2020 changed everything for me and for all of us. I think I managed the survival mode pretty well but the psychological trauma was real. For those of us who worked in churches it was extreme. Wounds were willfully opened. They are and were deep and spread open for continuing salt and fire. The insidious nature of the fear disease still persists.

2021 has provided some reprieve from the constant antagonistic climate. I am personally experiencing a complex and prolonged grief cycle. There is no returning to normal, whatever that was. The future is filled with uncertainty. I am certain of the loss. I have faith in the future. The internal trauma response continues in me. I am not afraid. I am angry and judgmental more often than not. Both states are toxic.

I am grateful to see each day as it is. Arianna Huffington spoke on a Cisco meeting today and said “gratitude and anxiety can’t exist at the same time.”
I think that is right. We must choose gratitude and the anxiety will dissipate. Faith teaches me to thank God for every moment. Faith is the antidote and vaccine for fear.

What do you have faith in, specifically? Therein lies the root of our hope or our fear. I choose constantly. This is life. This is just me.

A man without faith is a man without hope. This explains the mental illness of so many humanists and social “science” academics. They cannot thrive because the consume the wrong fuel for thought.

Hope is not a management strategy but it is required along side it’s trinity companions.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

If private groups of “hackers” can compromise critical supply chain civilian infrastructure so easily… with these repeated attacks, let’s discuss and consider what an openly adversarial nation state modern enemy can achieve with time and resources.
If there is no fear of reprisal and poorly secured and managed attack surfaces the attacks will continue. Where the attacks are rewarded, the attackers will be encouraged.
A funded and motivated REAL enemy will exploit and do so much more. These examples of incompetent tech leadership require consequences and investment immediately and ongoing.
The expertise and solutions are available now. It is already too late. The #idiotsincharge will continue to thrive as long as we the people allow it to be so.

To show respect and deference for things and people that matter. To understand and recognize the sacrifices and devotion. To humble our self freely and intentionally and seek to remember. This is the challenge of Memorial Day in my mind.

Lock the entire country down for over a year, scaring the bejesus out of the entire population. Keep them from grieving deaths, going to church work and school … even doctors, and seeing family who are “protected” somehow even when sick and in the hospital and then start a national movement to defund/dismantle the police, while opening borders to drugs, all manner of immigrants and who knows what else, all while installing a puppet/useless figurehead as the “President” —- crime goes up exponentially, children and families are torn apart, deaths and mental health are out of control…. Illegal gun violence is exploding…

This is the greater good?!

What did you think would happen? A lot of us have been screaming that these policies are shameful a and ridiculous until we can’t scream anymore. Your “good intentions” and snowflake lunacy chickens are coming home to roost. This mess is not on us. I blame you #idiotsincharge

What is the plan of the Dems in power… nationally, state, locally? Blame Trump? Spend another Couple trillion $, save the 🌎 with a green new deal? Take away guns from the only people left who will have power to defend themselves? VillifyThe law abiding,
Rule of law, cling to our guns and religion deplorables. Yeah! Good luck with that.

#HumpdayRant

“Americans used to take pride in their work and the fact that they had a job. Now it seems they take pride in how much they can get without earning it.“
#foundonFB and spot on.

There has always been a mix. The cultural pendulum has swung way too far to the latter. All of the experts agree. Work. Make work your favorite. Build a life that doesn’t require a vacation. This concept it really hard for the entitled victimization crew out there. Personally, I think it starts with embracing every challenge and job as an opportunity to learn along with a context for relationships to others. When work is viewed as an unbearable burden we break.

Life is my work. Be. Love. Serve. Repeat.

The inner turmoil of an unfulfilled artist is impossible to quantify. The art sets fire to its creator with both its presence and its absence. The spark burns brightly but it is the discipline and community which sustain the artist and the creator and protects against the cold and the explosions. Sparks can only be managed and channeled. The brighter and more powerful sparks require extraordinary communities and discipline to avoid disaster.

If you have been vaccinated and the vaccines work… and they do…. YOU have zero reason to require another person to be vaccinated. You are free to wear your mask and remain socially distant.

All medical procedures are personal and private. Vaccine “papers” requirements are unconstitutional and should be made illegal.
Do not ask another person if they have been vaccinated. That is an invasion of privacy.

If you ask me an inappropriate and personal question, I’ll respond with something from an evolving list of questions for character contact context tracking.

Contact Character Tracing 101 —> E.g. Have you been around any unsavory people for more than 15 minutes? Are you wearing underwear? Is it clean? Recent Sexual history? Do you tithe and attend a church and do you have proof? what is your BMI? How much do you weigh? did you shower today? Are you taking medication for anxiety, depression? Last time you washed your hands? How much money do you make? Are you under investigation for… ? Please provide proof for verification.

This approach to living will get ugly quick. I’d love to hear suggestions for optional questions.

Turn on those pipelines. Let the fuel flow. Energy makes the world move. Reality check.
It’s too late of course. Prices up. Inflation up. Taxes up. Who is in charge? Credit goes where credit is due.

Conflicting and confusing guidance from the CDC, NIH, FDA, etc is not even remotely new. National guidelines/guidance and has always been designed to inform Doctors and healthcare professionals. It is for experts and professionals.

What is new in 2020+ is that we the people stopped listening to medical experts 1x1. This is dumb.

Why do we now choose to rely almost solely on guidance from politicians and administrative bureaucrats filtered through the insane lenses of the media? This will always be a bad idea.

Only professionals are truly qualified to judge the competency of the public health orgs and their guidelines.

Call your MD and ask real questions. Take charge of your own health. Ignore the talking heads.

The establishment empire is too often viewed as the enemy in the scripts we read. The change agents’ motives are not so pure as they pretend. That is reality. Each of us has a role in the epics we find ourselves in.

​What stage are we playing?

Children and immature minds embrace emotion without reason. Adulting is hard.
When unreasonable emotionally driven people define the definition of reasonable without challenge, terrible consequences follow.

#idiotsincharge regularly couch unreasonable criticism within their moral certainty and utopian idealism. Real leadership defines terms and conditions and lays out logical positions for discussion and possible action.

Doing nothing is almost always an option. Just because you want something to change doesn’t mean it is necessary. Deciding if it the expectation and associated decision is reasonable restarts the whole adulting cycle.

There is a lot of animosity in the minds of a lot of parents who are watching school systems and government fail our children and create totally unnecessary stress and deep distrust for competency of so many teachers and administrators.

We see the futile policies, the bias and political decisons and the stark differences between results and messaging. Families are still being destroyed by the bureaucrats in the name of the utopian greater good.

We see these decisions. We won’t forget. The excuses are no longer working. I see students in open states being given better opportunities, better education, and better examples for living. It is shameful that Virginia is not leading… not in safety. Not in liberty. Not in education. Not at all.

Lord Northam and his blackface clan have planted the seeds of incompetence and dependence and now the system is proceeding to fail over and over and over. The animosity is here. It is seething just below the surface with so many. Even the looney liberals can only say “they are doing the best they can” so many times before it is recognized as a trope and useless drivel.

The conservative views and approach to liberty and empowerment with protest in the face of power… in word and deed is superior. We must use the system and act swiftly to save a generation of students and ourselves with them.

Results are required. Lack of results require changes. Status quo is not the way forward. Too much has changed. Too much is at stake. It always was.

If you think that making music is primarily about the right notes and right rhythms, you and I on different planets. Right notes and rhythms are maybe 25% of the experience. Maybe less. Sharing the soul of the performer, and the composer with form, style, choice and color across time and place is everything. Notes and rhythms are like bricks and boards. They are necessary to build a house, but useless to actually live in until they are assembled. #ChoirIsLife

To change things, solve the problem in front of you. Directly in front of you, in your house, neighborhood, church, with friends and family. Don’t complain about it. Start solving now. One little decision at a time. One person at a time. Local. Local. Local. Disassociate from chronic problem makers in favor of solvers.
Big Bang - One size fits all solutions do not exist.

How do you get what you want? First you must decide what you want. If you truly want to change something, decide and get to work.

What problem are you solving? Exactly. Specifically. Locally.

FYI- in a free society you don’t get to tell/command others’ priorities. Everyone has their own problems. If your solution is to tell others what to do, you are exercising control and likely tyranny. That is simple reality for all of us.

If you don’t have s solution to a problem, get to work. Educate yourself. Live your life. No one is coming to save you or do your work for you.

Finding a team and a cohort, a brotherhood is a difficult things in a world full of problems. Everyone has to play their part.

CYA medicine is not science.

CDC guidelines are just that. Now that govt is regularly enshrining pseudoscience unspecific drivel into law, the number of criminals will radically increase. Overreach requires protest

The pandemic response was never meant to get US to zero risk. This bar is ridiculous. The guidelines and practical implications of restrictions must be balanced and they are not. I long ago projected a protracted useless extension of governing regulation due to the #idiotsincharge. Sadly I was and am correct.

Rip off the mask of politico-medical Utopianism now. Reject these insane autocratic recurring control cycles.

Get your vaccine after consulting with your doctor. Ignore the media and political messaging and presidential posturing.

Educate yourself and live your life. Most importantly, enable your children to live their lives. They are not at a material risk. In reality, they never were. Sing. Play. Hug. Socialize.

Do not wait for permission to get on with life. You do NOT need permission to celebrate Independence Day or any other day.

The same mentality that drives a victimization culture also empowers the “protected class”perspective of so many who feel morally and even intellectually superior because of their role. Both seek attention and reparations and entitlements.

It is hard to come to grips that we are all equal and results are based on luck, advantages, and good decisions most of all. People are equal. Ideas are not. Results are not the same and life is not fair. It never was and never will be. Educate yourself. Love your life. Do your job. Be. Love. Serve. Repeat. Expecting reverence is a deadly trap.

The only opinions that really matter are those with standing and agency. In a court, it is the jury not the judge. In a governing body for our form of representative democracy , it is the representative not the individual citizen. In the executive branches it is the officer and the elected decision maker (governor) who is accountable.

Individuals can and should say what they want. Influence matters. In the end, it is the vote, not the noise that tells the truth and determines outcomes. The protests and riots and television/news broadcasts are informational NOT deliberative.

Discerning intent is complex and virtually impossible in so many cases. The mob mentality being supported by fear and inflamed rhetoric is troubling and damaging to all of US.

Educate yourself. Live your life. If and when you sit on the jury, or in the leadership seat, do your duty and decide to deliberate well. Our world 🌎 literally depends on it all too often these days.

How difficult is it to be socially acceptable and socially accepted in your own family and house? The answer is much more difficult than most are willing to accept and is most often related to power respect and deference.

The power of a congregation of souls to exclude is infinite. The clique-tribe fit in mindset is toxic. The desire to please and be accepted is hard wired into our grid but it too often destroys the wiring over time when falsehood and selfishness become obvious.

Inclusion requires intent and action. Accepting differences, risks, and never ending challenges and journeying on regardless is what living is all about.

Gun violence is a national crisis. Law abiding gun owning citizens are not the perpetrators. We are not even major contributors. We are simply the only viable target available to a ruling political class bent on virtue signaling over virtue.
To fight an epidemic you must target and eradicate the source first and foremost. Any solution must be rooted in policing criminals, transforming mental health solutions/care, and teaching firearm safety.
This futile exercise in creating more and more laws to restrict those who already follow the law is deplorable and misguided.

It will have no material effect on the epidemic. The parallels to lockdown mentality and subservient citizens is unavoidable. The only option available is a “we will not comply” movement. This will create more law breakers not less. The #idiotsincharge are playing more and more games with the politics of power and control, manipulating emotions of the weak.

When they fail to affect the gun violence with their new lockdown logic(as they did with The 2020+ lockdowns) what will we do and say? That is the question.

When the stone was rolled away, the mask was ripped off of the facade that death is the end. The fear is overcome and faith is revealed in the flesh. Man’s vicious pursuit of relevance and virtue at the expense of the virtuous is proven false and empty.

There is nothing rational and reasonable about our risen Lord. The resurrection is miraculous just as our salvation. The Age of Enlightenment has no answer for a resurrection because Jesus is both God and Man. We see dimly through our human eyes, but today we see enough. We celebrate eternal life given to each of us specific, beloved, first born children of Christ. Hallelujah. He is risen. He is risen indeed. In the resurrection, the promise is fulfilled.

This cactus “crown of thorns” was given to me by dear friends years many ago. We aren’t good at plants in our house but it always seems to survive. Some periods have more thorns than others. Some times have more flowers than others. Today is Easter and we celebrate the risen Lord. Earthly death awaits all of us. In Christ we live forever. Death, o death, where is thy sting? It is not here in this period and time.

Palm Sunday reminds me that Triumphal entry celebrations can turn to vicious ego and power driven public executions in a matter of days. Who leads the charge? It is almost always the pious posing puritan pseudo protectors of the greater good.