After reading the Apocalypse: the destruction of humanity’s South Pole, Eve post, a dear, old, devoted-to-her-church friend emailed me:
Linda
Did you happen to listen to Lessons and Carols from King's on Christmas Eve morning? The first lesson is read by a chorister, as you probably know, and the young boy readers are delightful to hear. Last year and now this year, especially, the readers have pronounced the words in perfect poetic diction, telling the story of the temptation of Eve and God's discovery of his humans skulking around in the Gah-den. The perfect spitting out of "The Woman . . .. ) seemed to me to be a powerful encapsulation of what's still wrong with the world: It's Eve's fault.
Things become clearer, don't they?
Later, L.
Sloan
Sorry, Linda, all of that is Greek to me, it’s been decades since I attended church, perhaps never on Christmas Day. I feel no affinity with the church paradigm, but do wonder when I’m ever not in church? What’s wrong with the world, indeed, if you don’t consider the demons, is the feminine is hardly even breathing, and, in the main, that’s in women, as well as in men.
Linda
Don'a apologize, I know you don't attend church services, but the King's College service is loved around the world so I thought you might have encountered it on public radio. What struck me particularly this time was the energetic diction of "The woman gave [the apple] to me, and I did eat." He practically spat it out-- "woman" I mean.
I'm not sure I followed your meaning after "if you don't consider the demons . . ."
And yes, the world is the church, or could be, and I must say that I see a lot of theological and mystical writing about that these days. In the main line, to be sure. But that has to overcome the paper-thin understanding of God that dominates so many people's lives. Am I a stuck-up snob?
Sloan
My ignorance exposed, or my memory, I don’t recall ever hearing of the King’s College service.
Very few care to consider demons influence people, which is where you and I disagreed about your minister initially, and you disagreed recently.
As for man-made churches, I had a pretty good friend, who was a successful building contractor until he had a rough heart attack and retired and became the minister of a Methodist church. I attended his church for a while.
He was 100-percent convinced the Devil would get anyone who did not attend church, while several times I saw in his church, the Devil operating In plain view. He could not wrap his mind around when are we ever not in church? So, I asked him one day, how many churches made of mortar, stone and wood did Jesus build? And, where was Jesus’ church? And, when was Jesus ever not in church? And, the minister didn’t get any of it. So, I asked him where did he think the Devil might hide, where no one would ever think to look? He said he didn’t know. I said, a church. He didn’t seem to get it.
Later, I was shown in a dream that he was at risk to another bad, probably fatal heart attack if he kept being the minister of that church. I figured there was no way he would believe my dream, so I wrote his wife a letter and told her about the dream. Not long after that, he asked me in a dream if something a little different would be okay, and I said, yes. I later heard he left that church and took a job with the Methodist equivalent of an Episcopal diocese, and was traveling around visiting and counseling its churches.
So, my dear old friend, perhaps what I have written to you today, and what I put on my blog recently, which I shared with you and with other people, explains why I don’t know when I am ever not in church, and why I simply feel no connection to man-made churches.
Linda
I do understand that Church is everywhere, and hope that I got that across in my last note.
I have another friend who can see and has seen evil. She can walk into a room and feel it. I don't think she's had an experience like that for a while, but I could only believe her when she'd describe some incidents. She and her family are fierce believers in God-- it occurs to me that the Devil really is after her because she's so good and has such spiritual gifts.
I won't belabor this because it makes you ill-- but you're obliging me to think about the possibilities of real trouble with our minister. Many of us in the congregation think he's struggling with something that he can't shake. Time will tell.
Sloan
It came to be that nearly every time I attended a church service, I felt the palpable presence of Evil.
Yes, people like your friend become very interesting to Lucifer/demons, and they need to be very careful, is how I was trained. Catholic exorcist priests are taught about that risk when they are in the rites of exorcism training, and perhaps even before that.
Perhaps your friend will attend a church service with you and observe your minister and tell you what she is picking up?
Two years ago, when you and I discussed your minister and I told you to make a ruckus about it in the church, I was attacked by a demon, which made me ill. As did absorbing into me the trouble in your church and in you regarding the church.
That happens every time I engage something grubby humans are doing :-).
Ciaosky, dearestsky
Just around the Alabama corner on Facebook, I found a super grubby Christian beauty contest entrant. Yellow Hammer is the Alabama State Bird. I have heard a few times that Yellow Hammer News publishes what people pay it to publish. If so, I wonder if its owners studied at Trump University?
Yellow Hammer News
FAITH AND CULTURE NEWS POLITICS
Alabama Senator to atheist group: ‘We need more children, not less to hear the good news of God’s saving grace’
By
Grayson EverettDecember 21, 2023
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has routinely made the Christian faith shared by most Alabamians the focus of lawsuits against small towns, school systems and the state itself.
This time, just days before Christmas, their most recent demand is over “snacks and water” at Southside High School in Etowah County.
According to the out-of-state atheist group, “A concerned Etowah County Schools community member has informed the state/church watchdog that the district has been soliciting religious organizations to proselytize and attempt to convert its students in exchange for donations.”
“It is our understanding that wrestling coaches at Southside High School and Rainbow Middle School have sent letters to local churches offering them the opportunity to proselytize and convert students in exchange for water and granola bars,” an attorney for the FFRF wrote in a letter to the Superintendent of Etowah County Schools.
They called the practice “disturbing” and demanded it be stopped at once.
State Sen. Greg Reed says he fundamentally disagrees.
“Churches are an essential part of the fabric of our communities across Alabama,” Reed (R-Jasper) said in a statement to Yellowhammer News. “Even more importantly, they are the means by which the Gospel is preached and places where we worship God.
“This week we are celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him goes all the praise and all the glory. That should be our focus, and it should not be interrupted by out-of-state groups trying to push faith out of our lives and the lives of our children.”
In addition to representing Jasper in the State Senate, Reed serves as the President Pro Tem. He added, “We need more children, not less, to hear the good news of God’s saving grace.”
In September, the same group attacked Auburn University for the role three of its coaches — including Auburn head football coach Hugh Freeze — played in the “Unite Auburn” event, during which hundreds of students were baptized.
Grayson Everett is the state and political editor for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @Grayson270
Sloan Bashinsky
I have a question. Did Reed, or someone associated with him, pay Yellow Hammer to publish this?
Maybe children need to be taught more about fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the steep and narrow path Jesus taught in the Gospels, instead how how easy it is supposed to be to get into heaven, if they just say they believe Jesus is the son of God and he died for their sins, no matter how they behave now and the future?
Max Somers
Sloan Bashinsky, maybe they need to be taught what is constitutional.
Sloan Bashinsky
Children or atheists? Either way, constitutional in what way?
Max Somers
Everyone. It’s a great lesson for the teachers, the students and evidently the state senator. You can’t offer up the students for religious grooming in return for water and granola bars. It’s unconstitutional for the school to endorse one religion over another. In this case Christianity.
Sloan Bashinsky
I’m a retired lawyer, and I agree schools should not be allowed to be used by churches, religious organizations, etc. to proselytize Christianity, but I’ve never won that argument with conservative Christians, who remind me a bit of Islam. What I think needs to happen is all major religions are taught to school children, as part of their world history courses, because those religions have had a huge impact on world history.
I have read the Declaration of Independence many times, and there are four references in it to deity, none remotely resemble Christian lingo, theology, etc. The Founding Fathers were acutely aware of the religious persecutions in Europe and England, and they very much did not want that to happen in the new nation they risked their lives to declare independence from England and its king.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, I think it was, led the charge to successfully block Virginia Governor Patrick Henry's efforts to get the Virginia Legislature to make Christianity the official religion of Virginia. Jefferson was a Deist, who basically detested the way Christianity was practiced, but he did not detest Jesus, evidenced by he cut passages of many of Jesus's sayings in the New Testament out of a Bible and pasted them into his own book, which became known as The Jefferson Bible.
The next Alabama Facebook beauty contest entrant today:
Victor Bragen
Sloan Bashinsky
Through his way, as he lived and taught, the steep and narrow path, the gate through which few enter, to which many are called, but few are chosen.
Victor Bragan
Very well said Sloan! I’m thankful that I chose Him-and You?
Sloan Bashinsky
I imagine what’s important is who he chooses?
Victor Bragan
And so many more verses suggest that He’s there when we truly believe in Him and choose Him and believe the sacrifices He made in order for us to be apart of His Kingdom.
Sloan Bashinsky
Again, he said, the way to life is difficult and the gate narrow and few enter; and, many are called but few are chosen; and, the work is great, but the laborers are few. I simply cannot reconcile that with the salvation formula promoted by Christianity for a very long time, which certainly is attractive, but it just doesn’t mesh with the above.
Last today, from a sect Christianity doesn’t recognize as having anything to do with God ... Reddit’s r/spirituality forum.
AffectionateSalt
Is it normal to be really sad after your spiritual awakening?
Don't get me wrong I'm really grateful for it but I just can't stop crying, there are lots of things I want to do with my life like writing and publishing books and also making art and music but right now I just feel like I can't do anything but cry and be sad about it. It's like the sadness of my entire life just caught up to me now. I'm 27 btw.
Puzzleheaded_Drop
If you didn’t go through something like this, and again, and again, you might wish to wonder if you were headed in the wrong direction. The spiritual path is long, steep, arduous, and while there is beauty and joy as well, it is not for the faint of heart, and it’s often been said, better not to start on the spiritual path, than to start and then try to get away from it.
Sound’s like you might be in a dark night the soul. Those things come on their own and leave when they are ready to leave. I know this both from reading various accounts of it, and then living it myself.
Some people who survive a dark night, then experience the black night, which is far more difficult.
In the black night, you pray to die and fear you won’t. You plan ongoing to kill yourself, but if you are lucky, or something stays your hand, you hang in there until it lifts. I read about it, then I experienced it.
You might wish to read St. John of the Cross: Alchemist of the Soul, by Antonio T. de Nicholas.
About 14 years after I was brought out of the black night, I experienced another dark night.
No two people are alike, so there is no cookie cutter recipe for the spiritual path, although there are some things that are constant. One constant is being stood before lots of mirrors looking at self. Another constant is starting to see the people and world around us very differently. Both processes are quite distressing and challenging,
Laueee
I was aware of the dark night but I had no idea of the black night.
Puzzleheaded_Drop
Juan de la Cruz described the dark night and the black night in his commentaries. He said there is some light in the dark night, and while it is rough, it is doable. However, he said there is no light in the black night, and woe be unto anyone it visits, who is not in the care of people who know it is a spiritual trial. I was not in such care, but then, shortly before the dark night arrived, I was told in my sleep by a familiar voice, “With respect to St. John of the Cross, you haven’t seen anything yet.” I woke up, terrified. A few months prior, I had read de Nicholas's book.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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