A hunting trip with Jayjay

It was just me and Jayjay on the hunt. I am me, you know me, while Jayjay was a strapping lad named John Jones who was my friend. At school they used to make fun of him (me too, for other reasons) because he was a proper country boy whose father was a shepherd on an estate, and also he had a very particular gait, earning him the nickname plodder. We never called him anything other than Jayjay and we were friends... I mean me and Putley, mainly.

On the hunt, Jayjay had a four-ten shotgun and he was very pleased to be carrying it around. He let me carry his air rifle and shoot with it. We blundered up to a field with some rabbits in it and he let off a couple of wild shots into the distance and then made out he'd only just missed. I don't think I had a chance to fire the air rifle until we reached the barn, which had, standing before it, a very old and rusty looking machine that Jayjay called "the crawler", with evident satisfaction. 

- We'll start it up later.

- Yeah.

I always had a feeling of slight apprehension when I was alone with Jayjay, because he was unpredictable and he also liked to sometimes play practical jokes. Or he would tell me a cock and bull story to see if I would believe it, and I suppose I would believe a few because I didn't know about farm life and animals. But he tolerated my gullibility and perhaps I sometimes saw through the ruse so it was all OK, but I never used to agree too enthusiastically to his plans, since he was known to be reckless. Because it seemed natural to me that he might want to impress me, I always made sure I was impressed at the smallest novelty, to avoid him feeling the need to resort to objectively dangerous matters and even criminal proceedings with the associated exposure to a broad range of negative consequences, including the immediate death of ourselves and persons and other living creatures in the vicinity and other even more serious outcomes involving our school reports and enduring ability to watch our favourite television shows in the lounge, and listen to our favourite records in our bedrooms.

My bedroom was a kind of bedsit. I used to be in it all the time, listening to records and playing the guitar or doing a picture and so on. That's how it was, in those days.

In the barn Jayjay showed me how to snatch up a mouse and dash it against the wall. I don't remember whether I tried it or not. I shot the air rifle and didn't hit anything except the barn door. I don't think I really wanted to hit anything. I think Jayjay could sense my reticence. Perhaps he saw it as middle class snobbery... as though I had airs and graces. But actually, by that time, I had started to hate any form of injuring of people and animals. I continued to go fishing, but I was careful to put the fish back when I had finished bothering them.

The crawler was much better than it looked. Jayjay could drive it easily and I had a go too. The steering with two levers was the best thing. After a bit Jayjay went to another shed and opened it up to reveal a Land Rover with a cloth hood. In in we got, to go to another group of buildings a couple of miles away, where, he said, we could have a go on the John Deere. Jayjay has his own way of talking. He mainly talked by profanities, with swear words used to replace the ordinary nouns and proper nouns and also verbs in his utterances. Some of the swear words referred to uncleanness between people and farm animals. I think everyone on the farm knew them, because the gamekeeper used to swear all the time with the same sort of language. He used to say those words, accompanied by nods of the head in the attempt to actually make himself understood, given his distaste for regular words, in a very broad Banbury country accent, such as was not heard in polite society in those days but that had such lovely sounds and twangs that I found it irresistible, despite the unpleasant and even harrowing images that the words represented. It was just so much talk, or so it seemed to me, although years later I understood that some strange business can happen on farms, very strange indeed... especially on a big estate like that, where a rule of omerta prevails.      

True to form, Jayjay, who was no more than fourteen years of age at the time, like me, didn't bother to drive the Land Rover on the metalled road leading to the spot, but headed straight across the fields and down a steep incline into a valley followed by a long and very uneven haul towards the brow of a hill, every bone in our bodies shaken out of joint and the Land Rover sounding a bit indignant, or perhaps that was just my imagination. 

The John Deere was super. Sleek and massive, with handsome green and yellow livery and front and rear tyres as tall as me. Jayjay couldn't seem to get the key to it in the end, and I think this shows quite clearly that his father, if not a controlling and obsessively attentive type of parent, was most certainly a sensible man.

So we walked slowly back for our tea which, in his case, woud have been a proper nice meal cooked by his mum in the proper country fashion, with pies and swedes and marrow and pickles and all such matters, plus plenty of beef and pork and such meats and bacons, alongside of things like eggs and cheese and so on. I know, because I once stayed over and had tea with the family. Although I was not as fond of swedes and turnips as they seemed to be, it was real fun. Mr Jones got out his gun (on Jayjay's insistence), and it was a very finely engraved double barrelled 12 bore shotgun that was probably a hundred years old. It was a cherished possession, though I don't know that Mr Jones used it much if at all. It was more a museum piece perhaps, with the barrel deemed unsafe. Whatever the gun, Mr Jones was not allowed to shoot a fox, which would have been his main instinct during the lambing season, because, he said, many lambs were lost. Also any game animals were strictly reserved for the people in the big house. He could always shoot a rabbit of course. That was allowed for commoners. A woodpigeon too, was fair game for a regular man. A squirrel also, but I don't know it they were much eaten. Forty years later I bought one on the market in Stourbridge and my mum and dad were very surprised to see the proposed fare and made me eat it alone.

As we walked, Jayjay, who was on my right, suddenly swung around in front of me and fired the four-ten right in front of my face, across my field of view at a distance of inches rather than feet. The shot was accompanied by a very loud bang, I do remember that, along with the distinctive and exciting smell of a fired cartridge. That's why I was saying, about Jayjay, that he was sometimes unpredictable. I don't think I was in any danger, but I did get quite a fright and I have never forgotten the incident.

I think I uttered some mild exclamation of surprise, once again with the intention of not rewarding such unsettling types of behaviour with high ratings. I just hoped he'd never do it again and I think I might have mentioned that to him before I went home.

Where do you come from, kind sir?

I could start from anywhere, but for convenience I shall speak of cosmology, also because it is all-embracing. I mean, to research 9/11 and discover the multiple impossibilities of that narrative can lead to claims of corrupt forces within the deep state, but if the cosmology we are shown before each news programme and movie film is a deliberate deception, the whole worldwide circus comes tumbling down because all countries participate in this narrative.

 
To start with, while I now think I need no source other than the holy Bible to establish the veracity of any given thing, in this case and in others I base (or rather based) my understanding primarily on science. I only discovered the conformance of my views with the words of the Bible after awakening to the new (or rather "old") paradigm.

I can give a very large number of independent proofs or at least pointers to the fact that we live on a stationary extended plane under a firmament or dome like solid or semi-solid structure within which the stars are contained. Also that the sun and moon are near to the earth rather than at great distance, and they circle above the plane each day with the precision of a clock and indeed they form the basis for our clock (the sun) and our yearly calendar (the moon).

You, on the other hand, who believe that we live on a ball, spinning about a tilted axis of 23.4 degrees (66.6 degrees from the horizontal) with a tangential velocity, at the equator, of more than 1000 mph, while following an elliptical orbit around the sun at a speed of 66.616 thousand mph with the sun travelling at around 514,000 mph and accompanying the mad rush of a universe that is expanding at the rate of 82 km per second per megaparsec, can find this information solely by consulting online sources (as I have done). But you are compelled to take it on faith because you cannot measure or detect any of these rates, other than, arguably, the rotation of the earth, since you can perceive the duration of a day and must therefore presume a single revolution of the globe resulting in the 1000 mph speed at the equator.

All these degrees of very fast motion (I think the only one we can visualise is 1000 mph since military jets can, it is claimed, reach speeds of 3000 mph, i.e. speck-on-the-horizon, woosh, bang, gone scenario lasting a few seconds), must be squared with a world in which a column of smoke on a still day rises vertically into the air with no visible disturbance and can often be seen from miles around. With a world in which we have no conscious sensation of any form of motion, whether we stand on the equator or close to the north pole, where there would theoretically exist a point in the Arctic at which we would be simply turning about our own personal axis.

You also have no plausible explanation as to why the stars appear year after year in their appointed positions after following their annual paths, or why they are so useful for navigation, when we are moving so fast and in so many different planes in relation to them. Wikipedia will give you an answer of course, but it can treated at best as a theory. None of the incredible speeds and degrees of motion I mentioned earlier have been measured other than through the application of hypotheses and mathematical formulae. The same is true of all the unimaginable distances claimed by modern astronomy.

I know that to place one's trust in experts or informed persons is not in itself wrong. It may be that it requires a very high degree of learning to grasp certain complex ideas, so we will generally visit a dentist, for example, rather than buying a micromotor and some burrs and handing them to our mate Eli to see if he can fix our toothache.
But the integrity of the experts and the veracity of their claims are important factors in the equation, because if they were found to be deliberately engaging in acts of deception (your dentist is actually a plumber who has volunteered to have a go just for today), then their value as experts would evaporate instantly.

There are some claims we can use to assess the integrity of modern astronomers. One of the easiest and most accessible is that 12 American men walked and drove a buggy on the moon between 1969 and 1972. All telemetry data and original footage and other detailed information from these missions was subsequently irrevocably lost (several full size freight containers). With no moon landings carried out since 1972 (perhaps because a lot more scrutiny is available today, with computer experts all over the world and photographers with HD cameras offering immensely powerful magnification), Nasa announced recently that the original technology had been lost and it would be a "painful process" to build it back up. They have also stated that they first need to find a way to install sufficient shielding to cross the two claimed "Van Allen Radiation Belts" encircling the ball earth, even though the original rockets were unshielded and of very flimsy construction, with the "astronauts" reporting no ill effects.

It is my opinion that careful research of these claims, original footage, construction details visible in photographs, landscapes and a host of other factors cannot fail to reveal gross manipulation and outright deception from beginning to end of the whole sorry saga. Research must be done carefully however, because there is a very active gatekeeping activity maintained around all such matters, designed to entice careless researchers into safe backwaters. The documentary "A funny thing happened on the way to the moon" contains some valuable footage and insights, but is only a partial reveal and ultimately designed to deflect closer scrutiny into the field of cosmology, which would ultimately reveal the fact that the entire "space" paradigm is nothing more than a Hollywood stage set, and indeed many mainstream movies are indistinguishable from footage claiming to show spacewalks and weightless antics on the "ISS".

So, it is not that I don't follow science, but rather that I have discovered that science has been hijacked in many areas, to replace the truth with a lie. This has occurred in many fields... evolution, geology, astronomy, medicine, nutrition, sociology and so forth. 


One cannot simply take someone's word for any of this stuff of course: it takes dedicated personal research. I once mentioned to an acquaintance that the world was not a spinning ball, and after a period of about 30 minutes silence she contacted me and told me I was wrong because she had watched the ISS live feed, which "clearly shows" the space station orbiting above a spherical and, surprisingly - in the footage I watched - luminous green sphere, all of which has been scrupulously - diligent investigation of footage, times, real and claimed, claimed sightings, etc. - shown to be nothing more than elaborate CGI. 

Anyone who first contemplates the enormity of this type of deception must necessarily recoil from it. It takes a long time to process... also in emotional terms, because the sense of betrayal is overwhelming. I know of people who have taken up to a year, but diligent research always produces the understanding that our world is not as described. Most people will simply continue to believe the consensus opinion, despite the logical weakness and high risk of such an approach, because consensus has always been used by rulers to pursue whatever agenda they please, generally pausing to sweep up the naysayers on the way. To believe that they will lead one into a safe haven means to assume that they mean us no harm, and any damage that occurs is purely unintentional. But is that the case? What commonality do we have with a member of the ruling elite? They are not subject to the law because they have used their great wealth to purchase the very judges and philosophers. They are the law, to all intents and purposes. And if they arrest Prince Andrew? Surely that shows that even royalty is not above the law? Remember the words of the bard when he mentioned that the world is a stage. It's far more than a clever metaphor.

Have they amused themselves sufficiently with their endless wars and destruction of cultures and societies, pushing their transhumanist relativistic and amoral agendas, riding roughshod over our lives, families, preferences and beliefs? A far smaller workforce will be required for the 4.0 society of the future. The land is to be cleared and people moved to cities, in the name of environmental sustainability. But they will of course continue to range across their vast estates... countries actually, in places of the most exquisite beauty, enjoying their wines and foods of excellence while forcing, economically if not directly, the poor to subsist on chemically adulterated foodstuffs, contaminated water and polluted air.

Once I had understood the big space deception, I lost all faith in the media. I think the media is a control system so we simply cannot rely on it to establish the truth. YouTube and Facebook also must be scrutinised carefully, but I think it is fair to assume that a man who is known to a handful of subscribers can speak more freely than he who speaks to hundreds of thousands.
My understanding and interpretation of current plague events is heavily influenced by these considerations, apart from the fact that the whole circus was predicted and acted out in a theoretical scenario in October of 2019 long before any emergence of a strange condition that was shown knocking people to the ground instantly dead in the street in China in news footage at the time.

I recommend caution in relation to injections. I pray for you often and I do recommend that you read the Bible: 

"He  that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is a folly and shame unto him" 

I don't necessarily assume our rulers wish to kill us all... some of us are useful, but I certainly would never assume that they are automatically benevolent. I think it would be an unjustified conclusion. I am not displaying any kind of paranoia: I trust all men at face value and allow the proof of the pudding be in the eating thereof... and this is a pudding we have been eating for a while.

I am not sharing these ideas to persuade anyone of anything. I am simply explaining them. People can believe whatever they want. I do not wish to enter into any kind of debate. I have seen many debates on these topics over the years, so I know the arguments that can be made and also how to respond, but ultimately it is unhelpful and can become quite unpleasant. One gentleman invited me to commit suicide when he learned that I didn't believe in the globular configuration of the Earth, and people who are outspoken on this matter must have very thick skins indeed. I don't care to be heckled or scorned. I have done my research as carefully as I am able and I remain utterly convinced of the veracity of the claims I have made. I can provide any information anyone wants, but I am picking no fights and won't get drawn into any.

I am merely attempting to explain that I have not simply pulled these concepts from thin air. They are confirmed by the Bible but they are not reliant on such confirmation to be true (except in a strictly theological sense, because I now consider truth and the Bible to be inextricably intertwined). I am not mad, dangerous, mentally deficient or anti-science. I have no problem with any man or woman who engages in empirical research to increase his or her learning and understanding of the world. I do think (now) that care should be exercised in such endeavours, because many have been misled. There are also areas of knowledge that are reserved, according to the Bible. There are dark arts, divinations, incantations and so forth. These are real things and not just the fevered imagination of some scriptwriter. Studying such matters may indeed lead to an increase in knowledge, but ultimately at the cost of our moral integrity and wisdom, which are the more precious jewels in our crown. 

Peace and harmony
 

 

Place for writing

What is it about writing on mugs?
When did it start?
What does it all mean?
I have things written on quite a few mugs in my house.

They say:
Los Amigos! Friends!
King James Bible Since 1611
You are Tea Riffic
Periodic Table of the Elements
Keep Calm and Carry On
Coffee Fine Ground a smile in every cup High Grade

I know it has been happening for quite a while, since the early 1900s perhaps.
Before that it was exclusively pictures and patterns except those ancient Greek folks and suchlike.
Or did the Sumerians and Egyptians write on their mugs?

Are our mugs trying to tell us something? Is there a story in your cupboard?
Perhaps they are poking fun at us.

The thing

The Thing about the Church, compared to the Thing about the Truth movement, is this thing:

At Church they (all churches) are not only hostile to the biggest revelation of our awakening, namely that the spinning ball realm is nothing more than a Satanic deception and the earth is flat, motionless, and enclosed beneath the very residence of God Almighty, may His Holy Name be forever uplifted and praised...
but they are hostile to every single idea that departs from the official "church doctrine" as established by, essentially, one man (man), sometimes shared with a committee of elders who agree publicly, if they know what's good for them, or handed down from a supervisory body - a pyramid, but without our Lord and Saviour in attendance, since a pyramid is a Babylonian structure not permitted by the law of the Lord, which places all men on the level ground before the Cross with God alone seated in His Glory and unspeakable Majesty on the Eternal Throne.

There is no room for a plurality of views: as soon as it is clear that a member of the congregation holds views that deviate from the official line, that person will never be invited to the platform or given freedom to express himself other than in the form of prayer (and it would be very wickedness to somehow use prayer as a vehicle to express an idea that departs from the notes in the Preacher's Bible or from the articles of faith, because the Lord would not be the primary intended recipient of such public prayer).

All this would be quite correct if the yardstick were the Word of God and no other, but it transpires that many different churches interpret the Good Book in different ways. Some of those ways may be mischievous and at odds with the plain teachings of the Bible, but others have their roots in the thoughts of bible scholars and other intellectuals through the ages.

Eternal salvation vs. justification by faith
Calvinism vs Arminianism
Pretrib, mid trib, post trib
Revelation timeline
Dispensationalism vs covenant theology
...

Arguments can be plainly found in Scripture to support all these views, most of which are antithetical. I can state this confidently, not based on my own cleverness, which is mainly absent, but because I can plainly see that clever men have made clever arguments on both sides of each, Without Departing from Scripture, although opposing camps may make such inferences or open accusations... an unedifying spectacle in very deed

Could it be that this means that we should humbly accept that the thoughts of God are far higher than the thoughts of man, choose a position for ourselves without entirely closing our mind to its counterpart or counterparts, share our ideas - interpretations actually - openly with the saints so that they can be for their benefit of all and be refined and corrected by the spirit of fellowship and love. A plurality of views within the House of the Lord. After all, as iron sharpeneth iron, so the countenance of one man sharpeneth another. Moreover, this situation exists already in the church, as each man has his own persuasions, but such thinking is suppressed and never voiced in the assembly for fear of causing offence, My questions are why? and on what authority?
Men fall out over these matters and refuse to set foot in churches that do not adhere to their preferred doctrine
This is true of all "bible believing" assemblies and has become almost a territorial issue that is surely not pleasing to our Heavenly Father

Of course the church cannot give a platform to those who would question the truth of the Bible and the identity of our Lord and those who would urge us to disregard unequivocal Biblical edicts or at least downplay their importance.

I speak of "those things that are most surely believed among us": from such matters, we may not depart.
It is this that sets the Church aside from the Truth movement. The Truth movement accepts the widest plurality of ideas, on the condition that they are not "mainstream" (noting here that the Bible is often viewed as a mainstream source).
I have managed to read a few verses from the platform without suffering any damage other than some choice sarcasm from certain members of the congregation after the events... and I'm already doing better than in Church!

But there is no boundary.
Unlike in the Church, a man (or woman) can argue opposite ideas to another fellow from week to week, with each attracting his following and no mention of the very meaning of truth. It is essentially a quantum realm (daemonic)

In church, however, where the daemon ever creeps in, if with greater subtilty, there are hymns. And there is nothing I like more than a good hymn (and, no lesser consideration, the devil is not reputed to enjoy them at all)

An Italian tale

Governments around the world impose harsh conditions on their citizens in a supposed response to the claimed threat of an invisible enemy.

There are many who are angered by their edicts and see them as unjust and fascistic, but there are also those who are strongly supportive, calling even for ever stricter rules with widespread enforcement and harsh penalties for non-compliance.

In this matter, I am reminded of the stories I used to hear from my Italian in-laws and others from their generation, when they related the events that took place in northern Italy in May of 1945 when the German forces in Italy finally surrendered and the war was over. Of course it can be well argued that the situation was far more serious, at that time, than the relatively minor matters of the present, but once certain forces have been set in motion, they tend to escalate, so caution is most definitely required.

During the German occupation of the city of Modena and also beforehand, when Mussolini's Fascist government was in charge, there were stark differences in outlook between those who agreed with the Fascist principles and supported the government and those who were enamoured by principles of freedom - I would say as viewed on the movie screens in the main, but also perhaps in a few cases as written in Scripture - and embraced a culture of rebellion and individualism.

The Catholic church was fully complicit with the government and in league with the occupying army, although there were many notable priests in opposition to both the government and the Vatican, often at great personal risk and indeed cost.

This was a time when "rebellious" families had to guard against prying neighbours.

For example, on a minor note, Gianni, my father-in-law, loved American jazz bands and liked to meet up with his friends to smoke US made cigarettes and dance the latest hops, but such conduct was prohibited or at least strongly discouraged by the Fascist regime and could lead to raids, fights, arrests and fines.

On a far more serious note, some of the most daring opponents (including Gianni) crept away from their homes by night and joined the Resistance forces operating out of hidden bases in the nearby mountains. In this case the "Collaborazionisti", meaning the citizens who continued to seek favour from the government and support the authorities at every turn, could report suspicious behaviour and the matter could lead to very brutal reprisals, generally involving execution by firing squad or hanging.

It is perhaps hardly surprising therefore that when the war was finally over and a state of lawlessness prevailed for some time until the ragged Resistenza fighters could march into the city and assume some semblance of control, certain individuals in the city and outlying villages were removed by summary execution at the hands of those they had been so willing to oppress when under the protection of the State.

It was an evil time indeed for a short while, with old scores settled in blood and not always with reasonable justification.

That's why we find the following words in the book of Romans:

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 

But certainly, whosoever would entreat for the oppression of his brothers and sisters and rely on the protection of the law in so doing, should look well to the solidity of the law on which he is standing and keep a watch for the inevitable gathering storm if that law is found to be wanting.

Our New Overlords and the Deeper Plan

I spend much time translating business literature,  a job that increasingly calls for a careful philosophical analysis of my source text and some research also in relation to the mainstream philosophical movements being referenced (most of which literature will be available in my target language, English).

Over recent years I have witnessed the gradual emergence to the point of absolute predominance of philosophical ideas that slavishly follow the various UN agenda, sometimes with distasteful displays of eagerness as they attempt to catch the master's eye.

Today, as I attempt to wrestle a social responsibility report for a medium size company (about 1k employees), it becomes clear that the long term plan is to devolve human management and general farming duties to these successful businesses, which are rewarded with great favour and riches. They will assume absolute control of their fiefdom, with international edicts somehow made law through the magical agency of an environmental risk or healthcare threat

I also understood that all members of the emerging society will be tagged and tracked. Ultimately no form of resistance will be tolerated. The ultimate reason for this is that they fear us: they think we will kill them, which is why they surround themselves with guards and fences.
However, in reality their lives are not imperilled by the general populace, who are most generally highly peaceable and lawful. They are actually paranoid in the true sense of the word. 

The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.

Some broken hearts

...can mend

The heart is a powerful source of healing energy. The deep elecctromagnetic pulses transmitted by the pumping heart affect our psyche even though we cannot consciously perceive the radiation except, perhaps, occasionally.

Electromagnetic emissions from the heart are measurable using mainstream stuff like electrocaradiograms. Even electromagnetic brain activty (lower energy) can be monitored these days

When we embrace our friends and our families we are bringing our heart into close proximity with theirs and the energy levels really spike, activating triggers to raise our mood and boost our health and energy levels.

So hugging will actually mend a broken heart, but sometimes it has to be continued for a while and repeated often

I'll see if there's something in the Bible on it (sure to be)

The things we do for love

Whether this thing or that thing is true when reading and interpreting the Bible is an area I like to leave in the Lord’s hands rather than getting into apologetics and all those other tiresome types of arguments.
What I see is people professing to love the Lord but acting in a manner that seems to say something quite different, and I see that in all churches I have attended. I do see some serious breaches of scriptural conduct in the church – and I’m not referring to any carnal sin or suchlike, but rather related to the matters of pride and arrogance, both of which sins ensnare us all from time to time and seem to thrive in church.
I follow a sola scriptura type of approach: I believe the Bible holds the answer to every question and the Lord will open our minds and hearts to its truth once we put away our religious books, Strong’s concordance and study bibles of every hue and rely fully on the Word of God as we are instructed quite clearly to do in the very Bible itself.
Because I believe in the inerrancy of scripture, it is very important in my mind to read the “right” bible, and I think this is the King James Version.

It’s not just a completely random opinion. As a translator myself for the last thirty years or so (although I don’t know Bible languages or even Latin) I took a very keen interest in establishing this concept and researching the many critics of the KJV and their reasons for their criticisms. I uncovered a minefield of intellectualism and prideful debate, but ultimately I found the KJV has always defended itself against each and every attack. It is the de-facto standard and it has been preserved for four hundred years, suggesting - I would say confirming - that the hand of God has been upon it, preserving his Word faithfully through time as we are promised in the Bible.

This said, I dislike the King James Only movement – KJVO – because pride enters in quite quickly, and some those gentlemen can readily forget that having a perfect Bible is no guarantee of having a perfect heart with the Lord.

My beloved Auntie lived very near where I now reside. She was Catholic but I would call her a "believng Catholic", because she was so kindly and spoke so well of everyone, and she even organised Bible studies with some of her friends at home... even when she was well striken in years. She was the only religious - believing person in the family. Her sister, my mother, used to attend church but it was in the spirit of helping the community mainly I think. Perhaps she hadn't benefitted from good Bible teaching by a faithful teacher so she didn't know it is true, or perhaps the Lord didn't put it in her heart. I spend a time with her in the Bible in her final couple of years of life - once I had come to believe - and I think she was saved before she was taken. .

I don't accept the Catholic position for my own person – mainly because of the presence of an intermediary between man and Christ. I don’t trust the Pope/Vatican – I lived there remember! Anyway I don’t think I need a mediator: I pray to My Father which is in Heaven as I am instructed to do in Scripture.

Ultimately I don’t really care much about the nuts and bolts, because these things often produce unproductive argumentation and taking of positions, while each man has a right to stand where he sees fit, and that’s basically that. The Lord will lead us into all truth if we follow his word diligently. I’m quite sure there is much wrong in any given Catholic church you could enter into, with the deadly practices of lip service, tepid belief, boastfulness, and vanity, which are the same precise things you will find in the most hardcore Brethren assembly and any other Church in the land. It’s whether men and women (me too) will follow the Lord or not, in love and honesty, truth, humility and faith, that’s what I care about and I think I am not alone in that, though I sometimes find more kindred spirits in the pub (when they were open) than among the pews. 

Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults 
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; 
let them not have dominion over me: 
then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Labour and leisure

I am blessed with the ability and desire to work and I have always been glad to dedicate myself to that activity ever since I got my first part-time jobs when I was about fifteen years of age. I have been doubly blessed by being self-empoyed for the past thirty years or so, so I am my own boss. I continue to work long hours and if the Lord will spare me I shall continue as long as I am able. It keeps me out of trouble (mainly) and puts food on the table.

 Over the years I have met men of all ages in the UK who have mainly relied on the benefits system to eke out an existence. I think they get into a kind of mental trap because sometimes a low paying job involving forty or more hours of hard graft yields only slightly more than they can receive by chilling out all day at the expense of the state or by dong some low paid activity off the cards that is, they would say, more satisflying than a low paying manual job, so the incentive is not perceived to be high.

This is not something I have seen in Italy, because there is no benefit system there, or certainly nothing comparable to the relatively generous system in the UK. If a man prefers not to work in Italy he must rely on his family to support him - there are a few fellows in that position I suppose but it seems to be fairly uncommon.

Some people simply cannot work for a variety of reasons and that is a great misfortune so it is good that they are supported by charitable means, but those who could do a job but choose not to are now, it seems, more likely to be subjected to mandatory Covid related nonsense on pain of having their benefits withheld. This kind of cooercion will almost certainly be used against all claimants, the elective and the obligated, indifferently, but I suppose it is fair to say that the elective unemployed have perhaps done foolishly to willingly place their welfare so completely in the hands of the state.

I understand that we are all ultimately in the hands of the State, which can coerce the people unjustly through taxation, access to utilities, and the food chain, but in this suboptimal scenario I, like most of my brethren, have always valued the maximum level of independence I have been able to achieve, because he who pays the piper does indeed call the tune and I prefer to choose my own soundtrack, as long as I am able.

The Preacher

I knew things would turn out the way they did from the first moment I attended the church.

So why did you keep going?

I am a fatalist. 

I knew it, because the preacher gave me, on that very first day, a couple of pamphlets (or very short books) he had written, remarking that there would be no charge (I later noticed that they were priced at a pound or two for each one).

He was a clever man and he liked to read hard books (not the action-packed thrillers me and my dad both like), which he used as a basis for his sermons.

He was most impressed by Christian scholarship over the ages and he once praised the verbose and abstruse translators’ preface to the King James Bible almost as though it were on a par with Scripture.

I thought the preacher’s books were a bit dull. I read them with my dad that evening. My dad flicked through them with scarcely a comment. I waded through the one on the King James Bible, which I generally agreed with and was, in my case, mainly redundant because I had already made it clear that I had attended the church because they used the KJV. I then got onto what I found to be the dullest of the two, which concerned the Johannine comma, a subject that failed to ignite any enthusiasm in me at the time and was certainly far too difficult for a newly converted Christian, as I then was. 

I imagined that neither of the subjects was breaking much in the way of new ground because surely many words have been writ in pen and ink on both the KJV and the particular verse in 1 John that is missing from other Bibles.

After a while my "translator’s eye" alerted me to the fact that it was very cleverness of the matter that was, as it were, driving the syntax and inspiring the author as the story unfolded. This is important to know, as a translator, because once it is clear in my mind that my author is vain in his authorship (as am I), I know that a little flattery in the form of some longish words to give form to hard concepts will go down quite well and ensure my translation is well received - assuming of course it is also properly done in the matter of interpretation, and so forth. I suppose all writing is vanity, ultimately. We have the Holy Scriptures and no better or comparable thing can ever be written. Nonetheless there are some good stories around written by the hand of men and women too. I suppose the problem might lie in the fact that deception can be very cleverly cloaked in language and seems even to be driven by it, unless all proceeds in strict allegiance and honour to the most High. When I read Eliot or Thomas (my favourites) I sometimes think they and many other poets should have credited the Lord and the Bible for their words instead of simply pocketing the cheque then off down the pub. Coincidentally, perhaps, both those fellows led somewhat blighted lives in the matter of love and unhappiness.

To hand some scribblings to another person, especially in a church, is a hazardous thing to do, especially when the person they are being handed to is a translator, and even more especially when the scribblings are marked with a price (to give him his credit, I think I saw the preacher blushing and he did waive the fee).
Unless, of course, the person handing out the literature is a proper writer, with plots, locations, weapons, cars and women (although I would say that such literature would be out of place in a church building and, while I am on the subject, also all other matters of literature and writing outwith the Bible itself - not a view widely shared today but I think one that was most certainly held by the Children of Israel in olden times).

The Baston d'merda

As it occurs, I had offered a very broad range of topics in relation to any of which I would have been most interested to hear your thoughts, but the concision of your reply speaks volumes. If I am a fool indeed then you do well to disregard my ravings and I do well to rave elsewhere, if rave I must... although, as you have pointed out, my options are few and far between.

I did think your application of Proverbs 17:24 to call me a fool was solipsistic at best and departed very greatly from the meaning of that verse, which was written by a man whose understanding of cosmology would certainly coincide with my own. I prayed about it all and it seemed that if I am to be called a fool then I must accept it with a cheerful heart: the Lord knows my foolishness and the limits of my understanding, but the matter continued to rankle and so needed addressing.

More latterly, my painstaking reading of Lamentations in response to your express request produced absolutely no comment whatsoever, which is not to imply that any comment was due - a simple thank you would have more than sufficed and was surely required in the interests of common courtesy. Instead, I have wondered for months exactly what I did wrong on that occasion.

As for cosmology, I was resigned to holding different views and mentioning the matter only during tea time and never during the assembly, but you broke that rule of courtesy by coming to church one morning to ascend to the platform with depicitions of Roman gods around your neck and then challenging my mute reaction by advising me to read a Vatican Bible to find a defence of your mainstream views of cosmology, going on to explain that an allegorical interpretation of our Bible was sometimes to be preferred, just as I had been told at the Birmingham Pentecostal some time beforehand. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement.

Perhaps I have spoken out of turn too often, but I have done so in defence of Scripture rather than to promote my own ideas and may the Lord rebuke me if fault be found in me.

I have sometimes been rebuked by members of other congregations for my critical stance in various churches, but those who rebuke me are simply adopting the same behaviour in relation to me, and their words have no power. I avoid criticising the brethren as far as I am able - I think I have no right to do so and I know I am judged by the same benchmarks and often fall short. But once a man ascends to the platform and pretends to silence those who would disagree, I think the Bible gives us rather more lattitude to voice our objections when we hear unscriptural assertions, as you have certainly realised. I think dialogue would be essential in such cases, but surely a critic is far more to be valued than one who will follow blindly. 

Critics may be wrong of course, so as a new believer I try to remain open to those who would school me. It has been my experience however that my ideas and proposals have been in the very broad main unwelcome, disregarded, or attacked with little or no scriptural basis or very selective use of scripture, as occurred, for example, when I pointed out that a certain adage you were wont to recite from the platform was fascistic and not at all in line with Biblical teachings. It seemed to me that you devoted the next sermon to justifying yourself by using your Strong's to find "good men" in the Bible while disregarding those central verses that reveal the lie of the assertions attributed to Edmund Burke. You have since desisted from mentioning this particular meme, so perhaps you ultimately accepted my argument, or perhaps you just wait until I am absent. The matter has not been discussed however, and I think it is a pity. I have no personal desire to prevail: I am generally quite happy to remain as thick as two short planks.
Or the time at a Plymouth Brethren chapel when the preacher wrote to me with a slew of verses to justify the institutional refusal to allow me to partake of the bread and the wine one fateful Lord's day, while avoiding the one critical verse that clearly supports the position of self-determination that you and I both hold.

I had avoided writing this message for nearly two years because I was happy to attend the meetings and offer my support in spite of our differences, but it seems the time is now ripe. The current crisis is truly making a division among the people. I think divisions need to be dispelled by the light, but it is my experience in the churches I have attended that they are brushed under the carpet in the majority of cases and so I followed suit.

If these issues can be laid to rest, I will be happy to resume my attendance, if and when this is allowed. But I do stand by my right to voice my objections when I sense any breaking of Scripture from the platform and I will continue to speak of Biblical cosmology freely, although, as in the past, I am happy to avoid doing so during the service: I do recognise the authority of the platform. I would also be willing to deliver a message from time to time, as you once suggested you might allow, perhaps before realising that I believe unshakeably that the World and the Heavens have been misdescribed and we need to return to a Biblical understanding also of these matters.

You are the most able preacher at the assemby in my opinion, although I believe that you misconstrue your strengths and weaknesses (as do we all). I would have heard A more often, were it allowed, and I listened to C gladly because he follows the Word closely. I am less fond of the visiting preachers in the main, most of whose preaching is, in my view, works based.

I have always had the dubious privilege of being a divisive figure. A close friend of my wife's, a very clever and indeed charming gentleman from many perspectives although a dedicated follower of Baal, once described me in the local vernacular as the "baston d'merda"  which, he explained, was that stick that one finds in the park and gathers up to throw for the dog, before realising that it has been fouled. There is, he noted, no way to grasp such a stick without transferring some of the offence to one's own clothing and skin. 

I did not take it as a compliment. But I have noticed over the years that it was perhaps a canny observation. I seem to have acquired an unenviable knack for drawing attention to elephants in rooms, often unwittingly, and it has not advanced my social status whatsoever... after all, who wants to have such a stick in the house?

You are a Conspiracy Theorist

People do say that to me sometimes, but generally I say if first, by way of a warning and to deflect fallout. Some people become emotionally very upset when it is suggested to them that things and ideas they assume to be real may in fact be false.

I think it's sometimes akin to the old claim of "false prophet", for which a man could be put to death (although if the rulers are corrupt, the false prophets prevail and the faithful are killed).
It is a label, in various forms, that has been used since days of old.

The first actual conspiracy was enunciated by Satan, who presented Eve with a false description of the nature of God and the true effects of eating from the tree of knowledge. But he was not theorising; he was lying.

Although I have been known to mention a few stretchers in my time, since I came to faith I have given up lying, as Steve Lake wrote in The Gunner and the Waitress. I tend to state certain ideas with great confidence, such as the idea that the Word of God is completely true, or that the Earth is flat and motionless and "space" is just a Hollywood creation, In respect of these matters I am not a theorist, but - I would say - an enlightened observer. My eyes have been opened.

Other claims are more nuanced: they are indeed theories. I am fully persuaded that much of the history of the World has been falsified, but I don't claim to know the extent of the falsification or to always perfectly discern between the real and the unreal. I can be misled, as can we all.

In history, anyone who spoke against the prevailing regime, presenting an alternative view of reality or attempting to reveal malfeasance in public office, corruption, deception, unjust legal rulings...could be neutralised by besmirching their character or calling their mental health into dispute. They could also be threatened, deported, imprisoned, tortured and/or killed.

Winston Smith was a conspiracy theorist in Eric Blair's novel, although Eric Blair himself was an architect of our reality, otherwise he would not have been empowered to write and publish his books
McMurphy was a conspiracy theorist in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (and Ken Kesey must be treated with the same caution as Eric Blair).

Jesus Christ was a conspiracy theorist from the perspective of the Pharisees and the Roman authorities
He was tortured and killed but in the moment of His death He was glorified and death could not hold Him. He overcame the grave for the sake of the whole world. His Love is perfect.

I don't claim any commonality with our Saviour. I am just a sinner saved by grace who would do well to mark his words very carefully.

Other folks? I guess some people just assume that the MSM is reliable. If that's you, I'll probably get on your nerves a bit. No worries... I'll try not to bother you:...maybe the MSM is reliable sometimes; as a stopped clock tells the proper time but twice a day.

But please don't feel compelled to repeat the things the MSM says and writes - especially not the front page stuff. Not only is it very low grade information in the main that is already so freely available as to be almost unavoidable, it is actually a form of spellcraft: it is almost always bad news or troubling news and those who follow it become troubled in their hearts so fear sets in among the people. Whether it is an impending war, ecological disaster, a horrific tale of murder or abuse... The list is endless. I advise everyone to avoid reading such stuff if possible, because it troubles the spirit and casts a shadow over the mind..

Thanks.

Wetherspoons

Hi

Just a note to congratulate you all on keeping the pubs open at a time when social isolation can be almost as dangerous as invisible virions. I really appreciate it, as I appreciate your pubs in general (I have visited many) , your locations, staff, beers, menus and prices.

Those five words topped by the Crown:

"Keep Calm and Carry On"

...you guys are providing a shining and courageous example.

Many compliments!

All the best
Derek V Smith

Sent to customer service this day, 20.03.2020

If I were a virus

The day in Birmingham emerges grey, wet and lifeless, like almost every day before it and many days to follow. It's hard to muster the enthusiasm to even empty the rubbish bin, let alone put on a hat at the proper angle and actually get as far as the pub. The park is hardly worth even mentioning (are parks still a thing here?).

No, if I were a virus I would absolutely hang out in Italy, basking in the sunshine and toasting my little corona spikes from morning until nightfall. And why not frequent the beautiful city squares and enjoy some cut price Prosecco at the deserted bars? After all, the people have abandoned the country to me and my brethren so we may as well live it up. We could gather together (they are not even allowed this luxury!) and form a committee, pile into a Cinquecento (how many of us would it hold I wonder?) and then shoot down the E45 to Rimini. Maybe even head for Ravenna to hang out with the mosquitoes, who have more or less taken over the beaches and coastal woodlands down there.

Then with my fellow virions and any of the mosquitoes, sewer rats, ticks, scorpions, vipers, deadly mushrooms, flesh-eating bacteria and poisonous spiders who might care to join us, we could head for Rome to chill with our leader and swap tall tales around the cloisters. Maybe even kick a ball around...

Oh what a life we would have, if only I too could wear the crown!

For we wrestle

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

He had never known aloneness such as this. it was, he thought, a price he was obliged to pay for seeing through every veil of deception, to the core. The reverberating bare bones, bold in their sincerity but always so far from the outward appearance.

The world was segregated. All citizens in his beloved Italy had been ordered to remain in their homes due to an international pandemic. Little short of martial law. But he knew what was going on. It was a playbook on a worldwide scale, like all historical events. Psychological operations or "psyops", designed to produce an effect in the population and to engender the social changes needed to prevail, as they believed possible, in the spiritual battle against the One True God. He knew it. He had seen it time and time again... the chinks in the armour, the minor inconsistencies, the bold lies, all of which revealed the huge underlying deception.

 This kind of mindset - his own - had, of course, been labelled dangerous in glorious historic tradition. Deluded, a sign of psychological illness, something to be discouraged, ostracised, cured. Subtly came the directive, through fiction, movies, news articles, university curricula, advertising, healthcare practices... And it had been going on for a long time. Years, decades, centuries. Millennia.

So he had never known aloneness such as this.
Every opportunity to participate in civil society had been diverted, misrepresented, blocked, and used to cause him to doubt his absolute reliance on the Word of God. And the church was no exception... in many ways it was the most formidable adversary.

But some people, he reasoned, one or two, here and there, would start to look around and understand that reality is not precisely as they had imagined it to be. The gloves were off, for a moment, and the steel fist had been revealed.

The trouble however is that reality is not simply a bit different from what is mainly perceived. It's not merely a matter of fake space expeditions, wars, and terror attacks. All these being arguments that have already alienated almost all potential friends or companions. It is completely different, in a very deep and radical manner. It's too much to contemplate.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood indeed, but we are facing foul hordes of demons, principalities of wickedness, satanic armies from the bowels of the Earth. And he knew this. He had seen it, he lacked the skill to articulate it, but he knew it. He could only look on in mute horror as the horsemen advanced, their swords flashing, their mounts whinnying and foaming at the mouth. He tried to shout a warning but the response was laughter or concern for his mental health.

And so he was alone. Day after blessed day, night after blessed night.
Waiting for the sweet release of death.

A bundle of sticks

Strength through unity: a single rod is easily crushed, while the bundle is far harder to break.
If all countries must unite to fight a single enemy, unity is required. Unity of intent, ethos, and strategy. While one country at a time may be overcome, a united front is far harder to conquer.

This was the philosophy embodied in the famous comment made by Ronald Reagan at the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, when he said

I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.

And so today, as Europe unites against an alien threat of a different kind. the UN has been quick to act, through its emissaries all over the world - the first and foremost of which undoubtedly that city within the city of Rome, in order to remove all civil liberties from many nations in a single fell swoop. And the gesture is reported as having been widely applauded by the intelligentsia, although it surely has its critics.

As I write, only Italy, Spain, France and Ireland have been subjected to a full lockdown - their single rods now joined together, while Great Britain and all other European countries have resisted. This is perhaps nothing more than a twist in the narrative set down by the architects, but I cannot disregard the possibility that the Jesuit influence in these countries is somewhat tempered by enduring sovereign powers, not least that of the English crown, an opponent of Rome oftentimes in history, although perhaps not quite as resolutely and consistently as we might have wished.

And it is Great Britain, or so it seems, that attracts the brunt of criticism from our beloved neighbours in Italy in particular, many of whom shake their fists from their house arrest prisons.

Many years have passed since British democracy was so widely reviled in Italy... perhaps we might look back to the early 1940s as the country's role in the Axis was cemented and Britain became the principal or at least notional enemy.

As for those of my Italian brothers and sisters who have spoken harshly of their servants, even though, like my fellow citizens, I am devoid of influence, power, and expertise, I am distressed at their plight and saddened by their words.

I would welcome my death if it could prevent the undemocratic incarceration of my neighbours, in whatever country they reside. While I am almost resigned to the inevitability that the internment rules will soon be extended to these fair isles, as yet this single rod has resisted.

I would of course much more welcome my incarceration if by allowing that I am or might become unclean I can protect my neighbours. Of course. But I most certainly would not welcome the arbitrary incarceration of every Briton or resident of any other national for an unproven, hypothetical, intangible ideal to oppose a claimed but unseen and mainly if not entirely fictitious enemy, acting as the deus ex machina to imposed a single political will across all nations and all the world.

So... may God Save our Gracious Queen... and, more importantly:

Praise the Lord, for He is Worthy, Kind and Faithful. May His Mercy endure forever.

Sostanzialmente Underground

Chatting to a young man behind the counter at the underground The Beer House bar beneath Edinburgh's Waverley railway station, he told me he had experimented by playing underground music in the venue, specifically Aphex Twin, but it was not well received although maybe that was mainly a management reaction rather than the punters. It is a nice little place and they do have some good beers, although I was unaware of that when I visited because me and Lloyd were In a Rush and Juke was mainly helping us out by carrying Lloyd's very heavy case*, scouting out the route and checking platform numbers for our train.

Of course no one is an actual Christian these days, and it's hardly surprising to be perfectly frank because folks (Christians in particular) don't seem to get it.
The matter is, however, explained well by approaching it from a philosophical rather than spiritual and emotional perspective, which is not to imply that the spiritual and emotional spheres are irrelevant because every part of our being: body, mind, soul and spirit are most intimately affected by the philosophy upon which we base our lives.

And so...

---what exactly is "underground music", such as could be played to good effect in a literally underground bar?

I don't really know the answer, other than to say that it must be music that is not at all widely know - a hard thing in the modern world but not impossible if the music is sufficiently obscure and, I suppose, bad, or at least unpopular. In the early days of rock music many clubs were in cellars, perhaps because they offered the best acoustic isolation from the surrounding neighbourhood, unaccustomed to the volume levels that were regularly produced by a few AC 30 combos, a Marshall bass stack and an open drum kit, so it was literally underground music in those days. And that's without even considering the Cavern in Liverpool, although it's hard today to imagine The Beatles was ever an underground band

*If by chance you are reading this and plan to go on a trip with a friend, it would be my recommendation to not take a suitcase that you are unable to personally carry and so would have to rely on the muscular capacity and coordination skills of your friend or his kith and kin, because this is likely to lead to a gradual but relentless reduction, over the duration of your trip, in any general measure of esteem or goodwill from which you might currently benefit.

Dawson's Creek

You ever wonder what the rate of adultery is in this town? I mean your parents, my parents, we live in like this Normal Rockwell picture postcard town with whitewashed fences and beachfront houses… and underneath it – Did you know?

The tornaconto

I sometimes hear it said that we Christians must be diligent in reading our Bibles. There is some urging in this direction from the platform on occasion, invariably accompanied by some self-effacing aside to the effect that the speaker is most certainly addressing himself more than any.

This, this later statement about addressing himself, isn't at all true, because everyone including the speaker knows very well that the best place to be when talking to oneself is in one's own home or shed when no one else is within earshot, or near a lake or in a field on a rainy day so there's no one around except you. It's just a sort of convention that exists in church.
If you really did start talking to yourself in church to any great degree, clear of it being a Pentecostal sort of place where you might gain some small credit for such antics, I think it would be a matter of great concern to the rest of the congregation and might lead to cups of tea and visits to the doctor.

Back on point. Mentioning Bible reading and words like should, ought and need is, in my mind, an indication that the power and true character of the Bible have somehow eluded the mentioner, because once it becomes fixed clearly in a man's mind that the Bible is the Word of the Living God, and that every word in the Bible is true and is provided to teach us wisdom, to comfort us, to guide us in our lives and unravel the mysteries of the world by shining the clear light of Jesus Christ into the very darkness, I think it would be quite hard to prevent him from reading the Bible as a matter of urgency and with great regularity and no urging whatsoever would be required.

If I feel I should do something but tend not to do it, then generally it means my tornaconto, my self interest, is poorly recompensed by the action. I often feel I should get on with my translation work, but I dawdle and dally before cracking down to it. But I get paid for that: my self interest is quite clear - although I do admit to enjoying it somewhat too, depending to some extent on the translation in question. Anyway, that's work. But so is doing anything that we feel somewhat disinclined to do but have to persuade ourselves to crack on with it. I don't wish to denigrate the very honourable act of working... I am simply differentiating work and the slaking of thirst and filling of the belly.
So what's the tornaconto of a man who feels he should read the Bible more? Surely he seeks to please God, since he is not precisely pleasing himself because he isn't "hooked" As though you would have to persuade Mrs Stokes to listen to The Archers, she having not missed a single episode for a period of several decades out of her simple self-interest (and why not indeed).

But if the true identity of the Bible is but glimpsed, all men will bask in its glory with the utmost pleasure and satisfaction whenever the occasion arises, and no chiding, urging or bullying will be required at all, so those types of coercion can be reserved for filling in tax returns and such matters that entail some objective degree of nuisance.

Ah, but how do we glimpse this true identity you mention Prod? Surely it's a no true Scotsman you are positing here, since the Bible is the Bible and to preface it with clauses speaking of its true nature, as though it were a thing concealed, is bordering on mysticism or at least esotericism.

Look, I hear you and I think I understand. So of course I am wrong all in all, because we can glimpse the truth of which I speak by by actually reading the Bible somewhat diligently, a matter that at first might be accompanied by a degree of tedium because our understanding is minimal and the Bible quite a hard book in some places.

But I usually hear such urgings and self criticism in the mouths of people who do indeed know the Bible very well indeed and understand quite a lot of it. So what then? I do wonder, in such cases, whether the person in question has understood in his heart, because our minds are quite fickle sometimes and our imaginations always so vain. I do hear a lot of preaching in which it is the objective of the speaker to somewhat urge the congregation in this direction or the other, always backed up by much Scripture of course. It seems to me that the preachers in question think God needs a hand with his unruly flock, and that having read the Bible we mainly forget what it said by the time Friday night comes around, the pubs are open, and we have just been paid.

In the Evangelical church everyone I have spoken to professes to understand and believe that we are saved by grace through faith and not of works (and the Bible does indeed clearly state that), so why do they then so often preach works?

It is a great mystery.

I see what you mean

Although he had indeed just said it, Nearmann didn't see what he meant at all, other than that things were clearly leading up to the point at which he might politely elect to go to the counter to purchase some refreshments, which might involve some minor expense on his part but considered globally, he reasoned, any capital outflow would be more than justified due to the related effect of disentangling himself from an explanation of an esoteric morality system based, he seemed to understand, on an obscure interpretation of philosophy, theology, history, the world, and Birmingham in particular.

Birmingham, that is, sited fair, square and central in the Middle Earth of old Albion.

Not any of the other eighteen Birminghams situated in North America, not the "lunar crater" of the same name, and not the thus-called star in the Cygnus constellation, although on these two latter points it could be argued, he reasoned - largely from experience - that it is impossible to disprove one's residence in or sometime frequenting of an imaginary place, if that place is real in the minds of the hospital nurses.

Abandoning the faith

It was a dull Sunday afternoon, grey skies and dead air in the house. Nearmann was bored and depressed. Nothing great ever seemed to happen anymore and the main problem was that people behaved either as cloth-eared, switched-off automata, or as venomous snakes, ready to strike to defend the slightest territorial threat, and perfectly fitted to exploit anyone who offered any suggestion of potential usefulness, even the most passive and gentle folks, who could be neatly arranged to form flattering mirrors.

Booze no longer seemed to help other than to draw attention to the maddening torment of alienation. Even cannabis had lost its ability to deflect, distract, and enhance. Like when Nearmann, Barnes and Mikey smoked that bag of Congolese grass and got so totally wasted that they believed they had actually entered a separate realm. Twenty years ago.

He thinks back to his conversion, his grown-man baptism, just ten years ago. His punch-in-the-stomach realisation that the Bible was literally true.
But today, nothing feels real except pain and silence.

His progression through the church began at a big place in town with music and bands. The preacher wore chic Italian suits and was unreservedly dull and ineffectual on the platform. It was all a sham. There was a heap of money behind the veil, the Bible not preached, believed or even present in the building other than in some fourth-grade translation replete with innumerable errors and heresies.

Proceeded with a strict and faithful chapel where the Bible was preached, somewhat believed, and never acted upon

Shifted briefly to an unconventional assembly with heretical views and extreme devotion to the outward signs of faith. A close-knit community of third and fourth generation converts, a horde with glazed eyes and unhearing ears, forever locked in a mortal embrace of pretence and tradition.

Landed at a very grave and self important larger church with great reverence for the Word coupled, as usual, with a general disregard for the principles enshrined therein.

Nearmann idly wondered why men are so keen to be uplifted but knew that he shared that same aspiration. To receive regular praise and pleadings to accept a seat at the table and a place at the lectern would of course dispel the boredom and depression and replace them with a sense of excitement and vigour. But in the corrupt court of the corrupt king only the complicit may be allowed to speak. Only the most obedient courtiers will be raised up. The dogma they embrace unimportant compared to their ambition to shine or attain privilege: a signpost announcing their easy manipulation  and unconscious willingness to lull, deflect, stultify, mislead, hypnotise, and eviscerate.

So now on this dull Sunday Nearmann contemplated, for the first time, the possibility of actually abandoning the faith. He wasn't sure it could be done, because a truth once seen can never be removed from the psyche. The Bible notes that the disciples of Jesus shall know the truth and the truth will set them free, but Nearmann, bound by the chains of his heaviness of heart, had no sense of freedom or inspiration on this winter day.

The way, he reasoned, of disavowal must surely pass by the way of endorsement. No pair of shoes can be reasonably discarded until a replacement pair has been purchased. But Nearmann had already shopped in all the other supermarkets of philosophy and they had all conspired together to lead him into his Christian journey in the beginning. At the time he thought of it as point of arrival. An endless forging of new friendships in faith, loyal companions at arms, resolute and deep thinking fellow converts, instead of a port of embarkation on an interminable voyage toward perilous and mist-shrouded lands, with shadowy and mutinous seamen and a villainous helmsman forever seeking to drive the ship onto a reef.

Nearmann did understand the odd comfort of absolute solitude. The freedom to prepare his funeral home with care, arrange the bier, cultivate the floral wreathes, whiten the walls of the sepulchre. And when a man is truly alone then he is he not free to think and do as he pleases?
To sit beside the pool and observe the thrush. To wonder at the oily river and inspect the hedgerow. To smile at strangers and climb the hill to the parade. To slouch at a corner table in a pub and allow his thoughts to ripple outward?