Monday, September 29, 2014

I Pledge Allegiance to NO Flag

This is probably the most controversial thing I have ever posted, that I can think of, but it's from the heart, so here it is: 

I pledge allegiance to no flag. To no country. To no ethnicity. To no single tribe.
I pledge allegiance to the work of God, to the cross that destroyed the significance of every division except one - do you follow Jesus, or do you not?

I have no enemy except one: Satan, the adversary of all.

On paper, I am an American. I was born in what is called America. I speak English and (unfortunately) only English right now.
I was born in Niles, MI. I was raised in South Bend, IN. I lived in a neighborhood of predominantly black-skinned people, but my skin is white. The neighborhood was full of drugs, gangs, violence, racism... The schools were dangerous and featured metal detectors - this includes the elementary schools. Someone got killed in most of the local schools at least once a year. There was violence in the elementary as well as the high schools, to my understanding.

I was homeschooled and raised to be a right-wing, republican conservative - despite the fact that we were on food stamps. I thought everyone was on them. I really did not know what Republicans were, I thought they were just "the good people, the people who honor God and want to keep our nation free and close to God." Nevertheless, I voted third-party when turned 18.

I was led to think that the color black was absent from heaven, everything was white and gold. Gold was everywhere there. I asked my parents what our neighbors would look like in Heaven, and they didn't seem to know what to say. They seemed nervous...

These were my impressions of the world and the universe growing up (keep in mind I was a child internalizing things, not thinking for myself. This is absolutely not a reflection of where I stand now): I got the impression growing up that America was created by God to solve all the world's problems, that our founding fathers loved God, built our country according to God's design and God's word, ran it from its beginning according to His dictates just like the authors of scripture, and that was why he blessed us and made us powerful. We were powerful because we were the best, God said so and to disagree was to do the work of Satan. The country of Russia (this was the cold-war era) was not of God, was full of the devil and their government was established against God. They did not like us because our country and our leaders did what God said, and theirs were on Satan's team and didn't. They were about taking the world into darkness to be like them, and have no freedom and to destruction, and we were sent from God to make people free, just like Jesus.
God worked to make America because we were to hold his light up in a darkened world, show the world how life was really supposed to be lived and how God wanted things done, and we always fought to for the right and for His will in nations, to make others do what was right. "Indians" were bad people who did terrible things for a long time and God gave us their land just like He gave the land of Israel to Abraham's descendants, and for the same reasons.
God was our father, not our mother. God was a man, even though he wasn't. God really wasn't male or female but it was very important to call God "He," to do otherwise was heretical. Non-pentecostals/non-charismatics were wrong, their ideas were bad. Catholics were bad and wrong. Evangelicals were bad and wrong. Denominational churches were bad and wrong.... People who dressed funny were bad and wrong. People who listened to secular music were too. People who drank alcohol were going to hell, and if they said they were Christians, then they were deceived.

Black people - well there was a confusing topic. I heard that skin color didn't matter, AND the N-word out of the same mouths at different times - outrage against racism and outrage against other "races," depending on the mood of the speakers. It changed a lot. I wrestled with it a lot. As part of my home education, I watched the "Roots" saga, written by Alex Haley. Anti-racism won out, I think mostly because of that powerful show. We also watched "Dances with Wolves," (though not for school purposes) where I heard the other side of the "Indian" story, and I heard my parents complaining about how awful the things that happened were. My mom said she was ashamed of her skin color, all her street friends growing up were Mexican, Puerto Rican, and black. Never white, never Polish. She was really emotional at the end of that movie, often in tears, though it was still one of her favorites.
Eventually, My dad told me that His Mom's side of the family was part Cherokee. I WAS an Indian - kinda. I would have expected to be upset by that, because of the crap I thought, but instead it made me deeply happy and I did not know why. I think maybe the Holy Spirit within was happy to see an ugly attitude in me destroyed.




HOW could I walk around believing that our ancestors were saints who only did the will of God when I knew the story of slavery and segregation, and some of the atrocities committed against American Indians and the obvious sins and injustices thereof? I have no idea. Brain-washing, I guess. The "identity" I had as an American, and the history I knew clashed like crazy. The country I pledged allegiance to, with tears in my eyes and pride in my heart was an imaginary one, a place where God was always honored, where policies had always (until the 1960's, that is) reflected God's will and God's value of every person as equal, and God's respect for different people from all over. Meanwhile, I knew that my Grandfather, a first generation Polish immigrant, had been attacked and knocked off his bicycle while delivering the mail and beaten down very badly because he was a different ethnicity than his attackers. I knew all kinds of crass "Polack" jokes. I eventually came to understand those jokes were mean, and directed against my family - half of it anyway. I knew my mom grew up poor in a Polish neighborhood and her father had a served in WWII. He had a lot of trouble finding a job after he returned from the war and started a family, largely because he was Polish and had an accent. 

I saluted the red white and blue with tears in my eyes, thinking "There's a country who accepts everybody and takes people from every background, not caring where they came from and gave them a chance to be free and fulfill their destinies, no matter what obstacles have faced them before, this is a safe place, a place to be free . . . my country is like Jesus . . . I am a native of the ONLY country in the world, other than Israel in the Bible, that was actually MADE by God!" BOY was I proud. And WRONG. I should have known I was wrong, too. Evidence was all around me, right up in my face, all my life.

It's been a long journey and is a really long story, but I definitely do not believe "My country 'tis of God" anymore, at all. I don't think any country is. In the Bible, when God called a people to be his example (not Americans, btw, and this was the Old Testament), it was supposed to be for the redemption of the whole world. "A mixed multitude" left Egypt, evidently some Egyptians came to know God and followed him across the parted Red sea. Jonah was sent to a Gentile nation, and God rebuked him for his nationalism at the end, reminding him that he also made and cared for the Ninevites. Paul said his heritage as a Jew was dung to him, that he became as a Gentile to help Gentiles, and as a Jew to help other Jews. He said that none of it really mattered: there is no class, no race, no nation in God's view. In addition, God told the prophet Samuel that Israel desired a human king because they rejected His leadership, and in the message granting their request, He listed all the crappy things that would come with human rule. 

God works in all things, both good and bad. He has a perfect will and a permissive one. The permissive one is like when He granted Israel's request for a king,though it was not His perfect will. I believe all government has to do with God's permissive will. If people insist on following other people, or have no law on their heart to care for each other, they will get what they ask for, and He will continue to work in that situation as much as they're hardened hearts allow.

In a nutshell, I am an anarchist. I do not believe that human government is God's perfect plan for anybody. I do not believe in governments, or the borders they set and fight over, or the identities and pride/brainwashing they universally instill in children who grow up under their power.
Part of Satan's work in the world is to instill prejudice, to create factions. He gets you to think others are your enemy, instead of him being your real enemy. Then he gets you to hurt people, thinking you are doing something good. Thus, you do his work for him. Satan will point to what you did, after you swallow his garbage, and try to get people whom you call your enemy to focus on what you did, so that THEY will go and hurt "your" people "back'. He gets them into the same state of mind you were in when you hurt someone. Then you will see this "retaliation," and the whole process repeats. Pride is of the devil. Prejudice is of the devil. Divisions and factions and labels and stereotypes are of the devil.
If this image is copyrighted, please excuse. I don't recall where I got it. It's been in my PC for years.
In my view now, I am an American just like I am lower-class, was a "high risk" or "at risk" youth, a child of an alcoholic (that's why there was no alcohol, somebody couldn't handle it except to stay away from it, and he eventually went back to it for a season), or anything else. NONE of that is who I am. I pledge no allegiance to the ghetto, or to poverty, or to a dysfunctional family, or to white-ness. "American" means this is where I lived and how things were there, what I was exposed to, rules I did/did not have to follow, and who I was TOLD that I am. It is a situation, an aspect of my experience, a label placed on me that brings certain things to mind which may or may not fit how I actually am. It is not an identity. Some of the impact from that situation will be positive, some negative. I need to make the best of the positive and work on overcoming the negative, just like any other aspect of my experience. 

I am not a patriot. My Christianity does not lead me to defend any ideas about the history of where I live. God's will for this land or any other has NOTHING to do with how it got started or who started it or anything they said or did. I base my battles, my "politics", and/or anti-politics, on what I understand as God's will. That is NEVER going to include anything based on any human's actions or merits, because humans don't have any such merits. None of us ever have, or ever will. The history is not important except to understand how Satan has been working here, and how to resist him. In America, he has mainly worked through pride, greed, and illusions of moral superiority/entitlement. I know it is expected of me to have certain sentiments, commitment, and reverence, much like the reverence I have for God, towards a flag, a name, a set of man-made borders, and etc. I don't though. I can't do that anymore, because I do not believe that it is real/right. 

On the downside, sometimes I get unhealthily upset by "patriotic Christianity" (which I find to be almost an oxymoron), because I feel like Simba confronting Scar at the end of "The Lion King", when he said, "Everything you ever told me was a lie." That is the part I still need to deal with, it sometimes causes me to become like a faction unto myself. I am working on that.

The best I can do right now is, if you VERY STRONGLY feel that it is your duty before God to protect this "heritage" we're supposed to have had, and "fight for it", and diminish or gloss over deeply rooted problems with self-aggrandizing lies (E.G. Our founding fathers were saintly. Our country is made by God and has a heritage of righteousness, and therefore is entitled to 80% of the resources of all the world. Our forefathers did not commit genocide, they did not really steal any land. They were enormously righteous and just, and those who say otherwise are tools of Satan out to destroy our saintly heritage and tell us we aren't better than everyone else." like I was raised), and its part of your mission, plan, and core, I don't think we can work together. At least not right now. Otherwise, there is a good chance we can agree on SOMETHING and if so, I will try to work with you towards that.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

NEVER! GIVE! UP! Pt. 5: "Sorrow Endures for the Night, but Joy Comes in the Morning"

Well, I had another really stressful adventure and it lasted only about 36 hours.
The temp service I was working for when I got laid off called me and asked me to do a one day thing on October 11th, and to come for the orientation on September 25th. A little while later, I went outside to go to the store and found THIS


We tried to air it up, but it was not holding any air at all. Even after a long time, there was no change whatsoever. I was actually very depressed that night, and did not want to see anybody. I waited until the sun came up the next day before pursuing the problem further.

The next morning, my roommate beat me outside and got the tire off. I came out and he showed me why it was not taking any air in. It was completely off the rim in the back. Completely!


Obviously, that is why it would not hold any air...
I thought I was doomed. I had no money to speak of, fixing and replacing tires is expensive. Unemployment was not coming until the day AFTER I was supposed to go to Champaign. I was thinking if I did not make it, and had to say I could not do it, that might count as refusing work. If it did, I would lose my unemployment and have ABSOLUTELY NO INCOME! Which was scary.

Fortunately, my roommate's dad knew how to put a tire on a rim. He had helped Matt put part of a tire back on a rim once. It turns out, all you have to do is have a strong enough air compressor. Matt's dad was not sure if he had a strong enough compressor or not.

He did!


Matt's mom picked us up on her way to somewhere and we took the tire to his parents house, ate some marvelous soup, and turned the air compressor up to max capacity of 100 psi. We put the nozzle to the tire... it popped right back out and, mostly, back onto the rim! Matt adjusted it so something would line up better and put the nozzle on it again. It popped the rest of the way out, fully on the rim after just a few seconds.
He left it on too long and overfilled it, but fortunately it did not explode. I stood there flabbergasted, looking at my nice, round, plump tire and my first reaction was to do this (ok, I know it seems hysterical, but that was the key to my nearly lost livelihood I was dealing with, ok?)...



I got to the orientation today and they told me that the lady I was to meet had a family emergency and had to reschedule. So I drove an hour and borrowed about half the pay I will get tomorrow for a wild goose chase that I would have to do again. The job was a one-day assignment for six hours in Champaign, an hour away just like the orientation and my last job were,so initially I was breaking even or slightly better on the pay, now it appears it will be in negative numbers... I got disgusted but chose to let it slide, tried to just be thankful that I would be able to keep my unemployment and the graphic art study that I am hoping to get going tomorrow.

I have to report training and education to the unemployment office too. Depending on how they classify that graphic art program, I may not be able to do it. Receiving training can cancel your benefits in some circumstances. If that is the case here, my only current wherewithal to pay for it would be taken away BECAUSE of my starting it! Of course, that would mean I couldn't do it. I have been, I think understandably, very stressed out over all this and so has Matt. I will know tomorrow, I presume, whether I can sign up or not.

Today, both my roommate and myself were nearing the end of how much more crap, and one "uh, oh" after another, we could stand. Though every situation has somehow been resolved, having one serious/potentially catastrophic difficulty after another get quite old after a while. Today I also got a call for a full time, non-temp job right here in Decatur. I found the message this evening, when I got home from writing in the cemetery and visiting the library. It is not unusual for an "attack" to happen right before an important breakthrough. "All is darkest before the dawn," as the saying goes.

I will return the call tomorrow, and hopefully resume working again very soon. The job is to be a machine operator in a custom embroidery  and silk-screening factory, it is here in town, but starts at minimum wage. That would at least pay the bills and not keep me from writing or studying graphic art.We'll see how it goes... I am hopeful. :)


Sunday, September 21, 2014

How Romance - Even the Potential of Romance - Can Change One's Life

Ok, this one may seem a bit personal, and unusual, but still it is a very big deal for me.

I have never been on a date. Seriously.
At 32 I have never dated even once.

I have never done a huge amount of thinking about birth control. I have never made any big life decisions that take into account whether I might have kids or whether my leaving an area might or not might affect a relationship.
I have not thought a huge amount about if I am comfortable with a joint account or two people having their own accounts in a marriage relationship.

The other day, I watched an advertisement video about a cervical cap called Femcap. A pro-life Wiccan was posting on her page about how hard it was for her to find this device, and I got curious about it. As I watched the informational video, I was amazed at how much there was to think about than I had ever taken into account.

Recently, I finally set up a profile on a dating site that actually had people on it who believe as I do, where my biggest bottom line requirement in a mate is likely to be met.
It is a Catholic dating site, and one of the questions I answer when I make the profile is "Do you accept the church's teaching on contraception?"

I said yes to 4 of the 7 faith questions asked, including that one. Most of the people I have seen that I had any interest in whatsoever said yes either to every question, or to every question EXCEPT the one on contraception.

It made me think about the fact that such a decision has to be agreed upon by two people, and that made me think about how far-reaching a disagreement on that issue would be. I wondered if I would be willing to change my position on that if it would make or break an otherwise promising relationship...
I am not sure. This makes me think I am not that sure about contraception, though I certainly would not be willing to use IUDs or any hormones. I am pretty sure I would not be interested in using Femcap or any other such equipment either, but then again, I am not 100% sure.

The point is, I always thanked heaven I did not have to worry about any of this stuff, and thought how over-complicated people made their lives and our whole society by living promiscuously. I still feel that way, but I realize that marriage still raises some of the same issues. It would seem that, even though I and anyone I would be remotely interested in dating would be waiting for marriage before doing anything, looking for a marriage partner means I need to understand where my and a potential other's bottom lines are.

Being single I can say "This is what I think, I feel such and such way about it, and I am going to proceed accordingly."ALWAYS.
If I am not single, I will have to take another's thoughts and feelings into account on so many things its just crazy. For the first time, that does not completely turn me off on romantic relationships. Part of it is because I do not think of a husband as like a superior officer in the military or something and you must do what he says and talk up to him all the time and ask permission to even give a contradicting opinion. THAT made me want to run like the devil was chasing me from any kind of romantic connection. Changing that also means I have to think more about what I really believe and what is important to me and what I am comfortable with in all sorts of ways. This is a pretty awesome new adventure, leading to so much self-discovery already, and I haven't even said "Hi," to anyone yet!



ISIS - A Rant and a Video

This rant/sermon/whatever I write here isn't in the video AT ALL, but it's been on my heart/mind for a while.
As I look at it, I think the video and the rant balance each other. I do not want to see us getting into more war, but I do have concern for many people in the line of fire both now and in ISIS' dreams of the future.


I've been avoiding talk about ISIS. I believe in prayer for the persecuted and for ISIS, and I've prayed, but I don't like all the fighting, militancy, war-like mindset and the justification for it so many people offer up. Like I said in the description of the video, read Acts 9. What do you think Paul would do, before his conversion, if he had the tools they have at his disposal? Psalm 2, that I read in the video, speaks of God's wrath, not ours. I think it speaks of Judgment Day, and it was definitely not written during the Dispensation of Grace. Don't mistake my reading that passage for a call to physical arms. It is not.






I DO think ISIS is a serious problem, like Saul of Tarsus and Nero were all serious problems, and I think God will take care of it the same as He always has/will. Pray for revival among those people, don't think they are too far gone for God to reach them, and don't wish for their death/damnation. First and foremost, rebuke the demons that control them - imagine if you had a child who went wayward and actually joined them so you can see how God feels, and start binding demons off of people like you would if they were each your own kid. I think prayer like that is likely to bring mind-blowing results. Even one soul among them would be worth Jesus' cross, not just in spite of how bad they've been but BECAUSE of how bad they've been. I pray for their deliverance and that if there really is no other way for some of them to stop, that God will do whatever He must to stop this demonic work - that He will hinder their plans in all sorts of ways, confuse/divide them against each other, etc. If they truly must die, He could strike them down in so many ways... I really do pray that we will be able to stay out of it, physically. I do not believe He needs for our direct involvement in ending all their lives to stop them, even if they mostly don't repent (though I don't COMPLETELY rule out that He might use that to some degree sometime, just people seem way too quick to look to the gun to solve spiritual problems. It won't solve a thing, because the spirits will still be there working and will have even more pain, hate, grief, and offense to work with, perhaps on all sides. I think those demons will rejoice if we intervene violently because in so many people's lives, they will have won forever - some of those people could be U.S. soldiers. The red white and blue doesn't send you to heaven, only Jesus does and many of them are no more ready for eternity than the ISIS guys, and Jesus loves both groups equally, even if we don't). I really think ISIS is not the only ones guilty of a violent or prideful or us-against-them attitude. They might be tons worse, but even a drop of that attitude is sin. Many Christians do it too, even today, and seek scripture or their emotions to justify it. It is never justified, and we have less excuse because we know Jesus and they're basically deceived into worshiping Satan. Please try and remember this when you read the news, especially the really awful news. Don't mistake the puppets for the puppet master; pray against demonic attacks/works, not the people Jesus died for. Godspeed.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

NEVER! GIVE! UP Pt. 4: The Long Road Home - Step one of ???

Well, today I have figured out another piece of the puzzle.
I had a list of a few things I know I need to be doing. One of them was learning graphic art.
I made a few changes today with regard to student loan payments that will most likely allow me to study graphic art through Ashworth College online.
I was looking on Elance.com the other day and there are lots of small jobs to do on there with the Adobe Creative Suite. Going to give it a shot.

Hopefully I will be able to do better than these Windows Paint images after some study time soon.

I have researched the school and the program. I think it is a workable plan for me. It is self-paced and you have a year to get the study done.Some people can do it in as little as six months.
At worst,I have about five and a half months of being laid off in front of me. I can probably get through over half of it in that much time.
Hopefully, I can also successfully bid on and finish a few tasks on Elance.com and thus begin to build a portfolio, get some positive reviews and references.




I like some of what I can do with Windows paint but it really doesn't fully satisfy me creatively (I had a taste of photoshop once and absolutely loved it)  right now and it WILL NOT make me a single penny.
Looking forward to the future, in spite of the momentary setbacks.

Too much good has happened and too many small things are lining up to make a clear picture at last, I cannot find any of this situation discouraging. Too much bad has happened that I got through even without much clear direction of where I was going or what to do. No way I can get depressed now.
All in God's time, all in god's plan, and all arrows continue to point in the same direction - up!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

NEVER! GIVE! UP! Pt 3: The Next Steps

Well, I was offered a job in Central IL where I wanted to go to school. In the same city even. I lived in a friend's apartment until we found a bigger pace, which I will elaborate on in a moment.
I worked it for three months. My supervisor wanted to hire me in. I was laid off due to an unexpected drop in business. I was working 12.5 hour shifts and driving an hour each way to get there.
I pulled over and took this picture one day after I got off work.


There are a few things I know I need focus on now, and this was the case both before and after I was laid off:
#1. I need to work on my health. I have gotten a lot stronger physically and my immune system also became stronger.I changed my diet a lot gradually, but I need to improve that more.
#2.I need to work on my German Language and my academic writing skills, and I need to be practicing piano. All these are skills I will need in school and also probably in life in general.
#3 I need to develop marketable/usable video editing and graphic design skills. A lot.
#4 I need to work on organic gardening and get some super healthy and essentially free food into my life.
#5 I need to own my own home.

My roommate and I moved into the house I had fixed up in exchange for the privilege of living there back when I was at Richland Community College in Decatur - where I did graduate by the way, with high honors. This time I pay rent with money, and the landlord does the fixing of things. The landlord might have let me buy it on contract-for-deed if either my job had been closer or my car much newer. The deal he was offering the previous tenants was $10,000 with payments of $350  month. It would be free and clear in under three years. As long as I worked so far way, that was not going to happen, not even if I hired in full time and was no longer a temp.
The long drive to work combined with long hours made it hard to do much of anything and was very hard on my physically. It also made returning to school impossible. Plus it was expensive. I was torn. I wanted the house but i wanted to study in Champaign...
Well, it turns out that part time study is not allowed in most majors at U of I Champaign - including any majors I was interested in. I would have to take at least 12 credits, and probably more because previous study will count against my 10 semester limit. Even if I did go part time, it would cost $13,000 a year; that's only $3000 less per year than going full time, and at least twice as many years. NO GO! This does not mean no way ever, in fact I even know of at least two things to do that could make it possible eventually. It is however, a resounding "Not now."
I still liked my job and the people I worked with, and there weren't a lot of opportunities in Decatur. So I still felt kind of torn and divided. I could see pieces coming together: job, house, relationships, etc. But the locations did not really assemble well.
Then I heard a really high paying factory here in Decatur was hiring a lot of people for a big expansion. My work schedule hindered me from getting to their office and applying, though. Then I got FRUSTRATED. I was so stressed that my hair was coming out in my fingers. I was beginning to feel trapped and miserable. I was also getting exhausted by the long drives and long hours. Iwas nearing a breaking int, quickly.
Then I got laid off. Suddenly.
I got to the plant and the temp service representative was there waiting to tell me I was about to start my last shift. THAT was a shock, but I was told I was at the top of the call-back list.
They probably will not need me again until January. Five months away.
Since then I have found several more local opportunities I did not know about before or that were not hiring before now. If I find a job locally that can pay the bills, I can POSSIBLY buy the house. Maybe. In the meantime, I can now resume the pursuit of my lofty health and fitness goals,and the online business associated with health and fitness that I need to become a poster child for. I also have time to write blogs again now. The afternoon after that final shift ended, I got the Piano I have needed so badly for so long. At last. Here is a picture of it my living room.

While it is hard for me to deal with being unemployed again, so many things about this situation tell me that it needed to happen, and that something good is going to come out of it soon.
Stay tuned for more news on how God gets me out of this one. He always does, and I am confident an important victory is just around the corner. Thank you all for reading.
Godspeed.