words without a Vision the people perish.

It is probable that this means without knowledge of the Divine Will and communication with the Ground of All Being we become cut off from who we are and who we were created to be. We flail about unable to find a course to our life, a purpose in this chaos, or meaning in … well, anything.

Religion has a bad rap these days but I find it interesting that “Religio” (the root from which the word has grown) means “to bind us back.” To bind us back to our roots. This is essential because without its roots a tree doesn’t grow. Similarly if we are unaware of our own roots and foundational beliefs we become lost and confused. Religion, properly conceived should bind us back to the Source of All Life/The Ground of Being/Das Ding An Sich – or The Thing in Itself or as the book says: I am that I am. We humans become too hung up on names and outer trappings like ritual, names of the Divine, and even each others skin color and tend to overlook deeper connection and meaning. The very connection and meaning that religion is intended to help us create with the Creator (or Creatrix if you prefer).

I have a theory about religions and you will find it on the Page: Religions. but I think at their source there is a reality that each religion stumbles toward and that is the Ground of Being. Our language is inadequate to describe it, as anyone who has had a “religious experience” and had contact with the Divine Presence knows very well. The Bible and other sacred works are our groping efforts to describe the indescribable. But it is exactly this experience of the Divine and our listening to its promptings (which the Bible says is partially reflected in our conscience,) that we find purpose and meaning. I will post guidance on centering and listening to this guidance in the days to come but I firmly believe that we are cut off from who we are and who we were meant to be.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. – Jeremiah 1:5

By forgetting who we are and losing contact with the one who knit us together from the very first we are unable to find our path. Everywhere today we see the consequences of people, society, and religious institutions who have been cut off from their roots. They have lost their vision. We have lost the knowledge of who we are and are disconnected from the Source of Being. It is not surprising that so many don’t know who they are or why they are here. And then, depression sets in.

In my sermons I often said, “Children of the Living God remember who you are and who your father is! And then act like you remember.”

It is by remembering who we are we are guided back into a relationship with our Source and Ground of Being. It is where we find the purpose and vision to weather the trials of life and adversity and make a difference.

As I have said before, spiritual reality is a matter of poetry and song. It is emotion and feeling and not simply a mind thing but a heart thing. Here is what I was trying to say as this song sings praise to “the God of his heart.” I believe we will all find the Divine in the core of our hearts, if we center and look for it. (This one’s for you Chuck):

In thi,s the author praises the “God of His Heart” that Being which he hadthe deep and abidingexperiencef. Listen to what the author was trying to communicate of his experience that was too deep for explanation and could only be expressed in song. I know some have had troubles with people who are in churches and some doctrines. If you are one I ask you to set that aside and listen with the ears of your heart to what is being said.

Category: Vision

We Are Too Often Blind; You Must Unlearn All That You Have Learned

Don’t Be Lawful Stupid – Wesley’s Rules for Life

Tested and Proven in Struggle As Children of the Living God

A Prophesy or Warning

AUSCULA – Listen With The Ears Of Your Heart

Called To Serve

Without A Vision The People Perish

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