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There are two sorts of struggling churches.

Some are churches that didn’t thrive in the first place. These churches never surpassed the church planting or house church stage which means their active member base remained fewer than thirty to fifty members. Most start-up churches fail.

There are also churches that had once thrived, still have buildings, endowments and assets, but are now positioned in an urban cultural context that has left them with far fewer members than in their glory days.

I want to talk about the second sort of church, the once-successful-but-now-struggling congregation with a building, endowment, small congregation, great pastor and mostly elderly congregants. Specifically, I want to explore how some of these evangelical churches in Paris can thrive as well as what’s keeping them down. I’ll do this in bullet points because it organizes my disparate thoughts. I confess that, once again, I’m thinking and learning as I type. Please forgive me.

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1. Paris has lost about a third of the population in the last century. Furthermore, this population has changed: there are far fewer large families, extended families and children; far more singles, living-togethers, divorcees and sole parents. Since most churches are multigenerational, these changes have devastated the base from which a church would normally draw. Churches, then, must begin any foray into increasing their cultural impact by squarely facing these demographic facts, strategizing around these facts and setting realistic goals.
2. In traditional evangelical churches, the average age of congregants has risen at the same rate that the overall percentage of families with children declined. Today’s mostly elderly congregants often find it more satisfying to chat among their kind, but if a church is serious about revitalization, growth and revival, these older folk need to get off their saggy duffs and do more. Wisdom is inherent in age, or should be. Silverbacks in the church are responsible for leading it forward, not the youth or young and middle-aged families.
3. The community from which evangelicals draw is demographically more diverse than it used to be. I’m restraining myself from going on a riff on this, but suffice it to say that diverse groups require a cultural touchstone. This touchstone is the shared and uniform way of believing and behaving specific to a general culture or nation. Without such a cultural touchstone, centrifugal forces will pull apart not only the culture, but the church.
4. In other words, diversity is predicated on homogeneity. The homogeneous core of a place which is the actual “stuff” that makes a culture cohere, is the touchstone described above. It’s quite easy, unfortunately, to destroy that core. Secularism has done this. So has immigration. Both secularism and immigration cause the homogeneous remnant to hunker down in ways both invisible and silent. From the standpoint of the church, this is very wrong. Terribly. Unless the base gets up and asserts itself as France’s Christians, immigrants will devolve to secularism and secularists will continue to destroy the integrating, homogeneous forces that sustain a culture which are a shared language, shared religion and shared identity. There MUST be something for seculars and immigrants to integrate into. Something solid. The base of the core is the Christian religion. This is, in large part, the responsibility of the church.
5. Although the larger culture naturally creates centrifugal, anti-homogenizing forces, individuals within the culture naturally create like-minded, homogenized subcultures — as individuals socialize, they press toward homogeneity writ small at the same time, and perhaps instigated by, the cultural forces pressing the culture at large toward heterogeneity. This is a lousy sentence: my fuzzy thinking is making fuzzy sentences.
6. Let me try again. We have a tendency to conflate these two forces even though they pull and push in opposing directions. From a bird’s eye view, the common culture is obviously disintegrating — from the view of the individual looking up, the disintegrating culture can be ignored as long as there’s a congenial subculture within it. Cultures have always been parceled into subcultures — this is normal social behavior — but when subcultures have no touchstone, no dominant culture to which they all refer, these heterogeneous groups inevitably shred the larger whole into pieces. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to reach across groups. That’s why immigration and secularism are so damaging to society. It’s simply easier to bunk with your own kind than face the otherness of a neighboring subculture that you can ignore with impunity. Furthermore, there’s no logical reason to champion diversity other than to give lip service which pleases powerful Secularists.
7. In France today, subcultures are defined more by religion than race, class or any of the other boringly repeated sociological categories. Muslims strongly bind together as a group, for example, rarely marrying out or associating with those outside their religion. Christians hunker down invisibly in small churches. Secularists seem to roam freely, without realizing that they, too, are a religious group that both rejects and is rejected by the other great religions. In France, the great historic religions are Secularism, Christianity and Islam. There was a time when France was Catholic. Then, Seculars overturned Catholicism to make themselves the dominant religion. Now, Muslims are muscling in on the Seculars and Christian remnant. In the midst of this, evangelical Protestants are desperately trying to create or maintain a cultural toehold.
8. Perceived homogeneity is a incredibly strong force. It binds people like nothing else. Most people want to live peacefully by avoiding conflict and dissention so they find others like themselves, in whatever ways they define likeness. The church exists in the midst of this. I’m not sure why, but many churches adopted this religious tenet of Secularism: diversity is good; homogeneity is evil. This is wrong. It’s not Christian. It’s not even sensible.
9. Obviously, two people make a heterogeneous group. Three, more so. Any group, then, is, heterogeneous. It’s the degree of difference that matters, not the fact of it’s existence. That degree can be extreme. People who speak different first languages, dress and eat differently, value and idealize different things, worship different Gods and work in different ways … yet live in the same city will NOT connect with each other. The forces between them are repulsive, not attractive.
10. Thriving churches have figured out where to sit on a fulcrum that teeters between homogeneity and homogeneity. They’ve figured out, perhaps intuitively, that diverse churches do not thrive unless they break into homogeneous subgroups. Many successful churches in diverse environment create sub-churches, often with different worship times/languages/peoples. Yesterday, walking home from Sunday service, I passed a church that had about forty people waiting to get inside. All were Asian … possibly of Hindu origin. They had created their own worshipping group within a congregation of Scots-Presbyterians. In other words, the dominant core of that church was the culture formed by Presbyterian Scotsmen and women. The Scots dealt with diversity by spinning off a second church that used their building and took their name, while not overlapping culturally. It seemed to work.
11. A thriving church is the primary social centre and identity for those who belong. This is really important. Ideally, members of a church consider each other to be first or inner cache of social loyalties and relationships. Nothing else should come close. Clubs, workplaces, friendships and avocational interests are subsidiary to the primary role the church plays in the social life of it’s congregants. This is why, in church, we refer to each other as brethren — we’re verbally miming the closeness of familial relationships.
12. In every human being, there’s a yearning for roots or connection to ancestors we feel we are like, deep within. I’m an American with 17th century British ancestors who intermarried for hundreds of years (until my father married a Scandinavian woman!) I feel a strong connection to England and, to a lesser degree, France. I know this seems like genetic determinism run amok, but still, I feel this. It’s gut-level. Yes, this is taboo to write, but perhaps there’s a genetic component to perceived commonality that people intuit almost viscerally — having said this, I believe the cultural component is much, much stronger. It is simply the case that people from a cultural background similar to your own are those with whom you feel most comfortable worshiping. It’s not sin to seek out culturally similar people for your core group: it is a sin to reject others, however.
13. When the church embraces these core relationships, it becomes influential in the community. There’s a connection between cultural power and cultural homogeneity, in other words. Core relationships bind a group into phalanx before the secular state, Secularism and immigrant groups. When churches become our FIRST social priority, when we bind to each other because we understand each other and share important cultural markers, we create cultural power. This power is derived from these relationships. We should use this power to impact the community that surrounds us, and to become, once again, France’s cultural core.
14. Evangelical churches in France need to be revived. To do this they must first see themselves as the core of France. It’s quite possible to talk about evangelism until we’re blue, but if we don’t have something to evangelize, something earthly and practical, no one will come to our churches. This can be done. It’s not a question of starting another church program but of perceiving what we have as what the culture desperately needs — WE ARE THE CORE. Churches don’t need expensive and extensive ministries to various subgroups if this core is maintained.
15. It’s a balancing act: too much in-grouping destroys outreach — too much diversity destroys the core. Evangelism always causes the core of the group to slightly move. Outreach involves change, though not too much. A church needs the new ideas that come from including people who are close to the core and moving toward it, but are not quite there. That core must be protected, cherished and given theological shape.

That’s it, folks. These are my amorphous thoughts of the day. They’re forming slowly. I’ll write more when I think more clearly about this issues. Right now, I’m in the fog. My ideas are in flux and will surely change.

 Jesus: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

I continue to be troubled about the effectiveness of the Christian church in Paris. I’m not going to mince my words, not going to put a happy face over a situation that appears dire, not going to gloss over problems to encourage those still trying to “make a difference.” To sum: I see very little evidence of Christian faith in this city. I have walked for block after block past locked and shuttered churches. I have seen absolutely no sign of faith in public spaces, have never observed people praying over their meals or praying at all (except Muslims), have not heard even the blandest cultural references to Christian faith in political speeches or on television … Christian faith, to the extent it exists, is hidden in Paris.

Shouldn’t faith show? Shouldn’t it “shine forth?” Isn’t the ideal to convey both a strong taste of saltiness and a brightness of a light shining outside a bushel?

Supposedly a new church is started in France every eleven days. If so, these churches are a well-kept secret for I have seen few of them. Perhaps a church folds every 11.1 days, too? That would explain it. Look, I want to know the real success rate for church planting. Not the start-up rate, but the success rate. Permit me to quantify success: success = five years of continual growth in the number of people who come weekly. So, using this admittedly arbitrary metric, how many churches which started five years ago — about 33 annually, if I’m doing the math correctly — are still around today?

In an undated article, Russel Moore discussed what he described as an flourishing interest in spirituality in France: “Secular philosophers now question secularism and its dearth of truly human values. Millions of French people are looking for a spiritual root to life.” This may be true — I pray it is — but as a historian/philosopher who has spoken to many other historian/philosophers, I have never heard such questioning or seen such seeking. If anything, Seculars, here, are doubling down against Christianity (at the same time they go gooey and jelly-kneed before Islam). There are entire sections of Paris described as “no-go” areas for a blonde who refuses to cover her head — this leads me to wonder where are the sections of Paris dominated by Christians I can walk about safely? Shouldn’t our Christian faith be as culturally obvious and domineering as that of Muslims?

Perhaps faith can be no bigger than the sum cultural presence of each of the faithful which means that individually, we mass into a corporate blob called “Christian faith,” a bit like Bush’s “thousand points of light” — we each shine separately thus making the firmament a bit brighter.

I’m looking at myself now. I’m not very shiny. Quite honestly, I don’t think that anyone would know I’m a Christian by my appearance, mannerisms, speech or behaviour. No one would know I believe in God unless I said or did something unusual or they saw me among other Christians, perhaps at church. My neck is not ringed with a jeweled cross on a chain … I don’t carry a Bible … I am just a typical well-bred woman. I exude my social aspect, not my faith.

Maybe I’m looking for something that doesn’t exist, but I don’t think so. In the past, Christians had to be identifiable to be “persecutable” and since they were persecuted, presumably they were different than the average Joe. So, should faith be visible? Should I hear it? Feel it? Imbibe it in social interactions? See it in others? If my faith is not visible to others, am I a lesser Christian doing something wrong or not doing enough?

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Paul: My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power …

I understand that God works quietly in people’s hearts and that His workings in the world may be invisible. But I also know there has to be fruit which must be visible or it can’t be picked.

I’ve never felt as Protestant as I do now living in Paris. The faith that defines me is quite far from “showy” Christianity of Catholicism and oldline Protestant denominations. I don’t share the lovely mentality that built the cathedrals dotting Paris. I love and appreciate their aesthetic, but don’t share it. My faith is spartan and unadorned. It’s scraped raw and to the bone. In essence, when aesthetics are sliced away, my faith lies somewhere between me and Jesus. One of the reasons why Protestants, in particular, find it difficult to articulate the reason and purpose for church is that our faith is soul-located. It’s inside of us. Hidden and secreted.

As a Protestant, the meaning of ritual and Christian aesthetics is not something I deeply grok, but I do understand that some of the stuff Protestants do NOT do makes visible the invisible. What we keep hidden may be the cultural marker of faith that is so needed. Though I recoil at the sight of men in long black robes and clerical collars sashaying through the streets, I admit this makes them stand apart from the typical woman in yoga pants and a t-shirt or the typical man in skinny pants and a cropped suitcoat. A priest is clearly a holy man — his garb identifies him.

I’m not saying that Christians should wear funny clothing to separate ourselves from Seculars, but have noticed that it works. When Christians are visibly different than Seculars and Muslims, they speak back into the culture their faith. It’s not hidden anymore, at least. When Muslims drop everything and bend down on their knees in city streets to worship, it’s a spectacle, of course, but it also brings to mind that they are not us. I can’t think of anything that Christians do, publicly, that sets them apart from Secular culture. There are many things we do NOT do, but negation only rejects Secularism; it does not promote Christianity. By not doing what Seculars do, we do not reveal the content of our faith, but reject theirs. That’s not a good outreach, or I don’t think it is.

Establishing a church is a public display of faith. These churches show. Or should. They DO the Christian things that separate them from the culture and values that surround them. It’s a way to make faith show.

Having said this, in my wee opinion, we’ve screwed up the sequence of how God does things. People don’t come to faith because a church exists but because the Spirit comes within to pull them to God; they allow themselves to believe because they understand, on some deep spiritual-visceral level, that they are going toward a better place. God calls all of us. He pulls us toward Him. He makes Christians out of pagans. It’s all about Him and His down-reaching.

Church is subsequent to God’s work in the hearts and souls of individuals. It doesn’t precede it. It’s not like God is limited in His saving work by the presence of a church or two. Obviously, we have to tell people about God. That’s the Great Commission which obedience requires. But this is one-on-one, not the result of an evangelistic call to the altar in church. So yes, of course, people become Christians in church, but I’d hazard a guess that most of us were saved when someone gently explained salvation AFTER God’s Spirit had softened our souls.

One of the things church must do, in society, is provide a baseline of information needed to make this faith decision. We’re doing a horrible job at this. Few people, today, know even the basics of faith. This is what I see in Paris, today. It’s a city with social routines developed during it’s long forgotten Christian past. To it’s core, it is a Secular city with Secular people doing Secular things. When France assumed laïcité, it necessarily rejected Catholicism — it switched faiths, in other words.

Secularism is religion. Secularism isn’t constructive but destructive; it’s not creative but parasitic; it doesn’t affirm but mocks. A secular society is one in freefall, gasping for the thinning air left by the Christian society that spawned it.

Again, Secularism is parasitic … it nourishes itself and is utterly dependent on the faith of the four generations before it. As these generations pass, which takes about a century, Secularism becomes the only religion people can see — they see only aimless, ravening selfishness. Seculars can’t create society but instead weaken and tear it down. They define themselves as peripheral to social values which requires something core and solid for them to be over-against. When this social core weakens and disappears, Seculars wander about like feral cats looking for their next meal. That’s the state of Paris.

Societies do seem to rise and fall. This is Gibbon’s cyclical view of history as well as the story of the Jews in the Old Testament: God’s gentle restoration of a stubborn, foolish tribe that habitually turned to other gods every few generations, then reaped the consequences of their actions until God rescued some of them, the remnant. This pattern repeats itself throughout the Bible. We never seemed to learn that the wisdom of faith is inherent in individuals, primarily the elderly — if those individuals don’t pass on their Christian faith and morality, it is lost.

This is a tangential impetus behind church planting, evangelization and revival. Society will rise and fall, as always, but the peaks and troughs won’t be as dramatic if Christians have a leavening and levelling effect on society. We stabilize society, one individual at a time.

So, why plant churches that mostly shrivel and die? Why plant unsuccessful churches? Why keep banging our heads against the odds?

Answer: Because … every point of light matters. If a church plant results in ONE Christian, that’s one point of light pushing back against cultural devolution and Secularism. It’s one public display of faith, however ephemeral. It’s one way that Christians, in their showlessness, actually reveal who they are and why they serve Him.

And it’s one more guy or gal plucked out of damnation.

“I PLANTED,
APOLLOS WATERED,
BUT GOD GIVES THE INCREASE”
-I CORINTHIANS 3:16

I ended the tenth “BCIP” with these paragraphs:

I’ll talk about this more later, but let me just say that very large churches often have a mission focus. There’s a point where a church is large enough to “professionalize” an outreach toward secularists who have no faith or connection to the church. Generally, this happens around 2000 active members, though many “experts” say that number is much lower. It is the case that big and mega-churches attract outsiders … Most multi-cultural and outreach-based churches are large, for example.

In Paris, however, almost all “outreach” is done by very small churches, most with less than 50 congregants.

I want to know if this a pattern in the West, in particular in highly secularized cities, that the growing edge of Christianity is found in small, culturally invisible churches? If this is the case, what does this portend if the growing churches in cities are moving from, say, 20 to 50 members, or even 50 to 200 members, and the physically huge churches are subsidized by their home denominations with declining membership?

Lets tackle these questions.

Let me begin by saying this is NOT my field of expertise. I’m only observant. So take what I say critically — test these words for their truthfulness!

What I’ve seen in Paris so far has given me pause because the way Christians go about church planting in foreign countries (as well as “foreign” parts of our own countries) does not seem to be working well. We tend to steal sheep (we grow our congregations by taking members from existing congregations) or move sheep (we find new members among Christians newly immigrated). What we do poorly is create sheep, that is, convert people from the religion of atheism, those who have never believed or stepped foot in a Christian church.

I wish I could get some hard statistics on how many people were brought to faith in Paris through the efforts of church X, Y or Z. My guess is not many. Most growing churches have latched on to Christian immigrants, mostly from Africa, who want to re-create the churches they had loved in their home countries. In other words, the population of Christians in Paris has increased via immigration, not outreach. I have not seen highly successful outreaches to heritage French people — the “real French” — who are often adamantly atheistic and difficult to reach. I’d love to be proven wrong, however!

I am very concerned that Christian outreach to center-city Parisians done by small churches is ineffective — such an outreach may best be done by large churches. It’s my contention that large churches are better at outreach than small ones — it’s also my observation that almost all the churches heavily involved in outreach in Paris are tiny. These small churches are struggling to exist. Planted and sustained by a young married couple, they rarely reach more than fifty congregants, if even half that.

Of course it is possible to plant churches from scratch — that’s the New Testament pattern, no? So why isn’t it working?

It could be that in a church with 20 to 50 people, everyone knows each other, perhaps too well! There’s no room in a small church for disagreement — fifty people cannot support a faction. In fact, it could be said that the small church itself IS a faction … as are all churches in a way. In this sort of cloistered environment, the desire of the church planting couple to GROW the size of the church to the point where it can attract new families, couples and singles may be thwarted by the unique social dynamic of that particular church into which outsiders would be hard pressed to fit.

Small churches have unique personalities. They’re more like families than congregations. It’s very, very difficult for an outsider to be “adopted” into a new family and feel truly comfortable in it. Large churches, in contrast, are anonymous. This means they have the social space to include the different cultural backgrounds and histories of new believers.

Because most people rarely know each other in larger churches, members naturally form subsets or groups within the church. This is the logic behind dividing a big church into “small groups” as well as the driving force behind larger churches to spin off a hundred or so of their own congregants to form another church. The point is that unanimity in a large church at the level of the congregation (not leadership) isn’t a desired goal. Big churches can tolerate those who can’t fit into small churches. New Christians on the fringe of the church culture feel less pressure to conform because, frankly, no one really knows them. They can grow in faith at their own pace in the background. So, at the congregational level, big churches have of the kind of diversity that counts — cultural.

At the level of leadership, large churches often have well-paid professionals whose job is to grow the church through evangelizing non-Christians. In other words, the roles of the church staff in a big church — pastor, teacher, event planner, scheduler, musician, architect, administrator and evangelist — are specialized, professionalized and efficient. Nothing is left to chance. When a professionalized outreach leader hears of a potential believer close to making a decision for Christ and therefore joining the church, this leader smoothly goes through the action-steps, procedures and rules geared toward reeling in this potential congregant. He knows how to maximize the number of people who make the choice to be and live Christianly in that church. He does it well.

Small churches must be at a huge disadvantage. Their approach is less smooth, more haphazard and highly personalized. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — this is not a value judgment — but it does seem less effective.

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Here, in center city Paris, as far as I can tell, virtually all evangelism is done by individuals who attend tiny-to-small, store-front churches. There are no very large churches. True, there are physically large churches — grand cathedrals from the 18th and 19th century dot the cityscape — but as far as I can tell, the congregations of these churches are, at best, medium-sized. This is important to grok.

In the United States, the size of the structure generally follows the size of the congregation, but in Paris, churches built for large, family-based congregations have dwindled to a dozen little old ladies in the front pew. This means that only small-to-medium size Protestant congregations exist in center-city Paris. Most churches here are very small.

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Church planting here generally works like this: a couple (usually youngish, twenty- or thirty-something) feels “the call of God” to go to Paris and plant a church. If their home church is small, they sign with a mission agency; if their home church is large, their own church itself may send them. The ideal, I would think, would be to send several couples to the same area to work simultaneously — but this rarely happens. Usually, a lone couple is plopped into the middle of the city and left to fend for itself. I’m overstating the case a bit, but the degree to which church planters are supported by their home agencies seems negligible. This lack of support includes money.

Young, idealistic, inexperienced, isolated … the church planting couple works against the odds. With Christ, all is possible, of course, but since success can only be retroactively determined, to be honest, I can count on one hand the thriving, growing congregations in the center of Paris. All evidence points to mass failure.

I’ll be musing, in future posts, about possible solutions. To sum: the existing culture and methods of church-planting is not effective in Paris’ first eight arrondissements, it’s center city.

Something needs to change.

The question I most dread these days is this: “Why have you come to Paris?“

I have no idea.

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I thought I knew why I was coming to Paris. It was to get away, to enjoy a hard-earned break. The last few years have been so bleak and unrelentingly repetitive that I felt I had earned the time to reset my inner-whatever and to jump-start a life that had slowed to a crawl. I had lists of people for whom I wanted to write, lists of galleries and exhibitions I wanted to see, lists of buildings and cathedrals to gawk at, lists and lists and more lists …

… which I have deleted.

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I’m in the season of life when everything is supposed to come together in a perfectly choreographed clang-the-gong coda, a time when the past pays off with great literary reviews and new contracts, a time when relationships fully blossom and deeply fulfill … a time when life is incredibly satisfying. That’s how the last half of middle-age is supposed to be. Right?

If so, I’m a total failure. In the last few months, I have lost my footing. I’m alone and lonely. Unsuccessful. Marginally productive. For most of my life I had clear goals and ambitions, but now I’m aimlessly struggling. I’m ashamed of myself and don’t like to meet people because I can’t even explain why I’m in Paris. I don’t like to look in a mirror.

By now, I should be writing Nobel-prize winning tomes effortlessly. I should be ensconced in a deeply satisfying relationship with a honorable man. I should be enjoying worthwhile fellowship with other believers, hearing God’s directive voice clearly, doing His will obediently, and willingly submitting to whatever He has planned for my life.

What’s wrong with me?

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Until this morning, I didn’t notice a tiny plaster cherub stuck on the wall of my overly decorated apartment. Whoever did the interior design likes filigree, romantic paintings, beige and white, chandeliers dripping with glass and tastefully arranged clutter. In contrast, my “aesthetic” is spartan. I like empty surfaces, a few good pieces of art well-positioned on walls, a handful of sculptural objects, and unadorned blank spaces that force my eye to wonder and wander over the architectural lines that define the form of the building.

Michelangelo, on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, painted frescos of angels looking downward. As these angels stared at the people below, they were busily staining to hold up things, to keep stuff from falling out of the sky. Their little wings endlessly fluttered in this labour.

I am quite certain that the beating of their wings produces a slight breeze in the building … a veritable buzz.

—

So, do I have plans for my time in Paris?

No. I gave them up. I “surrendered” all plans to Him and now have nothing. This, I believe, is God’s will. Still, to be here alone, wanting to serve Him, without connection to the past or future, without friends or acquaintances, and without an overriding purpose is rather scary to me. When I awaken in the mornings, I ask God what He wants me to do that day — I’m living day to day like this. Often, I hear nothing in response. Divine crickets! So, I do as I wish, which today meant staying indoors.

I wrote today. Studied. Prayed. That’s what I felt led to do. I’m clinging to the foundational belief that God is good and will work things out for my good in the end, not just because one biblical verse says this, but because His character demands it.

Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.  Ps 143

I do know that I’m staring at this laptop in my wee apartment, struggling to trust Him in the dreary Paris afternoons, when grey clouds never lift … it’s been raining almost every day. I want to believe that He will guide me to the somethings and someones I’m here to do and serve. This is the challenge of faith.

The painful question I am asking myself is this: Will I still love and trust God if none of my dreams materialize, if my plans come to naught, if the only reason to get up is to live through another day? Will I love and serve God if life has no more meaning and significance than the passage of time?

This is an angst-producing question, for me. The idea that God could be telling me through circumstances that my life is essentially over, that what was will never be again, that I have nothing to look forward to on this side of heaven … this terrifies me. I want a big life. But, for reasons I don’t understand, the past few years have been small. And now, in this beautiful city, life is shrinking even more.

In part, I’m reacting against my mother to whom I was never close. As a child, I concluded at a very early age that my mother wasn’t really alive. She was like a seashell, I used to think: hard on the outside, empty on the inside. Her hollowing continued until she died. She never took advantage of the love, travel, interesting places and opportunities, or the ample good fortune that seemed to follow her, but became smaller, ever smaller. Even her body shriveled.

In the garage, neatly packaged, are at least twenty boxes of her art. A couple years ago, my father asked me to unpack these boxes so he could put her art on the walls of the house. Dutifully, I began to open the boxes. To my horror, every one of them was filled with gessoed, blank canvases. There was no art. None at all. My mother had packed these boxes to look as if they contained paintings so my father wouldn’t know she wasn’t doing anything but thinking about painting; or maybe thinking about something else … or not thinking at all.

The raw, dystopic symbolism of blank gessoed canvases hidden as completed paintings deeply revolted me. I reeled from this discovery. I have never told my father what I found, by the way, because it would hurt him needlessly.

—

I told the story of my mother so you could understand how unnerving it is to float around Paris without goals. But yes, I think this is God’s will.

God may be teaching me to trust Him more fully. Blindfolded as I am, I have no choice but to take His divine hand and go wherever He leads me. I feel led to pray for revival. I feel led to study and write. I think God is pushing me to the side to teach me something I will need to know in the future. Solitude often precedes assignment, I’ve been telling myself, hoping and praying it is true!

I don’t know if France ever experienced the revivals that rocked England and Scotland and don’t have access to a library to research. If you know, please write me. The Presbyterian church in Scotland was deeply influenced by revival — at one point, almost a third of Scottish citizens were attending evangelical churches. Could this happen in France?

Sure, if God wills it. Lets pray for revival. Again and again.

Slowly, it’s happening — I’m falling in love with Paris. Though it’s taken a while to feel familiar with this city, I’m finding my way around and enjoying what I see.

I must be the only person here who walks at a normal pace. Most women trot — heels click-clacking on setts is a common sound in Paris — which is what I’d do if I were not so riveted by everything around me. I love strolling along the Seine every morning wrapped in a thick scarf and long coat. Though not a working river — there are no fishermen or electrical substations, only joggers and walkers — the Seine endlessly flows through old, stone walls that guide it’s way through the city. Like so much in Paris, it’s a feast for the eyes.

I’ve met very few French people, sadly. English-speaking people, on the other hand, seem magnetically drawn to me. I was afraid this would happen — those fears have been proven true! I have met English speaking Italians, Scots, South Africans, Londoners, Aussies and even Americans, many of whom are here because they’re married to someone French, but no “pure blooded” locals.

I’m far too shy to do well in this city. Or any city. Cities are for the brazen, not the observant.

—

I’ve been mapping “physical” Christianity in Paris, looking for places where Christians meet, eat, school their kids, pray and work. There are many.

Most churches here are either huge or small. I have seen very few mid-sized churches, that is, those smaller than a cathedral and bigger than a store-front. There are plenty of mid-size churches in urban United States, so there’s no reason why churches can’t grow in Paris unless the government or culture restricts them in some manner. By mid-size, I’m referring to the size of the congregation not the building, though obviously the two correlate. For now, note that the size of a congregation dictates the sort of outreach and impact it will have on the surrounding community — we’ll talk about this later.

Most big churches, here, do not have big congregations. They’re only physically big, grandfathered into the physical space, relics of a denominational past, a time when one’s life wrapped around the activities and calendar of faith.

The old Catholic-Protestant divide is quite alive here. Catholic churches, huge and beautiful, tend to stick to themselves: Protestant churches are more “outgoing,” but, they, too, stick close to their overseas denominational headquarters. There does not seem to be much interplay between these two great branches of Christianity.

Here, too, there are a few cathedral-like Protestant churches. For example, there are three Anglican churches in Paris: an English-speaking church that caters to the English; an American Anglican (Episcopalian) church; and a french-speaking Anglican church that seems to attract people who have married into the French culture at the same time they retained their old ways of worshipping. There’s also a conservative Anglican church that’s far more evangelical in worship and outlook than the English-speaking English-Anglican church.

I’m mostly interested in the Protestant churches because I haven’t been able to crack the nut of historic Catholicism. I don’t “feel” the Roman Catholic cultural hold on believers, here, and until I do, I’m going to be quiet. In contrast, I have a gut-level understanding of the Protestants who are worshipping and working in a culture that’s both profoundly secular as well as historically Catholic — they’re the quintessential outsiders. It is far more easy for me to understand the role of an uninvited outsider than a deeply rooted insider … that’s all.

Too, there are little churches all over Paris which I’ll discuss in more detail in another post. Just yesterday, an acquaintance in Atlanta told me about two new churches in Paris — one of them is less than two blocks from my new apartment in the 3^e — which both actively serve Christians as well as reach out to non-believers. These two churches do not show up on any map I’ve consulted so I assume other small, home-based churches scattered throughout Paris will have to be unearthed, but I have no idea how to locate them. Yet.

Now, remember, I’m only observing the church life of the central city of Paris, not the suburbs (where there are a handful of megachurches) or the smaller towns and hamlets.

One thing I’ve observed is this — most big, cathedral-like churches in Paris were built and funded decades if not centuries ago at a time when the population of central Paris was much larger than it is today. Paris has shrunk, not in physical size but in population. Below is a graph of the population of Paris from 1989 to 2022. The high point of population was around 2011 — Paris lost more than 100,000 residents in the last decade. Why? Partly it’s due to the conversion of apartments into BnBs by real estate speculators and investors — today’s rentiers –which cater to tourists, not residents. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m living in one now!

The longer-stretch story of Paris’ population decline, however, is far more dramatic. The city’s population peaked in the 1920s at about three million people — today, it’s a just above two million. So, this city has lost a third of it’s population in the last century, long before speculative real estate transactions.

This is important because the population of any city strongly influences both the number and placement of churches, particularly Catholic churches in Catholic countries. Since many of these churches were built at a time when the population was higher, they had served intact neighborhoods. Today, those neighborhoods are gone. There are few children in Paris … few Catholic schools. So, it’s not ONLY that Christian faith has waned, but the raw number of Christians, in total, has also declined.

To sum: Paris has many cathedrals and huge churches that function in historica memory more than as viable congregations. They’re architectural vestiges to an era that is nothing like today.

This includes many of the historical Protestant churches, too. This is not just a Catholic phenomenon. But Parisian Protestants, unlike Catholics, have always had an outsiderish approach to the French. As their denominations waned — Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. — like Catholics, they left behind churches that were built for expat populations that no longer exist. Huge, well-placed churches live on architecturally, like bones without flesh. They do not have vibrant congregations. They’re beautiful … and mostly empty, though not as empty as the old Catholic churches that descended into secularism alongside the culture they once permeated.

—

I’ll talk about this more later, but let me just say that very large churches often have a mission focus. There’s a point where a church is large enough to “professionalize” their outreach toward secularists with have no faith and no connection to the church. Generally, this happens around 2000 active members. Big and mega-churches attract outsiders … they struggle to maintain the needs of Christians, not non-Christians. Most multi-cultural churches, outreach-based churches are large, for example.

In Paris, however, almost all “outreach” is done by very small churches, often with less than 50 congregants.

In later posts, I want to think through this.

I want to know if this a pattern in the West, in particular in highly secularized cities, that the growing edge of Christianity is found in small, culturally invisible churches? If this is the case, what does this portend if the growing churches in cities are moving from, say, 20 to 50 members, or even 50 to 200 members, and the physically huge churches are subsidized by their home denominations with declining membership?

“Whom God hath put asunder let not man join together” — Emerson

I don’t remember the first time I read Emerson or Thoreau. I must have been young — probably a teenager.

At that time the writings of Thoreau, in particular, deeply penetrated my immature mind. I remember being thrilled by his description of isolated cabins as I “felt” the dampness and sights of the Maine woods. Mostly unsuccessfully, I tried to anticipate what he would soon encounter, intuiting his thinking and fancying myself thinking along with him. Yes, Thoreau was exploring the woods, but more importantly, he was probing the thickets of his mind and as a young girl, I allowed myself to be carried along by the words of a writer with ideas much, much bigger than mine. It was a great ride.

Thoreau was a loner. A recluse. He lived by himself in a hand-built shack with a large porch overlooking a pond. There, while sitting on a chair of his own making, Thoreau’s mind wandered. There’s nothing weird or unhealthy about this sort of solitude — most writers and artists get away from people in order to pour back into themselves their own thoughts … those thoughts then escape in a better form.

Nature merely launched Thoreau. His meditations on nature immediately segued into reflections on human companionship, solitude, God, and the unquieted soul at rest. He bound these thoughts together with the thread of local lore and his own acute observations. Thoreau’s writings, then, are much more about the machinations of people than the beauty of nature. Thoreau is NOT a nature writer — he writes about people. Nature is only his backdrop.

He also writes alone. Staring at the rippled surface of a pond. On a wicker chair. With no one to talk to.

That’s what’s so amazing. Thoreau’s profound social perceptions were formed apart from people. He observed himself, other individuals and most social interactions as a human being, one of unusual compassion. This is how it’s done. Great writing is based on perceptions and observations done from a critical distance which are then sucked back into the writer; after being tossed about, denied, cheered, jostled against other observations and allowed to lay fallow, these perceptions and observations are ejected as prose … beautiful prose.

—

This is the opposite of Gonzo journalism. Hunter Thompson’s riveting tales of fear and loathing miss a step or two or three — the reflective steps — before they were ejected as prose. Thompson had no critical distance because he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to reflect. He didn’t want to take the time to observe. His writing was the dictation of instantaneous experience. He dictated his experience without governing boundaries and without deferring to the slow pace of rumination and reflection.

Though nature bounded and shaped Thoreau’s thinking; nothing bound Thompson. Thompson hurdled his way through his prose, always in it, always the center of attention. His prose was only an expression of his own consciousness. Thompson’s shallow thoughts, in the end, were the only story he could tell — his own feelings and ideas were the first and final filter through which his writing was refracted.

Thompson was in a hurry. He didn’t have time to observe. There was no chair on his porch.

I confess that I was drawn to Thompson’s writing as a vain twenty-something. Very much so, in fact. As a young reporter, I wanted “to gonzo” my stories, to tell them from the standpoint of my own feelings and experience. His heady, narcissistic way of writing appeals to the young and egoistic because it glorifies the writer, not the subject: the reader learns quite a bit about the writer, far less about the subject.

As Thoreau used nature to launch his queries into human nature and society, Thompson used himself to launch his queries into … himself. That’s the problem with Gonzo journalism. Ultimately, it’s self-referential. In the end, nothing more can be said except this. It’s profundity is limited by the soul-depth of the writer, which in the case of Thompson, isn’t very deep.

Gonzo journalism is sizzle, a quickly extinguished display of emotive fireworks.

—

As I age, Thoreau appeals to me even more than when I was young, and Emerson appeals to me even more than does Thoreau. I’m drawn to thinkers and observers much deeper than I. I think this is “age appropriate.” By the time a thoughtful, creative person reaches his 50s or 60s, a big chunk of life is over. At this point, life slows, but in a good way. The desire to think slowly overwhelms the desire to live in a fast life and on the edge. I’m finally old enough to wait, to let my observations age like wine. Hopefully, they’ll get better.

A well-reflected life moves from Thompson to Thoreau to Emerson … and then, to the pithy sayings of Jesus.

—

Thoreau’s classic, “The Maine Woods,” and some of his other works, can be read online for free here.

It’s easy to miss what is NOT that I presumed to be, in this case, homeless people.

There are NO homeless people in Paris’ 2^e. None. This is the way a city should be. Though plenty of hawkers and shysters linger in the streets, they’re far more subtle than the homeless in America and seem to walk away if rejected. I have not seen any drug-addicted, mentally ill homeless men or women muttering to themselves or acting strangely, a common sight at home.

America has a huge problem with the homeless — France, apparently, does not. French society may be more civil because everyone is given a place within it, however small. Whatever Parisians are doing for the mentally ill, addicted and chronically unemployed, Americans need to emulate. Their streets are clear.

—

Streets are not clear, however, of graffiti. People who talk about graffiti cleave along a line that separates those who think graffiti is destruction of property from those who think it is art. Somewhere, a long time ago, I read that about 85 percent of people dislike graffiti and want it removed. That seemed about right to me then and still does. I wonder if Parisians are like most Americans in this regard — do they want to get rid of their graffiti? I hope so.

But, if they do, they’re failing. Paris is a tagged city. Almost every space that is slightly hidden from the scrutiny of the police and people is covered with graffiti. Some of this graffiti looks like it’s been there for years. People don’t bother getting rid of it.

Let me be upfront — I detest graffiti. To me, it’s a criminal act not creative. I hate the childish, intense colors taggers prefer, the weird, upward-expanding bubble-shaped letters, the excessive scale of the words and images and, if not text based, it’s cartoon-like imagery. Probably the biggest reason why I hate graffiti, however, is that it mutilates it’s underlying structure. Buildings should be beautiful — the purity of architecture should be undefiled. Graffiti ruins my first impression of a building. It moves my eye downward. I find myself focused on the graffiti, not the building on which it was sprayed. Suddenly, my eye is mired in the bottom of pop culture, not the top of high culture. It’s hard to get out of there.

I’m less offended by graffiti in train stations, for example, because buildings haven’t been ruined, at least. Yet even there, it’s gross. Graffiti ruins everything. It destroys a building’s form or line. It’s distracting and, again, just ugly.

—

As an aside, I was shown, yesterday, a small lump on a high wall. It was pastel-coloured and difficult to see. I had no idea what it was. The man I was with laughed at me and said, “Don’t you recognize yourself?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a breast.”

Then, I saw a nipple in the middle of the lump. Ridiculous, I thought. In the middle of a wall, there’s a pale lump that’s supposed to represent a breast, though no one would see it this way unless first told. “Let me guess … feminist art?” I asked.

He nodded. When I got home, I looked it up. Sure enough, “Intra Larue’s colourful sculptures of breasts are all the rage as it takes over the streets of Paris and Dublin ...”

She’s a feminist. Of course. The breast is supposed to be talked about as if it’s a deeply ponderous subject — the Left takes itself so seriously! To put little breasts here and there about Paris is to jog our minds into the wonders of feminism. The article goes on to explain the “logic” behind her art:

By detaching the breast from the body and making it an autonomous object, Larue invests it with a kind of iconic, almost totemic power. The breasts exist independent of the accompanying body and may be viewed in several contexts. It may speak of feminine pain, or a loss of femininity, fragility in a patriarchal society. Some viewers have even interpreted it as a talking point for breast cancer survivors. Sometimes, she paints on symbols like a tie to show the strong hold men have on femininity and its representation.   

Lets think about this. Like most women, I have a couple breasts and frankly don’t think much about them. They’re just there. Any pain I have had in life — and there’s been a lot — has nothing to do with my breasts. In fact, though men have caused me pain, I don’t think what’s happened to me is a patriarchal plot or schema to bring down the femme. Men hurt, too — should we put little hanging gonads next to the breast to symbolize their pain?

Furthermore, there’s no totemic power in a plaster cast of a breast glued to a wall somewhere in Paris. None. It has no impact on my femininity. Men may like feminine women — most do — but how this connects to a lone breast on a wall simply escapes me. The problem with symbolic art, as I see it, is it’s meaning must be immediately obvious or it’s just an inconsequential absurdity. Protest art, for example, is very clear in it’s meaning. For this reason, it works. Similarly, the old “Socialist Realism” art during the USSR days, for example, told it’s message clearly. The story was uplifting, or conceived to be so. People could put themselves into it, like it or not.

Exactly what does ONE breast, alone, stuck on a wall, have to do with anything? If it is has meanings — plural — it is meaningless. Communication involves nuance, of course, but also an underlying meaning. A ur-value. Otherwise it’s just gibberish.

• Had this man not pointed out that little blob on a high exterior wall, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
• After he pointed it out, I couldn’t recognize it.
• When he told me what it was, it didn’t elicit any meaning.
• It’s meaning had to be told to me.

When art does not clearly speak … when art is intended to convey political or social meaning … when art has to be explained … it fails it’s stated purpose.

I’m moving apartment today. This one is too dark, moldy, rancid, and dreary. I’m moving to a whoopie-doopsie area between the 3rd and 4th — a gay area! literally — to a second floor apartment with more light and air and less mold.

Also, because I love textiles so much, next week I’m going to visit the Gobelin’s tapestry “factory” which is quite a distance from where I will be.

Will keep you posted.

Unfortunately, posts I have written which are more substantial — analysis of speeches, policy, etc. — have received far fewer responses than my writings on personal stuff (about 1 : 15, in fact). Wanting to grow this blog’s readership, I gave you the content you seemed to want. I will no longer do this. If my traffic plummets, so be it. Those of you who have written with questions and comments have received my responses. I don’t mind continuing private conversations about gender differences, power differentials, the feminine need to be protected, the meaning of marriage, love, etc., but I will not discuss this openly in this forum again. It’s too uncomfortably self-revealing and, frankly, dangerous.

Too, it doesn’t reflect who I am — an intensely private, quiet observer.

I’m returning to myself. I hope you can understand.

—

Contemporary war is fought on two fronts — the actual war on the ground and the propagandistic war in the air. The West is losing the first and winning the second.

I would think that winning the ground war would be the only thing that matters in the end. It’s reality, after all. Reality trumps fantasy, right? Elitists must disagree with this assessment for the US is conducting this war as if it’s a METAwar between reality and virtual reality, meat-space and avatars. Just put on a headset and … poof, transport yourself from the frigidity of death, emigration, no electricity and heat to a comfortable the US-war-metaverse.

Can war be won this way, in the metaverse? No. I don’t think so. If one combatant fights the real war and the other a virtual war, they’re not fighting in the same arena. The RF isn’t bothering to fight the virtual war, only the real one: the West is fighting the virtual war vigorously and the real war with much less passion. In the end, whoever wins the real war will re-write the history of the virtual one. In other words, propaganda only works in fog and temporarily. As soon as one side is clearly victorious and the fog lifts, propaganda will not be able to overwhelm the reality of that victory.

To the victor go the spoils … it is said. This phrase refers to the “spoils system” in early 19th-century America in which whoever won an election got to give away government jobs — “the spoils” — to his supporters. This phrase can also refer to the virtual spoils of war. The victor, that is the one who counts and buries the young dead on the field, has not only won the real war, but the virtual one. It’s a dual victory, virtual and real. The US seems not to understand that real victory must take precedence over their pretend one, that propaganda works only if victory is probable and nearby.

Lets say that the EU/US/UK/NATO loses to the RF, though they manage to make their defeat look like a truce or dignified withdrawal. This loss, then, is reality. It’s the truth. What really happened.

There are four possibilities in this Punnett-square war.

• win the real war, win the virtual war
• win the real war, lose the virtual war
• lose the real war, win the virtual war
• lose the real war, lose the virtual war

The first possibility makes the most sense as it re-integrates reality with propagandistic virtual reality. The second possibility makes sense, too, because it’s what Russia is experiencing right now. The fourth possibility is as logical as the first.

This leaves the third possibility — losing the real war and winning the virtual one. Is it even possible to lose the real war and win the virtual war? Maybe, but I doubt it because history, the retrospective remembrance of what happened, is always written by victors. Yes, there are limits to how creatively the victors can write — reality, to some degree, channels the content of history, but it’s still a pretty wide channel in which a lot can be imagined.

“Le histoire est juste peut-être, mais qu’on ne l’oublie pas, elle a été écrite par les vainqueurs”

The reality is the the West is losing the real war. Terribly. They may have already lost the war, in fact. Russia is giving out passports to citizens in their new/old territories and the majority of displaced Ukrainians fled east and north into Russia thus increasing Russia’s population. The immense amount of money and old weaponry that the US pushed into the Ukraine proved to be ineffective because Russia didn’t play the virtual game as demanded by Ursala, Klaus and others. Russia just refused.

I’m certain, trapped in a silo of self-importance, that EU minions never imagined anyone would dare question their superiority or wisdom or even the importance of the virtual war, but Russia pricked this fantasy with reality when it refused to acknowledge some of the military demands of the West as well as economic demands to set pricing caps for oil, etc. This has caused the self-indulgent, fantastical West to implode. It’s fascinating to watch, though saddening.

I wonder how long it will take a thoroughly propagandized, typical American to re-integrate himself into reality. How long will it take for Americans to realize that their government has lied once again and that they’re losing, not winning, an expensive, unnecessary war? Today, the majority of Americans still think we’re winning the war in Russia. This speaks to the power of propaganda. Well, maybe not. Censorship of information as well as it’s paucity makes it difficult for an ordinary person to figure out what’s true. Furthermore, most Americans don’t have the time or inclination to read both sides.

But it’s more than mis/disinformation and prioritizing family over foreign news: there’s an underlying skepticism in America, now, that didn’t exist 15 years ago. One explanation for this skepticism is the incredible mishandling and misinformation of COVID that came from government mouthpieces.

As one of my neighbors put it, “Why should we trust them now?”

The logic is this: since the government lied to and hurt us during COVID it well could be lying to us, again, about the war in Ukraine. That’s how people think now. The drip drip drip of skepticism slowly collected in a very large jar called “American culture” where it festers. Anything the government says is like the drippings from that jar put though our bullshit-o-meter. People don’t trust bureaucrats. Not at all. The government is not us. It’s rather difficult to fully propagandize a population that inclines not to believe you to begin with — the pro-Ukraine sentiment in America is less than skin-deep.

Such skepticism extends to everything the government does. Government statistics seem suspect. Biden’s pronouncements are obvious lies. The willingness of the Fed — or it’s incompetence — to subject Americans to the pain of inflation has been duly noted. Masks and jabs proved fatal to many. Men never were women, boys are not girls. Public schools are indoctrination centers. And there’s the homeless … graft … surveillance … FXT …it’s an incompetence after another incompetence.

When an American fills his tank up with fuel, do you really think he blames Russia or his own government for the rise in price? When an American drives past miles of ugly, rural windmills in which one in four, or so, are non-functional, is it Russia’s fault or that of some delusional greenie who works in the EPA? Are trannies in public schools Russia’s fault? Divorce and family dissolution … is this Russia’s fault?

—

The tatted, pierced and blue-haired trannies and leftists who worked at Twitter are getting an overdue taste of reality. They can’t hide in their ideological metaverse any longer. They’re soon to find out their economic worth to society, which isn’t much.

Reality, itself, laughed at their predicament: “Learn to coal.“

The biggest problem for the fantasists of the West is reality. Western propaganda, so far, has been amazingly effective, blinding an entire people to what’s really happening. But, real happenings are slowly weaseling their way back into the public consciousness in spite of the government’s frenetic propaganda and censorship. Censorship can’t keep information hidden forever…

… and reality reasserts itself.

On Twitter itself, the head of France’s Twitter office tweeted his own resignation. Most people, when they quit, turn in their letter, pack their stuff in their desk and slink out the back door, but not Mr Viel! His quitting is of public importance.

Or is it? Twitter has already more than halved it’s staff in the first week of Musk’s ownership. Musk’s demand that his employees opt into a “hardcore work environment” and not work from home caused a mass exodus. If there are no free avocado sandwiches at Twitter anymore, why work there? Most commenters seem to think Musk has too many employees. My question is a bit different — why does Twitter have offices in France to begin with? France’s twitter office had 50 people, it is said. It would seem to be an easy trick to consolidate Twitter in a non-California state like, say, Idaho, Montana or Wyoming where an ethos of libertarianism prevails.

Why is this important? Well, if this guy was in charge of Twitter censorship in France, then getting rid of him could enlarge the zone of free speech by allowing multipolar, non-globalist voices to be heard … a bit louder. In short, it will help the political right: Le Pen’s party. Getting rid of people who felt entitled to push their own ideology and control what other people say and can read is a definite step in the right direction, in my wee opinion.

Having the story of the French head of Twitter quitting in front of Twitter readers (who would normally not give a rip about some guy quitting his job), has the unintended benefit of bringing to consciousness the reality of censorship by the oppressive political Left. This one story, then, has nudged the Overton window ever slightly to the right. Even stories which approach a topic from an unexpected angle, such as this one, make people think more deeply and widely about the underlying issue which has nothing to do with this guy, and everything to do with what Twitter’s presence in France really means.

Mr. Viel could have stated that he’s quitting Twitter because of Musk; but no, he resigned saying he accomplished his mission, whatever that could be. Interestingly, in English, when someone says “Mission Accomplished” it’s often a reference to George Bush Jr.’s 2003 speech which was given in front of a banner with these words. In that speech he implied the war was over when it was surely not. In other words, “Mission Accomplished” means the opposite … it means “Mission Unaccomplished.”

Musk is figuring out that a skeleton staff of competent, hard working programmers can keep Twitter up and running just fine — he’s exposing the fluff, laziness and graft of the political Left. Too bad this didn’t happen months BEFORE the election, but whatever. It’s finally here.

—

Now, I’d like to say something GOOD about Twitter in France. It was Twitter which led the protest over the advertising campaign by Balenciaga which used darling little children in bondage motifs. Yes, that’s what grandma would buy her grandkids to play with, right? A bondage Teddy. In case the little one gets bored with the teddy bear, there are other fun things to play with displayed right there on the table! I see little manacles …

I rather doubt — but could be wrong — that the ad agency that came up with these ridiculous images thought deeply about what they were doing which is exploiting/abusing/sexualizing children. Most of these high fashion sorts love to shock for the sake of shocking. They’ve tried every weird thing out there to get your attention. Now, they’re just running out of material. Their creative juices are dry. Thus, kids.

Both Twitter and Balenciaga are based out of France. Twitter took Balenciaga on and WON. These gross ads have been pulled and are not visible today. Yesterday, Balenciaga even turned off comments on it’s Instagram page (where this was originally posted) and apologized for the drama they caused.
“We are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot,” it clarified. “We stand for children safety and well-being.”

Sure you do.

The moral of the story is this: If given enough freedom, Twitter users can be a force for good in French culture on this platform. Lets hope that Twitter remains free enough to do the good it has the potential to do.

Like a bird that wanders from her nest,
So is a woman who wanders from her home

Today I allowed myself to become lost in Paris.

I wandered wherever my little heart led without worrying about finding my way back (my cell has a map function.) The relentless rain which would start every time I stepped out the door actually ended — I saw the sun today!

It was glorious.

I wandered and wandered past one tiny restaurant after the next. Parisian streets are crammed with one-off restaurants, clothing and shoe stores, and occasional bookstores and banks. There are also many “dirty” stores which shamelessly display unidentifiable things in their windows.

After a while, the cityscape began to blur — it was too much for me: I visually overloaded. Like paint on a pallet, my mind began to blend the colors of stores into a motley grey pastiche; stores which had seemed so charmingly unique turned into one, endless shopping centre. I bought nothing.

I didn’t see corporations or big businesses, just small and mid-size retail stores.

One lovely attribute of Parisians is thinness. They’re also smaller than Americans in height. I’m between 5’6″ and 5’7″ and at least a third of the men seemed smaller than I. Men have a style, here: rubber-soled shoes, tight pants, short, dark jackets that zip or button, and the ubiquitous scarf around the neck folded neatly under the chin. For many men, the scarf is the only color on their bodies.

The impression I got of both men and women was one of fragility, not physical strength, even though the French are obviously in good shape from walking. Americans seem beefy and tall compared to the French. And very, very fat. When I was growing up, I didn’t know any fat children. None. In fact, I don’t remember fat adults either. I grew up in California, an outdoor paradise, where all kids were athletic and in tremendous physical condition. Then, something happened. Now, we’re fat, in horrible shape and not doing anything about it. About half of the kids in the United States, in my opinion, need to be put on a treadmill and introduced to fruits and vegetables.

Anyway, it was nice to be transported to the America that existed before I was born, which is what I felt in Paris today. I always wanted to be alive in the 1950s — American culture imploded in the 1960s which I can remember. Being in Paris is probably the closest I’ll get to the way Americans used to look and act … when America was still America.

When I spent some time in the Dakotas many years ago, just sorta hanging out with my kids, I became too tired to drive so pulled to the side of the gas station, set up the bed in the back (camper van) and put my squalling boys on either side of me. We promptly fell asleep. The next day, when I awoke, the red sun was just beginning to peek over the flat eastern horizon. I sat up, and to my surprise, I saw about forty HUGE men standing near my van, drinking coffee. These were big old Swedes, farmers of wheat and cattle in South Dakota. I remember thinking that the smallest guy couldn’t have weighed less than 200 pounds and the average height must have been more than six feet. Those men were bred to work with their hands … not shop.

I’m sure France has big men, too, but not in Paris.

The women, here, are attractive with large features that reveal emotion. As I rested against a little wall, I watched two women in their thirties trying to close out an animated conversation about their respective boyfriends. Their affection for each other was palpable. At no point in their conversation did they lose physical contact. One woman held the other’s arm as she spoke — the other put her hand to shoulder. They even touched heads while laughing.

Parisian women, like men, have a “look:” hair is cropped to shoulders, very little jewelry, short coat that covers the butt but not legs, tight jeans or pants or leggings. They’re delicate and thin … quite appealing, really.

Then, it struck me that I hadn’t seen a child. Not one. Where are the kids? School? I wonder if the french homeschool their kids like Americans. I hope so. Libérez les enfants! (I hope I got that correct.)

I also saw very few oldsters but a lot of middle-age Parisians who let their grey/white hair grow into the color of their youth — this, too, seems to be part of the look. I liked how they age naturally. The very old, however, were nowhere to be found. I didn’t see one wheelchair, walker or “mobility scooter.”

Paris, then, has a middle-age feel to it, at least in the 2^e arrondissement.

Americans have a different attitude toward aging — we battle our own aging with everything we’ve got. It’s crazy, really, the cult of youth at home. I’m very light blonde naturally — but as white hairs replaces blonde ones, I get agitated and upset, hit the bottle and turn my entire head back to blonde. I confess this. In my defense, however, my “white” hair isn’t really white. It’s clear; it doesn’t show. It reminds me of spider webs. I hate it.

But, being in Paris has taught me to think that maybe, just maybe, I’ll just let myself go, spider webs and all. I’ll stop fighting aging — it’s futile anyway. I’ll be decrepit and then die like every other person, animal and plant in the universe. That’s the way it should be. Right?

—

I’d like to discuss, here, a myth — that Americans are loud and the French are quiet and reserved. NOTHING could be further from the truth.

One piece of advice I received before going to France was not to talk loudly. Now, it’s difficult to hear me anyway, so why would I make my voice softer? To make the person I’m talking to lip-read? Whatever. This myth persists.

It’s ridiculous.

Let me state this bluntly: I have never heard such loud people IN MY LIFE as the people I saw, today, in Paris. The French positively shout. All the time.

Vendors shout. Customers shout at vendors. I watched an old woman hang out on the second, perhaps third, floor to shout at her neighbor across the alley. Even the garbage collectors shout.

Everyone shouts. Particularly my neighbors.

The couple upstairs from me is an extreme example of shouting. I’ve concluded that they are either actors, clowns, political radicals or magicians who make money by putting on children’s parties and hosting strange political meetings. They have these meetings EVERY DAY.

Not only do they shout, they stomp their feet. It sounds a bit like a rally upstairs — one guy shouts and the group responds with shouts. Furthermore, the woman and man like to practice loud shouting, laughing and bird calls. They’ll practice the same laugh maybe ten times, just to get it right. Then they move onto animal and bird sounds. Their conversations are loud, too.

As I was writing this, they stomped in circles, walked out the door, then shouted slogans that sounded eerily National Socialistic, and finally stomped back.

Across from me lives another couple who also contribute to the din and roar of Paris. Last night, Sunday, this middle age man decided to hold an party that spilled out of his apartment into the alley. The noise was breathtakingly loud. Young men flung their bodies at the doors, broke bottles and then stumbled outside the alley to vomit. People banged on my door for hours. It was like a scene out of Gomorrah. I know no one here, so obviously didn’t answer their knock.

True, there’s a quiet woman who lives alone. My selfsame.

And a man with a young child he seems to be raising alone. He’s not doing well with his child. He blows up, yells, then comforts the child with apologies. I’m very tempted to ask him if I can take his child for a few hours so he can calm down.

The point is this — the French are noisy people. They shout often. They’re not as reserved as Americans or Brits, but are more like Italians. I’m sure they don’t see this in themselves, but it’s true. Shhh. Don’t tell them we’re onto them.

I know this because I’ve been listening.

I enjoy making observational notations, describing in prose what I see and hear — the verbal equivalent of an artist’s sketch. The people-watching-while-drinking-coffee habit of Paris should be perfect for me but I feel vulnerable and exposed sitting alone at a table, so don’t do it much.

I do listen and watch as I walk, however. My sensitivity to the words people use as well as their turns of phrase has had an additional benefit of making me highly attuned to the content of their conversations, the swift change in ideas, and how and what people care about. Such observancy extends to architecture, most aesthetics and nature, but that’s not relevant here. You would think I’d love social media as it’s a voyeur’s heaven, but I hate it. I receive too few cues there.

I never watch tv. Never listen to the radio. Read only a few blogs. Have no social media presence. Never been on Twitter. I go on Facebook only when someone points me there but will never have a page.

Having said this, I often wind up in the fulcrum of power. I’m not sure why or how. I’m the little mouse who whispers honest words into a pol’s ear – my value to him is my seemingly direct knowledge about what’s going on among the people and an uncanny ability to write using the people’s language, that is, simply and directly. I’m very careful not to manipulate either the pol or his audience. The key to reaching people, I’ve learned over the years, is to NOT use clever tricks and distractions, but to unearth from the pol a genuine concern, even love, for the people to whom he’s speaking. This must be genuine. I can’t write into a man what isn’t there, what he doesn’t feel; negotiating the “true” distance between the speaker and audience may be just a skill, but it’s a necessary one because an audience easily senses when a pol has listened to them before the speech. They intuit when they’ve been regarded and acknowledged.

One unexpected discovery made during this first week in Paris has to do with the role of body language, gesture and the subtle cues we give to each other while communicating. I discovered this because I don’t speak French well. I only understand about half of what I hear and speak haltingly. But my understanding of what they’re thinking, that intuitive sense of how they feel when they talk politics together, was only slightly impacted by my stupidity in the language. This is amazing. I’m not sure why this is happening. Still ruminating …

Many elitists try to prove to each other that they’re unlike “the masses.” Those who preen the most are often the ones most desperate to disguise their own plebian roots. In contrast, genuine upper-class sorts are not ashamed of being compassionate and loyal toward their compatriots.

Only insecure climbers tut-tut about the “sheeple.”

Yet, like most of us, few pols are comfortable in their own skin. I’d much prefer to write for a lusty, out-of-control, angry, and bastardly old codger who is himself than a slimy, handsome, articulate chameleon who pretends to be someone he’s not. At least I’d know what I’m working with.

I’m not writing for anyone right now … I want to make clear that this visit to Paris has nothing to do with an assignment or contract.

—

There are few beards here.

—

Continuing yesterday’s post … Paris is a shopping culture of people who buy only for the day. This suggests that deep inside, ordinary Parisians expect tomorrow to be just like today, that the fruit, veges and meats will be purchasable tomorrow. Part of French confidence has to do with their benign view of government. This may be why cities are more liberal than outlying burbs and rural areas: people self-select to live in cities. After a while, the “type” is concentrated.

The culture of any city is one of dependence ... not interdependence: this can be a consequence, but not a necessary one.

To borrow business lingo, Parisians personify the “just in time” supply chain mentality. Though supply chains are notoriously fragile, they can usually move an item from A to B. As items are manufactured, the problem is that a missing part or two can throw the entire manufacturing line off. That’s the “thing” problem, that is, the supply chain loses a link somewhere which musses the entire thing up. But there’s also the “time” problem. If one link on the chain breaks down, the amazingly calibrated motion of an item from A to B suddenly stops. Most of this just happens through unseen, uncoordinated forces, much like Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Smith described how people pursuing their self-interest also met society’s needs, but no one planned or understood what was going on. If ONE company handles everything, like UPS or FedEx, the movement of a good will be rationalized. The movement of most stuff, however, is irrational. Stuff passes through containers, pallets, trucks, more trucks, cold storage, back to trucks, distribution, more distribution then finally a truck to it’s final destination — obviously, a lot of links can be broken.

This is what’s slowly happening now. The worldwide supply chain is losing a link, or two, every day, quite consistently.

The french seem blissfully unaware of the fragility of the supply chain. Food miraculously appears in the markets every day and gas gets plumbed into the lines. Things just work. When they don’t work, the french get furious with political tantrums — their expectations of what the government is capable of doing are very … generous, lets say. I have not heard anyone express fear that the supply chain could let them down. This suggests Parisians have a deeply rooted “liberal” or “leftist” mentality. They defer to authority because they believe the government is on their side and capable of maintaining the backdrop of society. They believe authority is well-intentioned and that the structures and rhythms of society will continue ad infinitum.
This is faith. It’s a tenet of secularism to believe that the things that are will be and that secular power can organize existence to human benefit.

For their sake, I hope they’re right, but in my heart, I know they’re wrong. Perhaps the war between NATO and the RF in Ukraine shook a few elitists who were forced to contemplate the possibility of an entire society crumbling into coldness and hunger because of their own inflexible ideology — I don’t know. They don’t seem to have changed or grown.

Similarly, the people remain, as I said, blissfully oblivious to the changes that are rumbling below the surface of this city.

—

One of the things I like about the French food culture is that it provides an excuse to gather together for a meal. Americans tend to eat alone, on the run … often in their cars. For us, eating food is analogous to putting gas in the car — it’s just the way we juice our bodies so we can meet our goals or do whatever we’re doing. In other words, to Americans, food is a means, not an end. You can see, I’m certain, how this atomizes the culture. For generations, people have eaten together … the last thing Jesus did before His crucifixion was eat a long, shared meal with His best friends, the disciples. We’re to be like Christ.

In France, food binds family. It doesn’t sustain the individual. To eat with one’s family is a cultural imperative and a very nice one, at that. I’m ashamed of the way I’ve treated the fellowship of eating in my past.

I will change.

—

I’m rather amused by Paris’ walking society, even more so by bicycles, though they make sense. The city is just too crowded and streets too narrow to drive. So bicycles/scooters are the most rational way to get around faster than walking, even though this walking culture irrationally evolved. No group of pols sat down and said, “We’re going to create a walking city in Paris.” It just happened. Again, I’m seeing Adam Smith’s invisible hand — it seems that the most important activities and patterns of shared behaviour generally just happen.

I have a gazillion questions floating around my mind, now.

• Do people build a culture or does it just happen?
• Can it be dictated, top-down, or does it rise from the people?
• Can the government reflect or lead/create culture?
• Can a culture be destroyed? Substantially changed?

Though the walking/bicycle culture predates the Green politico-religious movement, it definitely makes the Greenies happy for walking is retrograde, very yesterday, limiting and small-minded. These, too, are part of the liberal mentality. Liberals love urban density, living in small spaces — hives! — moving slowly, taking time to do the mundane because the mundane, like cooking and riding bikes, has a ritualistic religious quality in their minds.

Cars, however, open vistas and possibilities that could never exist in a walking culture. I remember reading, somewhere, about how medieval Europeans rarely travelled more than fifteen miles from their homes, and how regional accents were so strong and localized that a resident of one town could tell by an accent alone who wasn’t from his town. That’s hyper-localism! And, that’s the unstated nirvana of Greenie religionists.

Sorry, folks. I worship a different God. I LOVE driving. I’ve driven hundreds of thousands of miles, to every state except Maine, including Alaska and Canada. When I drive, I determine my own schedule. I’m not on some public transportation schedule, submissively moving when they tell me I can, but I move in my OWN LOVELY WAY. I stop when I want to stop. Explore things that interest me. See things … drive through the night … observe the changing landscape. Driving is freeing, folks. The passage of miles is like a ticket away from the small confines of my past.

Walking forces a person to repeat yesterday — driving permits a person to chart a new course for tomorrow.

Several decades ago, historian Sidney Mead wrote a book — the title of which escapes me — in which he compared the European and American mentalities.

Though Europe, he wrote, had limited land, time stretched backward endlessly. Europeans cling to their own history and were situated, culturally, by the endlessness of their past … or used to be before EU homogenization and unassimilable immigration. They live life slowly without “excessive” personal ambition and aggression. They’re used to jostling for space in crowded circumstances, and don’t seek new land. It makes sense, then, that urban liberals like to walk.

America, he wrote, had limitless land and not enough time to take it all in. Americans are in a hurry. Always conquering. Moving fast. Their vistas are endless, possibilities limited only by how quickly they can conquer their own character as well as chug through the problems that have to be hurdled on their way to success. You betcha Americans drive. It’s fast. Efficient. Fun.

Finally, I’m in Paris. I now live in the 2^e arrondissement, quartier Montorgueil. This probably means nothing to you unless you’re French or familiar with Paris. Here’s some history by way of explanation.

Paris is divided into twenty neighborhoods called arrondissements. Their numbering starts in the middle of Paris, near the Louvre, and gets larger in concentric circles as you move away from the center. Thus, the highest numbers are on the periphery and lowest are in the city center. Arrondissements combine into sectors — the combination of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th make the sector, for example, where I now live. This was done in the mid-19th century when Paris’ old medieval city was razed and a new, rational and modern city was built on the rubble. I think you’ll find this to be a pattern in France: a hyper-rationalization and structuring of society which doesn’t seek a clear purpose. Today, Paris chugs on as if arrondissements and a rationally gridded city never mattered, which is true.

The hierarchical organization imposed on the city is as rigid and orderly — sector>arrondissement>quartier – as the city is chaotic. I love the chaos even though my mind and life have been disciplined. Streets, here, are charmingly narrow and lumpy, crammed with people jostling, shopping and walking. People walk a lot in Paris. It’s not safe on the trains (for a newbie like me) so I, too, walk. I see much as I stroll around gathering information. In my home quarter, the Montorgueil, I pass block after block of vendor tables in front of stores. It’s quite a sight.

This is not a quiet city. There’s not a lot of angry shouting but quite a bit of loud talking. Perhaps only loud speech is heard above the constant din? I’ve noticed that little contacts, touches, exchanges of glances, soft words … make Parisian culture. If these things disappeared, so will the underlying culture. Little human touches are additive — they combine into a civil society. In my wee opinion, the chaos of Paris is it’s strength. This chaos percolates up from the people who live there. How the city was once divided matters not.

The second arrondissement is very near the center of town. It seems like a working class area to me – Wikipedia says that here there are almost 63,000 jobs per Km^2. Since there are only 22,000 people in total who live in this quartier, workers must commute. Outside of retail, I have no idea what they do. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

—

The second arrondissement is the home of the Bourse. This is the old name for the Paris Stock Exchange; today it’s given the very bureaucratic name, “Euronext Paris.” The EU is relentless … ever,, ever, ever closer, gobbling up one culture after the next in a frantic desire to homogenize or destroy specific European cultures such as the French. No institution from any one country is permitted to exist unless it’s tentacles reach into other European countries. Thus, today’s Euronext includes six markets in addition to France: Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Milan, Oslo and Paris.

So, the old Bourse is defunct. Trading has gone virtual. Gone are open-outcry trades that dominated all exchanges for more than a century, including those in America.

My former brother-in-law was a trader on the CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) during its outcry years. When I was very young and curious about what he did, he told me about the physicality of outcry, how those with the loudest and lowest voices would be heard as bigger bodies muscled out smaller ones. He was 6’6” – a huge man, which he believed advantaged him as a trader. He literally stood above his competition. This wasn’t enough to protect him, however: he told me his body was covered with bruises he received while trading on the floor.

I used to love watching the open outcry on the floor of the CBOT from a gallery – to me, it was pure theater. As with the Bourse, the CBOT and all the other exchanges have been replaced by blue, blinking lights on large screens. Brokers don’t know each other anymore. It’s anonymous. Bot-driven. Faster than the human mind.

And no one is bruised.

Although I can’t put a finger on it, something was lost when the electronic trading platform replaced open outcry, though few seem to lament outcry’s passing. I do, however. I see the end of open outcry as another example of the dissolution of common culture. When the human contact between traders was replaced by cold computers, this slice of common culture took a nick. Traders who performed on the Bourse and CBOT had crawled up a set ladder, starting as runners and moving upward to the apex which was buying a seat and trading on and for your own dime. This still happens, but in an environment of anonymity and anomie. This is never good.

The famous trading floor of the Bourse was removed in 1987.

What remains is an empty building, a huge, neoclassical, relentlessly symmetric, horizontal structure with a long colonnade along the front. It’s old, but not that old. After Napoleon ordered it’s construction, he named it after the architect that designed it: Alexandre Théodore Brongniart, so it’s mid-19th century, like most of Paris.

Things that were, but no longer are, leave their architectural footprint for the next generation to figure out. Many years ago, I wrote a few articles for Bloomberg in his Chicago office. I hated going in there because it had blue electronic ticker tape that revolved around the ceiling of the room like a wallpaper border … as fish in a huge, central tank swam in water that glowed and flickered blue with each trade. It reminded me of Monet’s painting, Waterloo Bridge, which has an inescapable, pale blue … but darker.

No one else seemed bothered by the blueness. Not even the fish.

Anyway, today’s Bourse is now just another convention centre. This is another central theme of Paris; old purposeful and useful things have been jettisoned. What remains are empty shells. Buildings once useful have been culturally marginalized and lack meaning or purpose.

I understand that all progress extracts a price; but at some point, perhaps, that price could be too high?

—

The quartier Montorgueil, where I live, is a food vendor mecca. Little stores spill out into the street so people walking see what’s for sale. It’s tastefully arranged. Beautifully fresh. Much is organic, too. The French really like food and seem to like to cook, too. I was talking with a woman who in mid-sentence turned to me and said, “I have to go cook for my daughter now …” and scurried off. Her daughter, she had just told me, was nineteen years of age which strikes me as plenty old to cook for herself … but whatever.

The French buy what they need to cook the big meal for the day, which takes place in the early afternoon, not the evening, buying only the ingredients they’ll use to prepare that meal.

Perhaps you’ll understand what I’m saying, here, but Americans do not share the French mentality toward food shopping … not at all. Instead of buying just what we need, we cram full our huge, double sub-zero refrigerator in the kitchen. We also stuff our garage refrigerator, our beer refrigerator and our six-foot chest freezer. All of this is done in the name of being “stocked up,” “saving for a rainy day” and “prepared” which are important virtues in traditional American culture.

Thus, Americans shop infrequently and don’t enjoy it. At one point I had the goal of shopping every other week because I detested shopping so much. I never quite reached that goal, but came close.

Furthermore, the idea of a huge food storage, cooking two meals at once, having 3000 pounds of dry red wheat in sealed, mylar bags with oxygen absorbers … would strike the french as totally nuts. I think I’ll go quiet, now, but want you to know that I’ve stored thousands of pounds of wheat, rice and other grains, honey, dried foods including butter and eggs, etc, some of which is in my garage, the majority in a storage unit. I’ll never starve. Almost all of my acquaintances do the same. We don’t trust the government to take care of us so we aim to be self-sufficient.

I confess that it makes me uncomfortable to see only butter, jam, juice and a loaf of bread in my tiny refrigerator here. Where’s the food? I like seeing a refrigerator stacked with clear plastic containers carefully categorized and labelled. I like to know there’s food ready-to-eat after being microwaved. The French would say this attitude is at least a venial sin, if not mortal.

Americans eat to live – the French live to eat. That’s the fundamental difference in a nutshell, a bit exaggerated but close..

As someone who never learned to cook and has no desire to cook, I find the French focus on food a bit disorienting. I wish they’d talk about something else. When I was standing in one of the 19th-century glazed commercial arcades waiting for rain to abate, I listened to the people around me talk only about food. It got to me.

Having said this, French food is lip-smackingly delicious …

I find much diluted wisdom in other religions.

There is a Cherokee legend about an elderly Cherokee brave who tells his grandson about life.

“Son,” he says, “Within all of us there is a battle of two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

He continued, “The other is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”

“The same fight is going on inside of you, and inside every other person, too,” explained the wise Cherokee elder.

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The grandfather simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I am choosing to feed the good wolf, even when the bad wolf howls hungrily within me.

My bad wolf, now, is sad and fearful. In my mind’s eye, I can see my father’s wan face on a pillow, my last sighting of him. My phone calls are not being picked up which scares me. He had asked me to call daily — he’s not answering. It’s probably a technical issue but still brings fear to my heart.

Amazingly, more when apart from him than with him, I am learning to love my earthly father. I fear his imminent death. I want to be with him when he dies, not here, in Paris. I want to hold his hand, kiss his forehead, pray over his failing body and send him off to whatever future God has chosen for him.

None of this is in my hands. Still, if I choose to feed my bad wolf, I won’t trust God to take care of my father. The bad wolf doesn’t trust Him to take care of the details of life here, too. My bad wolf doubts, fears and is sad.

Though I had felt led to come here, I was never certain why. I assumed His reasons and purposes for this foray would unfold gradually. Now, I’m wondering if I misinterpreted Him. I only intuited that I was supposed to do this. I believed this was the Holy Spirit speaking to my heart. Now, I doubt. I’m succumbing to my bad wolf.

I need encouragement. I pray something good happens. Something blessed. I pray to meet someone I can talk to. I pray to escape this horrible hotel for a nice little apartment of my own. I pray that the snafus, dishonesty and red-tape that has hindered me just goes away. I don’t want to deal with this stuff.

—

More than conquerors.

That’s the line I’m to believe. That’s a good wolf idea, that with enough faith I can conquer my bad wolf. I’m to be strong again. That’s part of why I’m here. I’m to rebuild a steely core but on a different foundation, one of faith. This I know. So, I must press forward. If I retreated and flew home to “daddy” to watch him die, it would be wrong though it seems right. The many years caring for him as he neared his own death softened me — now, I need to toughen.

One thing that some of you may understand — others will hate — is that I feel, as a woman, quite vulnerable and empty without a man. I’ve thought about this in the past, of course, but haven’t felt it as poignantly as I do now. Truly, two are stronger than one. By nature, I’m supportive, encouraging and giving to the few people I love. In the past, I was taken advantage of by a man who interpreted my gentleness as weakness. But, in retrospect, I did the right thing. I fed my good wolf, my better nature, by giving selflessly to another. I still believe in gentleness and love.

I not only believe in gentleness and love, I remain gentle and loving — this is one of my good wolves that I never stopped feeding.

Alone, on occasion I have felt a frisson of strength; most of the time, however, I feel a gut-level sadness that I never known a deep earthly love. I want this and God knows it. I’m looking for manly depth. Manly solidity. Manly character. The rest is frosting.

There’s a strength in two-ness. It shows. But it’s more than that — I believe in a deep love that germinates and grows between two people who both feed their good wolf within. Alone, love festers — together, love grows. I still believe that a good marriage makes both partners bigger and better than they would have been had they remained single. So, I pray to work by someone’s side, to sublimate my interests and abilities to his, to respect and build him up, to be joined together in a calling greater than our own love for each other.

This calling will be divine. We will love God together and let our love escape toward others. But that’s not for me today, alas. Alone, I’m clinging to God in this time of uncertainty. Begging for his comfort. His direction.

—

I’m an ambitious person. One of my ambitions is to write beautifully — this surprises you, no? Believe it or not, writing well is important to me. Though I hate the narcissistic culture of social media, I still think it’s important to be self-revelatory and honest. There’s a sort of honesty that isn’t voyeuristic in purpose, but, instead, exposes important aspects of character and life. That’s what I aim for: brutal self-exposure that cuts to the grit of what I believe and who I am, not because I’m so special, but because you may have experienced the same things yet haven’t been able to put them into a context or find a purpose for what happened to you.

A well-lived life demands explanations. It’s not something to which you react passively and chronicle with a line of Facebook photographs of what you wore and ate. I remember, in Japan, seeing many young girls and men walk around with little sticks on their cellphones. They used these sticks to hold the phone away from their bodies so they could photograph themselves with a background. Political and media figures get this treatment today. I’ll never forget this photograph of a crowd turning away from Hillary to take a selfie:

This is pure narcissism. The crowd wasn’t interested in Hillary, but in themselves as participants in a rally. Political values and ideals did not draw them to this venue, but rather their own shallow need to feel important, to be a part of history. It signals cultural sickness.

I don’t want to be like this and don’t think I am. I’m a far cry from a narcissist yet I feel I have something to say to a culture that doesn’t take the time to think. It’s not that my thoughts are so profound — often, they’re rather shallow, in fact — but that they’re so RARE. People don’t think about life anymore. They just let it happen. They’re weak and passive.

I pray, then, that my little scribbles cause you to ponder … really, anything, but particularly the interface between God and yourself, that slippery, often transparent barrier between your human and His divine nature. I want to write words that make you question your political values and those of others. I want to write words that challenge you to be bigger and better, to feed the good wolf inside of you, but only after you recognize that there’s a battle raging between your good and bad wolf. I want you to step away from the crowd taking selfies and turn around and face Hillary. Look at her. Don’t look at your experience of Hillary, but at Hillary herself. Look at her fake face. Stare at it. Ponder what she is. Think about her values and why she was running for office.

Then go look in a mirror. What is behind the visage?

—

Either one or another thing happens as you pass through the years of adult life. The choice is yours.

First, you can descend into a self that only slightly changes over the years — slipping into raising the grandkids because you never developed before your own kids flew the nest; into a job from which you retired leaving empty time on your hands without purpose or direction; into an identity that never quaked with meaning and now is hard to unearth. Your faith may have sustained you through many rough patches, but it never took off, never became “real.” In other words, you’re not a bad person, but you didn’t feed the good wolf enough.

Or, you can ascend into change, growth and strength. To do this you must admit your mistakes and then move on. You become bigger through the passage of tough trials. You learn to love, at last, not selfishly, weakly and cravenly but in a giving and honest way. Your career morphs into something new and better fitting, paid or unpaid. Your faith becomes alive as you grow … the past seems so shallow and wasted. In other words, you fed the good wolf in you, slowly and carefully, and you’re seeing him fattened and strong.

I’ve watched many old men shrivel in character when their career ended. What they were, they no longer are. They have no title. No office. No job description. Some men made this transition with tears and angst — most ignore it: they play shuffleboard, build second homes, buy Harleys or sailboats, and then stroll into the sunset.

I want you to be exceptional, dear reader. Atypical. I want you to gallop purposely through the years of adult life, not meander aimlessly. To do this you need to feed that good wolf which means developing yourself so you’re useful to God. In the end, it’s not self-help tricks or selfies that make life big, but submitting to a God that enlarges, not shrinks, your character.

It’s 5pm Paris time but my body doesn’t know it. During the past three days, I slept in little fifteen-minute increments on the plane and in a hotel lobby because I was so anxious about the upcoming trip. Now that I’m here, my anxiety seems justified.

Anxiety is contrary to faith. I know this in my head but am still anxious. Faith believes that God directs every step — anxiety is a consequence of NOT believing in His love, provision and care. I’m thinking, now, of Paul’s ministry. Paul was reactive — when things happened, Paul responded and moved on. I don’t see a lot of foresight and planning in Paul’s life. Of course, his life was God-directed. Yet Paul seemed in control of his emotions, though there were events, such as the betrayal of friends, that made him anxious and angry.

I know God controls all of life, that even a tiny feather shed off the back of a sparrow is noted by God, so it follows that God must have known what was going on in Paul’s life. This means He let these things happen to Paul … or chose them to happen. I feel something similar on this foray to Paris. God is allowing things to hurt me; I don’t feel His presence and control.

By the time I got to the airport in Denver, my enthusiasm about going to Paris had entirely dissipated. What was supposed to be God-directed seemed God-forsaken. How was I supposed to interpret what was happening? Why didn’t I have the faith of Paul?

Right before I left, I cracked the door of father’s bedroom to say goodbye. He was very pale and grey. His body was straight and stiff, legs elevated like a cadaver in bed. Looking at him, I was overwhelmed with guilt about leaving him. I wondered if I’d ever see him again: would our years together end in a motionless, grey exhalation? Is that how life ends … as we die do we lose colour, stop moving and make inaudible sounds? My tears flowed. For the first time in my life and for reasons I don’t understand, I told my father I loved him. He slightly tilted his head toward me and said, “I’ve loved you as well …” as his voice dropped and eyes firmly shut. And that was it. He had signaled to me that he was done speaking. I had been dismissed.

I closed the door.

—

My dog has been very affectionate the past few days. He sensed something wasn’t right perhaps because I had been scurrying around in ways atypical. Pup trailed me closely, not permitting more than four feet of space between us. At night, his massive body pressed against mine as his huge head leaned near my face, eyes watery and open, scanning for information or explanation. He licked my hands incessantly before I left, a new behavior, and walked around with his leash in his mouth as if to tell me he wanted to go.

I tried to reassure him. I told him he was the best thing that ever happened to me in life, that I loved, loved and loved him, would never leave him permanently, and would return so we could walk in the park together. I promised to bring him big bones. To be with him forever. That he was my one and only dog. My faithful Pup. I repeatedly told him he was “bestest dog in the universe.”

As I brought the luggage toward the door, he put his huge body between me and the door, knocking the heavy bags over. He stood close to me and pushed his head on my hand for petting. Finally, when the departure moment came, I threw my arms around him and told him, one last time, that I loved him …

… then, closed the door.

—

I would have thought that God would quietly reward me for my attempts at obedience, that He would see my anxiety and alleviate it, but then my backup nurse texted me to tell me she had COVID — this was right after father’s primary nurse had a death in her family and left the state for a few days. I was already in the airport. Checked in. I stood there and looked out at the grey sky and wondered if I was making the right decision. Should I stay home to care for my father? Am I being selfish? Unloving?

I texted my son to tell him about the nurse. I told him I couldn’t do anything, that the plane was about to leave. My son responded with the most comforting text message I’ve ever received:

” … I’ll figure it out.”

I queued in line with the rest of the passengers pulling my new standardized, 21″ carry-on wheeled suitcase topped with another bag sized to fit under the seat. In the past, I hadn’t cared much about this sort of stuff but now I didn’t want to risk any last minute snafus so had carefully measured and bought luggage according to regulation. As I took my final steps into the plane, I trusted my son to be mature and responsible. I actually trusted him. It wasn’t hard, either. My dear son had offered to do something for me, not the other way around. It had been so long since someone did something for me that I wasn’t certain how to react.

I thanked him. That’s all.

In planes, I prefer to sit in window seats in planes so I can watch the last minute checks pilots do, like moving the flaps back and forth a few times to make certain they’re working. Though the workers on the tarmac always make lots of noise, the loudest thump seems to be shutting and locking the door through which passengers had embarked. When this door is firmly closed, there is no going back.

—

You would think that God would comfort me even a wee bit — I suppose my son’s mature and kind response was part of His comfort — but frankly, I felt His distance, not approval. As I looked around, non-Christian people seemed far better off than me. I smiled as I watched a middle-age couple with two, thick-glassed teen girls share little boxes of Chinese food as they laughed among themselves. It was uplifting to see such a happy family, particularly since most people were sitting alone, emotionally detached, staring at their phones, atomized in self. Few spoke. Even couples sat silently, absorbed by their phone or some other “electronic device.”

Where was my divine “attagirl,” I wondered, thinking of how Paul had sung in prison as chains rubbed his skin raw and muscles ached from being held in one position. What’s wrong with me that I can’t trust God, feel joy, and relax in the knowledge that He has all things under control, including this foray into Paris? Is it my fault I don’t feel His comfort? Is my faith so flagging that I doubt His provision? Isn’t there supposed to be joy in obedience? Why doesn’t He give little nudges of approval when I desperately need them?

Paul sang because he intuited God’s love and care.

I wasn’t singing. My stomach was in knots.

—

Christians psychologically interpret events in life in such a way as to give themselves either joy or anxiety. Objectively dreadful events can be brushed off by the strong-of-soul — those same events can be crushing experiences to the weak-in-spirit. I had always been strong in the past, I thought to myself. I used to throw the kids in the car and drive all over the country — for months! — never worrying about anything. It was pure joy to be out and about. I used to love watching people, learn new stuff, and absorb everything around me. Then, a series of truly devastating events occurred in my life, some self-caused. Each subsequent event scraped a bit off my naturally brave and nonchalant approach to life. These events chipped away at my sense of being capable and up to whatever life threw at me. Somehow, death after death, marital abuse and divorce, moving from house to house, caring endlessly for an ungrateful old man, poor health, living in ugly circumstances, isolation, being constantly surrounded by dull people, more ugliness … got to me. The events of life smashed and shattered my own self-confidence. In the Christian lingo, I was “broken.” No, that’s not a strong enough word — I was pulverized.

I couldn’t go on anymore. Couldn’t find a return path to the top of my game. Couldn’t feel optimistic. Didn’t hope. I begged God, often, to let me die. “Just take me, God,” I’d scream … into emptiness. God never responded. He never comforted me. Even God abandoned me, so I felt.

In the past, I would have toughened through it. I would have taken life’s blows, rose above them, and moved on. It’s not that my life had been easy in the past, but in spite of difficulties, my driven and strong personality always found a path upward. Bad things were temporary, I thought. Life would surely end on an uptick.

But then things got much worse. And worse. Still worse. Life’s body blows kept hammering me. I turned to God with restored vigor, finding parallels in my own life with biblical figures and events. God was faithful to the Israelites, I thought. After those weak tribesmen turned from their lousy ways, they were rewarded. There was oil in their jars. Unending oil. Their granaries were full. They had lots of children. Great property holdings. Loving marriages. Happy-making times. And, a lot of love.

So, like the Israelites, I turned from my lousy ways and began to serve others selflessly. Every time something bad happened to me, I redoubled my efforts to make someone else’s life better. My father became the recipient of my care. I doted on him as he went blind and became feeble. I met his every need. It bothered me that he was never thankful, but I mostly sloughed this off, attributing it to senility and age. I prayed often and though I heard nothing in response, I still believed God heard me. I stopped putting my trust in my own ample abilities and placed my faith in His. God would provide. He would be there. I didn’t have to worry about anything.

After all, God was good, loving, caring … a real Father, a dependable force in time of need. God — unlike every, single damn person in my life — would pull through. God was reliable, unlike the circumstances and people that had so often let me down. He’d be there in my time of need, unlike those who tried to leave me destitute. He’d comfort the afflicted. He’d guide, even heal, the blind. He’d pull little children into His big, succoring lap and tell stories as He patted their mussy heads.

You see, God is good. That’s rather fundamental to faith: God is love; God is good. And so, when my circumstances weren’t good, I believed in His goodness because that was his nature. His essence. I’m not good, but He is.

To believe in His goodness in the face of unending pain, however, required a bit of mental chicanery. Yes, of course God is good — the corollary is that whatever happened to me must also, by definition, be good. But it wasn’t good. His goodness crashed on the shoals of my reality. At one point I felt either His sovereignty or His goodness had to go. God controls all. A GOOD God controls all events in life. He lets them happen. No, He CAUSES them to happen. But there I was. Suffering.

This didn’t make sense, so I brushed it aside. It was a mystery, you see. My pea brain wasn’t capable of understanding how suffering could be an expression of His goodness. I just had believe in both his sovereignty and goodness. This was true faith.

Job is another painful example. Why did that poor man, a very good person, suffer so greatly. Yea, he was rewarded in the end, but … well … all the apostles were murdered in the end. They, too, suffered greatly. Why are some rewarded and others brutally murdered? The answer, I know, is that though the end of life is death, in Christian theology, life is eternal. My earthly existence is a blip on a line that extends ever-backward and ever-forward in time. What I think is death isn’t. It’s just a point on the line. The reward comes, but in the next life … in heaven.

Frankly, I found this line of reasoning difficult to swallow. I wanted to feel His love, concern, care, direction, providence and all the good stuff IN THIS LIFE. Deferred gratification isn’t a strong suit for me. I want it now. I want His good stuff. His good personality.

His love.

—

I told my father I loved him at a moment when I lacked self-consciousness. Those words percolated up from some shaded, hidden spot in my soul, like a little bubble of lightness. I’m not sure where it came from. Never in my life have I felt love for my father. The older I get, the more I think that a good life hinges on love. Not just God’s love, but the love I have for others. I want love. More of it. Much more. I feel as if I’m about to explode, not with need but with that inside-outing of the self that Hegel talks about when he writes that when God created the world, He “othered Himself.” I think I understand this better, now. To other myself means to love. God’s creative act was an act of love.

—

So, I’m here. I’m in Paris typing away in a comfy bed in a Ikea-themed hotel near the airport. I just slept four hours. It felt great. My brain is not as foggy. I just thought of those girls sharing Chinese food, their confidence in their father’s provision, their light-hearted laughter and obvious love for each other … that’s a sort of faith. It’s a godless faith, a faith in one’s earthly father and other people. It’s the faith of a child.

That’s what I need. I need more of a childlike faith in my heavenly Father’s love and provision so when I don’t see or feel it, I still know that God exists, that in the backdrop of my mind, there’s a solidity. A divine solidity. A rock of faith on which I lean.

In a few hours, I’ll be looking for housing. I pray to be led to a solution straight-away, but if this doesn’t happen, I pray to not rely exclusively on myself, but to continue searching in the God-filled void. A friend of mine just emailed me to say, ” I do believe God will lead you while you’re in motion; it won’t be random.” It’s a dual effort. I’ll do my part but as I do so, I pray He’ll guide my footsteps. I pray to feel His presence, to know His love, to trust in His provision … even when external events suggest otherwise. I pray for a break, a momentary respite from endless problems.

I pray for the strength to believe.

—

Nothing comes easily. I’m in the midst of a misunderstanding with an agency that leases short-term flats in Paris. They seem not to comprehend the reasons for my stay. I can only tell them part of the story, the earthly or profane part, for that’s all they need to know. That should be sufficient, too.

As a Christian, I live on two levels — spiritual and profane. On a profane level, I’m going to Paris to set up a branch for a US logistics company. On a spiritual level, I’m going to submit to whatever God has for me to do in Paris. All Christians live a dual existence similar to this. In biblical terms, we are in but not of the world (John 17). This means that as I live on earth, like every mortal, I am to prioritize the spiritual over the profane.

This is THE Christian struggle. It’s the lifelong struggle of faith. The struggle is to truly believe that my primary responsibility is spiritual — I’m to witness to others, to bring God’s message to those who haven’t heard or understood it; my secondary responsibility is to ameliorate the effects of evil in this profane world. That’s the meaning of being salt and light. The secondary calling is why Christians become socially active, run for political office or even write speeches in the backdrop of power. But my first responsibility is to proclaim the good news.

I must never forget these priorities.

—

His calling is His enablement.

He has called me to Paris. Am I sure? How do I know? You probably expect me to write, here, that I have had some sort of road-to-Damascus experience … but that would be a lie. I have never heard God’s audible voice calling me to Paris. I have never seen a real miracle or His handwriting on the wall. Every step I’ve made as a Christian woman has been riddled with small holes of doubt. This is my doubt, my faithlessness.

At bottom, I fear that I’m pressing toward my desires, not His.

I’m a rather determined and capable person in the profane world. I have made things happen on my own. I’ve also failed, but managed to thrive in spite of myself. So, when I want something, my instinct or tendency is to grab some graph paper and begin to chart a course from here to there, from my current state or position to where I want to be. My instinct is to get it done. Just do it.

My problem with a calling like this to Paris is it’s ambiguity because this calling touches on my own desires as well as on His. It demands both acquiescence to His power as well as using my own abilities. His calling is not a clear-cut demand to do something I detest (like the past few years spent caretaking my father), but rather to do something that I would normally consider a fun challenge. If I hated and dreaded going to Paris, yet felt called to do so, it would be easy to claim that my calling was God’s will because my own desires would factor out. The fact that I’m looking forward to getting out of here (negative motivation) as well as going to Paris (positive motivation) means my own desires blend into that which I perceive to be His calling.

Thus, the ambiguity.

Because of this ambiguity, I’ve looked for objective, circumstantial evidence to prove that this is truly His will. Mostly, such evidence was provided. Money, identity problem on the passport, finding a caretaker for my father, the ability to keep my dog where he’s comfortable at home, insurance, improved health, even stupid things like finding decent luggage; all of this has fallen into place.

But one big thing is missing. Housing.

What hasn’t happened — yet! — is securing a place to live. The people who provide long-term housing in Europe and elsewhere (Lodgis, if you are curious) are either consumed with amassing ridiculously detailed personal information or are incompetent and/or malicious. So far, they’ve asked for pay stubs, photocopies of ID, taxes from 2021, ID, a letter from employer … the list of their demands seem endless. And, each time I fulfill their latest demand, they come up with a new one. This has gone on for more than a month.

So, in less than 24 hours, I’ll be on a plane headed for Paris, sans housing. Should I continue to believe, then, that this is God’s calling, that I’m supposed to be going not because I want to but because HE has chosen this for me to do this? Do I really believe in my own hearing of His of calling?

It’s crunch time, folks. This could be a test not so much of obedience but of faith. I must believe, in this very practical way, that HIS PURPOSES ARE HIS ENABLINGS. This means, practically, that if I’m doing what He wants, or at least trying to, and am walking down the very narrow path in front of me which is barely illuminated beyond the next step, HE WILL PROVIDE.

God will enable.

—

I’m not alone in this test of faith. I’m not special at all. Most Christians are tested in similar ways. The test is one of stepping out into the almost-darkness toward a goal that can only be vaguely intuited, not seen. God knows I’m willing to stay here in the United States. He knows I hate it here, but am willing to stay. He knows I am willing to leave, too. He knows I’m eager to leave, perhaps too eager.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years to humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands…

This verse is in Deuteronomy. I feel as if I’ve had my “forty years” in a suburban desert playing nurse. I’ve obeyed the command to honour my parents. I’ve sublimated my own desires to this command. Was I tested here? You betcha. The tears I’ve shed over these past few years could only be collected in gallon containers, not perfume-size bottles. It’s been hellish.

Yet, God knows what’s in my heart. He knows I kept His commandments. He knows I passed the test. My symbolic forty years of wandering in the desert are coming to an end in very real, non-symbolic hours.

But then … what? I have no idea. I’ll just do as He directs by responding to circumstances.

—

“Are you afraid,” someone asked me on the phone a few minutes ago? No, but I’m not faith-filled and happy-clappy either. I’m edgy. I’m guardedly watching what is about to happen.

Confession: I really want God to prove Himself to me. I want to know He’s a God of love. I want to experience His provision and feel the pressure of His hand pushing me forward. I want to know what a real father is like. A loving one. One that cares for me … not one I care for; one that puts my needs first … not demands I meet his needs. I’ve never had a father who protected or loved me. I’d like one.

Even as a mature woman, I’d like to know love, not only the earthly love of a man or even a church, but heavenly love. God’s love. It’s not too late, right?

—

So, this is a test of faith, certainly, but it’s also a test of His love for me. I’m testing God just as He’s testing me. In a way, my faith hangs on His response to these circumstances.

If I crash and burn, I won’t give up my Christian faith. If He doesn’t provide as I struggle to stay on His path, my trust in Him will suffer, but not end.

I’ll continue to doubt.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” — Kissinger.

This post is a response to an article written by an EU bureaucrat. The author of that article is an ambitious young man. His words were meant to strike a target I cannot see; perhaps he wrote to impress those who would pull him to the next level. His was an insiderish article, back-scratchingly … synchophantingly so. Thus, I am not going to cite it. Though I don’t know this young man, I don’t want to hurt him … even though he’s DEAD WRONG.

—

When I was a little kid, about six or seven years of age, I enjoyed jumping rope. When two of us jumped-rope at the same time, we often sang a little ditty which went something like this: “Jump between the ropes … jump three times … push the enemy out … jump three times … push her out again … jump three times … there’s only room for one … jump three times …”

—

As an American, pursuing my own “self-interest” seems like an obvious and rational thing to do. After all, why would I pursue someone else’s interest — isn’t that suicidal or at least self-harming? One reason why the pursuit of self-interest seems like such an obvious good is that most Americans, including myself, are thoroughly atomized as well as aggressive — in spite of all the pressure to think otherwise, to conceive of myself as a member of an identity group, my default mode is to think of myself as an individual. That’s the American way. It’s who I am.

The phrase “group interest” gives me creepy feelings. It’s not only that I believe society works best if everyone pursues their own self-interest, but I fear being channeled by the interests of others. I’m never certain what their interests are. The idea of group interest seems irrational, much like a guessing game, more intuitive than secure. I’m forced to observe, to watch people’s faces for signs of dissimulation. Too, I’m not ever sure I fit in the group. What about non-conformists … are their voices heard? To what interests am I submitting if there’s a group interest? Does anyone know? Must I submit to a compromise position the group holds like little satellites around a big star? What happens if I don’t?

What does it mean to be an individual in a group, anyway?

Lets think about this. I’ve got some presuppositions that will make you feel uncomfortable because such thoughts are not polite. They’re supposed to remain buried and unspoken, but one of the things I do in this blog is speak the unspeakable. So, here goes:

Presupposition one. Life’s a battle. It’s totally Hobbesian — solitary, short, nasty, brutish, and poor. Furthermore, since the state of nature is binary, I can either prevail or lose. This means the state of nature IS a state of war. And, as in a war, for every loser there’s a winner. It’s a zero-sum game, folks, no matter what little, sweet lies they whispered in your youthful, soft ears.

Go back to the playground. Sing and jump, “there’s only room for one ...”

Presupposition two. It’s not the case that there are three possible outcomes in “conflict resolution” — capitulation, negotiation or domination — for, in reality, there are two. As I look back at the times I tried to “split the difference” or find “common ground,” I either lost or won in the end. Negotiation may have felt like an viable option, but was not — when I sought common ground and compromised, I only delayed via negotiation my own capitulation or domination. I have learned the hard way that there is no mid-point between winning and losing. For years, I fooled myself into thinking otherwise.

The truly bizarre idea promulgated by Leftists that we can all be winners if we “give a little to get a little” … oh-la-de-dah-de-dah-kumbaya … is a damnable lie. I wonder if Leftists jumped rope on the playground when they were kids. Didn’t they play “King of the Hill” on a pile of wet snow?

Look, there are winners and losers in every conflict. If you don’t believe this, you’re a loser. There are no outcomes in which everyone wins. Or loses.

Presupposition three. Thomas Hobbes — he’s a Christian moral philosopher, by the way — believed people naturally behave dreadfully toward each other. It would be Lord of the Flies every day if people unloosed their inner selves. All humanity, Hobbes says, is tainted by evil. We inherited a sinful nature which means that the need and desire to dominate others is deeply buried within us.

Presupposition four. Though Christians spend their lives fighting their own human nature — after the instigation of the Holy Spirit instills a willingness to change — this battle is never won. Selfishness, which is what the pursuit of self-interest is, can be tamped down but will never disappear. Thus, there’s no reason to pretend that another person, particularly a non-Christian, altruistically has your best interest in mind and is willing to sacrifice his/her own self-interests to yours.

Yes, people can be good and noble. Even selfless. But there’s a limited circle for whom true selflessness is a given — I’m thinking of the sort of selflessness required in marriage, old friendships and child-rearing. It’s chimerical, then, to look at people, even Christians, through rosy, altruistic lenses. To be rational means you must look at groups, neighborhoods, churches, states, nations or supranational collectivities in the same way — as if they’re out for themselves.

Presupposition five. Now, self-interest is absolutely NOT a Christian way to behave — no no no — even though it remains the most rational and realistic way to look at the interaction between people(s) and even collectivities. Christians should assume that self-interest reigns, even among believers. As a Christian woman, when I choose to be NOT self-interested, to sublimate my own desires and needs, that choice triggers a difficult struggle which I win only after the gentleness of spiritual maturity has taken deep root. Controlling my self-interestedness is a goal I’ll never fully reach. This is sad, but true. In Christian rhetoric, I’m in a life-long battle to “die to self.”

See the tension? As a Christian, I must put the needs and desires of other people over my own needs and desires, but as a realist I know it’s perfectly rational to scratch the eyes out of anyone who dares to get in my way.

So, watch out. You’ll never know which side of me will prevail — the “old man” realist, or the gentle, sanctified believer.

That was supposed to be humorous.

—

I’ve overstated the case, of course, just to unnerve you. I am certain, however, that Hobbes’s “negative anthropology” is closer to social reality than, say, the anti-war, anti-electricity Mennonites in Pennsylvania, or the silly Greenies who are nothing more than a colourful reincarnation of yesterday’s dispossessed Luddites.

Hobbes is more true than any EU weenie who prattles on about “strategic autonomy.” The EU weenies are the same kids I used to push out of the jump rope game, the ones with skinned knees and bruised egos. Some of them, apparently, grew up to become bureaucrats. As bureaucrats, they seek to either avoid the necessity to win the jumping game, or avoid the game altogether. They are not “strategically autonomous.” They’re pretenders.

Strategic autonomy, according to Wikipedia, is “the ability of a state to pursue it’s national interests and adopt it’s preferred foreign policy without depending heavily on other foreign states.” Nice definition. Sounds a lot like self-interest, no? It reminds me of Adam Smith’s idea of rational self-interest being the primary motivation and organizing principle of free markets. Social interactions can be seen as economic decisions. You don’t choose to buy apples because it’s good for someone else, or even because it’s good for the environment, but because you WANT them. Buying apples is in your self-interest. It makes you happy and fills your belly. But I digress.

One way to look at strategic autonomy is to see it as the amazing little kid who figures out how to push a bigger kid out of the jump rope game. Today, this would be the little EU pushing the big USA out of the moving rope and onto the tarmac. This becomes possible only when the USA neglects it’s own self-interest, or when American elitists want to weaken their own country for whatever nefarious motives hide in their dark souls. It takes a lot of muscle-power to push out the big kid. Stupidly, the little EU doesn’t seem to get this. The EU can’t push opponents out of the rope when it’s enemies have weapons, wear body armor and are toned and buff … and they’re just a gaggle of pasty, pretentious EU weenies.

—

I’m a big fan of multipolarity. It’s the best way to figure out who pushes the hardest. I want multipolarity for everyone, here and now — all the way up and down. Systematic multipolarity. Nothing and no one excluded. Multipolarity is competition, raw and unrefined. It’s war, in other words.

PROBLEM: The people who talk about sharing power hoard it — the people who talk about the goodness of multipolarity are desperate to be unipolar.

At its biggest and baddest, multipolarity is West against East, the EU/USA/England/NATO v. Russia/China/BRICS, etc. At it’s wimpiest, it’s one sniveling negotiator trying to push another conniving negotiator out of the rope — it’s individualized, that is. Multipolarity lies on every level of human relations, in supranational contests as well as between two individuals, nations, corporations, universities … even churches.

Multipolarity is Hobbesian competitiveness writ both large and small, the consequence of the fall in Eden and the subsequent persistence of sin-nature. Unipolarity is Darwinism at it’s logical extreme. It, too, is Hobbesian.

So, how does you win at the game of multipolarity? It’s rather easy, really. First, you MUST define the terms for everyone.

Toward those more powerful or influential than you, that is, those you don’t control or dominate, you must promote multipolarity. This allows you to bide time as it ties your opponent up with meaningless jargon about human rights, environmental degradation, blah blah blah. As you do this, you scuttle around behind their backs, trying to figure out how to game them. The goal is unipolarity, even if this makes you squirm to admit it. You know this in your little heart. You want to push the other kids out of the jump rope game, don’t you? You want to stand on the pile of snow and snap your scarf at any one who dares to try to push you off. That’s human nature. Yours.

Multipolarity is never a stable condition. It’s whatever you’re passing through on your way to defeat or victory. It’s a gaming term, not reality. Ephemeral. Calculating.

Toward those you can overpower, you declare unipolarity. You may as well be honest when you can, right? Oh, throw them a few bones, here and there, but never get pushed out of the rope. Don’t let them jump with you. Push them out quickly. When they’re out, you win.

Unipolarity, like multipolarity is never a stable condition. It’s your goal, but one tenuously held. It’s the sweet taste of victory awaiting it’s inevitable demise. Nothing lasts. Victories turn to dust. Unipolarity is as ephemeral as multipolarity. It just feels better.

No unipolar power will give up it’s perch to support a multipolar political environment. Look at England … Rome … France … Greece. Soon, America. These were unipolar collectivities for as long as they could be the biggest kid on the playground. When on top, they promoted their own unipolarity as the only way to “secure world peace.” Without themselves, they crowed, Europe would descend into bitter bickering. The world, then, needs the EU. Stopping war depends on it.

Whatever.

This is BS, of course. An unipolar organization like the EU, when forced to share power or relegated to a lesser position, amazingly rediscovers the moral uprightness and desirability of multipolarity … as they wait in the shadows to ascend again.

So, multipolarity is a transitory hiding place for the weak and weakening. Again, it’s not a stable position but a pass-through. It’s a place of thrashing. Of desperate pushing. Of conniving and trying to stave off the inevitable.

In the end, every country loses. There are NO perennial winners. Nothing stays the same. It’s rise and fall. Rinse and repeat.

Unipolarity, in it’s distilled essence, can provide a temporary stability at a huge cost: one kid jumps not two; one nation rules, not many. Though unipolar stability never lasts — any armchair historian knows about the cyclical “rise and fall” of nations — it can pause the chaos, often for many years, inherent in multipolar environments. Unipolarity is self-interest deemed victorious. It’s the end, not the means.

I have no explanation for cultural/social devolution. It just happens as if God wills it. Devolution is the Second Law of Thermodynamics (?) applied to people and collectivities: everything tends toward disintegration and disorder without an exterior power forcing order. It’s a bit like heat death. Eventually, hell breaks loose. We’re soon to experience this in the West. We’re going to experience both the horror and glory of multipolarity as EU/USA unipolarity fades from the scene.

There are other self-interested reasons for multipolarity. If country X and country Y decide to make a pact to defend themselves against country Z, this pact for limited and temporary “power sharing” makes sense. But there will always be a nagging fear among the elitists of country X that country Y could be taking advantage of them, that the once-beneficial arrangement are really net-negative. Loyalty to the agreement as well as the spirit of the agreements will always be called into question. And what is loyalty other than self-interest masquerading as an interest in others?

The idea of “team,” in itself, is tenuous. Groups work together as a team as long as it’s in their self-interest. Supranational organizations like the EU are made of “team members” who are there only because they believe it to be their best choice at that time. When circumstances change and it stops benefitting them, they’ll slither out. There’s no loyalty. No family-connection. No marriage.

To keep the “lessers” from slithering away, leaders of supranational organizations massage the egos and desires of their more marginal members. Though EU elitists deny it, the EU is composed of concentric circles of power with Germany and France in the centre. The farthest, outer orbits are comprised of satellite countries like Hungary. The inner tells the outer what to do — they punch down. The inner countries even pay off the outer ones to keep them in the fold. As long as money flows, the EU hangs together even though it benefits some more than others. But when it becomes too costly to be a part of the EU — when benefits don’t outweigh costs — the entirety inevitably will collapse.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the supposedly unipolar organizations like the EU are made of countries which struggle against multipolar forces in the EU. Thus, egalitarian multipolarity works only on a mythical level — in reality, some are pushed out of the jump-rope game faster and farther than others. And, it works only at a level below oneself. Multipolarity isn’t desirable if two groups are at par, or close to par. This is why, at the supranational level, the EU hates multipolarity EVEN AS IT ACTUALIZES IT in itself.

Why? Well, self-interest, of course. It’s not in the EU’s self-interest to compete with other multinational organizations even though it is in the EU’s self-interest to allow organizations to compete within it. No other organizations similar in power can be allowed to muscle into the EU’s unipolar facade.

That’s what the Ukraine war is about. The war in the Ukraine has nothing to do with that country. That’s pretext. In reality, the war has two simultaneous “theaters:” first, it’s a civil war in Russia consequent to the meddling of outsiders; second, it’s an alibi for a proxy war between US/EU/NATO/England and BRICS/others.

The Ukrainian conflict marks the beginning of the end of EU/USA unipolarity. No one needs the EU. Or, the USA. France is a country in itself and should reestablish itself as such. The longer it hangs onto the chimera of EU unipolarity to mask it’s own declining power on a world stage, the weaker it gets. It should, and probably is, making self-interested treaties with countries that benefit it — Russian gas, anyone?

The idea of a pan-Europe if disappeared from world politics would make the world a better place. All the diplo-chatter about “vertical integration” is silliness — every country in Europe, in the end, will fend for itself. There will never be a single core and there never was. As Kissinger wrote, each country has INTERESTS, not friends. The myth of supra-nationalism is crashing, right now, on the rocks of the problem of self-interest. No country in the EU will be willing to sublimate self-interest to the greater good of the whole if over time, that country’s culture, identity and ambitions are squelched.

Add to this, heat and food …

Lets start with this excerpt from a 1791 letter written by John Wesley to William Wilberforce:

Unless the divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God is with you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God in the power of His might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

This sheathes my life going forward.

— Some evils are worth fighting, ones so injurious that entire societies crumble under their weight.

— Some people are called by God to fight evils which are as diabolical today as was slavery in the 19th century.

—

God leads incrementally. Doors open and shut, mostly shut. Circumstances push in a particular direction. The nudges of God arrive in the form of His still small voice … a compulsion within … an acute awareness of need, persecution and desperation without. The attuned Christian more closely sympathizes with society’s easy marks: those who are truly oppressed, not the trendy victim-classes. These are today’s slaves. They merit a dignified liberation.

—

Mr. Wilberforce spent most of his life ending slavery in England. He offered his first anti-slavery bill in 1791 which was soundly defeated with a 163 to 88 vote. A year later, he tried again. That, too, failed. For the next sixteen years, in fact, he continued to offer legislation as an MP in Parliament. Every one of his proposals was defeated.

Eighteen years after his first proposal, he underhandedly wrote legislation that banned the “foreign” slave trade. This passed by a huge margin. His plan was to work from the outside-in, that is, from a foreign to domestic abolition.

But even this didn’t work. The ban on foreign slavery wasn’t enforced.

In fact, by the 1830s, slavery was still in practice in the English colonies. Undeterred by this circumstance, Mr. Wilberforce continually pressed forward with his passionate (and God-directed) desire to end slavery. He offered his final legislation in 1834 which resulted in the liberation of nearly a million slaves — their owners were fairly compensated as well.

Mr. Wilberforce died three days before the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was passed, never seeing the fruit of his labour.

“O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God in the power of His might ...“

—

From Yahoo News: “On 9 November, Putin signed a decree, ‘On approving the foundations of the state policy for preserving and strengthening traditional Russian spiritual and moral values’“. (He needs a speech writer …)

The main points of the decree were:

• The Russian Federation considers traditional values to be the basis of Russian society;
• Russia regards the actions of the United States and other unfriendly states as a threat to traditional values;
• The destructive ideological influence on Russians is a threat to the demographic situation in the country;
• The traditional values of the Russian Federation include life, human rights and freedoms, patriotism, high moral ideals, humanism, etc.;
• Internationally, the Russian Federation will form the image of a country that preserves and protects universal spiritual and moral values;
• The provisions of the foundations of the Russian Federation’s state policy on traditional values will be reviewed at least once every six years;
• The relationship between the authorities and the media should become a tool for preserving and strengthening traditional values in the Russian Federation…

The impetus behind Mr. Putin’s decree is unknown. Why he chose to give this speech yesterday is a mystery to me — I have no inside information.

I do know, however, that Mr. Putin is on to something important — even if it’s not true — the idea that a country is composed of people who share values. This is not a mind-boggling insight. I don’t know why it’s so repulsive to elitists.

Since these values reach backward in time and include ideas passed down generationally, they’re called “traditional.” Traditional values are time-tested as well as customary, unrecorded, and universally understood (though not always shared or often upheld). They percolate up from folk culture — they are not downwardly-imposed by the nation’s elitists. They’re populist values, that is, both in a prescriptive and descriptive sense.

Putin claims to have his finger on the pulse of the people’s values. He’s a populist leader in this regard, if his claim is true. When a leader re-presents the values of the people, his/her leadership is legitimate in the people’s eyes and hearts. When a leader preaches an alien religion/morality to the people, lecturing and hectoring them, his leadership is intuitively illegitimate. That’s what’s happening in the West today. In the U.S., Europe and the West in toto, the chasm between the values and worldview of elitists and the people is too wide and dark to be bridged, thus the people view their leaders as illegitimate.

By definition, traditional values are the people’s values. In contrast, progressive values are coerced which necessarily debases and demeans a nation’s people.

—

Mr. Wilberforce was an upper-class populist. He appealed to the latent, forgotten or buried Christian values of the English people. His anti-slavery ethic, though done through elitist channels, was profoundly populist because it tapped into the traditional values or ways of looking at life that were tightly woven in the English heritage. Slavery was not deeply rooted in English society. It was imposed on ordinary English citizens by elitists in industry, shipping, big ag and government.

Most countries have heritages. They have pasts. Traditions. Their pasts can be appealed to, even if latent or mostly forgotten. Traditions live on in silence and though they’re rarely screamingly obvious, ordinary people eventually intuit their own ur-values when spoken and upheld by elitists. Although the people can be fooled by smooth-talking elitists or the censoring of information, eventually, people intuit who is “with them.” A politician who honestly taps into these traditional values, as Mr. Putin may be doing, has punctured the pulsing, buried soul of society. That’s where power eventually asserts itself — legitimate social and political power necessarily parallels the people values. These are populist values, the ideals of the people. These are the only legitimate values on which leaders can rule.

The power of elitists is tenuous if they’re not tapping into the flow of the people’s values. Elitists, today, sense their own precariousness. Censorship, regulations and the repression of the church and other organizations of civil society are a consequence of not being in synch with the people’s values. There’s no need to censor if what is spoken is aligned with how the people think. Thus, censorship is an admission of weakness. It’s an arrogant sort of weakness that assumes ordinary people cannot handle information that runs contrary to their deepest values … or, worse yet, assumes that the traditional values of a country are evil or wrong and therefore deserve to be repressed, subjugated and silenced.

You can tell which elitists are illegitimate by who they want to gag. If their values were those of the people, none of this would happen.

—

Religion is the base of all values; it’s both the spring from which values emerge as well as the shores that channel their flow. Secularism is religion — true — but it’s also a derivative religion, a perversion of a former faith. In Europe, that former religion is Christianity. Without it’s Christian roots, Secularism has no soul. Without God, the faith of Secularism has been reduced to a pathetic, narcissistic worship of the self.

The religion of European elitists is Secularism. Deep within each one of these elitists is a little Jew or Christian crying to be noticed. It’s such a sad state of affairs. And, an insecure one. Knowing, as they do, that their Secularism is superficial, that in a foxhole there are no atheists … and knowing, as they do, that their values repress and demean the people in the countries they’re supposedly leading … and knowing, as they do, that their values must annihilate the traditional values that threaten their legitimacy, they quickly censor, imprison, intimidate, beat and even kill Christians.

A Christian pogrom.

—

In the midst of this, and perhaps due to such persecution, there’s a silent revival going on in Europe. As in China, Christians meet surreptitiously in homes or as far away as possible from the prying eyes of Secularist authorities. In France, for example, the superficial veneer of faith was ripped off more than a century ago — this morphed into the extreme censorship, bigotry and repression of today.

To dismiss traditional values by replacing them with those of a foreign faith, or even the Secular perversion of Christianity, is to tyrannize the people whose faith is unfathomably deep. That’s the soul of the country. It’s tradition.

—

Revival precedes whatever follows it — restoration, reform or revolution. What follows revival is determined by the response of the state and, in the case of France, by Secular elitists who openly despise their Christian citizens.

To be “unfree” is to be a slave. To be coerced into beliefs and behaviours that run contrary to the deepest values of a nation is to be enslaved by that’s nation’s rulers.

A contemporary Wilberforce is needed in France. I pray for such a person.

As most readers of this blog know, I’ll be leaving the United States to live in Europe for several months, at least, so next week’s posting will be spotty. Please bear with me. I’ll be living in the centre of Paris. If you wish, contact me via email when you’re “in town.” We’ll converse over coffee.

I’ll be honoured to meet you.

—

I desperately need a break. After many years of caring for my father full-time without any support from other family members, I’m worn out. Europe will revive me. I know I’ll be flying back to the United States for emergencies — he’s fallen twice in the past two weeks — but hope to have some unbroken time in Paris.

During the dull, seemingly endless caretaking years that have passed so slowly, I tried to be productive. Writing this blog was a part of being productive as well as ghosting several longform projects. I also bought a puppy — my first dog — who is now my constant, loving companion. I refinished all my modern furniture for the concrete house I’ll be building in Idaho someday, God willing. This furniture is now boxed, along with my art. I learned some french. Painted lousy canvases. Made better mosaics and sculpture. I have even been knitting with several strands simultaneously which gives the appearance of weaving as the yarn colours change. Knitting is zen-like, a time to think and pray.

On a more serious note, during these past years I dealt with the deaths of two individuals who were extremely dear to me: Paul, who died in New Zealand a few years ago, and Matt who died last week.

Let me tell you about Matt. He was my buddy at Yale. A few years older than I, he was further up the intellectual ladder. We shared an advisor — Hans Frei — as well a house with nine other students. Ours was not a romantic relationship, but a close one nonetheless. For two years, we sat across from each other in the library as he hand-wrote his dissertation with a fountain pen on long pads of yellow paper while I studied material that was new to me. Had our advisor not died, I would have returned to Yale for my doctorate, but God had other plans. Those were happy years. Very happy. I loved Yale.

I’m sure you’ll understand how disconcerting it is to see text messages on my phone Matt had sent me a couple weeks ago. He didn’t know he would die. Some people seem to sense their own mortality — not Matt. We had been planning to get together in Scottsdale to share a meal and catch up with each others’ lives. He said he had a lot he had to talk about, that his “heart was heavy” and “change was in the air.” This, obviously, proved true, but not for the reasons he thought.

After the deaths of Paul and Matt, the ground of life has been cleared. I have very tenuous ties, now, to people and places. Something new will surely happen but I have absolutely no idea what it could be. Since I don’t like it here, I’m leaving.

To sum: my closest friends are gone, my youngest kid is in his twenties and independent, my father is soon-to-die, and I’m finally divorced, thank God. I’m truly FREE … free(!) free(!) free(!) for the first time in my adult life. This is a great feeling, though unnerving. I keep praying for guidance and direction and, well, nothing has percolated to the surface. Still, the incredible liberty that’s about to engulf me suggests God has something up his divine sleeve. Though I have no idea what it may be, I am pretty sure it involves writing. And travel.

Today, I bought some good luggage just in case. I’m looking at them now — they’re leaning against the closet doors. They’re very functional, sturdy and boring. Just perfect.

Makes me smile.

—

Spiritually, during the past few years I matured slowly, like a good wine. I developed a routine which helped me with doubt (doubt still plagues me, but less). I have hundreds of thousands of pages of written prayers and thoughts that had been recorded during the wee hours of the morning. This is not an exaggeration.

Writing clarifies my thinking. Later, if I have the time to edit, I read through what I had written earlier. Mostly, what you read here is raw text. It’s a primitive form of writing.

Writing is NOT like knitting. There’s no zen. No creative urge. This may sound strange, but is true. When I make art, I zone out. My mind is somewhere else. My hands and eyes disengage from my mind. It’s a great feeling.

When I write, however, my mind is hyper-alert. Even when I read other people’s prose, particularly if beautifully written, my mind is fully engaged. But, like art, writing is creative. There are times when words gush out of me so fast that my fingers can’t keep up — at other times, digging for the right word is a detestable chore. Both feelings are a part of writing. Both happen often. I don’t know why.

Writing can be praying on a keyboard. It’s not LIKE praying, but IS praying. It connects me to God. My fingers, mind and the inner Holy Spirit somehow conjoin and interact. It’s terribly intense. Focused. I’m not focused on God as much as I am focused on the text that’s emerging in front of me and yet I feel His presence ever closely when I write.

I pray to write much better than I do now. This may sound egoistic, but I want a literary award. Goals such as this are good, even when not achieved. They stretch and make me better at that for which I’m striving. So, here is my plan, my confession — I want to interview many people from different walks of life about how they perceive the political/cultural/religious atmosphere of Paris. (Remember, my passion is the junction of culture, religion and politics.) I want to probe their hearts as well as minds. Every night, I’ll transcribe these interviews. Later, I’ll put them together within a longform structure … a book. I hope that the political situation moves quickly, that there’s a substantial change in the way things are done and conceived which my book will explore and record. Change could provide the structure of the book.

I pray that this book is so well written and insightful that I get a Pulitzer, or something big like this.

I’m praying for change. For writing skill. For opportunities.

Please, Lord! I’ve waited long enough.

I

—

The ocean quivers when the tide changes. Water that had been flowing forward and upward pauses with a unsure hush. Momentum stalls, then stops. Hence, the water turns. It reverses course.

I used to tightly grab the rusty, damp guardrail of a bridge that spanned the Intercoastal Waterway to lean over and watch the water when the tide changed. Thirty feet below me, the river’s flow would stop. For a minute or two, hushed water quivered senselessly.

Then, as if answering some divine cue, the water would “gather” and flow in the opposite direction.

—

Politically, we’re in a pause. The tide is shifting. It’s reversing course. Literal forces are gathering in a dark, cold place, though their existence is denied and actions hidden. For months now, elitists have been tapping war drums … to “drum up” public support. Stupefied, television-watching leftists have been dancing to that sound. They don’t realize how loud it will get and how fast they’ll have to dance to stay alive. The rest of us hate the sound of war. We know it’s our blood that will be shed; elitists will be warm, fed and safe.

Elitists need war. They’ve got to conceal their nefarious, perverse deeds and divert attention from their gross incompetence and greed. War, after all, is a very effective cover … and cover-up. They know this.

Elitists want war.

Like water under the bridge during a tidal change, this administration’s motion is may seem pointless right now, but soon it’s words and actions will gather and move in the opposite direction. This political pause won’t last long. The election will end it, particularly if the Democrat/Left is routed. If Mr. Biden decisively loses the House and Senate, all hell will break forth. At that point, elitists will have nothing to lose.

There will never be a truce between the West and the East because Western elitists need war. I’ve been amusedly watching Russia — Putin — not respond to Western goading. Putin has shown himself to be a mature and patient man. He’s a strategic, long-term thinker. His ego is under control. He hasn’t reacted irrationally or succumbed to the temptation of guerrilla warfare. As the soft mud in the Ukraine slowly freezes, Putin’s plan will thaw. By then, civilians in Kherson and other bordering villages will be safely out of harms way. They’ll have their forces in place.

The West, too, has been reading itself for war. US boots on the ground in the Ukraine are supposedly “inspecting” the huge number of weapons re-sold on the black market, even though most of the “missing” weapons are already in CIA hands to be given to “friends.”

This is most certainly a Democrat-party war. For a few years, now, the D’s have been frothing over Russia, less so India and China. Russia has been their bogeyman which they effectively used against Trump until their accusations were proven to be a ridiculous hoax. Somehow, Democrats, NATO and the EU managed to unite many big countries opposed to them. It’s really dumb to unite your enemies and force fence-sitters into their fold. But they’ve done this.

They’ve also done it at home.

Democrats will soon be fighting on two fronts — one at home, the other abroad. This they haven’t come to grips with yet. They probably think that Americans will unite under the pressure of war as we did when we were a homogeneous culture during World War II. This won’t happen. Elitists unglued the social, religious and cultural forces that once bound us to each other — their perverse policies, Secularity, “otherness” and immigration have already pulled us apart. This was their non-wartime strategy — divide and conquer. It worked. But now that elitists want us to rally behind them in war, there’s no “us” to rally. They can only work with disunited, disparate groups of people who have one thing in common — a deep distrust of them.

It could be the case that the populist distrust of elitists is more unifying than the citizenship they cheapened when they tossed it away.

The ideals and values forced on us cut to the essence of who they are and were, but also revealed to us who we are. We are not they. We know their culture is opposed to ours. We’re not that dumb. So we will not blindly follow homegrown “foreign” elitists who have earned neither our trust nor respect.

They have no idea what’s brewing “out here” in the American heartland in spite of their ubiquitous surveillance. What we think we hold in our heart. We whisper to family, friends and neighbors. We pray about it. We exchange information when possible. There’s a shared sense “out here” that OUR government is the enemy, not Russia. OUR government = foreigners in our midst. Russia, in contrast, seems like a distant and blurry force, far less of a threat than the elitists in our own backyards.

Almost twenty-billion dollars have gone to the Ukraine. That’s a lot. As ordinary Americans suffer from regulation and inflation at home, in part because of ridiculous government spending that doesn’t benefit them as well as from the the increasing cost of a war they don’t want, they will rebel. It’s inevitable. The flood of disinformation cannot hold back this tide. Right now, the people are quivering. Theirs is a pause, a hush before the inevitable. Soon they will reverse course.

Populist movements are tidal.

This is supposed to be a broad-brushed, culture-religion-politics blog. I shouldn’t have spent so much time discussing current affairs so I’m going to change course, now, and take a bird’s-eye, comprehensive view of some of the things happening in the big world.

Much of what I’m about to write will be intuitive. I’m reading between the lines, not parsing someone’s words. As usual, my thoughts are inchoate and jumbled, though they’re slowly taking form and shape. Please be patient with me as I think aloud … and write as I think, most often without editing.

—

Intuitively, I “feel” a sea-change, much like a tidal change, on a global scale. This is a bigger deal than the changing of the guard at the top of countries or the switching of global alliances — it’s far more fundamental. I feel as if the “ground of being” (Tillich) is shaking under my feet. Nothing is secure. There’s no bedrock.

Let me explain this with a story: My father — he’s in his 95th year — is mostly blind so has been watching/listening to football on the television since he can no longer read. Though I don’t like football, I sit and listen to it with him as long as I can stand it. In the past, I never paid attention to football, even when cheerleading. Somehow, I never noticed that each team is composed of several specialized groups which do their thing independently (offense, defense, kicking …).

This is not what I’m talking about. When I write about a global tidal change, I’m referring to something bigger than the switching of specialized groups on the same team; it’s bigger yet than switching of one team for another, for the game itself is changing. It’s no longer football qua football, but some other game with a different set of rules, though some rules were retained.

So, my first point is the game in itself is morphing. That’s the sea-change I’m trying to put my finger on. This has nothing to do with the globalist players, their specialized realms, the shifting power of countries and the juggling of alliances. The game lies under this. That which is under is replacing that which is on top, and vice versa. A great upheaval is going on. We used to think that the game had one big team — the West. Now, that one team competes with another — multipolarity. The game, though, includes us. The people. But we’re not a team. We’re not even playing by the rules.

In my opinion, Mr. Putin was correct when he spoke of the historic inevitability of moving to a multipolar from a unipolar world. But he didn’t explain why this would happen. So, why are we moving in this direction. There’s no reason for it, on the surface. No historical inevitability. In my opinion, the multipolar vision is not very enticing, so it’s attractiveness cannot explain it’s success. The only explanation I have is negative: the sea change isn’t toward a vision of multipolarity as much as it is movement away from the old, unipolar vision of power. These are historic-cultural forces that repulse, not attract.

It may feel as if the unipolar vision is sinking under what used to be below it — this is because the vision failed. We sense this failed vision. We feel it’s deficiency, decline and defeat. Disinformation or media-manipulation no longer can hide this. Thus, the sea change is propelled — though not caused — by the sinking of “big things” which had, in the past, been buoyant enough to float society and culture.

The second, intuitive sea change, then, is attitudinal. The shift to multipolarity would have been impossible if ordinary people continued to defer to unipolar authority and expertise, station and title. But respect and trust is being replaced with cynicism and mockery. Very few people, today, listen to elitists with believing ears. We no longer give a rip about their words and turn them off when we see them. We look away, not toward: we aver our eyes because elitists repulse us. When the CDC or the State Department or someone of their ilk starts to talk, our first reaction is to guffaw.

I was standing near a bank of televisions in Wally World, a few days ago, watching some self-important sounding government official speak into a microphone. A woman beside me glanced upward at the televisions and then looked at me as she shook her head and said, “What lies are they crapping on us with now?“

Ten years ago, maybe twenty, she wouldn’t have said this, but now, ridicule is the dominant sort of discourse. Underlying this discourse is the intuitive belief that incompetent and self-serving people have been trying to snooker us. So now, we regard these elitists — deservedly — with distrust and disrespect. Why? Well, we think elitists are incompetent, that they’ve failed. Elitists and globalists may believe they are able to manipulate what we think of them, but they lost control of this information years ago. Not only is there a multipolar international world, then, but a multipolar informational world, too. In a multipolar informational world, elitists only talk to themselves just as we talk among ourselves.

To reiterate these two points, there has been a sea-change in international superintendency as well as in the way we relate to authority. In short, because we don’t respect elitists/globalists, we are increasingly refusing to go down the paths on which they’re trying to herd us and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Our visceral distrust of elitists is due, in part, to their policies of immigration as well as the promotion of multiculturalism. Their ability to coerce and persuade is inversely related to the degree to which multiculturalism has permeated society. This is due to the fact that immigrants — those whose values don’t align with that of “heritage citizens” — have scattered the communication target of elitists. It’s much harder for elitists to disseminate twenty messages than one, particularly if these messages are substantially different. So though a multi-culti America may be exactly what elitists desire, they didn’t think through the consequences of this desire. Because ours is a multicultural society, now, elitists are forced to shoot words into the dark — that’s the consequence. They may have fancy algos for targeting and isolating groups, but invariably, when they simultaneously appeal to different groups with different messages, they’re caught. For this reason, we have the upper hand. We know what they were saying behind our backs to others but they don’t know what we know, and never will. The point is this: when we learned how we had been targeted and deceived, they lost our respect and trust. Rightfully so.

They’re liars. It’s as simple as that.

I copied this quote — it’s from Zero Hedge, but I lost the citation — that was written by an anonymous fellow about the newspapers he used to read: “ … (their) stupidity and foolishness was one of the many nudges that made me no longer consider myself ‘on the left.’ Nope, I’m just on the bottom, like 99% of the people.” The social dynamic changed for him. No longer does this man view politics on a left-right continuum, but sees it as an up-down continuum. This is pure populism.

When the “up” tells different stories to different people, as long as the “down” doesn’t compare or share information, the “up” will be okay. If the “up” can keep people-groups apart, we (the “down”) cannot figure out what tunes are being whistled in different places. But if we have contact with one another and are able, to some degree, to get out of the information silos assigned to us by Google and other online-conglomerates, we talk politics. We still, it must be added, also have a information-life outside of the Internet and elite media. We have neighbors. Friends. Family. Church. Work. When we converse in these “meat-spaces,” we discover that the range of stories told is far greater than what we have been permitted to hear. Our trust in elitists is proportional to the number of stories they tell.

This trust has evanished.

One cause of the elitist downfall, then, is multiculturalism and it’s attendant loss of social trust. Remember, dear readers, trust isn’t just horizontal but also vertical: it’s between you and me as well as between people and leaders. This vertical trust is imploding. Choral singing of Kumbaya or crowing about ethnic neighborhood restaurants doesn’t create trust. Real trust. Trust is based on shared values.

In a multi-culti society, we have learned to pretend to respect and trust outsiders outside our narrow silo of thought, belief and worldview … that is, we don’t trust those who speak disingenuously to us from within their own narrow silo of thought, belief and worldview.

I read something, today, about how the German people are increasingly agreeing with the “narratives of Russian propaganda.” Apparently, they’ve been listening to propaganda from three sources: their own German government, the West writ large and Russia. Many Germans concluded that Russian propaganda “felt” closer to the truth than the propaganda from their own leaders. Note, this is a feeling. An intuition. It’s impossible to reason when facts are slippery or unknown. In a world of disinformation, intuition reigns.

—

I feel as if I’m saying too much, today, but I’m on a roll … so will continue.

Culture is a big, amorphous word. In a way, it loses meaning because of it’s bigness. The concept of culture should be broken down into parts, but even this is impossible for we don’ t know the parts, or all of them. We know, however, some of them. Language is one part of culture. Religion, another.

As you know, I consider all people to be religious. Secularism is a religion. Looking at culture as if we are all religious has clarified many issues that sorta hung over me like black clouds. It’s useful.

I’ve said that the world is multipolar politically or rapidly becoming so. Information is also increasingly siloed and polarized; information is multipolar too. Because secular elitists sought to mash religions together as if religious faith doesn’t matter or was highly individualized, they created multi-polar religiosity.

BUT … religion is THE most basic, building block of culture. I wonder what happens, or will happen, when cultures no longer have religion as an intense cultural oneness or glue.

What is America now? Nothing much. Nothing melts together — the old idea of a common culture into which dissimilar cultures melted is gone. There’s no dull blending of religious colours. America, today, is an ugly pastiche that doesn’t work well.

Americans living in our ugly pastiche are forced to carve out zones of commonality by creating distance between themselves. Since there’s no common culture, they create little platoons of culture. That’s what I think is happening, anyway.

Multiculturalism — political, religious, informational — always results in people self-segregating, not integrating, into mini-cultural collectivities. This is a law of society as secure as gravity. It’s important. People don’t become American — or French or Spanish or Japanese — because they happen to live in this country or are able to vote and drive. To be an American means you share cultural eyes with other Americans. You look at the world through similar lenses.

When we see different things, we intuitively understand that these fundamental differences cannot be argued. This is because we know, again intuitively, that religion/morals ground culture which means that the way we look at the world and religion is not debatable — it’s a given. Religion is comprised of life’s presuppositions, both unchangeable and persistent. So, in a multi-cultural society, people necessarily re-group. In essence, they make smaller cultures within the larger one, little zones of commonality. We’re all Amish, in this way.

The liberal/elitist fantasy is that given enough coercion and brainwashing, we’ll finally merge into one dull, cultural blob — but, the opposite is happening. We’re segregating, not unifying. We segregate according to the ur-values that guide us, the religious values that form the way we think. This has nothing to do with stupid, superficial stuff the left likes to blab about — race, for one. It is simply a fact that I have far more in common with a passionate, faith-filled Christian African than a unitarian or secularist from “Berserkly.”

—

Eventually, several small groups that comprise a multipolar culture and society as well as politics, will join together on the basis of a commonly held worldview.

Culture, then, will reassert itself in a unipolar fashion. By this I mean that people of like-mind/culture will find each other and re-form groups. Then, these groups will join each other, to form larger groups. The process continues and continues. Groups enlarge on the basis of cultural commonality until that commonality becomes too tenuous to provide the social glue needed to hold the group together. But even as the group falls apart, it has within it, latent seeds of a subsequent group. There’s a seasonal quality to commonality and difference, isn’t there?

The cultural tide goes in, then out. Repeatedly.

The tide is going out now. We hear only the cry for multipolarity, the sound of dissolution. And it will happen. Multipolarity is inevitable. The West will break up because it’s elites believed the lie of multiculturalism. They promoted it. Immigrated it into existence. So now, the West is breaking up into smaller, culturally homogeneous units.

A few generations later, it will come together again, but with a common heritage and outlook … a common religion, that is.

Thus, the process will repeat itself.

Today, I want to figure out how Putin’s thinking has evolved, that is, why he approaches world events including the Ukraine war the way he does. This is obviously a massive undertaking (of which I’m not capable) so I’m going to start small. Here’s the plan: I’m going to compare one of Mr. Putin’s earlier speeches to a later one and look for hints of development or change. I’m less interested in his politics than his approach to politics, the underlying assumptions and values that motivate and guide his thought.

Last Sunday evening, I published an analysis of Putin’s October 2022 speech at the Valdai Club which can be read here. Today, I’m going to contrast that speech to one given at the same venue in 2014 which can be read here. This, I think, is a fair comparison – same place, similar audience, same speaker. The underlying variable, then, is the passage of time.  

So, here are our question(s): What has changed in the mind and heart of Mr. Putin over the last eight years that can be teased out of these speeches, that is, what attitudinal, emotional, contextual, intellectual changes can be seen? Is Mr. Putin more optimistic or pessimistic, combative or conciliatory, broad-thinking or channeled, secure in his statements or tentative, etc.? I’m going to look for content changes that reveal how his thinking has evolved over the short span of eight years during which Russia moved from an era of relative peace to the current civil war in the Ukraine.

Again, the primary source document for the 2014 text is here. If you go back to my previous blog post, you can find URLs the primary sources for Mr. Putin’s most recent speech on 27 October 2022, also at Valdai. I’m working only with English translations as I don’t speak a word of Russian.

—

The 2014 meeting was entitled “The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules.” This is an intriguing title because most Western elitists, unlike those in Russia, would have put the word “new” before “World Order,” not before “Rules or a Game …” A Western speech writer, then, would have written: “The NEW World Order: Rules or a Game Without Rules.” This would have been a stronger statement, but Putin chose to emphasize the rules of the game, not the onset of a new world order. He wants to change the rules and, perhaps by extension, to passively let the way the world orders itself develop organically.

Contrast this to the West, which considers itself capable, if not ordained, to establish a new world order. How these two collectivities desire to engage in history reveal a fundamental difference between the approach made by Westerners (typified by the EU) and that of the Euro-Asian Russians. Russians are more necessitarian – history evolves in a Hegelian deterministic manner; Westerners are more proactive – history can be made and created, directed and trajected.

Attending the plenary session at which Mr. Putin spoke were “108 experts, historians and political analysts from 25 countries, including 62 foreign participants …” This group seems to be devoid of politicians, elected or otherwise. Eight years later, his audience appeared to be composed of mostly politicians, not policy wonks and academics. I’m not sure how to interpret this change in audience composition so make of it what you will.

The session, according to the Valdai Club’s own telling, “concentrated on analysing the factors eroding the current system of institutions and norms of international law.” Note an important presupposition made by the Russians, that the prevailing legal order is eroding. It’s not static but changing for the worse. Eroding is a charged term, after all, for Putin could have used a morally neutral word like “changing. ” His use of the word “eroding” instead of “changing” provides us with a peek into the Russian mind. It could reveal a stagnant attitude toward external events.

Let me restate this using pretentious, academic prose, the idea that the international legal order is eroding is a static cognitive epiphenomenon of an underlying logic in which presuppositions are not revised.

Whew.

—

Interestingly, at the beginning of the 2014 speech, Putin described how the Valdai club had been reorganized so as to have a more global – less Russia-centric – reach. He did NOT see, primarily, the “frank opinions” stated by participants in this forum as a means for getting information or ideas, bur rather, he wanted the forum to influence outsiders-to-Russia. This means that the forum’s information vector points from inside outward, not from outside inward. Still, Mr. Putin saw both honesty or frankness as important values. He didn’t want “diplomats with tongues so not to speak the truth,” but a “direct and blunt” conversation that got “to the bottom of what (was) actually happening in the world … why the world (was) becoming less safe and more unpredictable.”

Note Mr. Putin’s assumptions. First, he positioned the current year, 2014 as one of global declension; his was a pessimistic mindset. Second, understanding global rule-breaking/declension is potentially ameliorative in some manner. This contradicts pessimism.

Mr. Putin’s desire to understand what caused global rule-breaking was a serious quest. He saw himself – in 2014 – as standing at a pivot point in history, a “historic turning point.” He believed that changes in world order that had to do with rule-breaking would result in “global war and conflict” or “intensive local-level conflicts.” In other words, he felt that breaking international rules would have deadly downstream effects including war.

In 2022, the rules themselves seemed to be the problem, not the breaking of those rules. This is an important shift in the way Mr. Putin regards rules. Rules, by 2022, were seen as transitory and subjective, not based on underlying principles. Earlier, in 2014, rules were somewhat like principles, or the embodiment of principles. This would have meant that Mr. Putin saw the entire apparatus of rule-making (such as done in organizations like the EU) which was supposed to ensure world order, as replaceable … organizations such as the EU would have been seen by Mr. Putin as mere “superstructure” and not base, to borrow Marxian terms. The ideational “basis” are the values and ideas underlying structures, not the structures in themselves. If you want to think philosophically about this, a Platonic approach could be helpful: the world of ideas hovers over political reality into which structures (words) participate and have meaning.

One continuity in Mr. Putin’s thinking can be seen in his concern that all variables or ways of thinking must be respected in and by international organizations. As early as 2014, Mr. Putin spoke of how the “rights of victor countries” should not be so domineering as to “put the squeeze on” nations that possess different sets of fundamental values. He seemed to like the old system that had been in place since World War II, amazingly. The old system kept world problems “within certain limits” and regulated the “intensity of national competition between countries.” For this reason, Mr. Putin did not want a NEW world order, but a continuation of the old order of “checks and balances.” In his rhetoric, there is no Western chatter about pushing a “reset” button, or something like that. The Russian mind circles and circles, always back to preferencing continuity over change … every time.

The US, in Putin’s telling, tried to get rid of the old system because they thought of themselves as big and powerful after the Second World War — in bond broker parlance, Americans acted like BSDs. 🙂 Putin drew parallels between the behavior of American foreign policy makers and that of the “nouveaux riches:” “instead of managing their wealth wisely … they committed many follies.” Putin, then, saw Western hegemony as a consequence of ego, not rationality.

Such an ego blinds. American “ambitions grew so big” that they earnestly believed that their own Western elitist policies were the view of the entire internationalist community. Though he had fully developed this idea as “cultural imperialism” by 2022, the seeds of this idea had been planted before 2014. Always continuity …

The West, he said, legitimized only those countries that submitted to or agreed to Western ideas of national sovereignty using a crude formula: “the greater the loyalty towards the world’s sole power centre, the greater this or that ruling regime’s legitimacy.”

“This is not the case,” added Mr. Putin, abruptly.

Countries that did not submit to Western values were subject to the following:

• Raw force
• Economic and propagandistic pressure
• Meddling in domestic affairs
• Appealing to a supra-legal ideal to justify such meddline
• blackmailing leaders
• surveillance

Then, Putin teased the audience with this question, “Maybe the United States’ exceptional position and the way they are carrying out their leadership really is a blessing for us all, and their meddling in events all around the world is bringing peace, prosperity, progress, growth and democracy, and we should maybe just relax and enjoy it all?”

Certainly, he was questioning rhetorically, but to drive the point home, Putin answered his own question: “Let me say that this is not the case, absolutely not the case.”

Why? Why isn’t this the case? That’s what the audience was left thinking.

Putin answered them indirectly. He said that a “universal diktat … produces the opposite result,” arguing from consequences, not premises. In fact, he never quite got to the level of ideals or ur-values when he discussed American/European cultural and political hegemony. I find this interesting because in the set-up of his speech in 2014, his dominant appeal was to the necessity for returning to, or re-finding, the values on which rules were based. By 2022, he seems to have given up on this quest. He was more cynical and gave the impression that rules had been hopelessly segregated from values, and that rule-making was only a strategic manoeuvre aimed at preserving or increasing state power. To sum, by 2022, Putin saw the West as an amoral or immoral totalitarian global presence that had either lost touch with it’s moral rootedness and grounding or had calculatingly abandoned morality to gain temporary advantage.

Western support for neo-fascists and Islamic radicals, for example, was seen as instrumental, not ideological. The West used these people (unsuccessfully?) then “burned their fingers and recoiled.” Putin seemed to have felt snubbed after offering to fight terrorism cooperatively; he may have felt rebuffed by Western powers. Originally, the West had agreed, he said, but then pulled back. Maybe “snubbed” isn’t the right word. Reading between the lines, Putin may have to felt betrayed. This is a stronger emotion.

Though Mr. Putin carefully referred to the West as his “colleagues and friends,” I wonder if he was not being insincerely facilitatory with these words. Clearly, he didn’t mean it. Western powers, in his eyes, were determined to have “unipolar domination” which, necessarily, cut Russia out. This was in 2014.

It was that pesky unipolar domination, that angered Putin so much, the way the West cavalierly and disrespectfully disregarded alternative ways of looking at the world. In this opinion, Putin has not changed. He saw the west in 2014 exactly as he sees it today – arrogant, bullying, propagandistic, dangerous and dictatorial. America, he said in an aside, was the “center of evil.”

Again, strong words.

—

Though Mr. Putin’s emotions and gut told him that life was a continuity and change should be gradual in 2014, his intellect seemed to whisper a different message to his heart. What was happening in the world had cranked up in intensity; he felt subjected to  “unprecedented pressure from Western governments.” Those Western pressures, he believed, were ineffective because they were “divorced from reality.” This was at the core of Mr. Putin’s rationality. His mind. He saw the “logic of rational decisions” giving way to the “logic of confrontation.” He saw the West as irrational … himself as a dispassionate observer.

In 2022, he rarely mentioned Western sanctions – in 2014, sanctions were a substantial focus in his speeches. Sanctions, he said in 2014, “eroded trust,” were “politically motivated,” and ultimately unsuccessful. More patience, he seemed to recommend. Let them fall on their swords. Just watch and wait …

“Our American friends are quite simply cutting the branch they are sitting on … (because) today’s demographic, economic and cultural trends all suggest that dependence on a sole superpower will objectively decrease.”

In 2014, the Russian response was to wait it out. This is much their same strategy today, one made possible because Russia was and is “a self-sufficient country.”

These are fighting words to Western elitists. In the Western mind, no county should be self-sufficient … the Western mantra is interconnectedness and interdependence. It’s odd, isn’t it, that now, in mid-war 2022, Americans are returning to the idea of self-sufficiency, at least on the popular level, as a way to shield ourselves from the vagaries and stupidities of global elitists. As early as 2014, however, Russia was positing self-sufficiency as an effective bulwark against global meddling. Perhaps their success in the Ukraine today can be seen as the well-earned consequence of such foresight?

Having written this, I also see a parallel strain of thought in Putin’s text which is the need for multi-polar alliances on a one-to-one national basis, that is, as one country contracts or treaties with a second country, bypassing the entire supranational miasma. BRICS must have emerged from this strain of his thinking, one that runs parallel to his desire for self-sufficiency. I think he wants both – he wants national self-sufficiency as well as a carefully limited partnerships with congenial nations that don’t infringe on his ideal of a walled and sovereign nation. He seems to have been pursuing these two semi-contradictory values for a long, long time. “Our active policy today in Asian-Pacific region began not just yesterday and not in response to sanctions but is a policy we’ve been following for a good many years, now.”

The ideal he seemed to be stretching toward in 2014 was a “polycentric world” — by 2022 he was using the term, “multipolar world.” These terms are synonymous. He holds to a vision of many nations pursuing national self-interest thus creating a sort of “global equilibrium.” This seems to be his over-arching goal.

So, how does Russia actually reach the nirvana of global equilibrium? I’m not sure. Mr. Putin seems to retreat behind Russian borders when answering this question albeit obliquely. One way to opt out of American unipolarity is to simply not play by their rules. He detests “global anarchy” but doesn’t believe an arbitrary set of rules (not principles) have provided much security anyway, which may be why he was willing to jettison the rules in the first place.

Nothing lost.

—

One more thing. It’s sorta silly, but Putin told a joke which sheds a bit of light on his personality. His joke went like this:

“We have this very old joke about a pessimist and an optimist: a pessimist drinks his cognac and says, ‘It smells of bedbugs,’ while an optimist catches a bedbug, crushes it, then sniffs it and says, ‘A slight whiff of cognac.'”

“I would rather be the pessimist who drinks cognac than the optimist who sniffs bedbugs.”

Before I begin to write, I want to let you know that the entire text of Mr. Putin’s speech as well as the four hours of questioning that followed this speech are translated and transcribed into English … here. I encourage you to read it for yourself. His speech can also be accessed on YouTube and similar social media sites.

—

Many years have passed since I heard last a deep, thoughtful and logically consistent speech on the-biggest-of-the-big political ideas — Mr Putin’s speech was breathtaking, really. Whether you agree or disagree with the direction of Mr. Putin’s leadership, you simply must admire the ability of this man in this context. Too, his courage. Mr. Putin successfully fielded hour after hour of questions from a couple dozen representatives of mostly non-Western countries. He was obviously tired toward the end of this marathon Q-and-A session, clearing his throat occasionally, but still, he spoke for hours which is not something Western politicians dare risk.

The Valdai Discussion Club gives many similar high-level meetings every year — please invite me! (Yes, I’m shameless …)

I have to admit that I was a bit confused as to whom was Mr. Putin speaking, that is, his intended audience. Superficially, he was speaking to those physically present at Valdai, but obviously, the people he wanted to reach went beyond the individuals sitting in front of him. He clearly addressed Western elitists (mostly in the EU, England and USA); however, he also appeared to be going over the heads of Western elitists, diplomats and policy wonks to speak directly to ordinary people in the West; a populist appeal. Furthermore, his words would be thought of as conciliatory and uplifting to non-Westerners — still, I don’t think that those on “his side” were his intended audience.

His intended audience must have been us — Westerners. In this speech, Mr. Putin put forth a clear vision … before it could be parsed, diluted and explicated by the Western media. He addressed the Western elitists responsible for the policy and economic decisions in the Ukraine. He explained his own goals and aims. As I watched Mr. Putin weave between jabbing at the West then offering a peaceful counter-vision, I imagined a boxer in a ring with an opponent invisible to me, but not to him. He knew who he was hitting … I had to guess. My point is that this speech was carefully written, parsed and directed toward specific countries, group or individuals. This was no off-the-cuff ramble but a targeted hit. The fact that during the Q-and-A which followed the speech, Mr. Putin used the same language, tone, vocabulary and phrases suggests that he took a leading role in the writing of his own speech, that these were his words and ideas, albeit furthered and smoothed by his staff. I would guess, then, that Mr. Putin wasn’t presented with a speech to rewrite, but instead, wrote a substantial first draft to be refined and developed by his staff.

Why did he give this speech? This question should always be asked because it has to do with the important issue of his motivation. Leaders at the level of Mr. Putin can pick and choose the speaking invitations they want. He chose to give this speech at this venue. So, why? And why now? Putin, it must be noted, has spoken at the Valdai several times in the past. My hunch is that Mr. Putin saw this forum as amenable and familiar. He knew what he was getting into and could prepare. The timing, too, was somehow right.

I don’t know if the audience’s questions were vetted in advance. I rather doubt it because the patterns of his hesitance and his consistent rhetoric suggest he was thinking on his feet. However, questions could have been planted; most pols engage in controlled staging. Again, though, only on the basis of my own experience and intuition, I would hazard a guess that Mr. Putin had little to no foreknowledge of the questions posed after his speech.

One more thing. Mr. Putin’s frequent references to Russian history, philosophy and literature are quite unusual in this sort of speech. I got the feeling that he was trying to be seen as the next incarnation of Solzhenitsyn at Harvard, that is, as a deep man … a deep thinker. He may very well be a deep thinker — the truthfulness of his pose is not at issue but rather the fact that Mr. Putin appeared to carefully cultivate the outward aspect and bearing of an intellectual-politician in the line of a Churchill or Václav Havel. He may want to be known as a man who ponders political profundities at a level beyond bureaucracy.

—

So, what did he actually say? My primary interest is in his statements about the confluence of religion, culture and politics, but I’ll throw the net wider for you.

One of Mr. Putin’s main points is that the old unipolar world, that of Western hegemony, is rapidly disintegrating and soon to be replaced by a multipolar world in which cultural and historic differences are respected. He spoke often of respectful treatment of differences. Respect for others is crucial.

The West, in Mr. Putin’s assessment, is coercive, arrogant and blindly oblivious to it’s own contemptuous egoism — it’s entitlement mentality is “openly racist and neo-colonial.” Quoting Solzhenitsyn, Mr. Putin described said that the West was opposed to “cultural, political and civilizational diversity,” which is why it displays a “continual blindness of superiority.”

He did not paint a pretty picture of the West, to say the least. I noted how he used charged terms loved by the political Left such as race, colonialism, illiberalism and the lack of diversity. He used these terms to accuse and condemn the Left for failing to live up to it’s own values. This was a clever tactic. It’s not like the Left is going to fall over itself to defend racism …

The EU and the USA, in particular, were described as insular, elitist and very desperate. They are the drowning voices of the old order, the ones struggling to stay above the water on their own terms. And that’s the rub, as Mr. Putin sees it — that globalist-elitists on the political Left who occupy unelected positions of power feel entitled to impose their idea of “democracy” on countries who don’t share a similar history, religion, values, ideals, or culture.

To sum: globalists are bullies. Too, they’re losing. It’s important to note Mr. Putin’s triumphalist rhetoric, one born after the EU/USA had tried to destroy Russia with sanctions and bullets, but failed. In his telling, Russia weathered this storm well, to it’s own surprise, discovering that it was stronger it had expected itself to be. Russia,, Putin says, is eager to move forward as one of the nations creating a multi-polar world order.

One of Mr. Putin’s gripes has to do with “rule making” within globalist bureaucracies like the EU. He feels that rules have no people standing behind them, that they are created and broken by nameless, faceless bureaucrats who answer to no one and can’t be countered. He wants laws, not rules. “Clear principles.” “Who has read these rules,” asks a tired, exasperated Putin near the end of his Q-and-A session.

“They are talking about rules — what rules? Where are they written and who has approved them? It is nonsense. Do they think they’re talking to idiots … to some broad public while some of these people do not even know how to read properly. It’s nothing more than rubbish. Still they keep drumming it into people’s heads indefinitely. And those who do not observe these rules will be subject to restrictions and sanctions.”

Obviously, Mr. Putin has run up against an impenetrably opaque bureaucracy.

“Their self-regard knows no bounds.“

—

His speech was surprisingly full of policy suggestions and visions — it was not, emphatically, a mere diatribe against the West. His vision of a multipolar world in which countries enter into agreements with each other based on self-interest could have jumped off the pages of Adam Smith, who was more of a moral philosopher than an economist, it should be noted. I was riveted by the manner in which Putin cleverly juxtaposed mercantilism (unipolar) to true capitalism (multipolar). The West, he said repeatedly, was mercantilist — this must mean that the West has a zero-sum view of wealth, one that doesn’t expand or lift all boats but must be hoarded to preserve hegemony. I’m guessing here, but it seems as if Putin is miffed about tariffs and blockades (as well as outright confiscation of Russian assets), which wouldn’t have happened in a situation in which international trade was free and capitalistic. Putin, thus, channels the ghost of Adam Smith in his vision of self-interested decision making which yields efficient outcomes and stability. Every country should promote it’s own self-interest, Putin says. Thus, he takes Adam Smith to a nation-level; his economic vision is not a sum of individual choices.

Since the West has mercantilism as it’s de facto — not de jure — economic policy, it has become desperate to retain international advantages that is has taken for itself through the setting and retracting of arbitrary rules, the power to punitively tariff and, most importantly, the ability to control debt and money by keeping the dollar the standard of international trade. Honestly, this is beyond my pea-brain’s understanding of economics. I can only repeat what Putin says which is that “global power is exactly what the so-called West has at stake.” We’re hegemons. Huge platoons of printed money.

And, in Putin’s predictive mind, our hegemony is soon to implode.

He may be right.

—

Again, I’m most interested in his cultural comments, so I’m going to segue toward culture and away from economics/politics if you don’t mind.

Putin believes that the unipolar West imposes it’s culture on the rest of the globe because Westerners believe their own ideals are universal and superior to competing values, and therefore “must be unconditionally accepted” by countries who don’t like or agree with them. This is forced cultural integration. Pure coercion. The “cancel culture” of the West epitomizes exactly this sort of cultural arrogance, a way of looking at the world similar to that done by the Nazis who burnt books and censored with abandon. Putin notes that

“… the Western ‘guardians of liberalism and progress’ have reached the point of banning Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky.“

Putin even references Karl Popper’s “open society” which cancelled and restricted “alternative” opinions. Without naming Popper, Putin clearly was thinking of Popper’s “Paradox of Intolerance” a philosophical outlook that encourages nation-states to get rid of “intolerant” viewpoints via coercion and force. Thus, the paradox is that a country must be intolerant of intolerance.

Popper’s ideas have been taken up by left-totalitarian and, yes, Nazi movements, particularly in Western countries and the Ukraine. I would guess that it was not lost on the audience that Russians often refer to the Ukrainian government as the “Nazi regime” and Ukrainian elitists as Nazis, even though Russians regard the Ukrainian people, or at least many of them particularly on the east side of the country, as fellow Russians under a Nazi-Ukrainian siege.

—

Religion was not the focus of Putin’s speech. Putin mentioned Victor Orban’s (Hungarian Prime Minister since 2010) proposal to codify a commitment to European values and culture in the Treaty on European Union. I find this to be hysterical. Of course Orban knew he was sticking his finger in the eyes of European Secularists who despise Christians as well as their own historic pasts. EU elitists, Putin says, took Orban’s words as an “outright and hostile act of sabotage.”

This makes sense: EU Secularists regard Christianity as a power and faith in competition with their own Secular religion. When two religions collide within one historic collectivity, only one prevails. In France, it was Secularism, for example. The French revolution was less for individual freedom than about destroying the Catholic church, thus denying citizens the freedom to choose Christianity as both/either their faith and ethical touchstone. (This sounds like Karl Popper in an earlier substantiation.) Only Secularism was allowed. EU elitists today have a similar attitude toward religion, no religion is permitted other than their own Secularism. This means they are utterly intolerant. As Putin notes:

“Russia has developed a unique culture of interaction between all world religions. There is no need to cancel anything, be it Christian values, Islamic values or Jewish values … (The West) has a doctrinal crisis … They have no ideas for progress and positive development. They simply have nothing to offer the world except perpetuating their dominance … (but) no one will tell (the Russian) people what kind of society we should be building and what principles should underlie it.” (bold is mine)

The biggest threat to unipolar Secularity is the possibility of alternatives. If the world “comes up with alternative social models that are more effective,” the cultural hegemony of the Secular West will be broken. This is what seems to be happening now, Putin believes. Ordinary people are discovering hegemonic Secularism to be both intolerant and spiritually vacuous. Few people want this. They want more. They want their own traditions. Own cultures. Own faiths and values. They don’t want some arrogant bureaucrat from Brussels or Langley telling them how to think.

The “right to cultural identity” must be at an “equal footing with the rights of every other nation,” Putin warns. “If the Western elites … embrace what I believe are strange and trendy ideas like dozens of genders and gay pride parades, so be it. Let them do as they please. But they certainly have no right to tell others to follow in their steps.“

You can see why Putin’s vision of a multipolar order is so compelling to oppressed people. It strikes at the discomfort Western non-Secularists feel when faced with their governments as well as at the bigotry they constantly suffer at the hands of the media/bureaucracy/legalists, etc. Putin is carefully crafting a vision of cultural freedom. He’s letting people know it’s possible.

This is a populist vision, at heart. In the Q-and-A session following his speech, one of the earliest questions posed to Mr. Putin was asked by the moderator, Fyodor Lukyanov: “... Who do you associate yourself with, those at the top or those at the bottom?”

Putin answered: “My mother was … as you know, I said it many times that I came from a working family. My father was a foreman. He graduated from a vocational school. My mother did not receive an education, even secondary, she was a mere worker and had many jobs. She worked as a nurse in a hospital and as a janitor and night watchman (because) she did not want to leave me in kindergarten or in nursery. So therefore, I naturally am very sensitive — thank God this has been the case until now and, I hope, will continue — to the pulse of what an ordinary person lives through.“

He couldn’t have said it better. This is the populist credo as expressed by a come-from-behind man. Because of statements like this, I’m convinced Mr. Putin wanted his speech to be read and discussed by non-elitists and Christians in places like coffeeshops and church socials. He made a point of saying he’s common. A common man. And as a common man, he shares common values with other common men which are the values of Russian Orthodoxy, “not just the interests of the golden billion.”

It’s important, he says, to “leave no one behind.” By this Mr. Putin suggests things of a “spiritual nature” which “lies at the heart of every Russian … the willingness to fight for our own people solidifies society.“

As I said, this was a political and economic speech, not a religious one. Still, culture is the glue that hold Mr. Putin’s vision together. Without a viable and thriving culture, that is, of a specifically Russian culture, nations can’t cohere. Putin says he won’t allow Russian culture to be diluted by arrogant multiculturalists and globalists at the EU and the US State Department. He won’t submit to cultural imperialism.

I believe that this is the motive force and reason for this speech, for in it, Putin throws down the gauntlet. He puts the globalist/elitist/Western/Secularists on notice that they are not only failing, but that their demise is inevitable, and that in the ashes of unipolarity a multipolar, culturally diverse system will prevail.

Before I write one word, I want to say that though some evangelical Christians have bought into the gov-media’s pro-Ukraine narrative, the passion, thrust and trajectory of American evangelicals and Orthodox are increasingly and decidedly pro-Russia.

The question is why — Why do Western evangelicals support Russia, and by extension Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Eastern Orthodox church?

Most people who have written about this are sympathetic to the Ukrainian/US/EU/UN/CIA side of this war’s ledger. Let me use just one example in the form of an article published in “Religion Dispatches” in March, 2022. The author writes from within the academic silo, a politicized environment that rarely acknowledges or even considers statistical or primary source evidence that could challenge the dominant point of view of the pro-Ukraine Democratic party, mainstream media, big tech social media and, of course, the academy.

First, it is simply not the case, as the author states, that evangelicals “took over the Republican party after Nixon.” In 1976, two years after Nixon’s ouster, Jimmy Carter, who ran as a Democrat, pulled most Southerner evangelicals into the D-column — without the evangelical vote, he would not have won in 1976. Likewise, when enough evangelicals (mostly Midwestern) abandoned Carter to vote for Reagan in 1980, Southern Democrats barely budged from their Democrat-ID. Through the 1990s, as generations of boll-weevil Southern segregationist Democrats passed from this earth, the evangelical vote slowly split by party and region: Northern Republican evangelicals v. Southern Democrat-turning-Republican evangelicals. None of this happened soon after Nixon was president.

It’s fair to say that the policy positions of all evangelicals in the 1970s and 1980s did not “progress” like the policy positions of the Democratic party, particularly on social issues. As Democrats lurched to the left, evangelicals stayed rooted in what they perceived to be the biblical ethic. The Democratic party abandoned Southern evangelicals — evangelicals did not abandon the Democratic party. They merely died off.

The Republican Party was never a comfortable fit for evangelicals and still is not. This discomfort emerges from the in-but-not-of-the-world conundrum which evangelicals have not resolved and never will. In a two-party system, most evangelicals regard Republicans as the lesser evil. Today’s marriage of evangelicals and Republicans is tenuous, but still logical. Though divorce is always possible, evangelicals have no other place to go; there’s no hook where a “Christian” party can quickly hang it’s hat. The Republican party continues to be run by political opportunists and schemers … just like the Democratic party. It is not run by evangelicals. It never was. It’s ridiculous to think that the Republican party has been “taken over” by evangelicals.

The article goes on: “In a pattern we’ve seen repeated again and again among American evangelicals before and since, they understood the persecution of the local indigenous Christian population and the suppression of a region’s historical Christian institutions to be primarily about themselves. And so, American evangelicals set about converting Russia to Christianity, a task that even a brief look at history would have revealed was already accomplished by the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages.”

The argument begins with a fanciful psychological analysis of evangelicals who are accused of reading history personally — as does the author of this article.

Yes, it was the case that evangelicals grieved and prayed for persecuted Christians worldwide as well as tried to help them when possible. This included Russian, Chinese, Indian and other Christians, who as religious minorities or as a persecuted majority under communism actually did suffer greatly. Compassion isn’t sin.

The overwhelming majority of evangelicals didn’t seek to “convert” Russian Orthodox but regarded them as suffering co-religionists in need of Bibles, fellowship … food and escape. Many evangelicals risked their lives to bring bibles to Russian Christians whose bibles had been confiscated by the leftist Soviet regime. Evangelicals did not always agree with some of the worship practices within Eastern Orthodoxy and, for that matter, Roman Catholicism, but the typical evangelical did not regard these Christians as in need of conversion. Russians under the Soviets were “brethren” not apostates. They were loved as part of the Christian church writ large, not regarded as outside it’s hedge. For this reason, evangelicals were strongly motivated to help their suffering and persecuted co-religionists. The academic/secular assumption that evangelicals thought the great, historic branch of Eastern Orthodoxy needed to be “saved” is either bigoted or, at the least, uninformed.

The author goes on to say that “immediately, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, American evangelicals began to flood into Russia ...” Well, yeah, this is true, but not for the reasons given or insinuated. Evangelicals saw that the door to Christians who had been persecuted for so long was finally opened. Intercourse between long-separated Christians could resume. Many Russians had suffered … many had not had the chance to hold their own Bible. So, yes, there were “mission trips to Moscow and Bible-buying fundraisers for St. Petersburg.”

This is the nature of faith, that a Christian welcomes others who share his or her traditional belief in God and His Son and Saviour Jesus. What Russian and American Christian had in common outweighed any differences in worship style, culture and even theology. Christians in Russia “felt” such a spiritual commonality as did Christians from the United States. It was more of a family reunion than a “mission trip.” Most mission trips, after all, have nothing to do with evangelization — they’re really B-grade excursions during which Christians rehab and teach other Christians in exotic lands; cheap vacations among one’s own kind! Of course, Americans mission-trippers felt genuine joy when meeting Russian Christians for the first time.

“Orthodoxy as a faith tradition has spent centuries resolutely opposed to corruption or co-option from outside, ” the author writes. True, but it’s important to understand that evangelical Christians were not perceived to be outsiders. The author’s hostility to evangelicals is blinding her to what really went on. She sees corruption and co-optation, not cooperation and commonality. She sees hostility, not love. She does NOT see that the outsiders to the Orthodox faith tradition were Secularists and Muslims in the southern flank of the USSR, NOT evangelicals.

I must add that ordinary Christian Russians did not always see eye-to-eye with their leaders, though they usually submitted to their leadership. It could be the case, and probably was, that the Orthodox leaders were more suspicious of Christians from America than were the people who filled the pews. Such is the ever-present elitist-populist divide, one that exists not only in politics, but in religion.

—

Evangelical interest in Russia pre-dates anti-communist ideas that rose to the surface after the 1917 putsch; it bridged many platforms — mission work, publications, East-West interchange and, of course, the distribution of bibles and literature from West to East.

Since the influx of bibles into Russia is such an refutable and concrete historical event, lets discuss it.

Evangelicals have distributed bibles internationally for many generations. The plain black bibles you see in US hotels were left by a representative of Gideons — The Gideons started distributing bibles globally in 1907, ten years before the Russian revolution. Today’s less-travelled, provincial Americans may not know that Gideon’s International has dropped two billion bibles around the world. BILLION! According to their website, these bibles were translated and distributed into 95 languages, one of which was Russian.

The United Bible Society, similarly, has had a Russian language edition since the 19th century. The UBS has distributed four BILLION bibles across the globe, including Russia. Obviously, bible distribution has nothing to do with communism as it clearly predates this left-wing political movement. Since 1813, the Russian Bible Society, now a part of UBS, though itinerantly persecuted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, has been distributing bibles. This continues today. The stated goals and aims of the RBS as stated on their website, have remained the same since this mission group began.

One of the more recent bible-distribution organizations is Bible for the World, now headquartered in Colorado Springs. It’s original 1950s mandate was to bring bibles to India and Asia; like many bible distribution groups, this mandate expanded to “areas where there is restricted access to God’s Word.” The map on their website includes Russia. According to the timeline on their website, they delivered up around one million bibles to politically closed areas by 1978, long before the dissolution of the USSR. Their statement of faith is decidedly evangelical, and yes, many bibles made their way into Russia.

I find it curious that this particular “scholar” is convinced that evangelicals identify with Russia and it’s church for political/secular reasons. This is a typical mistake made by those who neither understand nor want to understand the Christian evangelical worldview. These individuals cannot grok the idea that there are Christians for whom political motivations have never trumped faith or calling. As the old saying goes, when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail: the hammers on the left assume that whatever sticks up in Russia must be a political nail. This may be true in some cases, but to broad-brush evangelicals as primarily motivated by political concerns is simply wrong for there are many evangelicals with a passionate interest in Russia who have no interest in politics. Sometimes a nail is, well, just a nail.

The author goes on to state that “… the influx of Protestant American converts, many from the evangelical tradition, but also conservative mainline Protestants, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, radically changed the face of Orthodox Christianity in America. “

She’s half-right.

It’s true that Eastern Orthodoxy, in the US, experienced a renaissance. This started in 1970s when the Orthodox Church in America officially began as a denomination independent of it’s mother-church in Moscow. After independence, the American church used English as it’s worship language. The use of English was the impetus for growth — few Americans spoke Russian, even those with a Russian heritage. So, though it is true that Russian Orthodox churches in America experienced a bump in membership during the 1970s and 1980s, this bump was precipitated by the adoption of English-language services, not by an increase in anti-communist ideology among adherents, or whatever the author was insinuating. Before the 1970s, the growth in American Orthodoxy had been limited to the growth of immigrants who both spoke Russian and were concerned about preserving their ethnic identity and heritage.

The number of Orthodox church members had been bolstered before — some say doubled — the arrival of Russians who had fled the Bolshevik revolution in the 1917 (as well as the Armenians who escaped genocide from Muslim Turks in 1913). After the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s, a wave of the Orthodox immigrants from Russia came to the United States, bringing with them the traditional values and orientation of the Russian Orthodox faith. The hierarchy, social conservatism and family-orientation within Orthodox churches appealed to many American Christians who felt that their American denominations had veered toward political and social liberalism.

The Russian Orthodox in the United States share a lens which refracts daily life through the beliefs and rituals of their faith. To a large degree, they are socially conservative, particularly when compared to mainline American Protestants and even some evangelicals. The Orthodox in America cultivate close nuclear families with traditional gender roles, respect male-only clergy, and promote an anti-totalitarian political ideology (which though was once applied solely to to Russian Soviet leaders, is now increasingly used to “other” American progressives.)

New Russian immigrants comprised approximately 40% of the membership in the North American Orthodox Churches in the 1990s. These Russians brought to America a revival and restoration of a particularly conservative Christian outlook. Evangelicals in America did not want to change, or seek to change, the Orthodox worldview. They liked what they saw in Orthodoxy. They didn’t want it to change. In fact, most evangelicals in America gravitated to the Orthodox church because they craved the permanence of Orthodox spirituality, the social and moral traditionalism in Orthodox families and gender roles, and the sort of community that they believed had been destroyed in America with the wink and blessing of mainline Protestants.

A 2014 study of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship in the United States, the college organization of Eastern Orthodox, revealed that only 14 percent of the kids in these groups had been raised in non-Orthodox families. Students joined these groups for theological, spiritual and social reasons — they wanted to be with their co-religionists and co-culturalists. Political values mattered little to them — in a survey, social justice issues were said to be “very important” by a mere 13 percent of these students. Amazingly, fifty-six percent of Orthodox students in these groups wanted NO change at all in their faith or church; if absolutely necessary, they agreed to only a gradual change in “life and theology.” Yes, a very small handful wanted the Orthodox denomination to move toward the political and social left or innovate in the practice of their churches, but the overwhelming majority were conservative-traditionalists, more so, in fact, than their adult leaders and parents. A few quotes from these students should suffice:

“OCF gives you a family of people who hold the same beliefs as you, both
religiously and morally …

“Being a part of OCF has strengthened my beliefs, and for that I am very grateful…

—

The author imagined hordes of Reagan-loving evangelicals descending on Eastern Orthodox groups and churches and “changing the face of Orthodoxy forever.” Oh pleeeze. Nothing could be further from the truth. Evangelicals who joined Orthodoxy were motivated by what was already there, not what they wanted to change. They were willing to BE changed — they didn’t want Orthodoxy to change anymore than did the children of Russia immigrants described above.

The last thing they wanted was to foment a “culture war” — they certainly didn’t bring this idea with them. The idea of culture war existed, and still does in Orthodoxy, but it pre-dates the arrival of the hordes of evangelicals that supposedly descended on Orthodoxy like Huns on Rome.

The now-Orthodox-former-evangelicals wanted stability. Order. Spirituality. Family. Community. Closeness. Faith. That’s why they were there.

They didn’t want change. Or war. Or even culture war.

—

The author points out that LGBT and abortion issues weren’t talked about until American evangelicals joined the Orthodox denominations. Again, she’s half correct, for in the USSR, from where the most recent Russian Orthodox came, there was no gay marriage or overt sexuality. In the old Russia, gays had been firmly locked into the closet — out of sight, out of mind. Thus, these social concerns weren’t issues until the Russian Orthodox came to America. So, these weren’t “pet issues of the American Right,” but new issues that the post-Soviet Orthodox suddenly had to face in America. The fact that they came out on the side of evangelicals shouldn’t be a surprise. The Orthodox were family traditionalists, after all. Abortion, euthasia, gay-anything and, today’s promotion of “gender reassignments” were ideas imposed on them by secularists and progressives in American culture, not by fellow Christians in their churches. To think otherwise is simply bizarre.

It stands to reason that President Putin would follow the Patriarch Kirill in opposing the gay agenda in Russia. That’s the way it’s done in hierarchical churches — Putin is Orthodox. He submits, in matters of faith, to the Patriarchs. The Russian Orthodox church has always had a similar social stance as the Moral Majority. Nothing has changed.

“Putin’s Russia is positioning itself as the last and rightful guardian of what the the West once was and what it ought to be again, a Christian culture centered around family, faith, and “traditional values” that have been abandoned in the face of secular modernity.“

YES! This is true. Finally. The author of the article may hate the fact that this is happening, and can barely write these words without spitting, but she’s right. This is what’s happening. Russia has become, in it’s own mind and in the mind of cultural Christian conservatives in America who include evangelicals, the last bastion of Christian society. This is why American evangelical Christians identify with Putin and Russia — evangelicals see in the Orthodox their own image, what they want to be and believe and how they want to live.

“The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russia of today is in no small part what American evangelicals have helped make it … ” she writes. This is untrue. The Russian Orthodox are remaking American evangelicals, not the other way around. Conservatives in America have gravitated toward Russian values, clearly stated — Russia didn’t take it’s moral cues from us.

In the end, the intellectually frazzed author goes nuclear, so to speak. She couldn’t contain her hatred of American evangelicals: “... as Ukrainian blood flows, some of that blood is on the hands of those American evangelicals who went off to convert a nation that was Christian before Europeans arrived in the Americas. Every mission trip and box of Bibles that arrived “to Russia with love” helped to create this moment. Make no mistake about it.“

I laughed when I read that paragraph. What a tool! The author forgot(??) to recall the CIA’s Maidan revolution in Ukraine, how Victoria Nuland passed out cookies to Uke-Nazi revolutionaries, and the murders of tens of thousands of Russian Orthodox who had been left in Ukrainian territory after the US-sponsored, plotted and subsidized their coup de maître.

The author may have forgotten, but the Russian Orthodox remember well …

Bloody hands, indeed.

A few of you were miffed that I use the term “religion” … “in such a broad way.” This is a fair criticism.

Lets talk.

Since this blog has to do with religion and culture – more specifically, religion and politics – it makes sense that I choose to take a sociological approach to religion. Of course, if I approached religion as an insider, that is, from within its borders, I’d be a theologian and would be more defensive than questioning.

Note, please, that I have made no attempt to hide my faith – unapologetically, I am a Christian. Yet, as a Christian, I can look at religion (and religions) as if I were an outsider. This, I think, is a strength. I was raised as a Secularist and, frankly, feel quite at home within the Secularist mindset. You don’t surprise me. So in a felt way, I am both an insider and outsider.

The fact that  I have chosen sociological definitions of religion as opposed to theological ones eliminates the need to talk about God. I know this may sound heretical to believers – yes, I’m sorry if this offends you – but a study of religion and culture/politics can be done from many vantage points. This is the one with which I feel most comfortable and also seems most promising.

The two big names in the sociological approach to religion are Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Both wrote in the late 19^th and the early 20^th-century, Durkheim before Weber. Though these men are not contemporary, they are still the best of the bunch. Most scholarship after these two has been reactive and derivative, in my opinion. It isn’t worth your time. Just go to where the best, big ideas originated, which in the socio-of-rel field, means Durkheim and Weber.

Lets start with Durkheim.

Durkheim’s big book was titled, “Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.” It’s a good read, by the way, and worth the effort even if you are only tangentially interested in the subject matter. Now, remember, when Durkheim wrote there was no discipline called “Sociology.” Instead, the academy promoted history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology and theology, and psychology was in its infancy. Though Durkheim took an anthropological approach, at first, his mind’s gears were always more philosophical which is obvious in his writing.

He aimed to peel back the onion, one layer at a time, in order to expose “primitive religion.” He thought that if he could grok how the most simple, original and primitive religionists thought he would have the key to understanding why people, even today, are still religious. The fact that ALL people have had some sort of religion (this includes Secularism) at ALL times in history and in ALL places suggests that there’s something about religion that’s essential in either/both the psyche or society. It’s sociologically real, in other words. It’s true to us.

The truth of religion has nothing to do with the truth of it’s propositions — religion may not be true theologically. Even false religions (by the standards of my Christian faith) exist in spite of errant theologies. What impressed Durkheim was religion’s persistence, permanence, and ubiquity. It’s everywhere, all the time. Why? Why are people religious? Reasoning backward, it’s clear that religion fills some sort of social and psychological function among people as disparate as Australian aborigines and high-church Anglicans (like me).

Let me back up a moment to talk to my Christian co-religionists. Remember, religion is not faith. Everyone has a religion, yet we are not all faith-filled. I am both. All Christians are people of faith AND religion.

To my non-Christians Secular readers, I only want to say that you have religion without faith, a godless religion. It is NOT an act of faith on your part to posit that God could potentially exist, either. Agnosticism is merely a socially timid subset of Secularity and atheism.

A true faith includes belief in a true God, not just in His existence (note the pronoun) but also in His participation in human history. As well, faith includes the belief that God lovingly participates in the hearts and minds of believers, that he enters into history in both an abstract sense, as well as into our lives in a very concrete manner.

Faith also includes our behavior as individuals (morality and calling) as well as within a church collectivity. Thus, it is beliefs and behaviors as held by individuals and collectives. Though personal and private, spirituality is not faith. It mimes aspects of faith but isn’t faith qua faith. Ditto, religiosity is not faith. Without a social dimension, spirituality only approximates faith just like a calculus problem cuts smaller and smaller slices as it approaches zero. It’s a part-way faith. Never enough.

Okay. Back to Durkheim who thought that understanding the religious beliefs and behaviors of what he called “primitive” people could reveal the essence of religion, it’s philosophical essence, that is. Here’s where it gets difficult. When you or I talk about the essence of a subjective experience, we quickly get bogged down in storytelling. It’s hard to talk about essence in a “pure” philosophical voice without using the first-person pronoun. To get around such perceptions and subjectivity, Durkheim came up with a method of categorizing what he saw in cultures — he could only see this because he wasn’t looking at them critically, that is, he pretended to have what we’d call, today, an “open mind.” (This raises so many red flags that I’m going to drop this idea … now.)

So what are these categories?

First, ALL religions seem to divvy reality into things that have to do with the gods, or are sacred, and things that have to do with natural processes, or are profane. (Durkheim doesn’t use profane in the sense of being blasphemous or irreligious, but of things that are mundane or temporary, unconsecrated and worldly.) As an aside, Durkheim wrote in French – he parents were Jewish – so these are the most common words translated into English. Things that are sacred have to be separated from things that are profane – there’s no sliding scale in Durkheim’s vision of religion but rather a tall hedge between these realms. Kierkegaard, much later, would describe this hedge the “infinite qualitative distance,” which clarifies the idea that there’s no overlap. None.

A second quality of religion is its publicness or social character. Again, there can not be a secret, private religion, though there can be a private, though truncated, faith. Religion is necessarily social. It takes a church, in the Christian tradition, or a political/social party or cause, for many Secularists.

Here’s Durkheim’s definition of religion, finally:  “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”

—

Now, to Max Weber.

I admit I’m partial to Max Weber. On my shelf in front of me are two, pale blue volumes of Economy and Society, Weber’s big book(s). Weber is a bit more tuned into how people feel that Durkheim who comes off as strangely distant, even cold. Weber “feels” people within collectivities, not just as thinkers/actors. He understands the human desire to explain or understand (as through a glass darkly …) evil (theodicy) and suffering and the desire for meaning that most of us have buried deep within us.

The problem of evil is gut-wrenching. On it hinge two important conceptions of God: His power and His love. One or the other of them seems to be in jeopardy because of evil. How could a good God let evil happen, the antithesis of love?  Conversely, how could a powerful/sovereign God let evil happen on His watch and not smack it away? It’s hard not to succumb to doubting either God’s love or power when facing the reality of raw evil … evil is never banal.

There so much to write about Weber that I don’t know where to start, to be honest. I think I’ll pare it down by saying that Weber views religion as one of the most potent motivating forces for social change – faith is never static. It’s what compels humans, at times, to revolt … as well as seek peace. It’s the grounding of generosity, the neighborly ethic. Durkheim’s vision of religion is more static. In fact, as I read Durkheim, I get the impression that religion is the hum in the background that never stops. White noise.

Unlike Durkheim, Weber never gives a clear, concise definition of religion, as far as I can tell. I’ve looked long and hard and have not found one definition that envelops most tangents in his thoughts. He’s a big thinker who tinkers effortlessly in economics, politics, sociology, psychology and history. Nothing escapes this guy. People who think broadly have problems with definitions, I’ve noticed. Weber is a case in point.

As with Durkheim, religion, for Weber, draws a line between the sacred and profane. But rather than start with primitive religions, Weber starts with the here and now — what’s around him or modern society (at the close of the 19^th century) — and tries to figure out how religion actually functions in society … what does it do for people? Why are people religious?

Society is increasingly rationalized, Weber noted. This means that, in a political and social sense, bureaucratization manages to creep into every aspect of life … this a negative, anti-religious force. Note that religion is this-worldly, in Weber’s thinking. It’s concerned about the here and now and how we negotiate suffering as well as joy.

Religion stands over-against the social tendency to bureaucratize and rationalize even though religious collectivities (like denominations or churches) tend to do both these things. This is the slippery downslope toward apostacy and cultural irrelevancy. Only a religion that rebels against it’s surroundings make a dent in the minds and behaviors of it’s adherents. Religions, then, fill a need … a cultural need. They give meaning. They shape thought. Religion also shapes behavior and by extension, moves itself into culture and society.

I would say, then, that Weber’s definition of religion — had he given one – would have involved culture, theodicy and meaning as well as the supernatural, unlike the definition given by Durkheim. Religion guides and initiates how we act and think. It’s a ur-force, primitive yet in/out there to be studied.

—

Marx would be the third sociologist of religion that we should discuss but I don’t want to. I love reading Marx, btw. I mentally spar with him. But his view of religion is decidedly contrarian. He hates religious people and religion qua religion. So, for now, I’m going to bracket Marx and put him to the side, though I realize that Marx toed the religion of Secularism as one of it’s more committed disciples.

Commenting on the content of this interview is “above my paygrade,” as Comrade Obama once quipped. I’ll give a brief description and then paste the English translation subtitles that I copied as a text document.

In the above image, Mr. Khadokovskii is on the left — the Interviewer (whose name I do not know) is on the right. Permit me to describe Mr. Khadokovskii as I see him …

He is one of the most intense men I’ve had the opportunity to observe at length. His furrowed brow covered dark brown eyes that often moved to his right; he rarely looked at the interviewer; never at surroundings. His face is well-proportioned and symmetrical. His speech is that of a highly intelligent yet pragmatic man. He’s obviously a self-contained and self-directed thinker, a man used to figuring things out by himself. When speaking/thinking most intensely, he tended to reach up and rub the side of his nose. Not once, in either interview, did Mr. Khadokovskii laugh or even slightly smile. He is utterly humourless.

His hands often dropped to his lap after he gestured using controlled, below-the-shoulders, one-arm movements. He gestured broadly with his arms, not fingers. His body seemed very disciplined — he never moved from a sitting position which appeared comfortable, though not relaxed. His legs never crossed but remained slightly apart and balanced. Sporting a buzzcut and carefully trimmed grey/black beard, he came to this long interview in camouflage-designed clothing, gun in pocket.

In the background (as you can see from the image above) were expensive, gold-embossed, leather-bound books on library shelves. On the wall between the men was an Asian art print; on a small table between and behind them were two sculptures, both metal: a black sculpture of a man on a horse holding a spear, perhaps about to kill something or someone sprawled on the ground below the horse’s hooves; a smaller brass sculpture of a lion (?) on it’s hind legs, paws stretched up- and out-ward as if boxing.

—

Below is the translation from Russian to English provided by the people who made the video — I merely copied the English subtitles. Mr. Khadokovskii has a tendency to speak in long, grammatically convoluted, run-on sentences which I left mostly unedited. The Interviewer’s words are italicized — Khadokovskii’s responses are in straight print. Again, this interview can be found at The Saker blog … here.

Interviewer question. ” … with ancient Rome in that time glorious military leaders received the right to participate in self-governing of the State.”The glory of ancient Roman was associated precisely with the periods when it was ruled by former military leaders. Caesar Augustus .. .there were a lot of people nowadays why did I start this program? If I want to introduce those people who as a rule remain behind the scenes the field commanders who are fighting. Now when the whole world is talking, we are showing here some unique. Is really is not visible from the inside. Maybe someone can see from the inside.

All sorts of American experts say unique methos of warfare, but all of them are brigade

Commanders, battalion commanders, there is a platoon commander.

Once we had a conversation, you spoke how hard it is to train a real platoon.

Leader but these guys – they have the right to a political representation in the government, in the Duma, by a senator

Well, you correctly emphasized because … well, look – they have to play a certain role whether it is a big or small role depends on the format of the government we will create. You understand how there are also two extremes. You mentioned Caesar. And we remember how he ended. Precisely with that he was accused of usurping power and of attempting to establish his individual control over the Empire. Caesar as a consul .. he also shared power with the Second Consul, but yes, in reality Caesar relied on his veterans of the Gallic Wars. All the same, a glorious history. This is a glorious history, but the fact is that most often Roman military leaders came to power by force. Remember Sulla and remember Cinna? These two were military usurpers who, after some Parthian wars returned and took power in their own hands. They did not restore the order, they broke the existing system while this system had been built on the “divide and rule” and “mutual checks and balances” principles, when both plebeians and patricians, for example, had representation in the government and thus complemented each other. It is only nowadays that we believe that the plebian was someone who was despised and ignored by the Roman patricians. Caesar had to choose whether to develop his political career (this is before the Gallic Wars) as a patrician or as a plebeian.

So that you can understand, there is such a good writer Sergei Lvovich Utchenko, he wrote a book about the First Triumvirate. Its title was “Julius Caesar.” (In it) there is a wonderful description of the choices Caesar faced. He had both patrician and plebeian roots. His father was a plebeian and his aunt was a patrician and she was the wife of some military dictator. And Caesar decided that it would be more profitable for him to build his career as a plebeian because that’s how the Roman system worked. He would be seen as if he was an ordinary person, but this, too, was all very conditional. He practiced as a lawyer and so on and so forth. He went through several elected positions – praetor, quaestor, overseer of the Appian way, and so on, and he grew …

Interviewer: “… he relied on ordinary people in his political career.“

He didn’t rely on ordinary people. He relied on, even if illegally, on those traditions that existed in the Roman political system. He skillfully … because he was a good lawyer for his times, he skilfully used, say, those traditions, so he could use rhetoric, the help of various publicity things, what we now call populism. He played such concepts as clementia, misericordia very skillfully. He played the public sentiments to mercy to this or that. The Roman system is a direct progenitor of the modern system where political technologies and populism are the basis of it’s existence. Say, the modern system is an ideological expression of something quasi-ideological. So, Caesar, of course, was going his own way, but we have digressed.

I want to say that in 2014, when we created the basis for power, and some related disagreements surfaced, I believed that there were four large structures. So the guys who came from Slavyansk, Sasha Zakharchenko – it was quite a large group, a stronghold. Two and a half – three and a half thousand people. No one really counted them. We had about 4000 peopoe, battalion “Volstok.” Igor Bezler represented a large group. All the rest were small units, they would be affiliated with one or another large formation.

When I made my proposal, I said, “I would like to see 25 fighters of the “East” for every 100 people’s deputies in Donbass.” This implies that I look at exactly a quarter. I am not an idealist but I understood that it would be fair. I thought that, exactly the People’s Council should be represented by the proteges of these four: Zakharchenko, Bezler, what was left of the Strelkov, well, and us, the “Vostok.”  God knows I requested exactly a quarter of the deputy seats. I believed that it was the People’s Council that must be represented by those who not only shed their blood … after all, these are the people who have left politics.

At first, they wanted to defend their interests by some political means, but then they found the courage in themselves when the situation changed and it demanded the blood to be shed, demanded to take to the streets and instead of walking around the squares with slogans, to go to where the front lines were formed, and defend this territory as much as possible, shedding their own blood there. They were people … I thought they were people with the highest level of consciousness. They were not just military men who shed their blood.

It was not for the blood they spilled they had to appointed, it must not have been a reward or gratitude for the shed blood. They were just the people who in this rather philistine society, represented themselves – those ten percent of passionaries, who, in fact, went to the last extreme, to the last. To the point of sacrificing their lives. These people were even ready to die for their political beliefs. And I believe that these people who survived, should sit on the People’s Council, to be the representatives.

And I did not claim that the Economy Minister or a Deputy Prime Minister for Economy would have to be one of my associates from my inner circle. I was the State Security Minister and someone from my people was some other kind of Minister there. In fact, those were all nominal portfolios, which at that time, during the organizational period, did not have any great role and significance. But in the future, if we cling to power, we certainly could have developed it if we were to hold the power. But I thought, in fact, I thought these functions should be performed by professionals. And here we see the government – you yourself have already set the parameters for this subject, that, on the one hand, there is a professional government that must manage utilities, public transport. That is, this should be done by professionals, but there is also a legislative power. It is defined by the constitution where there are people’s representatives.

Recently, I questioned one very wealthy person who, among other things, is a deputy in the state Duma. I said, “Please tell me, do we have many representatives in the State Duma from the people themselves, and not from the elite?” They are considered to be people’s representatives but, in fact, there are very few representatives of the ordinary people. Perhaps it would be a better trend if those people who somehow demonstrated selflessness, well, probably, if they would be singled out and then were to be included in some part of our local or central legislative assembly. Since we already have a legislative assembly locally and in the regions, this does not mean that there are a given number of the people’s deputies and now they all have to be dismissed (rather) it means that they need to be recruited only from those who fought, who received the Hero’s Star or something … No, we have a local government and it has to be formed locally taking into account this new category of people who really earned the right to represent the interests of the people.

I think it’s quite a populist thing, but it’s probably worth considering. It is that just before you asked the question, I never mentioned it, because this, to one degree or another, applies to me, too. I fought all the time for some kind of authority, so if I start to raise this issue, well, I can easily be suspected of the “this is my for myself, why, I’m cooking.” That I also want, they would say, at the end of this whole thing, as one of the Founders … and the “why not” – it would be another question. The thing is that I do not discuss this publicly for the following reason: because I believe that even if I am to speak sincerely about someone else and fail to mention myself, like out of modesty, anyone would say, “But he is lying! He does not talk about himself because he is cunning, so he talks about others.”

Because this way it is easier to talk about himself using someone else. We touched the question of the State Duma.

Interviewer: Alexander Sergevich, the State Duma is a bit of a sore point with me. It is a rather strange authority. When the deputies come here do they know anything? Not a single deputy volunteered to fight or resign. So I do have to question this. From the inside, it looks strange when the senators walk here, not even on the front line.

You know, I have no objections. Everyone plays their roles.

Interviewer: Why this is so, look here. The boys are fighting. Volunteers are coming. As you said, Russian nationalists with Armenian surnames. But not a single deputy went there. Here are the well-known people who were nominated as deputies, they have dispersed …

There is no need to get personal. They are not visible on the front line. No need to grab any individual deputy or all of them together, and then try to accuse the of something. We discuss it, in general, about the change in the moral. If in the past, the members of the royal family travelled in hospital trains and helped to the wounded, and when, for example, the Empress visited hospitals and was not ashamed of the festering wounds, you would understand that it was a different culture, it was a different level of consciousness. Nowadays we have a vulgar, consumer level of consciousness. We don’t move in that direction, we imitate the movement, in fact, to some high standards. Actually we are not moving in that direction yet. I, for example, have set goals for myself before this war began … and I expect from this war exactly that … that we would begin to move there so that our consciousness level would change, so that morality started to appear in us, not an everyday morality – do not kill, do not steal – but the morality of the government. So that our so-called morality commissions and such, which operate under some kind of local or non-local authorities, so that they would not be nominal, but would really play some significant role. So that they create some, in modern terms, right trend, a normal healthy trend. Not an imitation, but coming from some depth, from the heart, because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” you see.

So, here it is not right just to blame these deputies because they are the same people as we are, so they worked toward this deputy position. They were coming here –

Moderator: ” … Yes! Everyone can see this.“

Yes, I’ll give you an example. When you get herpes on your lip, you, of course, treat it with some tetracycline ointment. But at the same time you need to strengthen your entire immune system. And that herpes on the lips or somewhere else is, primarily, the first evidence of the weakening of your immunity in general. So you begin to think that you need to be less nervous, you need to develop a healthy diet, you need to be exposed to the sun for vitamin D to be produced while your skin is tanned.

Same here. When we see some separate manifestations, we do not need to think that they are something self-sufficient. We should see the only as symptoms. We must understand that this is a state of the society when such things are possible, as when someone enters, he flaunts … to be honest, I don’t always have the means to cook something to eat, but I use the face that Donetsk has sufficiently democratic prices. So sometimes I would drop by some establishment which I trust to quickly eat some soup, but the same way as now, I take off my armor and in the still wet shirt sit on a chair. But I am equipped/ready because I have a gun in the right place.

Firstly, I will explain not why, but how I am equipped. Everything I wear is functional. Everything worked out over the decades of my service in the special forces. I know where my gun is, and at the right moment I will draw it out, but when I see … when a person for whom a weapon or a gun is just an accessory walks in, and when the weapon is stuff into his pants, just like that, and if he jumps up or zips his pants and this gun falls into his underwear, I look at him thinking, “Why did you bring yourself here with this gun? Who are you trying to show it to?”

This is a demonstration of culture. What you need in this situation is to come up and just give him a cuff, pick up his gun and say, “You will find me, if you find me, you will come and take it, only then I’ll give it back to you.”

I felt such urges a couple of times, to stop them showing off, but then I thought that I would only waste my time on those blockheads. And such people are a wagon and a small cart here now I know that I have a weapon hanging in there and in such a way, that from there, I will instantly remove it and it will be ready to be used. But people just carry their weapons and they don’t even understand when you ask them if they know how to use it at all. This piece of iron or they only crack the nuts during lectures with it, but after all, most often this is how they use their weapons, precisely for cheap show-offs.

But even if the deputies also behave like that, this is, probably, not exactly right. Just for some of their secondary purposes. In order to create some truly socially image …

As for that painful question why they don’t behave the right way. It’s just that they come from the society which is in the state. It is a society with no public morals. They, we have no public morals in our society. There are private, individual morals, but not public morals. Because of the absence of this particular moral, such things happen here. Such strange people as comrade Burbulis, God rest his soul, came up with the institutions of political philosophy and meritocracy. And they wanted to introduce at the level of some postulates such concepts as human decency … to understand honour and dignity and everything else, but these are things which are either there or not there. Or, it’s an imitation.

You know my strange status. The “Vostok” brigade as such as a military unit does not exist. That’s what everyone says – the Founder. As a Founder, I agree. But a Commander of “Volstok” Brigade? I do not command the guys who left the “volstok”.

Interviewer: About your strange status … indeed, you have an undefined status, lets say. But at the same time, four well-known military leaders came out from under your wing, you brought up well known … we will not name them now, but they are major military leaders.

We talked about that, we said that we liked “Volstok” in principle and that we made every effort that only we could make, to create a true military unit. Because the tasks that we have taken upon ourselves without shifting responsibility to anyone, we stood at the 53 kilometers boundary … Inside these 53 kms starting from and including Panteleymonovka and finishing somewhere, I think, at Old Mikhailovka somewhere in the direction of Krasnogorovka, staromikhaylovka, these are one of our last fronts, 53 km along the front line. And there were … Kharkiv direction … Here, Vvdeevka, Konstantinovka and off we go. To the right there is Red Partizan, to the left, Spartak. And there was the Dnepropetrovsk direction, Piskv. This was our front. We have defended it. We repelled the enemy and stopped them. Now there are a mess of disparate military units.

But at that time, all this front was defended by “Volstok” alone, by a single “Volstok.” And in order to defend it, we had to train professionals, we had to at least inculcate the consciousness into those officers whom we raised to officers from the plow. The realization that they came here to fight, and not to serve out their time. And, of course, having received this charge, such an internal setup, they then realized themselves as commanders in other areas as well.

This is the First Slavic, and the 9^th Regiment, and the 100^th Brigade. Well, the 11^th Regiment, in principle, was formed on the basis of the “Volstok” so we have a fairly wide geography.

Well, back to my status, that is, in fact, as just a volunteer. If we talk about deputies and others I am a person who had a certain social status here within the DPR, I was the Minister of State Security, I was the Secretary of the Security Council. I created and led and supervised a public organization, the patriotic forces of Donbass. “Vostok”, that is, we work very deep in politics. But for now, my status, first of all, is just as a volunteer. And using my personal influence, the fact that I created in my time and retained the influence on the structure that I created. I invested in it completely and I put it in my soul and heart, and materially, and weapons and equipment and vehicles, everything else …

We created it. And now and for all eight years I have kept a close connection with this division, managed these divisions in one way or the other and I forced everyone to accept this, including those who in the new state structure who did not really approve of such methods, but they were given no choice. My personal authority was such and continues to be such for these people, remains so strong that it doesn’t even make sense to break this system now because now the war is going on and after that I will surrender it myself because I do not need a personal private army. I kept this small army only in anticipation of the war. My expectations turned out to be correct. I did not let them go and constantly hung over them, dominated them. I did not control them, but appointed my own people, all appointed there, up to the company commanders, sometimes even platoons. These are the people whom I personally selected and assessed for fitness.

I gave them, so to speak, a start in lie, and then observed the results and improved them. Naturally, in our system of general disorder, the only law for these people is the person they trust. For the most part, they believe in me, as you yourself said, and naturally, they follow me and nowadays for them my word is well, probably the ultimate truth. And if there is a word of a formal boss from above and my word, my word will always win.

The only question is if my goals and the goals of these chiefs in principle, basically coincide. Therefore not only do I not interfere with someone’s plans, but on the contrary, I make some adjustments to them, which contribute to the best implementation of these ideas. Likewise, I correct some stupid decisions in such a way that the negative effect from such intentions would be minimized. But nevertheless, my status is the status of a volunteer. This suggests that I could, in principle … I have no obligations to anyone except to these people, to this cause for which I work, to myself, which is to fight this war, to command, to manage and so on, but I do this because I, in fact, created this situation and kept it under control.

Russian military leader Alexander Khadokovskii (transliterates as Khadokovsky, Chadokovsky and Khadokovski) recently gave a deep and thoughtful interview which has been translated with English subtitles. I have no idea who set up this interview or for what reason Khadokovskii agreed to talk, so his motives remain unclear. Given this caveat, it’s still a fascinating peek into the Russian mind, faith and outlook on the Ukrainian war. Since, as an American, I get only one-sided propaganda from the Western media and government, this interview has given me a rare opportunity to hear the Russian side of the propaganda war. Khadokovskii’s interview reveals the mind of a segment of Russians — their own ideas, cultural history and faith, within the context of the war in the Ukraine.

According to Wikipedia, Mr. Khadokovskii is currently the commander of the Russian Bostok Battalion which was formed in early May 2014 in response to the United States’ leading role in deposing and replacing the popularly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich with Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky, the current president of the Ukraine since 2019. Mr. Khadokovskii was also the former commander of an elite brigade within the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). He has held both political (Prime Minister) and high ranking military positions in the disputed areas including Donetsk. Mr Khadokovskii was born in Donetsk, Ukraine in 1972 at at time when it was a part of the USSR. To sum, he had been one of the leaders of the Russian independence movement who represented the republic of Donetsk but is now firmly in the pro-Russia camp.

The content of this essay lay outside any claim to expertise I can possibly muster. I don’t know much about Russian nationalism or it’s leaders, including Khadokovskii. I don’t speak the language and have never been in either Russia or the Ukraine. I find it difficult to get information because at this point, censors at Google and the social media juggernaut have locked-down and frozen searches on Russian nationalism. Though some information can be scrounged from the Wayback Machine, most information is “missing” — such is the NSA/CIA-monitored, information-world we live in today.

Thus, the dearth of primary sources concerning the Russian nationalist movement post-1991 makes this interview particularly important. It’s now rare. Mr. Khadokovskii’s last published interview, as far as I can determine, was in 2014.

Frankly, I don’t care what side of this war you support — that’s not the point of putting this interview up my blog. On either side of the war’s fence, this interview should be seen as pure gold. Again, I’m not supporting or discounting the views of Mr. Khadokovskii, though I find him to be a passionate, intelligent, well-spoken and thoughtful individual as well as, at times, compelling. I confess that his idealism concerning human relationships as well as the motives of the old USSR unnerve me perhaps because I was born and raised in a time of peak nuclear war angst — the 1960s and 1970s. As I listened to Mr. Khadokovskii, I had to check my instinctive gut-response to some of the things he said. Though I think of myself as open-minded, my background as an “agency child” made this a stretch for me. No more “Red Menace” thinking, huh?

Enjoy. If I have time, I’ll add a few comments on the end. This was a long interview but very packed because Mr. Khadokovskii both speaks rapidly and dominates the interview. In actuality, this was more of a stream-of-consciousness monologue than a standard Q-and-A interview. The interviewer said very little. The URL for the interview is under the picture at the top of the page as well as here. Since it’s so long, I’ve condensed it. Mr. Khadokovskii’s actual words are liberally sprinkled in quotations within my summaries which comprise the majority of the text below.

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In the first few minutes, Mr. Khadokovskii described a book he recently read without giving the title or author. This was a book of personal letters written from the front between 1914 and 1917. The word Ukraine, he notes, was not mentioned anywhere in these letters. The letter-writers did mention the names of several provinces but considered all of the region to be part of a unified Russia.

Ukraine and surroundings never divided structurally, says Mr. Khadokovskii, though they did divide into administrative units (somewhat like states, counties and cities). There had always been a Ukrianian language but that seemed not to unify the people, which Mr. Khadokovskii refers to as “the masses.” Only the intelligentsia conceived the idea of the Ukraine as a nation. They tried to “create a certain image of the presence of the Ukrainian nation … unlike the rest of the population.” Writers such as “Grushevsky” and others as well as “sensible historians” and “even Zinaida Tulup” became outright Ukrainian nationalists, but they had no popular support. (I am not familiar with these people). They wanted to identify more with Ukrainian culture than that of Russia, and created for themselves an “ideology of Ukrainianism.” This idea was “born in their minds,” says Mr. Khadokovskii. During the years when the USSR reigned, this ideology never progressed beyond a rudimentary state, he says.

After many upheavals and “revolutions,” when the people were offered the chance to consider themselves Ukrainian rather than Russian, they chose to be Russian and “ran off the commissars.” Even the Russians in the Western Ukraine never identified themselves as Ukrainians, he says. The Ukrainian identity did not have “any support … among the masses … until financial support” was given to push this identity on them. The mental separation created between Russians and Ukrainians also made a “certain caste-like direction” and remained a desired principle “only for the elite.”

So, “how did it spread to the masses,” Khadokovskii rhetorically asked himself?

It’s origin is with Lenin, he answered himself. In the early days of the formation of the USSR, the idea of fighting “Great-Russian chauvinism” was conceived. In response, the USSR made concrete steps to level people as “brothers.” Lenin, thus, created the idea of Ukrainians as well as Belarusians, etc. But Khadokovskii sees Russia as “one people … several trends.” He believes that Leninists, “formalized this ideology of Ukrainianism,” but only in a residual or rudimentary form.

After 1991, everybody started to “crawl into their national apartments,” he said. The “main thesis” for the masses was “We Produce” because, in their minds, they made the GDP possible as well as fed others. Some people, however, who believed that the Ukraine was the richest part of Russia did not believe this for spiritual or cultural reasons, but “because of ordinary human greed.” The theme of GREED is important to Alexander Khadokovskii.

In his words: “If you primitivize this attitude to the subject of discussions — this was usual human greed. … ‘Why should we share …'”

As the collapse of the USSR occurred, the degradation of the idea of human equality and brotherhood “perfect or imperfect” collapsed with it, says Mr. Khadokovskii. Then a change in outlook occurred so that the land was no longer considered that of the peasants or was industry considered that of workers. At the beginning, however, there were not “oligarchs” but rather “everyone.” All were involved in the processes — he calls this “conditional equality.” People in the north got a bit more than those in the south, Mr. Khadokovskii admits, because life was more difficult (and expensive?) in the north.

“It was more or less fair.”

When it came to the “means of production,” the discussion changed. The collapse of the USSR happened at the same time that ownership changed. At first it was the “Red Directors … and gangsters” but eventually it turned into oligarchs. The Ukrainian oligarchs were just as determined to protect their booty as the Russian oligarchs.

During the 1990s, Mr. Khadokovskii worked as a policeman and took a part in the fight against crime from the inside. This was a period when “severe inflation and devaluation” devastated the salaries of ordinary people. By the time the economy stabilized, a ruling class had been formed, which Mr. Khadokovskii describes as the “manifestations of the form of this greed.” Not being willing to share or think in terms of a collectivity, “ours” meant, to the new ruling class, themselves as individuals. In time, “ours” began to mean the Ukraine — this happened because of the elite’s “very serious tendency toward separating and (making) some kind of independent existence.” Often this was called “decentralization.”

Ironically, since decentralization would naturally include electing local politicians –(the concept of subsidiary applies here) — the ruling class ended decentralization, herding power to themselves. Ukrainian regional elites actually wanted some decentralization, but only to their own level of power. Those above them should be decentralized, but not those at their level. They wanted to “feel like masters,” says Mr. Khadokovskii.

“It (the idea of decentralization) was (whatever was) beneficial to them.”

When a rapprochement with Russia began to be considered in the Ukraine as a whole, elites were frightened of the masses and feared they’d lose power. They immediately appealed to nationalistic ideas and trends to keep their power — and by extension, the idea of Ukraine — alive. Russia was just a convenient excuse. Their primary fear was “losing independence.” In some ways, this fear may have been justified: “Everyone knew the Moscow’s heavy-handed approach,” Mr. Khadokovskii admitted. For this reason, elitists “squealed” when the people wanted to be Russian because Ukrainian elitists didn’t want to divide what they had grabbed for themselves through “heavy bloody wars.”

“Moscow is a plural noun,” Mr. Khadokovskii intriguingly states. (I think he meant that anyone could be Russian who lived and blended into Moscow.) Ukrainian elitists didn’t like this idea. They preferred an empire based on a “redistribution of spheres of influence,” because they were unwilling to give “anything from what they had” to people in Moscow. At that time this phrase was circulating: “We need to take what is here in Ukraine from the bad oligarchs and give it to the good oligarchs.” The Ukrainian elites were afraid they’d be perceived as the “bad oligarchs,” and therefore hated the “good” Russian oligarchs who could and probably would take their booty away.

As their fear escalated, Ukrainian elites “began to throw money in the information space … the top media still exist on oligarch money.” They united against some external threat which happened, in principle, under Yanukovych after he signed the protocols to join the EU, which Russia, of course, rejected.

—

“An oligarch is a job in Russia,” states Mr. Khadokovskii as the interviewer nodded in agreement. (I’m not sure what he means by this.) They are part of the technocracy, he says. The Russian oligarchy is still very uncertain of their future … at any moment something may “leak out” of the oligarch — “juice or blood.” The Ukrainian elite for obvious reasons wanted more security; they didn’t want “such a methodology” applied to themselves. “They were afraid that the Russian state would crush them like bedbugs and take something away from them.” Thus, the Ukrainian elite united as a mass against Russia.

They got the people to “team up with their antagonists, (and promote) anti-Russian sentiment.” But, they also succeeded in overthrowing Yanukovych. (I get the impression that the people were confused about the motives of elitists in Ukraine.)

“With their crooked and twisted character, with their sores and with everything else,” says Mr. Khadokovskii, elitists desired decentralization only to the degree they could re-centralize under themselves. (This is an important point for Mr. Khadokovskii because he keeps returning to it.) Khadokovskii listed the names of people who “invested” in the Maidan revolution, most of whom were friends of Yanukovych. He also mentioned (Victoria) Nuland who intervened with a goal of separating Ukrainian elitists from Russian elitists. Ukrainian elitists were masterful at manipulating media messaging — 2014 — and “widely dispersed all these messages that firmly settled in people’s minds that Russia was the enemy, that Yanukovych’s government was criminal, that it is necessary to … stay away from Russia.”

The Ukrainian elite, then, only went along with the Maidan revolution to get away from Russia. There was no “vector to the West,” but only a desire by elitists to retain the “loot” they had gained after the break up of the USSR. The Ukrainian people were “polluted” by these messages and didn’t understand why they needed to go west. But they believed it, to some degree, because every day they were bombarded by propaganda that made them feel if they disagreed with the messaging they would be treated as fools. (This brings to mind the Green religionists today as well as the Covidians ..)

The interviewer asked, around minute 23, if it wouldn’t have been more profitable for Ukrainian oligarchs to cooperate with Russia. Mr. Khadokovskii vehemently disagreed with the idea that aligning with Russia would have been beneficial for Ukrainian elitists. He gave examples. Interestingly, at this point, he began to state something like a theory of wealth-making. The first stage of wealth-making is creating something — ingots, for example. The second stage is making these ingots into something more complicated, like sheet metal. Mr. Khadokovskii, by the way, refers to this second stage as “wealth distribution.”

He speaks of oligarch’s reasons/motives for locating their industrial plants in foreign countries, making partnerships, finding tax advantages, etc. Mr. Khadokovskii admits, at this point, that in the old Soviet system, people just pretended to work, though now people are so highly paid they actually work. He seems to think this is good. But, he was both bothered and perturbed by the fact that Ukrainian oligarchs have oriented themselves toward the West — (and not China?) — because high profits come from the West. “They have become economic agents of the West,” he says.

Russia had no part in this, he says. It didn’t give them opportunities or assets (except the initial working capital that they stole as booty.) The West owns these oligarchs — not Russia — because they use Western banking systems and are subject to the whims of Western lawmaking and application. Now, they are slaves of the West. If they are accused of terrorism, for example, Western governments would simply “take away their principle, their business.” (I’m thinking of how the Canadian government froze the bank accounts of trucker protesters … and how, today, the United States and the EU simply takes Russian property including yachts under the pretext of war.) But the point made by Mr. Khadokovskii is that oligarchs had to choose to be a slave of one or the other master, and they chose the West to be their slave-master.

Because they are now beholden to the West, they must do what is necessary to keep the Ukrainian people from reasserting their innate loyalty to Russia. The people’s interests are not those of the elites, though eight years of “brain washing” has turned the people toward the EU. It is the “highest probe manipulation … created and done for specific reasons. And the people … they can be controlled. Mass consciousness control technologies have been worked out for a very long time.“

This control is done with the combined power of the intelligentsia, monied interests, the media and “in fact, an administrative resource that can be used …” They also completely took over the law enforcement system, which perverted the ballot box. Those who control these processes can “with a snap of their finger” … “dominate any politician, any official and so on, by methods that are far from law enforcement methods and from democratic methods. (Remember, Mr. Khadokovskii was a policeman for several years ...)

Then, Mr. Khadokovskii dives into political theory. He said there are now “two parallel systems of influence: there is a state dictate, which is some kind of law, but in parallel, there is no longer a state dictate. Both are subordinate to the same people who have the entire resource in their hands. These people ruled the country and continue to rule this country.“

There are a few simple concepts, here, says Mr. Khadokovskii. Human greed is one. A second is that the content that preserves the things elitists covet can be anything, “like a wrapper on a candy.“

When the USSR fell, he says, it wasn’t because the people had deep ideas that had developed or were injected into their minds. It fell because Yeltsin had personal ambitions, as well as that of his entourage and those who had already “smelled the prey; those who followed this smell, who understood that in these new circumstances, they, being the team of the leader, they will be admitted to the feeding grounds …”

Elitists wanted a good life.

So, on the one hand, was the “exorbitant, human price which pushed the same Yeltsin and his entourage to accumulate power in their hands by all available means,” and on the other hand, was the “jackals who bred next to him and understood what kind of gingerbread, based on this, they would get, so they supported him in every possible way.”

“Greed, greed, greed, and if you understand the nature, the human nature of what is happening, then these are the reasons: pride, greed and greed.” (this is true!!)

—

Talking about solutions and the wider picture, Mr. Khadokovskii said he thinks of a “global victory, not a situational victory in a head-on collision.”

His goal isn’t the pacification of the Ukraine. “The victory of Russia isn’t the victory over the Ukraine,” he says. His thesis is that a Russian victory is a “victory over itself.” Mr. Khadokovskii doesn’t think Russia has recovered, spiritually and emotionally, from Yeltsin. He thinks Russia devolved into an “ugly form of liberalism which has degenerated into an imitation of liberalism (as well as) liberalism covering up some vile things.”

“Liberal bastards … are really just working for the West. They’re also patriotic idiots and this is dangerous.” Patriotism can be a double-edged sword, he goes on to say. It’s very dangerous … easy to manipulate. “We need a normal healthy base (people) because a state needs to rely on it’s people.” A state must have a wide base of support. When a state relies on a power bloc, that power goes vertical and the people at the top get hidden distinctions. He gives the example of sixteen-million dollar watches worn by some of the oligarchs “in the vertical.” They are a narrow caste.

Here, Mr. Khadokovskii becomes fascinating, at least in my opinion. He draws a distinction between the state and the “motherland.” When the state is powerful, it “strangles the Motherland.” The two seem to be not just in tension, but in opposition. People die on the front line for the Motherland, not the state. This mentality applies to the vast majority of the people. Ordinary people think of the Motherland. They don’t give a rip about the state. They do not see their future without the Motherland.

Mr. Khadokovskii now logically skips to statements about how oligarchs don’t admit who they are, claiming instead to be industrialists, etc. (Is this similar to how Bill Gates et. al. today have no emotive tie to the Motherland, no concern for nation, but only the mythical global community?) Because they make so much money, they assume they’re investing in the Motherland. Giving back. But they’re not, he says.

(Alexander Khadokovskii at this point jumps quickly from thought to thought. His mind races. The logic is difficult to follow.)

“You can master anything that does not master you,” says Mr. Khadokovskii.

Rich people who build things and make jobs and give away their money are okay, he says, because “we sit at equal terms.’ This exists in Russia, he claims, but there is also the vile rich who kill and “push with their shoulders.”

When liberals (Westerners?) say they want to be free and not dominated by the government, Mr. Khadokovskii goes on to say that they need limits. Internal restraint. He will engage in self-censorship … censorship is not needed against him. (Hey, Sundar Pichai … please read this???). Censorship may be introduced to help people without self-restraint but then it mushrooms into manipulation and control to increase the power of the state. Government officials should not be in business, Mr. Khadokovskii concludes. But somehow, business and officials always become “covertly interconnected.”

“Where there is freedom to peak, honestly and at the same time engage in self-censorship — this is the highest degree of freedom.”

—

Okay, it took a few hours to listen, think through and type comments, which were few. I’m tired. Tomorrow, God willing, I’ll do the next hour, or so, of his interview.

It’s that important.

God bless.

Here beginneth the parable…

One upon a time, in the middle of summer, the Mississippi ceased to flow.

“It’s not our fault the Mississippi suddenly dried up,” said politicians as they scratched their blow-dried hair.

“It’s an act of God … war … whatever. No big deal, right?“

Little European communities that depended on river water had a contingency plan, of sorts — they had dug hundreds of little rivulets that channeled the river’s water to homes, businesses and communities. For awhile, the water in these rivulets continued to flow, but as time passed, even these little streams began to dry … just more slowly than the Mississippi.

No big deal, right?

Long before the Mississippi’s water stopped flowing, engineers had built hundreds of ponds in which water could be stored. These ponds had been designed to even out the flow of water in the rivulets. Little towns, then, had plenty of flowing water in seasons when the Mississippi’s water was low. It took quite a bit effort to keep these ponds from silting because because the water trickled slowly from pond to rivulet to town — it had formerly been pushed by huge amounts of water flowing from the Mississippi. If the spigot on the water from the ponds to the rivulets was “turned up,” the entire system clogged. Besides that, engineers had never dared to do this and weren’t quite certain what would happen if they did.

Though most engineers are better than solving real problems then imagining political ones, even these practical guys began to worry about the consequences of having NO water. Would dying fish flap in cracking mud? Would thirsty and stinky people be wearing dirty clothes … irrigated crops slowly desiccate … kids cry?

With NO water in the big river, the only water in rivulets would have to come from the ponds, the engineers knew. But these ponds were far too small to keep rivulets flowing – they were not nearly as voluminous as the Mississippi.

As summer turned to autumn, the flow of water in the rivulets noticeably slowed. Politicians told the people to drink less, eat bugs and bathe infrequently. But since the people still had water they weren’t deeply worried. “Turn the water back on,” they whined half-heartedly.

As autumn turned to winter, however, there were times of NO water. None at all. The water would go on and off. People didn’t feel very secure about their water. This concerned them. In streets and cafes, the words, “civil war” was increasingly heard, even though the people felt they had to whisper surreptitiously because of the pesky, ubiquitous surveillance cameras pols had installed “for their security.” Then, clean-smelling politicians, sensing the people’s restiveness, ordered engineers to do the impossible, to make the ponds and rivulets work just like the Mississippi. An s/election was coming up, after all.

Desperate engineers cobbled together plans to both fill and extract the last drops of water out of ponds. The water can be pumped out, they exclaimed excitedly! But pumping, as they well knew, takes energy — the pumps for the ponds were hooked to turbines which required pond water to turn. To make things worse, these ponds would freeze in the winter and would have to be heated to release any water at all. This, too, would take energy. To their horror the engineers also figured out that if these ponds emptied too fast, their banks would collapse, just like the sides of the Mississippi when water was low and life good.

 “No big deal, right?” said smiling politicians.

After pols took their media friends for a tour of the ponds and rivulets in their energy-consumptive limos and low-flying jets, they crowed on camera to their Green-deluded friends, “LOOK, we fixed the problem. Every pond will be 96% full in time for winter.”

The end.

Ukrainian Constitution: Article 16
To ensure ecological safety and to maintain the ecological balance on the territory of Ukraine, to overcome the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe – a catastrophe of global scale, and to preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, is the duty of the State.

The gene pool? The Ukrainian gene pool?
All of a sudden, shrill Nazi-accusations levelled at Ukrainian elitists make a bit more sense. Even the Weimer Constitution omits race — the word “race” isn’t included in any English translation. Interesting, no?

Ukrainian elitists seem more race-conscious than the real Nazis …

As an American, I’m proud to say that race is not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. In fact, Americans were referred to as either people/persons or citizens until the 15th Amendment was added in the late-19th Century in which that colour and race are mentioned in the context of the right to vote. I simply cannot imagine writers of any important political American document — particularly a recent one — even considering including a statement about a distinctive American gene pool. Of course, most Americans are mutts, so maybe we don’t have “race purity” to protect?

The point, though, is that the American people don’t think in terms of race/genes nearly as much as do our supposed elites, but the Ukrainian elitists are so concerned about their gene pool that they enshrine gene-preservation as as value in their founding document — the Ukrainian Constitution.

So, what does the Russian Constitution say about race? It’s remarkably like the American Constitution — race-blind. It’s tone and content is utterly unlike the Ukrainian Constitution.

—

I don’t have to write more text. The two Constitutions in both tone and content speak for themselves. You decide. Would you rather live under the elitist Constitution of the Ukraine, or that of Russia?

Choose wisely. You may have to some day.

Here are two Biblical verses, out of context and put into the first person:

• ONE — “… Jesus says, if I believe in Him, greater work than He did when on earth, too, I will do …”
• TWO — “Whatever I ask for in His name, that He will do.”

Lets be real here. I’ve prayed to God for a lot of things HE DID NOT DO. Furthermore, I’m not performing greater works/miracles than did Jesus — I’ve never even seen something utterly miraculous. So, in my rational mind, because of my experience of unanswered prayer, these two statements are untrue.

I can do some mental fudging. Easily. I can explain away the obvious meaning of the passages. I could convince myself that they’re historically conditioned, that is, written at another place and time, and therefore not applicable to me, today. If this is the case, then the entire Bible would be no more than a fantasy or history book, perhaps a novel. This, I know from experience, is not true. The Bible is revelatory. It’s a way God speaks to me, today — furthermore, it’s a way I learn about God. Biblical communication goes both ways: from Him to me; from me to Him.

Someone I read this morning — I lost the reference; it may have been Oswald Chambers — wrote something like this, that when I labor at prayer, from God’s perspective, there are always results. I may not see or understand the results, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. God sees these results. I must believe this.

This is real faith.

Now, a Secularist would scoff at this idea that I have to have faith in a God that he doesn’t think exists who works secretly (this is irrational to the secular mind ). But I’m not a Secularist, thank God. I’m a Christian. I have the Holy Spirit within me — this belief is an act of faith, too. Christian prayer and scholarly studies have transformed my mind. I do not think as I used to, which is a good thing. I’m not conforming to the rational patterns of thought that characterize “the world” in the Bible (code for Secular rationality), but am being transformed by the “renewing of my mind.”

This really is happening. I’m thinking differently. Better, actually. I’m being re-newed. Made new again.

And in a way, my little steel core that’s had been so hardened by a hurtful life is becoming strangely peaceful. Peace is a consequence of right thinking. Godly thinking. It’s not something I earn, as Eastern religionists like to believe; I can’t “ohm” my way to peace, chanting a syllable until my mind numbs. Instead, I have to ask for peace. It’s a gift from God. “Bestowed” is the word the Bible uses to describe how Christians have love, joy and peace. Peace comes from outside of me, from God Himself.

Peace, my friends, is supernatural.

When I rationally look at those verses above, I could feel shafted because many prayers went into the ether, seemingly unanswered. But when I stop looking at the verses rationally, and let my mind be guided by faith, these verses assume a layered meaning. Rationally, I see is ONE meaning, and only one. In spiritual reality, there is a second meaning. Faith preferences the second meaning as spiritual reality trumps mere rationality.

It is true that my prayers weren’t answered in ways I expected. I’m learning to live with this, to see that things may be happening of which I am unaware, and it’s wisest to lean back into God and accept His sovereignty and control. I’m learning to see that the scope of God’s work and communication is much bigger than I am able to comprehend. Like the Israelites on the hill watching the miraculous fire ignite and consume the sacrifice, I pray to fall prostrate and cry,

“The Lord … He is God! The Lord .. He is God!”

Slowly, I’m honing in on a working theory and set of definitions that are factually descriptive in the Ukrainian war.

In short, my theory, so far, is this:

1. Alliances in the Ukrainian war fracture along cultural lines — since religion is the most potent and determinative component of culture, like-religions coalesce into alliances.
2. Secularism is a religion. Secular countries, or countries with strong secular leadership, are natural allies.
3. Non-secular countries can be analyzed along three lines:
   1. salience — This refers to how strongly a religion is practiced and believed. The faith of evangelical Protestants in America, for example, is more determinative and culturally potent than that of liberal Protestants.
   2. exclusivity — This refers to the numeric and political dominance of one religion over another within a nation. Russian Orthodoxy, in Russia, is more culturally potent than is Lutheranism in Sweden. A state religion, such as Secularism in France, is generally more totalizing than a multi-religious culture in which religions must compete for the hearts of citizens in a “marketplace” of faiths. A competitive religious environment, however, generates salience which can trump exclusivity.
   3. content — This refers to the worldview and cultural gap between faiths.
      1. the primary gap is between secular v non-secular. (In practice, most non-Orthodox Jews are Secular.)
      2. the secondary gap is between Christian v Muslim v Jew
      3. the tertiary gap is within a faith: Christianity: Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox; Judaism: Orthodox, non-Orthodox; etc.

The EU is fracturing.

The first fracturing is between the gung-ho war group who want to goad Russia into war and the hesitant and more reasonable group that doesn’t think that the Ukraine, even if hit by tactical nuclear weapons, will be a threat to Europe. France’s Macron is leading the second group — he’s the most level-headed, mature and rational leader in the EU today.

‘We do not want a World War‘ … Macron said to MSM television, France 2.

Macron also said he would not support a nuclear response to Moscow, even if tactical nuclear weapons were lobbed into the Ukraine. “Our doctrine wouldn’t be affected if… there was a ballistic nuclear attack in Ukraine,” he said.

(Questions: What “doctrine?”; To whom is Macron referring with the pronoun “our”?)

The second fracturing has to do with Turkey joining Russia, China and Iran in a tetrad alliance. This is super interesting to me. This alliance seems to dagger my theory above!

—

Lets think through this.

TURKEY seems to be edging toward a break-away alliance with China, Russia and Iran. What are the religions in Turkey’s tetrad alliance?

CHINA — Religion in China is ubiquitous but not salient within the nation. The most salient (worldview and culture forming) religion in China, now, is Christianity but the majority of the Chinese practice Secularism. China’s state religion is Secularism. Though Catholicism has long, deep roots in China, the exploding edge of Christianity is found in charismatic house churches in which hundreds of millions of Chinese clandestinely worship. China has tried to destroy the Islamic communities in it’s West and mostly tolerated the most culturally passive religions of Daoism and Buddhism.

IRAN — Iran, right now, could easily explode into another Khomeini-like crackdown against mostly Secular women who by refusing to wear headscarves are referencing their rejection of Islam. The defacto state religion of Iran is Shia Muslim.

RUSSIA — The state religion of Russia, of course, is the Russian Orthodox Church. Russia tolerates Islam and, to a lesser degree, Protestantism and Catholicism. The Russian Orthodox Church was also the state church of the Ukraine until Americans divided it into Ukrainian and Russian Orthodoxy.

TURKEY — Finally, Turkey is officially Secular though in practice the Turkish people are Sunni Muslim. The country is divided between Kemalists (Secularists) and Sunni Islam, the religion which Erdogan, the president, enthusiastically champions.

It’s important to distinguish between the faith of the elitists and that of a country’s citizens. Usually, elitists follow the religion of Secularism as this is what’s taught in universities and places of higher education. Furthermore, to get ahead among elitists, there’s a strong selective pressure to be Secular. Citizens, on the other hand, often believe in other faiths, which may or may not include Secularism.

There’s far more faith-diversity among the people than among elitists.

—

You could not find more divergent faiths than that of the four countries coalescing into a coalition in opposition to the EU. This is true both at the elitist level and among the people. My theory has been nuked! Where did I go wrong?

I’m not sure. If not faith or culture, then something else must bind these very, very different cultures and nations. What is it?

I think these countries are clinging to each other because they sense that the EU and America are determined to annihilate their distinctive cultures, just as they have done to their own cultures. Losing your culture isn’t a good feeling unless you’re a globalist of the WEC or Davos stripe. In the West, immigration and policies that homogenize culture rather than encourage unique expressions of culture have gutted the sense of place, commonality, safety and unity. Feeling more than knowing this, the tetrad is reliving the old “an enemy of my enemy is my friend,” motif in this world-wide but still undeclared war.

We, the West, are their enemy because we have coddled and spawned anti-cultural globalists.

Clearly, the tetrad want to remain four distinct nations to retain a sense of national identity based on cultural distinctives. This identity is more intuitive (heart-felt) than rational. We’re not dealing with land issues here. This is pure culture. It resides in the gut.

These nations don’t want to be a part of the EU’s mythical “world-wide community of nations,” or whatever may be the latest garbage phrase globalists parrot. There is no global citizen — this is a non-sequitur. Most people sense that a citizen belongs within a national collectivity, regional collectivity and neighborhood, that the global-citizen idea is actually quite silly as well as dangerous. It’s difficult enough to keep different religionists happy within a nation — on a global scale, it’s nigh’ impossible. Elitists, then, must know and intuit the obvious truth, that phrases like “the community of nations” are code for cultural assimilation and destruction. Any collectivity that submits to, and aligns the Secularism of Brussels and Washington ceases to be a true nation.

Perhaps, secondly, these countries resent the United States and European hegemonic attitude and high-handed treatment of their nations. Again, this is intuitive. National pride is at stake as much as sovereignty. Russia is just the latest nation to experience the EU/American elitist’s wrath; Iran has been economically sanctioned for years (to little effect);Turkey’s membership in the EU was challenged by those who questioned whether an Islamic country could be loyal to an historically Christian Europe coalition – now Secular — (this remains to be seen, but I doubt it); and China, of course, has been treated as the Western “Red Menace” for decades. Suffice it to say that these four countries have been pariahs to the EU/USA for as long as I’ve been alive.

Oh, as an aside, wasn’t Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia — hat in hand, begging for help to win an election without pumping American oil — a head-smackingly humiliation? Biden is a clueless and pretentious man. This would never have happened twenty years ago, but America has been so weakened by Leftist, Secularist policies that rogue countries like Saudi Arabia fearlessly stick their finger in Biden’s eye!

We’ll see how America’s “wokened” military performs in a real war — I expect they’ll be “challenged” (woke-speak for humiliated). The Obama-era promotion of individuals using criteria other than merit has severely weakened the quality of the military — to the Secular Left, wokeness trumps merit. Men wearing red high heels will surely be “challenged” in a real war, even if this tickles the blackened hearts of the Secular Left. Little five-foot women will be “challenged” in combat, to say the least. Gays in the military will “challenge” the trust and comradery between men. Furthermore, a sizeable percentage of military men and women are immigrants not born on American soil — wokeness wants the military to be a fast-track to citizenship. One wonders how these recent Americans will fight in a real war.

Culture isn’t easily and quickly transferred, after all.

—

My original post was supposed to be about the EU breaking up. Turkey’s alignment with the tetrad will be part of this break-up. This part is well in progress now. Eventually, Turkey will pull out of the EU — that’s my $0.02 prediction. When Turkey politically loses more than it gains from the EU, it will join whatever it feels is the strongest coalition. The reasons Turkey joined the EU in the first place were never cultural, only strategic. Though Turkey’s strategic calculations can quickly morph, it’s cultures persists.

What’s happening among the original member states is just fascinating. Remember, now, I have no insider knowledge, or not much. I’m only reading between the lines of published sources, some obscure, others widely available. So, given the hush-hush nature of the internecine politics of the EU, this is what I see …

I see two blocs forming in the EU — a more strident coalition led from a distance by the USA/UK/Davos/WEF/UN, and a more war-hesitant coalition mostly headed by France and smaller countries in the EU with popular/populist support.

In times of political instability, populist movements loom larger. The opinions and loyalties of ordinary citizens suddenly become either dangerous or supportive. Note that Germany’s people have been pivoting back to Russia. German elitists are reluctantly following them which is why the USA blew up the Nordstream pipelines — the strident coalition didn’t want to lose Germany or deal with a German-Russian rapprochement. My guess is that Turkey will become the energy hub for Europe and at that point will pull out of the EU. Erdogan, himself, will control the flow and price of gas. This means Erdogan will control Europe via Turkstream.

Without Germany in tow, France has become the heavy-hitter in the EU; Macron has been elevated to sudden leadership. I’m sure he’s blinking in the light right now, not certain what to do. His political position in France is shaky after the last, ambiguous election … his ability to read the political tea-leaves may be good, but even so, his options are limited.

I wonder if Macron considers strident globalists to be more the enemy than Russia? Macron’s political values could quickly change if he thinks he’ll soon be deposed or forced to rule over a country in civil war.

Macron certainly has been chiding Biden. Good for him. He’s also pulling France out of the USA orbit. As I wrote above, France via Macron has declared it won’t respond to Russian tactical nukes so must not want to be involved with finishing off Russia. France doesn’t seem to be toeing the American desire to escalate into war.

I truly wonder what the Davos/WEC crowd gets out of war. Playing around with nukes and world war seems sort of risky, no? Maybe the globalists think they will be safe in their bunkers, but do they really want to destroy all of Europe over a border dispute in the Ukraine? Do they want the blood of millions of Europeans to cover their hands? If so, why?

I honestly don’t understand their motivation.

Macron’s realist bloc in the EU appears to include Italy and smaller nations. Now that England wisely stepped out of the EU, the only thing holding the EU together is the EU itself. Inertia is a powerful force. Aversion to change, likewise. In my wee opinion, the EU accepted too many member nations, oppressively micro-managed these nation’s societies, neglected to stick to the original mandate which was, primarily, economic … and is now failing.

There will be a run on food and gas: the World Bank accidently let slip this little gem of information a couple days ago. So, lets think some more about what will happen. Europe is hoarding gas and may make it through the winter by rationing, as long as it’s not too cold. Industry will be devastated, however. Food … this shortage will be felt downstream in 2023/2-24 after the EU greenies prohibit farmers from producing productively, that is, with fertilizer. This has got to be one of the most stupid, hare-brained idea I’ve ever seen in politics. Refusing to grow food in the quantities needed makes about as much sense as Germany’s refusal to use smart (not exclusively green) energy and depend on Russian oil. Since Russian grain will be as off-limits to the EU as Russian oil/gas, what will Europeans eat that they, themselves, are producing? How much can be imported reliably?

In this shaky political climate, you better believe that the EU elitists, like Macron, will have a “come to Jesus” moment as they repent of their ideological sins on knobby, unexercised knees.

In the end, Macron will save France, not his beloved EU, if he can. He’s not dumb. He’ll be forced to do the right thing by circumstances and political realities. As the EU falls, Europe will re-form into small and cohesive nations. This is what Europe always was and should be. It’s a nation of cultures, not one big a-cultural agglomeration. It may take a couple generations to recover from Secular foolishness, however.

Big, stupid ideas usually fail spectacularly, so the failure of globalism will be great fun to watch. Get the popcorn and soda ready for your front-row seat!

People, though, will die. Many. War and stupid globalism both kill. This is not fun to watch. Or experience. It’s a tragedy. A stupid, unnecessary elitist-caused tragedy.

The US … my idiotic country, will persist in a delusional state for another decade or two until it realizes that it, like England and France, has become a failed and fading empire. Our upcoming civil war will wipe out delusional Greenies and Leftists for a generation or two and then the horrible cycle will repeat as they rise again.

Totalitarian Secularism never disappears. It just cycles. It reaches peak inefficiency and stupidity and then collapses into a heap onto itself. Rome … Athens … post-Weimer Germany … the list is endless.

Here’s the punchline. ONLY FAITH IN GOD COUNTERS THE SECULAR SLIDE INTO WAR AND CULTURAL DELUSION. A country with a viable and strong sense of it’s cultural self is not prone to Green delusions or Marxism.

This is why cultural revival precedes restoration. It’s always this way.

Cycles of revival, at least Christian ones, mirror those of restoration and peace.

(I gotta go take care of my father now. Sorry. No time to edit or finish. Perhaps another day …)

Many years ago, I worked for an gentleman who told me that an independent man’s career peaked at age seventy-three.

He was seventy-three.

I laughed, then later realized he was serious. “So, what happens at seventy-four,” I asked.

“I’ll let you know.”

—

I do think that men and women are put on the shelf prematurely. Age does accrue advantages: wisdom accumulates … mistakes can be learned from … one’s ego can be tamed. When a man works for himself — when he is able to decide when to quit working — the age of retirement is often in his eighties and sometimes beyond this age.

It’s wrong to regulate the age of retirement. A nation loses it’s most seasoned and experienced men and women before they’ve had a chance to give back even a fraction of what they have to give to society.

Robert Browning’s lovely poem may be about marital love, but applies to career as well:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

As a Christian, I believe I have been put on this earth for a reason. My life is not subject to happenstance or a random assorting of gametes. I’m here because God put me here at this point in human history. I’m on a particular path He has planned. I have a purpose. A calling. My calling goes beyond the mundane, though it may be or include the mundane, because God Himself birthed me for this purpose.

Age matters not in God’s economy. I’m obviously aging, but this is insignificant. As I age, my purpose narrows but does not disappear. Though I cannot see much of the path in front of me, I know it’s there. As my body weakens, it still keeps going. Old injuries heal. Old hurts scar. Much of aging involves the body. Mine is pretty good. Still, my body is the least important part of me.

My intellect and heart have not scarred or healed, but improved. This is the best of me. It’s what I have to give going forward. My mind … accumulated experiences, mistakes, snafus, glories, problems worked through, problems which remain unsolved … makes my trek along the path worth doing.

When I was very young, I was convinced that everything about a person declined until death. As I saw it, my childhood was going to morph into adulthood, which would peak around twenty-five years of age and then slowly slide down a steep slope that culminated in a painful, gross death. I remember looking at the cellulitic, vein-painted, pudgy legs of old ladies and recoiling — “No, not me! Please no! I want to be twelve forever!!!”

Suffice it to say that my view of life’s progression has changed a bit. In the last half of middle age, I have no idea where I’m going. It’s like the last half of a great novel. I spent the first half of my novel-life developing plot and characters. Now, it is coming together. I’ve got the novel set up and ready to go. Finally, I get to live out a plot.

I’m ambitious by nature. Age has tamed my ambition but not erased it. Some really horrible things happened to me that made me wonder if I should pack it in, build an exquisite modern, concrete home in the woods, fill it with books, art, mosaics and a big dog, and then live out the remainder of my life in peace and solitude, surrounded by the things I love. This retirement mentality is fundamentally selfish. Worse, it’s weak. It’s giving up on life, not living it. Though it is true that as we age we must give up things, I don’t want to give up anything unnecessarily. Spending my dotage in ceramics classes with a bunch of old women making objects that are, at best, marginally beautiful … makes me feel ill to contemplate. To play golf every day, to sail in the deeps, to sit in the sand reading novels … is too selfish to ponder. To live through my kids and grandkids and never quite find the path that God has for me … is too weak to imagine

I want to live. I want a big life on a narrow path.

—

Older people are forced to choose a trajectory of life that leads to either expansion or contraction. Most choose to contract because social pressure pushes older people into smaller and smaller social spaces. Society wants older people to be invisible, to canter into the sunset while wantonly spending to keep the economy humming. So, I foresee a push-back in my future because I want to expand contrary to social norms — this means I will retain my ambitions as I age. I foresee a struggle ahead of me. That’s okay. I’d rather overcome than retreat; expand than contract; live a big life … and not be a mediocre Christian.

I am determined that when I get to the age of “retirement,” I won’t retire. I’m planning to keep working until He calls me home.

The path I’m to take is one of work. It takes effort to NOT work in this society. How I work is up to God … what I do will be determined by Him. He will open and shut doors as He empowers me to walk past or through them. I know that in my future God will suddenly create circumstances that will change life radically. I intuit, now, that my life is about to take a new direction. I’m psyched about this.

As I move on, however, I’m dismayed at the number of people, often Christian women, who tell me that I should be satisfied with the life they’ve chosen for themselves — that extended family and the homestead are the “only things that matter in the end.”

Eh, well, NO. Maybe for you, my little dears, but not for me. Does getting rid of the EU matter? Ending war? Political revolution? Creating societies where people can be free? Does writing literature that moves just one person matter? Can I be called to bond with just one person and then work toward shared goals? Is an abstracted life, one of creativity and inward mental gain, somehow less important than your choice to do nothing more than make tweets and casseroles? Is life no bigger than the people you touch and see? Is aesthetic creativity important? Ideas qua ideas? Does life really boil down to the shallow conversations you have with people in your tiny inner circle?

I will NEVER relive the tedious days of child-rearing by repeating them with grandchildren … if my kids ever marry and have kids. That’s NOT the life I want. My path goes a different direction. I pray to never be afraid to take risks. I pray to “forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead.” Always and always.

Forget then reach. That’s my new mantra. FORGET, then reach.

I’m thinking, now, of Joseph in the OT, the poor guy left languishing in prison, seemingly forgotten by God. As year after year of incarceration passed, he kept doing the right thing by serving others around him. But God didn’t spring him from prison. Joseph needed a divine miracle to progress down his path which meant escaping confinement. Eventually, he got out.

Most people have difficulties in life that must to be stepped over to move forward but this was not the case with Joseph. Being stuck in a prison unjustly for years without any hope of being released was not a “difficulty” that needed to be bridged but an “impossibility” that required a miracle. Joseph had no way out. No viable “Plan B.” Thankfully, he got the miracle he needed when God lifted Joseph from being a filthy, unnoticed prisoner to second-in-command over all of Egypt, a country which at that time was the most powerful nation on earth.

Most people have difficulties in life. Sicknesses, iffy finances, straying children and bad neighbors are just some of those difficulties. People who only have difficulties are on paths of relative ease. When they retire and play golf every day, severe problems usually do not manifest themselves. They may have a health crisis or an accident, but do not face Joseph-tier impossibilities that require miracles to overcome. Today’s suburban American Christians are expected to live safe, middlin’, and unremarkable lives. It’s quite possible to do well at this, to feel contented in that second home by the beach. This, in fact, has become the norm: most Christians settle into spiritual mediocrity … happily. They have even created a church subculture that socially rewards spiritual mediocrity. Parenting, a stable career, “putting down deep roots,” then grandparenting and living the “retirement life you deserve” … this is the life God has chosen for American Christians, or so they say as they buff off the dirt from their 7-iron.

Honestly, these people make me ill. I know I should be more charitable, but am so determined NOT to be like them that I push these sorts of Christians out of my mind. By His grace, my calling is different. that’s all I know. I wish I knew more about what it my calling is! My eyes are focusing on a goal I cannot see. My feet are heading in a direction and on a path that leads to who-knows-where. Mediocre Christian think I’m nuts. Why not settle down? Settle in? Enjoy “the life you’ve worked for?”

I’ll answer, but you won’t like it. To sum: I don’t want your plain-vanilla, dull Christian existence. I don’t want to leap into life and limp out of it– I want to limp in … and leap out! Leap! Leap!! Leap!!! I want the ending of life to be better than it’s beginning. I want to always be becoming … to be bigger, not smaller. I want to stay on a narrowing path until it ends in a micrometer-width dot. I want to walk that path fast, too. I know it’s not my effort that will get me to where He wants me to be, but it’s important to me that I respond to His promptings promptly. This, I pray to do.

When Moses had a vision of leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he got off the path too quickly. He tried to actualize his vision before it’s time. This is easy to do when young, but not usually done after learning from the mistakes of youth. Moses spent forty years in the desert taming his ego, poor guy. Forty years as a sheepherder would have tamed my ego, too — instead, I spent twenty-five years raising children, which certainly tamed any residual ego I once had. God trained and disciplined me through those long, tedious years. He still is.

Only when I am tamed and ready will God revive the vision He put in me, long, long ago. I’m getting closer.

—

It’s sadly ironic that mediocre Christians think it to be egoistic to not desire the small, predictable life they’ve chosen for themselves. This understanding of the Christian life is backward. I, for one, am preparing to fly. This may surprise you because right now, I’m imprisoned with an old man, my father, with whom I have never had a relationship, doing what God has called all of us to do — honoring my parents. My father is almost ninety-five years of age and has an innate selfishness and sense of propriety that makes him think like a mediocre Christian. He tells me that I should be happy at home, marry a professional, live a stable, predictable life, hope for grandchildren someday, blah blah blah. He thinks I should enjoy his prison, not hope to escape it! In short, he doesn’t want my life to be any bigger than the scanty one he chose for himself.

This won’t happen.

My cage confines me round,
Abroad I cannot fly,
But though my wing is closely bound,
My soul is at liberty;
For prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.

—

Soon, I’ll fly. My body will follow my soul out of here. I’ll be sprung from a living death, a prison of obedience to God’s explicit will as stated in the Bible, that I honor my parents. I’ll fly abroad. My wings will be unbound. My soul freed.

And I’ll never look back.

—

Some Christians are afraid to fly. The safety of the nest entraps them. When they look forward to decisions that will need to be made about how to live when old and getting older, they panic. Their panic always seems to hinge on finances. Will they have enough money to live their “retirement dream?”

Those who panic are those without a path. Money always comes around to the Christian on the path. Their provision is secure. The path itself, though, can be hard to find — that’s the crux of the problem. Their failure is in not looking for a path — money has nothing to do with this.

I don’t like writing this because I’ve prayed for a clear path for a couple years and have not received an answer. Note the word “clear.” Perhaps God works in the fog through spiritual ambiguity. As I pray … he answers, but bit by bit, not with sudden clarity.

God can be silent. He can refuse to answer my most consequential prayers. It’s taken me a long time to realize that His silence is a sign of His trust. It’s proof He has heard me. He only responds with silence to those who are strong enough to handle it — the God who cannot be heard trusts me to take blind steps along an invisible path. This means I have to believe the path is there when I don’t see it and believe He is guiding me when I don’t feel it.

I’m doing this, or am trying to. I have inklings about what I will do and am praying that my desires align with His plan. At this point, I don’t care what others say, though it hurts to not have support. This, too, is part of His trust. When even the church and Christians push me toward what I know is NOT His will, it takes a special sort of determination and self-possession (in the best sense of this word) to keep pushing forward with God and away from them. My trust is solely in Him. I know He’ll lead me when the time comes to be led. I won’t get too far off the path this time. Like Joseph, I was premature … long ago.

Now, older and wiser, I’m chastened and nearabout ready.

Not all religions carry through. Some are simply forgotten or left by the wayside as if they were cultural artefacts from long ago. Others are syncretized into more culturally potent religions — the absorption of South and Middle American “folk” beliefs into Roman Catholicism comes to mind.

Today, we are watching syncretism in real time. It’s the syncretism of the Green and Red, the “Reds” being, of course, the stronger, older and dominant religion. Greenism had a good run for the last several decades. Ever since I can remember, environmentalism was the trendy, go-to religion. I can’t tell you how many of my school trips were to worship at tertiary sewage plants — please, not again!!! — or how much oil I wiped off seagulls, or how many tires I pulled out of the San Francisco bay! I grew up in the left-looney Cali suburbs where environmentalism was all the rage. Thus, I feel a certain intimacy with the environmental mind. Greenism was tightly woven into the fabric of my past, after all.

Now, Greenism is over, though not yet gone: amazingly, Greenism is snuffing itself out! Remnants remain, of course; it’s truest believers have not yet admitted that their faith was misplaced. But it’s happening. Reality is interrupting fantasy. In Europe, this means that Green is morphing into Red as young greens re-discover the geriatric communism of their grandparents, their natural comrades in arms.

If I had to put a date on peak-Greenism, I’d say it’s cultural apex coincided with that of peak-Covidism. That would be 2021. Although the Davos crowd thinks they can foment this Green religious fervor forever, they’re quite wrong about this. Greenism’s trajectory is a downslope. It failed it’s first big test when electricity was unable to replace fossil fuel. Because of this failure, it will never be “built back better.”

Stick a fork in Greenism. It’s finished.

—

The EU/USA’s irrational desire to wage war against Putin has little to do with gas, oil and sovereignty, though the prestige media likes to characterize it as such. The real contention between the two cohorts of nations was caused by gaping differences in worldview between the religion of Greens and the traditional religions of energy-realists. If oil/gas had been the primary issue, Biden would have stepped up production in the US to help out Europe. He did not do this. No only did Biden refuse to let Americans pump oil and sell it at a tidy profit on spot markets, but he singled out for political persecution American gas and oil producers who now, amusingly, are ignoring him. They’re sitting on their wells, waiting out Biden’s presidency. Two more years …

Biden could have put the welfare of his own citizens ahead of wokish, globalist Greenists (as did Putin and his cohort) but preferred to let Americans and Europeans suffer rather than back down from his delusional Green faith. Now, those suffering citizens are talking among themselves. What they’re saying isn’t very kind to Green religious devotees … this is an understatement.

The fiasco unfolding in Europe pits Green-Red elitists against true-blue populists. The stakes are high for elitists. My hunch is they’ll throw everything they’ve got into this contest, for their survival is contingent on suppressing popular desires and values. Though elitists may be able to smother populists a short while, there are too many populists and too few elitists to maintain political repression. Eventually the people will revolt. This is happening now, in fact.

And, concurrently, elitist institutions will fail.

The EU itself may well fail. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the EU folds by next spring. Similarly, in the US, Biden’s government will take a huge hit in the midterm elections in a couple weeks. Enough true-blue religionists have been alerted to “voting irregularities” that they’ll be hypervigilant in this upcoming election. Surely, this won’t help Biden because voting irregularities favor Democrats.

So, without the “margin of fraud” Democrats have depended on in the past, their upcoming electoral failure will also bring down their Green co-religionists. In Europe, recent elections have also trended populist — Meloni’s election in Italy is prescient. Suffice it to say that nationalism, true-blue populism, the trad religion of Christianity and a resurgence of patriotic regionalism is overwhelming elitism, the red-green syncretistic religion, and globalism.

Furthermore, the self-serving environmentalist tenet that they, alone, are privy to “truth” and therefore have been chosen to ram their ideals down the throats of Green “denialists” is about to meet both reality and opposition. If the people’s choice is between being warm, employed and fed, or worshipping a dubious Green goddess, they will choose wisely. After all, the people already have a historic faith. They don’t need another.

One doesn’t disagree with a religion. You either believe it or not. Thus, it makes sense that the one of the favorite slurs used by the Green-Red devotees is the religiously-charged word, “DENIALIST.” I see that word everywhere these days. “Denialist” is used to describe anyone who worships a god other than the Gaia of the Green religion or the Marx of the Red. “Denialists” are the typical bogeymen of the political left — there are environmental denialists, election-denialists, covid-denialists … etc. “Denialist” is a very revealing word, for a person can only deny something s/he can’t believe: in contrast, s/he rationally “dismisses” something untrue.

I was amused, this morning, to read the Wikipedia entry on “Denialism” particularly since a few years ago I read a book by Michael Specter of that same title. I didn’t think Spector’s book was either convincing or well-argued, but did see it as a great peek into the mind of a Green-Red religionist. Spector is a fervent worshiper of the Green religion. In his zeal for what he believes is truth, he conveniently forgets how the government, election officials, military poohbahs and big pharma execs intentionally misrepresent and outright lie to the people, which is why so many people, myself included, seek external validation of whatever the Green/government/big-business/big-tech promotes. This isn’t denialism but realism. It’s a rigorous application of the scientific method. Realists do not simply believe, as by faith, whatever proponents of an ideology tell them to believe; they’re not like Green religionists who all hail from a similar “truth silo.” Such self-talk has an amplifying effect. It also carries religious devotees further from the values of the people.

Realists are skeptical of power, motivation and self-interest. They note the benes Greenies get from being green. Realists, then, demand a higher tranche of proof from both Greenies and the government bureaucrats who champion them — in the popular mind, Green behaviour has been less-than-honorable and words less-than-forthright. They’re not trustworthy, that is.

—

In the past, speaking rationally about environmental issues would get you kicked off corporate boards and shunted from tenured slots in universities. A defacto silencing of dissent was also applied to ordinary citizens. As far as ordinary people were concerned, as long as the Green religion didn’t impact their daily lives, they were willing to parrot environmentalist mantras … half-heartedly. But now, as food and heat become scarce, that half-hearted, pretend-assent is quickly disappearing. I hear on the street complaints, loud and vociferous, about Greenies. There’s a crescendo of voices criticizing the once-holy religion of Greenism. People are angry at the pain this religion is causing them. It amazes me how quickly this is happening.

Go to any normie political site and you’ll see quotes like this:  “… if the US government and news media have lied so much about other things like COVID jabs and the economy I don’t know what to believe about the war from a good vs bad standpoint. The other thing I know is there is absolutely nothing in Ukraine that would justify a nuclear war or the taking of one American life. We are playing a very stupid game with a demonic and demented old bastard at the controls and that causes me great concern.”

This is typical.

Perhaps religion, when coerced, rankles the soul. There may be an unstated, but felt, bitterness at being rammed by ideas that don’t seem mostly true. The fact that environmentalism and Covidism happened to peak simultaneously has created a one-two punch in the popular mind. People associate these two events with each other and with the government high-handed shut down of the economy. With both, the government came down hard on the people, forcing them to do things they didn’t want to do (like be injected with the “clot-shot.”) And with both, as time passes and in retrospect, the government’s actions appear increasingly malevolent and dishonest. Information about what happened is being passed about in populist circles. There’s a real anger out there. Too, there’s a corresponding distrust in anyone associated with governmental power including Greens, Reds, big-pharma, electricity-nuts, climate fanatics, etc.

–

Having said this, I don’t think either the environmental realists or religionists are working with a full deck. Both have presuppositions about the “other.” These presuppositions cloud their assessment of competing religions like Greenism.

This adds up to extreme and growing populist distrust in Green religionists and the political power that keeps and provides for them. That’s the bottom line. For now.