I understand that many passages in scriptures have the power of sounding like a succinct rallying call, one that "cuts to the chase" and inspires people. However, you have to be very cautious about any particular scripture passage being your "motto," your "vow" (remember, Jesus most strongly warned against making any vows before God, ANY, no matter how worthy appearing) or having a passage be like your Cliff Notes (study summary) that gives you a "bottom line" for your spiritual life. The reason I am writing this is that I know many are fascinated with much of what Paul wrote, particularly Ephesians 6:10-18. (I'm not going to type it out because if you look it up yourself you really should read the whole short chapter 6 to have it in context).
Here's the problem. Whenever someone extracts one saying from the Bible, one is in danger of doing a transplant from the common understanding of the Bible authors and participants to the people of the time (which is what God intended) to reworking those quotes into a modern context.
First, a silly example for a smile. Suppose the Bible wrote about whales traveling in pods and how important it is to be like whales and travel in pods. Some modern people might think, "Whoa! The Bible is saying to always carry your IPods!" Yeah, I'm being silly but I want you to right up front understand what I mean about transplanting a valid scripture, but said in a certain understanding (that all observant Jews who were the early Christians, especially Paul, well understood about God and human life) into a modern cultural set of blinders that has trimmed away much of the richness of understanding of what they wrote about and lived within.
OK, so here is the problem with passages like Ephesians 6:10-18 taken out of context. Paul is writing about the need to "arm" one's self in spiritual combat, against the dark forces that rule earth. He is of course entirely correct. However, people of his time (and your own Christian and Jewish ancestors, and the Muslims too) would have understood this the way it was intended, and not the way moderns would view it. You see, moderns want "bad guys," especially "bad guy aliens" or "good guy superheroes." So many moderns see Eph 6:10-18 as validation that evil spirits walk the earth and manipulate people. Often moderns then view this as permission to shun or harm those they think are "on the other side." I mean, war has two sides, right? Combat is "against" someone, right?
OK, now, slam on the brakes. Who wrote this scripture? Where was the war at? How did Paul "know" there's a battle with dark spirits on one side against the good guys?
Well, here's the bombshell of understanding you have all forgotten. Paul was on "both sides." Paul was a Jew, a highly observant Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Ta da! When you forget that you have total misunderstanding of what Paul means as combat. Romans had enslaved the Jews. Paul "belonged" to both sides, as he was both a highly religious Jew (the slave) and a highly placed and favored Roman citizen being prepared for high secular office (the slave owner).
Remember, Jesus was crucified because he would not lead an armed rebellion (using his miracles as firepower) on behalf of the Jews against the Romans. Jesus was not crucified because he did not "wrestle....against principalities,...rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places..." This is why Paul emphasizes WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD (Eph 6:12).
PAUL IS POUNDING IT INTO PEOPLE'S HEADS THAT NO FLESH AND BLOOD IS "THE ENEMY" BECAUSE DUE TO THAT ERROR JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED.
Notice too that when he writes about battling principalities, powers, rules of darkness and spiritual darkness and spiritual wickedness, he is speaking of battling SIN and FAITHLESSNESS. He is not speaking of battling either evil "spirits" in the way that people think of them today NOR is he speaking of declaring a group of people (like Romans, the hot enemy at the time) as being either demonic or flesh and blood enemies. No one is more qualified to role model and speak of that than PAUL, who was both well placed Roman citizen AND Jewish/now Christian oppressed.
Paul did not stop being Roman and renounce it for Christianity. Duh, read the scripture, as he invoked his Roman rights to trial throughout his ministry and died in Rome (via the means of death given to Romans, the sword, not crucifixion, like Peter suffered.) Paul did not say, "Hey, crucify me just like the Lord was." He took advantage of being Roman elite right to the end and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, because he stayed alive longer to get the Gospel spread through his Evangelizing without being hypocritical.
So people well understood Paul's words in Ephesians and elsewhere as the battle being against the dark forces of SINS and UNBELIEF, not against evil "spirits" the way moderns think of them, or one group of humans against the other. Paul was against the bad spirituality (to use the modern terms) that is festering and spread in high places and principalities (places of authority, both secular and religious) via sin, hypocrisy and disbelief. Paul did not go to Rome to fight "against" them in "combat" to "defeat them." Paul went, like Peter, to Rome to defeat spiritual darkness (paganism and corruption) and CONVERT THEM. Spiritual combat aims at conversion, NOT fighting imaginary sources of power. No imagination is needed about the source of darkness if you read the scriptures and I don't mean just Satan. So I now need to explain the second part of this confusion, and let's use another example.
Let's use HIV/Aids disease as an example. No, I'm not causing grief by using this example but rather it is a perfect example to study. Sometime in the past century, scientists have a good idea but of course will never know exactly, the virus jumped from simian species like chimps onto a single human being. It then modified and changed as it adjusted to being in a human body and became the disease we are all too familiar with today.
So my first point is that Adam and Eve were the origin of the first sin, which was disobedience to God per temptation by Satan. Adam and Eve were tempted to "know as much as God," so to speak, so they ate the apple so they could know what evil was like. (There was nothing in the apple by the way. It was the sheer act of disobedience to the all good and loving God that opened their eyes to evil. I mean, if they had kicked God in the shins they would have also gotten the same info, the same 411, about good and evil because just being mean and disobedient to God is the initiation into sin and evil).
Now, once HIV/Aids jumped the one time to a human, it does not need to rejump from ape to human with each person who is infected, I mean, duh, right? Same with the flu or common cold. It does not need to be reinvented each time someone gets sick with cold or flu, right? Likewise is spiritual darkness. Satan only had to tempt Eve and her take it to Adam, and Satan can sit back in his lawn chair and watch. So when Satan is "at work" or there is spiritual darkness, it is not Satan running around reinventing temptation with each generation of each human being. Like Aids, it is out there and people spread it through contact with each other.
To misunderstand Ephesians 6 is like what happened with demonizing specific groups who suffer from HIV/Aids. Every type of person gets HIV/Aids, yet certain groups (like gay men) became demonized as the "causes." When one views Ephesians 6 in the wrong way, one is tempted to do likewise, to nominate yourself as the "clean" and "clear" "spirit warrior," and to thus thrust on the "other side" the "dark principalities" role and that is totally false to what Paul said AND LIVED.
Paul, following in Jesus' path, was condemning the unseen darkness of sin, disbelief, hypocrisy, spiritual slavery and corruption, while at the same time dampening down the tendencies to want flesh and blood warfare which he (as a persecutor) had also succumbed to, which is to kill the "enemy" in bodily form.
So Paul's inspiring words must be correctly understood as being against the dark invisible powers of sin, hypocrisy, corruption and disbelief, and not against invisible cartoon absurd imaginary "spirits" like so many modern dopes believe.
How to understand spiritual combat? Read about sin in the Bible. Start with these passages BY PAUL in 2 Timothy.
2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
2:5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
2:9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. (Paul is saying he is treated like a bad guy, even put into prison, but despite what is done to him God's truth cannot be imprisoned).
2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.
2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I put 2:26 in bold italics because that's the heart of it. Satan has set the original snare and that is the combat, to EVADE THAT SNARE. Satan has no need to run around inventing new snares and sending evil spirits to go after each person in each generation, duh. That is the combat, to recover themselves (pull themselves out of the snare that, like slavery, humans are born into through sin and continual temptation.)
3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
(Notice that Paul is referring to scriptures still being needed, and that is OLD TESTAMENT scriptures, as New Testament didn't exist yet as Paul wrote this).
3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
What is the remedy, the "armor," the "combat" that Paul orders, to deal with the worsening evil of humans over time (3:13)? Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament for wisdom, and as the training path toward perfected humans into obedient goodness to God. PAUL ENDORSES NO OTHER APPROACH OR WAY.
4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
You have to read page after page after page of what Paul truly instructs before one can enjoy, be inspired by, understand, and "follow" the much loved punch lines of Eph 6:10-18.
Here is further reading to understand the dark power is sin and disobedience, not imaginary sci fi aliens or evil spirits etc.
Separates from God Isa 59:2
Its wages: death Rom 6:23
Begets moral cowardice Josh 7:11-13
Hardens the heart Heb 3:13
Is very destructive Ps 34:21
Caused Israel's downfall 2 Chr 28:22-23
Causes misery Job 15:20
Brings reproach Prov 14:34
Enslaves the will 2 Tim 3:13
Excludes from heaven 1 Cor 6:9, 10
The forgiven warned "not to continue in sin" John 5:14, John 8:11, Rom 6:12
All have sinned Rom 3:23
All have gone astray Isa 53:6
To claim sinlessness is to lie Prov 20:9, 1 John 1:8-10
Jesus alone without sin 1 Pet 2:21-22
Through Satan's deception and subtlety Gen 3:1-13, 2 Cor 11:3
In the heart Matt 15:18, 19
Through lust of flesh James 1:13-15
Against the Holy Ghost Matt 12:31-32
Is destructive Prov 11:3
Is inexcusable John 15:22
Man obdurate in sin Amos 4:6-11
Showing posts with label fighting sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fighting sin. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Cleansing the palete, writing and thoughts
The palate is a part of the mouth. The term "cleansing the palate" is often used when referring to wine or food tasters, who eat something bland to remove the taste of the previously sampled item before assessing the taste of the next item. In other words, one removes the after taste so that it does not infiltrate the next bite or sip. Meals of several courses are often planned with that in mind, if not in actually providing an intermediary palate cleanser, then at least planning the order of courses so that a previous dish or beverage does not overpower the next one or ruin the flavor through unplanned combination.
The societal lack of "cleansing the palate" is one of the greatest obstacles to achieving, or even commencing, sanctity today. For example, one of my least favorite activities is to have my mind set on writing a blog posting that glorifies God, but I am interrupted with the need to blog about the dirtier works and sins of humans. However, because my heart, mind and spirit are always turned toward God, even as my fingers have to type less pleasant (but vital soul saving) blog entries, I do not have to "cleanse the palate" of my spirit and my mind, since my heart is always turned to God. White bread is often used as a gourmet palate cleanser, and so it does not seem a coincidence that one can think of God, through Jesus Christ, the living bread and staff of life, and remain cleansed in one's heart, mind and soul even when one must discuss distasteful things, such as sin and depravity in modern society, and the consequences of hell fire for all eternity.
However, since the vast majority of humans are not sanctified to God, but I do believe that many wish to be (however, they confuse it with the egocentric objective of being "very spiritual"), you need to realize that society and its dirt are a barrier to sanctification, as it requires extraordinary effort these days to "cleanse one's palate."
Let me introduce an old time admonishment, that is slang and said casually. In the old days when someone said something dirty (as in pornographic), profane (toward God), or cussed, often the listener would reply to that person, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?!"
This was in more innocent and good hearted days when often that admonishment was actually enough to make the hardened bad talker stop and be somewhat abashed. That's like back in the days when moms weren't competing to be as dirty as the celebrities, and when their children upheld their mother's level of decency. So yes, a simple expression like that caused many a cusser or dirty talker to stop in his tracks and blush. He would genuinely be ashamed to think of what had come out of his mouth, and that yes, that is the mouth that would kiss his mom on the cheek. That admonishment was a verbal palate cleanser.
Today it is just about impossible to cleanse the palate, spiritually. I don't mean to cleanse the palate to do some high and mighty worshipping or great spiritual work. I mean to go back to the normal state that one should be in nearly one hundred percent of the time! One should be living a life of having a cleansed palate, but one that is interrupted on occasion by the realities of life.
I'm not speaking of cussing here. I am speaking of living constantly within the increasing dirtiness of the world.
Here is an example of those who have to struggle because of the dirt of the world. It used to be that if you were a law enforcement official, it would be a very rare event when one had to investigate child pornography, child solicitation or child rape. The average cop might encounter one horrific example in his or her entire career! And that event would, of course, be a very low point and one that he or she not only had to prevent from depressing them, but also did not bring the sadness of it home to their family.
Now look at what the world, through human beings own choices, has brought to this example. Entire police departments have to assign full time officers to trolling through the filth of the Internet, identifying and capturing pedophiles and other child abusers. These officers have to look at more in FIVE MINUTES than most cops had to look at in their entire career. It is impossible for law enforcement people to ever cleanse their palates or have a cleansed palate, because they are standing within the tidal wave of filth.
I worry about professionals, and amateurs, who do this type of work with sincere hearts because I know that despite what they may say, it changes them forever and is a soul robbing experience. People often bandy about praying to the Archangel Michael, but this is an example where I recommend that those who must, because of their vocation, wade in such palate destroying filth, that they look at Michael as a role model, as the archangel who faces the worst of what Satan is, and yet remains totally pure and sanctified to God. Think of his role modeling as a palate cleanser. Also, do not be an egomaniac who thinks you are not affected and can do this for years at a time. Wading in filth, even for a "noble purpose" is a barrier to sanctity and your process of sanctification. Why? Because it takes up space in your mind and your heart, even as you combat it, that ought to be set only on the pure sights of God. You are having to "kiss God's cheek" with that mouth.
Isaiah 6:5-7
Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."
Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets who prophesied the Messiah, Jesus Christ, knew that even as pure as he was, he could not be living as a human among humans with filthy lips without being at risk once he faces God, so upon the sight of God he is terrified of this knowledge. God respects this wisdom exhibited by Isaiah and thus the seraphim cleanses Isaiah's lips with burning coals from God's own altar. This is why you can look to God and his angels, such as Michael, with confidence and trust if you, through no fault of your own, are put within the filth of the times.
But what about the vast majority of people who wallow in and produce the filth? What about the many mothers today who purchase "booty enhancing" jeans and who have "tramp stamps" tattooed over their rear ends? Why should their children worry about with what lips they kiss such mothers?
It is impossible to have the television on, or the radio, to keep one company, as I used to like to do, without now being subjected to a "Viva Viagra" commercial about how long a man can have an erection, or some thinly veiled reference to oral sex. How many of you turn off the TV or the radio the instant that such filth comes on? Not so many I reckon. How many of you hold stock in those companies, or work behind the scenes on that type of marketing, all day every day? How can one be sanctified, have a cleansed palate for God in your average day, when you are in the tidal wave, either willingly or unwillingly, of filth?
Young people, this is one of the things I am trying to help you to understand, a time that was gone before you were born, but has become worse each year, as you've been growing up and have become young adults. Do not worry that I am being a fun destroying prude, LOL. If you think that, reread the example I have used, which is of the average police officer who maybe once in his entire career encountered terrible child pornographic filth or solicitation. Do not believe the liars of today who say it "always was there but just hidden." I mean, duh, how dumb do they think you are? Cell phones, computers, message boards and the Internet did not exist. Thus there was no way to cultivate the occasional pervert's taste into violent addictive action as there is today. Today there is a field full of weeds, rather than a field of wheat that would have the occasional, easily identified and controlled weed. You have been given, deliberately, or at the very least because they have been asleep at the wheel, a society of a destroyed cleansed palate, by your parents and their parents.
The sickening spread and virtual explosion of violence against even the tiniest infants (and even pet animals) and the total perversion of the beauty of intimacy, including sex, is happening because people are not living the way they used to be, which was with mental and spiritual cleansed palates... ones that they knew had to be restored to that normalcy of the cleansed palate, in between encounters with that which is unclean.
But to be unclean and uncleansed is the "new normal." That is the shocking and still, for me, who have seen this with my own eyes, the most difficult thing to comprehend how society has imploded and rotted from within, while calling that being "liberated." I don't think the police who spend their entire shifts hunting the worst baby raping perverts that have ever existed among humans feel particularly "liberated." I don't feel liberated when I sit down to blog and someone on the radio makes an oral sex allusion. Do you feel liberated, really? Young people, you certainly should not feel liberated. You have been chained in a meat market, out of reach of the place of the cleansed palate. Thus you cannot enjoy as you should the goodness of intimacy, of passion, or handle appropriately confrontations with filth, when they occur. Genuine liberation is to be able to operate from a clean base of stability, and thus you have a wide range of appropriate responses.
So if you are interested in being sanctified, as every human being should, which means to put God and his will first and foremost in your life, so that you can reap all the goodness of life as it exists now and have hope for the eternal bliss, you must be aware of the tide that you take for granted as "normal" that brings unclean and unease into your spirits and hearts, hindering sanctification. Shut it down, the unclean, wherever and whenever it is in your reach. Don't "put up with it" (like letting the TV drone on with filth) because as I said, as the holy man Isaiah knew, it besmirches even the unwilling.
What can you do on a practical level? First of all, this is one reason why frequent daily prayer is so helpful. People have started thinking too much of prayer as "asking God for something." Realize, instead, and remember that prayer is the ultimate palate cleanser. Prayer neutralizes filth because it removes you from it as you realign and reset your focus on what is true and good. So prayer is not just a tool for asking God for help. Prayer is the ultimate palate cleanser.
Then, as I have alluded to above, make your own space as clean as possible. For example, I stop visiting news web sites that when I click on them I immediately have some gigantic picture of fat boobs stuffed in my virtual face. Don't give them your clicks and don't let them plant those images with you. So clean up your space even though it's a daily battle, but think of weeding out the field (not taking weed, LOL). If you pull out each one as it pops up, eventually they diminish.
Also, be a trend setter and set your own example. Like I said I am no dreary prude. But there is a heck of a difference between a sharp dressed young man or woman and one who feels that I and the world need to see their tramp stamp or booty crack. There is a quiet young man who sometimes comes in for pizza where I regularly lunch and I totally love his clothes. He is so hip and yet modest. If you cultivate your own cleansed palate of taste in your own dignity and hipness, then your posse and others will follow you. You will be helping everyone with their own hip sanctification! Seriously, you do not want to be the one, like so many girls today, who wants to show off her stuff to every guy, hoping that guy goes home and hates his wife or girlfriend for not being as "hot" as her. Trust me, she'll be "hot" alright, in a way she eternally regrets. Again, this is not because God doesn't like showing off the human body. It's because God knows the hearts of all and their every thought, and he knows when people dress slutty so that they can harm the custody of the eyes and hearts, and thus sanctity and happiness, of others. Marketing people and greedy merchants better wise up to that too. How many erotic commercials fuel child molester fantasies? A lot of them and I know because as I said, I know what crime and society was like "before" and "after."
I hope, as always, that you are having a good day and that you have found this to be helpful.
The societal lack of "cleansing the palate" is one of the greatest obstacles to achieving, or even commencing, sanctity today. For example, one of my least favorite activities is to have my mind set on writing a blog posting that glorifies God, but I am interrupted with the need to blog about the dirtier works and sins of humans. However, because my heart, mind and spirit are always turned toward God, even as my fingers have to type less pleasant (but vital soul saving) blog entries, I do not have to "cleanse the palate" of my spirit and my mind, since my heart is always turned to God. White bread is often used as a gourmet palate cleanser, and so it does not seem a coincidence that one can think of God, through Jesus Christ, the living bread and staff of life, and remain cleansed in one's heart, mind and soul even when one must discuss distasteful things, such as sin and depravity in modern society, and the consequences of hell fire for all eternity.
However, since the vast majority of humans are not sanctified to God, but I do believe that many wish to be (however, they confuse it with the egocentric objective of being "very spiritual"), you need to realize that society and its dirt are a barrier to sanctification, as it requires extraordinary effort these days to "cleanse one's palate."
Let me introduce an old time admonishment, that is slang and said casually. In the old days when someone said something dirty (as in pornographic), profane (toward God), or cussed, often the listener would reply to that person, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?!"
This was in more innocent and good hearted days when often that admonishment was actually enough to make the hardened bad talker stop and be somewhat abashed. That's like back in the days when moms weren't competing to be as dirty as the celebrities, and when their children upheld their mother's level of decency. So yes, a simple expression like that caused many a cusser or dirty talker to stop in his tracks and blush. He would genuinely be ashamed to think of what had come out of his mouth, and that yes, that is the mouth that would kiss his mom on the cheek. That admonishment was a verbal palate cleanser.
Today it is just about impossible to cleanse the palate, spiritually. I don't mean to cleanse the palate to do some high and mighty worshipping or great spiritual work. I mean to go back to the normal state that one should be in nearly one hundred percent of the time! One should be living a life of having a cleansed palate, but one that is interrupted on occasion by the realities of life.
I'm not speaking of cussing here. I am speaking of living constantly within the increasing dirtiness of the world.
Here is an example of those who have to struggle because of the dirt of the world. It used to be that if you were a law enforcement official, it would be a very rare event when one had to investigate child pornography, child solicitation or child rape. The average cop might encounter one horrific example in his or her entire career! And that event would, of course, be a very low point and one that he or she not only had to prevent from depressing them, but also did not bring the sadness of it home to their family.
Now look at what the world, through human beings own choices, has brought to this example. Entire police departments have to assign full time officers to trolling through the filth of the Internet, identifying and capturing pedophiles and other child abusers. These officers have to look at more in FIVE MINUTES than most cops had to look at in their entire career. It is impossible for law enforcement people to ever cleanse their palates or have a cleansed palate, because they are standing within the tidal wave of filth.
I worry about professionals, and amateurs, who do this type of work with sincere hearts because I know that despite what they may say, it changes them forever and is a soul robbing experience. People often bandy about praying to the Archangel Michael, but this is an example where I recommend that those who must, because of their vocation, wade in such palate destroying filth, that they look at Michael as a role model, as the archangel who faces the worst of what Satan is, and yet remains totally pure and sanctified to God. Think of his role modeling as a palate cleanser. Also, do not be an egomaniac who thinks you are not affected and can do this for years at a time. Wading in filth, even for a "noble purpose" is a barrier to sanctity and your process of sanctification. Why? Because it takes up space in your mind and your heart, even as you combat it, that ought to be set only on the pure sights of God. You are having to "kiss God's cheek" with that mouth.
Isaiah 6:5-7
Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
He touched my mouth with it. "See," he said, "now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."
Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets who prophesied the Messiah, Jesus Christ, knew that even as pure as he was, he could not be living as a human among humans with filthy lips without being at risk once he faces God, so upon the sight of God he is terrified of this knowledge. God respects this wisdom exhibited by Isaiah and thus the seraphim cleanses Isaiah's lips with burning coals from God's own altar. This is why you can look to God and his angels, such as Michael, with confidence and trust if you, through no fault of your own, are put within the filth of the times.
But what about the vast majority of people who wallow in and produce the filth? What about the many mothers today who purchase "booty enhancing" jeans and who have "tramp stamps" tattooed over their rear ends? Why should their children worry about with what lips they kiss such mothers?
It is impossible to have the television on, or the radio, to keep one company, as I used to like to do, without now being subjected to a "Viva Viagra" commercial about how long a man can have an erection, or some thinly veiled reference to oral sex. How many of you turn off the TV or the radio the instant that such filth comes on? Not so many I reckon. How many of you hold stock in those companies, or work behind the scenes on that type of marketing, all day every day? How can one be sanctified, have a cleansed palate for God in your average day, when you are in the tidal wave, either willingly or unwillingly, of filth?
Young people, this is one of the things I am trying to help you to understand, a time that was gone before you were born, but has become worse each year, as you've been growing up and have become young adults. Do not worry that I am being a fun destroying prude, LOL. If you think that, reread the example I have used, which is of the average police officer who maybe once in his entire career encountered terrible child pornographic filth or solicitation. Do not believe the liars of today who say it "always was there but just hidden." I mean, duh, how dumb do they think you are? Cell phones, computers, message boards and the Internet did not exist. Thus there was no way to cultivate the occasional pervert's taste into violent addictive action as there is today. Today there is a field full of weeds, rather than a field of wheat that would have the occasional, easily identified and controlled weed. You have been given, deliberately, or at the very least because they have been asleep at the wheel, a society of a destroyed cleansed palate, by your parents and their parents.
The sickening spread and virtual explosion of violence against even the tiniest infants (and even pet animals) and the total perversion of the beauty of intimacy, including sex, is happening because people are not living the way they used to be, which was with mental and spiritual cleansed palates... ones that they knew had to be restored to that normalcy of the cleansed palate, in between encounters with that which is unclean.
But to be unclean and uncleansed is the "new normal." That is the shocking and still, for me, who have seen this with my own eyes, the most difficult thing to comprehend how society has imploded and rotted from within, while calling that being "liberated." I don't think the police who spend their entire shifts hunting the worst baby raping perverts that have ever existed among humans feel particularly "liberated." I don't feel liberated when I sit down to blog and someone on the radio makes an oral sex allusion. Do you feel liberated, really? Young people, you certainly should not feel liberated. You have been chained in a meat market, out of reach of the place of the cleansed palate. Thus you cannot enjoy as you should the goodness of intimacy, of passion, or handle appropriately confrontations with filth, when they occur. Genuine liberation is to be able to operate from a clean base of stability, and thus you have a wide range of appropriate responses.
So if you are interested in being sanctified, as every human being should, which means to put God and his will first and foremost in your life, so that you can reap all the goodness of life as it exists now and have hope for the eternal bliss, you must be aware of the tide that you take for granted as "normal" that brings unclean and unease into your spirits and hearts, hindering sanctification. Shut it down, the unclean, wherever and whenever it is in your reach. Don't "put up with it" (like letting the TV drone on with filth) because as I said, as the holy man Isaiah knew, it besmirches even the unwilling.
What can you do on a practical level? First of all, this is one reason why frequent daily prayer is so helpful. People have started thinking too much of prayer as "asking God for something." Realize, instead, and remember that prayer is the ultimate palate cleanser. Prayer neutralizes filth because it removes you from it as you realign and reset your focus on what is true and good. So prayer is not just a tool for asking God for help. Prayer is the ultimate palate cleanser.
Then, as I have alluded to above, make your own space as clean as possible. For example, I stop visiting news web sites that when I click on them I immediately have some gigantic picture of fat boobs stuffed in my virtual face. Don't give them your clicks and don't let them plant those images with you. So clean up your space even though it's a daily battle, but think of weeding out the field (not taking weed, LOL). If you pull out each one as it pops up, eventually they diminish.
Also, be a trend setter and set your own example. Like I said I am no dreary prude. But there is a heck of a difference between a sharp dressed young man or woman and one who feels that I and the world need to see their tramp stamp or booty crack. There is a quiet young man who sometimes comes in for pizza where I regularly lunch and I totally love his clothes. He is so hip and yet modest. If you cultivate your own cleansed palate of taste in your own dignity and hipness, then your posse and others will follow you. You will be helping everyone with their own hip sanctification! Seriously, you do not want to be the one, like so many girls today, who wants to show off her stuff to every guy, hoping that guy goes home and hates his wife or girlfriend for not being as "hot" as her. Trust me, she'll be "hot" alright, in a way she eternally regrets. Again, this is not because God doesn't like showing off the human body. It's because God knows the hearts of all and their every thought, and he knows when people dress slutty so that they can harm the custody of the eyes and hearts, and thus sanctity and happiness, of others. Marketing people and greedy merchants better wise up to that too. How many erotic commercials fuel child molester fantasies? A lot of them and I know because as I said, I know what crime and society was like "before" and "after."
I hope, as always, that you are having a good day and that you have found this to be helpful.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI reflections about Lent
Do read the Holy Father's thoughts about Lent, and also his mention of the apparition of Mary at Lourdes. He always touches on exactly the right points and perspectives.
http://www.zenit.org/article-21735?l=english
snip
The Holy Father said that it's also a time to take up one's cross and follow Christ. The cross, he added, is the "opportunity to follow Christ and in this way acquire strength in the battle against sin and evil."
The Pontiff concluded: "Entering into Lent therefore means renewing the personal and communal decision to face evil together with Christ. The way of the cross is in fact the only way that leads to the victory of love over hate, of sharing over egoism, of peace over violence.
"Seen in this way, Lent is truly an occasion for determined ascetic and spiritual commitment founded upon the grace of Christ."
http://www.zenit.org/article-21735?l=english
snip
The Holy Father said that it's also a time to take up one's cross and follow Christ. The cross, he added, is the "opportunity to follow Christ and in this way acquire strength in the battle against sin and evil."
The Pontiff concluded: "Entering into Lent therefore means renewing the personal and communal decision to face evil together with Christ. The way of the cross is in fact the only way that leads to the victory of love over hate, of sharing over egoism, of peace over violence.
"Seen in this way, Lent is truly an occasion for determined ascetic and spiritual commitment founded upon the grace of Christ."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
