Category: Culture

Letting Your Kids Watch Screens? Their Brains are Shrinking

If you’re a parent that keeps your kids off screens you should be congratulated and cherished. Yes, it is hard work – for the kids want the screens. Plus, you have to fill the time they would otherwise be on screens with something else…which usually requires your attention and energy.

But it is essential to do this.

I read this article showing that screen time use by children leads to lower brain development. Which, thinking about it now, is common sense. But many don’t understand the true harm they are causing their kids by keeping them glued to screens all day.

I was about to leave a grocery store recently and a lady was walking up to her car, parked next to mine. I waited on her to load her groceries before I backed out. She had a little child, maybe 10 months old. She put the boy into his car seat and I noticed a strap attached to the back seat that faced him. She velcroed a tablet onto the strap so that he could watch movies as they drove around. She appeared to be a pleasant young lady of medium to good means.

I felt sorry for the poor kid. Probably not even old enough to say no, he was force fed blinking images of whatever trash was coming across the prompter.

What I saw backs up the data in the article. “About 90% are using screens by age one,” said Hutton, who published a number of studies that used MRIs to research the impact of reading versus screen use by kids. “We’ve done some studies where kids are using them by 2 months old to 3 months old.”

Why have kids if you’re going to give them a screen to look at all day? Isn’t the purpose of having kids is to enjoy them?

Why so much screen time? Mom and dad both worked all day, they want to relax, not play with the kids. The kids have been at school all day watching screens and ‘learning’, so they’ll gladly keep watching. The living standards of the middle class in America have been falling for decades. The great revolution whereby the women went to work in the 60s and 70s was just so many more slaves on the plantation.

In the ’60s a man could be a construction laborer and buy a house and support his family on one income. His wife didn’t have to work. But with the fraud at the center of fiat money creation, everyone has to work to support a family. Americans have been growing poorer now for over a century.

Ultimately it goes back to fiat money. A select few individuals and companies get the lion’s share of the newly created money. Pushing prices up for everyone. The living standards for the vast bulk shrink, along with the size of their kid’s brains.

Marxists are Only Concerned About Money. Just Like America

Marxists are only concerned about money and the economy. The quality of life of the people, how they actually live, is of no interest to them. We see this in our current society. The chief determining factor in the quality of one’s life is how much money they have and how industrious they are. It doesn’t matter if that person is a swine, or a cheater, or cruel. They win with a large bank account. They lose with everything else. So goes the thinking in Marxist America.

Who cares about the drug addicts, and others struggling? They didn’t succeed in the game of money and so they are worthless. Who cares about the quality of their life? What is life like for the bulk of people in society? Do they wake up, drop their kids off at indoctrination centers, rush off to a job for 8+ hours, get home, put their kids in front of a tv, eat corn syrup and genetically modified ingredients for dinner?

Nock said, “Not a world of industry and efficiency, but a world of joy.” Are the people joyful, that is the question. Do they live a life of joy?

St. Paul said in Philippians 4:4 – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Joy and joyfulness resonates through the ages.

The Marxists have it all wrong, as does the bulk of american society. Life is about joyfulness and the quality of a person’s life. The amount of money they have is of no consequence.

What about the rich man? Who cares about the quality of his life? He is rich, that is as good as it gets. If he is depressed or feels terrible or lives a sad life it is of no consequence, for he is rich. And this is all that matters in a Marxist country…in our Marxist country.

What is The Chief Study of Life?

I started reading Of The Imitation of Christ. The book begins with this quote, describing what our chief study in life should be:

“He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness,” saith the Lord. These are the words of Christ, by which we are reminded that we must copy His life and conduct, if we wish to be truly enlightened and to be delivered from all blindness of heart. To meditate on the life of Jesus should therefore be our chief study.

So many things in life pull us in different directions. Work, family, friends, commitments, etc, etc. On the internet you are nobody unless you know how to: “Have a side hustle! Buy rentals! Learn to farm! Travel in a camper van! Listen to my economic predictions!” Everyone wants our attention, and many of us give it to them, to the point where there is hardly time to do any real, deep work. Add in a few hours a day watching tv or staring at the phone and you are separated from your hours.

But in the Imitation of Christ, the author reminds us what our true chief study in life is: To meditate on the life of Jesus.

Wheat Belly – Book Review – Must Read

Got health problems? There’s a good chance it’s from wheat.

It is impossible to summarize the depth of knowledge contained in Wheat Belly by William Davis. It is a seemingly silly title that hides the wealth of information within. You must read it.

Wheat is everywhere and in everything. It is recommended by the health pyramid to eat tons of whole grain wheat. But wheat is terrible for the human body. It causes all types of disease and decreases the quality of life for virtually all who eat it. Mr. Davis details all of the destructive qualities of wheat. He gives many examples of people who stopped eating wheat and the resulting positive changes they had in their health. More energy, lower BMI, less fogginess…diabetes and many other illnesses gone.

He also discusses what to eat instead, which is straightforward – vegetables, some fruits, meats, cheeses, nuts, etc.

He includes six things to do to supplement and further improve your health.

He finishes the book with wheat belly reducing recipes.

Quit eating wheat in any form and the quality of your life will improve…get rid of your wheat belly.

5 out of 5 stars. Stop what you’re doing and read it.

What Happened to the Trucker Convoy?

I guess the USA trucker convoy has disbanded. They made a small stir, driving from California, tooting horns and hollering. “We’re going to clog up the beltway!” “We want to negotiate!” and other such drivel. Then they got to DC and folded. I’ve tried to find out why they folded so quickly but there isn’t any info on the internet. It appears they simply just gave up and drove home.

One has to give the trucker convoy some marks for the appearance of strength. They looked strong, they gave the appearance of strength – flags whipping in the wind, idiots giving speeches. But in the end, it was mere sound and fury.

I guess they saw all the Canadian truckers go to prison camps and decided it wasn’t worth it. They quietly went home and are now moving vegetables to the local Kroger along route 65. They turn up the radio on a freedom song. They’re dreaming dreams of revolt, as they yield to oncoming traffic.

In Our Time – Notes From Father Ripperger’s Talk

I watched the 3 part talk (part 1 here) In Our Time by Fr. Ripperger. It was so great I re-watched it and took these notes. I highly recommend watching the video series and then if you want to revisit his ideas you can go over the notes below. There is a literal college course of great information in this talk. He begins in Part I by describing the current state of society and in Part II moves on to what you can do to gain the knowledge and perspective to live well in this society. I tried to copy his words as close as possible. Bold is mine as well as any mistakes.

Part I – The situation in America
Marxists have taken over much of America.
They “will focus principally on children in order to sustain this general corruption.”
Marxists used public education system to corrupt.
Put them in school systems which are secularized.
1.6 million, 40.3% of all births are out of wedlock.
Freemasons – were behind divorce laws, gay marriage.
79% of couples live together before getting married.
56% of people in our country think it is acceptable for homosexuals to marry.
“This is a sign of mass insanity.”
We are living in a state of mass insanity.

“People are so sinful”. In scripture – they lived so sinfully that God gave them over to their passions and men started sleeping with men and women started sleeping with women.
50+ genders. A sign we are living in a time of mass insanity.
Less than 5% of the marriages that end up in annulment are between 2 Catholics.

A complete breakdown of the family unit
Women in the feminist movement are miserable.
Fathers do not require modesty in their daughters.
It is up to the fathers to require their daughters to follow the dictates of modesty.
Modesty of language also. Women are getting worse than men with regard to foul language.

Children are not taught any discipline.
Electronics have worked their way into every aspect. It is fracturing the families.
The total and general corruption of customs. The general public life will collapse.
Secular education has been one reason for the death of priestly and religious vocations.
Communists took over educational system in the country.
Communists want to destroy the family.
They outlawed marriage in Russia, but saw the economic destruction and reinstituted it.
The state takes over the education of the children.
Religion has to be subordinate to the state.

The state is completely communist.
The primary focus of America is the economy. To communists, the only thing that is important is the economy. The common good of the citizenry and the virtue that they are developing in their relationship that should…be the most important thing.
The pedophilia problem in government and the elite is a gargantuan problem.

80% of politicians in this country have been to bohemian grove

1.25% of the clergy are pedophiles
2.75% of the American population has a problem with pedophilia
8% among professionals – doctors, lawyers, etc.
10% pedophilia among high school teachers
“More souls go to hell because of the sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”

“Sins against chastity.” Not because they are the most grievous, they are the most common.
People have no shame. The fear of being perceived as being lowly.
Innocence will no longer be found in children nor modesty in women.
The collapse of modesty is so profound with relationship to dress

Pope Pius the XI – A dress cannot be considered decent which is cut 2 fingers breadth from the pit of the throat. Which does not cover the arms at least to the elbows. And scarcely reaches a bit beyond the knees.

It is saturated in our culture today

“Corruption of customs. Unbridled lust. Impious press. (don’t care about honor and have no respect for anyone.) Secular education. The vices of impurity, blasphemy, and sacrilege will dominate in this time of depraved desolation. And that one that will speak out will be silent. The spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times like a filthy ocean it will inundate the streets, squares, and public places with an astonishing liberty.”

Custody of the senses isn’t enough, you have to have custody of the mind.
“There will be almost no virgin souls in the world.”
“The church will be full of those who accept compromises.” The laity is not interested in Catholicism in an unadulterated fashion.

Modernism
Modernism is defined as the synthesis of all heresies. The foundational principle of modernism is ‘I make myself and what I think and feel the standard or principle for what is true or right for me rather than an objective, external, magisterial teaching. Cafeteria Catholicism is the direct result of that. People will choose what they like that fits them rather than adhering to whatever the church says. That means that there isn’t a single heresy that isn’t resurfacing.

Modernism is so rife in the church. Have to have an extraordinary philosophical and theological background or you have an extraordinary grace you are simply going to fall into it

There is a complete collapse in philosophy and theology.
The decline of piety and respect for the clergy.

Fraud in our country
Fraud is the daughter of avarice which is the vice of (greed).

At the heart of fractional reserve lending is fraud. A bank has a million and loans out 10 million. That is fraud. They don’t have the money. Fraud is to represent having something and not actually having it.
Private ownership of national currencies. The entire common good of a nation is subject to private individuals’ control of the finances.

Christ said, “In the end times they will be carried off by fairy tales.”
Fairy tales: much of science. Evolution. The fairy tale there is a free market.

“This is not a battle over ideas anymore. This is a battle between good and evil.”
“A vast portion of the graces come into the world by our prayers, sufferings, and good works.”
“All grace comes into the world by means of the Catholic Church.”
We are in a battle between good and evil and the evil people are trying to destroy our culture, our country, our sovereignty.

Knowledge is going to come from grace or serious study.
Grace – enlightens the mind and strengthens the will.

Part II – What to do
1. Study. Start reading and become more knowledgeable about the Faith. Knowledge will give you the perspective to know what is going on.

What to study – this is your goal: what you have to do is build a repertoire of knowledge regarding what the church has always taught in relationship to those things necessary for salvation. That’s what you have to achieve. From there you can branch out.

You’ve got to study, you’ve gotta work at coming to real knowledge of this thing if you’re going to navigate and actually save your soul today.

Study the moral doctrine of the church
Ecclesiology
Study the real theological disciplines.
Mirari Vos – on liberalism and religious indifference Pope Gregory XVI
Libertas praestantissimum – Pope Leo XIII (to understand our country and why we have the problems we have).
Pascendi dominici gregis – Pope Pius X
Humani Generis – Pope Pius XII
The popes against modern errors – 16 papal documents
Read the Spirago Catechism and then branch out from there.

(Your must base your morality and life not on what you feel is right but on) An external magisterium (the teachings of the Church), which is actually handing us an objective revelation from generation to generation to oneself.

Modernism is so rife in the church. Have to have an extraordinary philosophical and theological background or you have to have an extraordinary grace or you are simply going to fall into it.

2. Restructure your family. Get your family strengthened in order for it doesn’t end up succumbing to some of the basic problems. Family life will give you a structure that you can plug into and have a normalcy of life. We are living in an insane culture and the more insane it becomes the less it is going to be like the normal family life, normal family structure, normal society structure.
The attack on the family has been key in undermining the psychological and moral development of people, and their spiritual development.

The destruction of manhood. It pertains to the father to confirm the moral code.
What it means to be a true father and husband.
Women get out of the workforce. Most women will be happier if they are at home with their children.

Pushing paper, building something, most work is far less noble work than forming the mind of a child.
When women were told that what they were doing at home was less noble or less good than what the men were doing, they were completely lied to and sold a bill of goods.

The man’s job is for the sake of the wife and the children so that she can stay home and do that job. The normal family structure has to be re-established.

Children have to work on obedience and piety.
Piety is the virtue in which we give honor to our superiors, it’s completely gone.

The restructuring also has to find a proper ordering with regard to the spiritual life.
It’s the father’s place to direct the spiritual life of the family.
The restructuring of the family life is the only way to restore order to our society.

GK Chesterton – “I don’t know why women want the right to vote. Because a woman can make or break a nation by the way she raises a single child. Where the vote is meaningless.”

Feminism made it seem that what the women did at home was less noble. She’s forming the mind of the child plus she’s taking care of the home. Cooking, cleaning, etc, which can seem like drudgery but provides a suitability to the kids and husband which would otherwise be lost.

Women used to do little craft things for the people in the family or the house, there was a certain decorum or suitability of the house achieved as a result of that.
Feminists hate what it is to be a woman.

3. Do some basic things so that you can survive
If the chastisement comes, prep. Get some food.
How far the chastisement extends is entirely the choice of God. Pray to be spared the effects of it.
Society hasn’t collapsed because of technology. Every other culture that has gotten this disordered has never survived this long.
The only reason America has not fallen apart is because it is being propped up by technology and by fraud.
Have a decent understanding of what is really going on in the world.
The people that are evil are lying and manipulating us.

As the culture continues to decay, we are in freefall, there’s nothing putting the brakes on this. It can’t stop the decline unless God puts the brakes on it. It is declining in such a manner that eventually you have to accept the fact that in the end, you’re going to be considered the one that is evil. Accept the fact that this is going to get worse. You have to have your spiritual things in order.

Navigate
Practice of the Catholic Faith – that’s how you’re going to reach your end – your salvation.
We live in a very tumultuous time. You’re going to have to be able to practice your Catholic Faith.

Don’t be depressed or despair. We should have hope.
You have to master detachment. Detachment is a holy indifference to all things created, so that you are attached to God alone.

So you have to stop following your emotions. Follow your intellect illumined by faith, that’s what you have to be based on, not how you feel. With detachment, a person just doesn’t react much. All emotions arise out of the emotion of love. Love attachment (to something). If you find yourself getting emotionally upset that means you have a disordered attachment somewhere.

Stop trusting your own judgment in matters and trust the judgment of the tradition of what the Church has always said.

Stop making yourself the principal judgment of matters.

What do we detach from? Have to be detached from anything worldly – your car, things you own, your house, your property. You have to have detachment from it. Have to have perfect equanimity and perfect peace, you’re going to be able to walk away from that stuff without it bothering you in the slightest.

Detachment from your family. Love them, care for them for God’s sake, rather than for your sake or theirs.

Detachment from the well-being of your country. People love the country from piety. Patriotism is under piety.
We could end up in civil war, because the people who do evil won’t give up what they are attached to; they’re disordered, their sin.

You can fight for your country but it has to be done in a way that doesn’t affect you spiritually.
To a person who is detached, it doesn’t matter at all what happens around them. They will look at the situation and determine what they need to do so that God is served. Because they are ultimately attached to God. He is the only thing that is going to be stable in the near future.

Detachment from the state of the Church.

Have to break the vice of curiosity. Get away from the news. You can be knowledgeable, but you can’t be wasting all sorts of time bc it is going to drag you down spiritually.
Any attachment you have when we go through the Chastisement will be a cause of pain.
You have to have a perfect willingness to suffer.
A virtue is a habit. Something you do all the time. You become virtuous in it.
Virtue is its own reward. As you start to gain a certain level of virtue there is a delight that occurs in the performance of that virtue.

The saints have a great peace and joy about them, they never lose their equanimity. Because they have mastered the virtue.
If you don’t willingly embrace the cross, if you don’t willingly submit to the suffering that God sends you in your life you will not develop the virtue. This is why people suffer and suffer and in the end, don’t have any joy in it, they haven’t developed the virtue – bc it’s been involuntary, they don’t want it. Where if they are willing to embrace it for God’s will to be served then what happens is that’s when the joy will start to be developed.

If we’re entering into a period of chastisement nobody is going to have any joy or peace if they don’t have that willingness to suffer. And it has to be mastered. You have to be willing to suffer well.

When people suffer a little bit their anger is all over the map. Anger is an unwillingness to suffer. People are angry about the situation in the church. It’s because they don’t have detachment, and are unwilling to suffer it.

Anger is a twofold passion – it’s a perception of injury. Essentially the person has a sorrow. Something bad has happened to themselves or someone they love, with a desire for vindication. We’re holding onto the injury and sorrow that comes from it.

The saint recognizes that there is no punishment that could be meted out against him in this life that he is not deserving of, because of his sin. So when something happens to him it doesn’t bother him that much because he thinks “Well, I deserve this anyway.”

The things people love are being trounced on, and they’re not willing to suffer for it, so they get angry.

A period of chastisement is a period where there is lots of pain, in a variety of different ways. So you have to be willing to suffer that pain. And if you’re not willing to, then you’re going to be angry.

Should we fear the coming chastisement? No. If you suffer well, when the evil comes, it just doesn’t bother you. I just get to become holier through this process.

Could you live in a concentration camp for the rest of your life and would it affect your equanimity, your peace, your joy?

People suffer from fear, despair, and anger in a concentration camp. It all boils down to they’re not willing to suffer.

The person who is willing to suffer well has great confidence in God. Bc the suffering is not going to deter him from recognizing God’s goodness even in the suffering.

“To test this faith in confidence of the just there will be occasions in which everything will seem to be lost and paralyzed. This will be then, the happy beginning of the complete restoration.”

Fast and Do Penance
The Marian Apparitions for almost 2 centuries now, have repeatedly called attention to the necessity to fast and do penance.
By fasting and penance do we get our lower faculties subordinated to reason and to what faith knows what we have to do.
We have to be willing to purify ourselves and get right order in us interiorly, that can only come through fasting and penance.

To make restitution to God for the profound evil we have caused. God created this world to manifest His glory. And anytime any one of us sins we detach from that glory to which He has a right. This is why you must stand in front of Him at the end of time when Christ returns – you have to stand before everyone else – all the angels, all the saints, all the damned, and account for every single infraction of the law.

Making restitution to God. (paying God back what you owe Him.) Reparation. To restore the natural order and make restitution.

The reason for chastisement is both justice and mercy. To restore this natural order of justice and make restitution to each other and ourselves and to get ourselves straightened out. The second thing is an act of mercy bc we have become an abomination to ourselves.

Modern man has become so disordered that we’re an abomination. This is one reason why our lady wants us to make restitution.

If you want peace through that and joy even through the chastisement you have to master that willingness to suffer. This means there has to be a serious growth in virtue. One in just the natural virtues. Fasting, abstinence, working on basic justice, fortitude, getting rid of your fear, being prudent. Next, work on infused virtues. Master fasting for God’s sake, master fortitude and prudence for God’s sake.

There is a natural virtue of mortification. People in sports deny themselves all types of things to achieve something in sports. We have to do it for God’s sake.

Work on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

What will it be like in the end? “Men will become lovers of pleasure and charity will grow cold.” People who love pleasure are never charitable.

Charity is being able to love God and love your neighbor for God’s sake. You can’t allow anyone to come between you and God.

Hope – the awaiting of the divine assistance in achieving our salvation. We know God will provide what is necessary for my salvation.

Most people are doing nothing to keep themselves spiritually protected.

Do the Nine First Fridays, so that you don’t die an unprovided death.
Nine First Fridays are also there to make reparations to the Sacred Heart.
People are not making enough reparations to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“On Friday during Holy Communion, He said these words to His unworthy slave, if I mistake not: ‘I promise you in the excessive mercy of My Heart that Its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they will not die under My displeasure or without receiving their sacraments, My divine Heart making Itself their assured refuge at the last moment.’”

First Friday Requirements: To meet the requirements for the First Friday Devotion a person must, on each First Friday for nine consecutive months:
1. Attend Holy Mass
2. Receive Communion
3. Go to Confession*

Notes on the 9 First Fridays from here

First Saturday of 5 consecutive months –

I promise to help, at the hour of death, with graces necessary for salvation those who, on the first Saturday of 5 consecutive months, go to Confession, receive Holy Communion, say 5 decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes while meditating on the mysteries with the intention of making reparation of my Immaculate Heart.

Habitual life of prayer, especially the Rosary and the Meditation. The Rosary is the spiritual weapon. There’s a grace that God provides to those who pray the Rosary daily.

Meditation will help you maintain your sanity through all this.

Mortification

  • Penance
  • Fasting – must be done on a regular basis. Once or twice a week. Wednesdays and Fridays.

There are 9 levels of prayer. 1st is vocal prayer, 2nd is meditation, you can only get to the other 7 levels of prayer through meditation.
You will plateau in your spiritual life if you don’t meditate.

Confession at least once a month.

Regular Mass Attendance. Get to daily Mass. Because as we go through this time we are going to need a lot of sacramental graces to survive this thing mentally and psychologically and spiritually.

You have to be prepared for the fact that you maybe are entering a period where you will not get regular access to the sacraments.

You have to stop any mortal sins now. You might not have access to a priest or confession or the sacraments.

You have to get spiritually prepared, where your interior life is so solid that if you go a year or two without getting to confession you’re not going to end up in hell over it.

Make use of the sacraments now to gain that holiness. To be prepared, in your spiritual life, through meditation, mortification, all those virtues necessary, overcoming all your defects, you have to work on becoming a saint so that when this hits you’re not ill-prepared.

Positive note – God’s chastisement is for our betterment. It’s ultimately an act of mercy, and it’s an act of love.

To any good catholic, living today is chronically painful. You’re constantly dealing with the disorders in society and the sinfulness. You’re constantly dealing with the sinfulness of the church. The sad part is that most people are not sorry because of how much offense God has taken.

The chastisement is justice bc it will restore right order and we have a price to pay.

On the other hand it is an act of mercy, and what is going to come out the other end is actually going to be very joyful.

We might even see a vast majority of the countries actually profess Christ as King of the country. And the countries will become confessionally catholic.

Be very wary when things are easy. Do not slacken off on your own mortification when things are easy. Because it’s going to come a time where it’s good for 20-25 years and then after that it’s going to be worse than it is now.

Listen to what our lady is saying. After 25 years people will start to slacken and don’t slacken.

The Americano – No Truth, Just Flitting in the Wind

The Americano is a sight to behold. He gets upset at nothing. The banks foreclose upon his house and his family is out on the streets? No problemo, he jingle mails the keys to the bank and crawls into a cardboard box.

He has gays parading in front of his children at the public school, no problem, he thinks, “I don’t judge anybody!”

Food prices go up 20% in a year while his earnings decline? No problem at all, he is glad to see those in power grow even more fantastically wealthier. He thinks, “I’ll get there some day!”

His civilization is destroyed right before his eyes? Of course that’s not a problem. He thinks, “The third world is not so bad, everyone’s equal!”

He gets home from work and settles into the well worn groove of his couch. He turns on the tv and turns off his brain. He swallows the indoctrination, learns to repeat it like a parrot. He is content. He is a great jackass. He is the perfect Americano.

The Americano is a weak, sniveling fool, willing to take any beating from life. Very few have firm morals to stand on, and so are swayed by the changes of modern tides. He is taught to accept everything, and never stand for truth and beauty. If he were a video game character he would only have one move – cower.

An Interesting Perspective From a Wise Old Lady on Her Funeral, and Getting to Heaven

The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy

I heard a story recently about an old lady who told her priest that at her funeral Mass she didn’t want him to say she was a good person or was going straight to Heaven. Why?

Her wishes go against conventional thinking. Most, at their funeral would want everyone to go on about how good they were, how kind, how charitable, the great legacy they leave behind. How they are assuredly going straight to Heaven.

Continue reading “An Interesting Perspective From a Wise Old Lady on Her Funeral, and Getting to Heaven”

How to Turn Away From Money

Thoreau made the perfect pencil, then never made another

Regarding society, I keep thinking back to Dylan’s song – Everything is Broken. What other way is there to describe society? Everything actually is broken. It is almost pointless to talk about how broken everything is. Why? Because there is no firm philosophical footing to stand on. Should money be made by the market? Sure. But that’s not how it is and not how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Best just to hunker down, stand up for what is right in whatever way you can, take your family to church. Prepare for more brokenness. None of these problems are going to get ‘fixed’ in any meaningful way. Society is headed to catastrophe, and then after that something else can be built. Hopefully in a way which follows the light of Christ.

Modern man has had his hurrah. He built his skyscrapers, his great monuments on the “glowing wisp of vapor” and now it is time for the next chapter. I hope the next chapter is based on the principles of Christ, but it will probably more of the human same – power for a few, great slavery for everyone else. Modern man chased money, false idols, ignorant economic theories. He has been ripped off of so much in life that is great – morals, values, good living, family, praying to God, meditating on the life of Christ. He has gotten sports icons, economic theory based on catastrophically foolish ideas such as printing fiat to prosperity, and heavy debt load as the means to true wealth. This has allowed a great false boom, a hollowed mountain, giving the illusion of lasting power, but as fragile and fleeting as the wind. And so many bought it, built fortunes with it, spent their whole life in pursuit of that which is nothing.

I remember a story of Thoreau, whose father had a pencil-making business. Thoreau set out to improve the pencil. He succeeded. Then he stopped. Moved out to Walden pond, wrote in the mornings and wandered in the afternoons, moving forward with life. Now, the modern man, if he had devised a clever new device, he would contract with a factory in Thailand, or China, to produce barrels full of pencils. He would hire an ocean going shipper to bring them into america, truckers to truck them across the country, retail stores to properly place and sell his wares. He would grind out, day after day, the business of business, and increasing profits, decreasing expenses. He would do his bookkeeping and taxes. He would have an attorney on standby. His life would revolve around his pencil business. He might grow rich, divorce his wife, buy a yacht and get drunk on it. He would get new teeth as he aged, maybe expensive injections into his face to look younger. In short, he would be a fool. This is why I think Thoreau will be read forever. No one will care about warren buffet in 1000 years, just as no one cares about JP Morgan only 100 years later. But the people of the future will remember Thoreau.

Which reminds me of one of Thoreau’s great passages. In a week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, he goes sailing with his brother. The writing is some of the best I’ve ever read – vibrant and joyful – maybe because he is writing about time he spent with his brother. I looked recently to find that part of the book and didn’t find it. I will have to reread it. Thoreau was not interested in increasing the profit margins in the pencil making business. He was interested in sailing with his brother. This is life.

“Ain’t no use jiving, ain’t no use joking, everything is broken.”

But it’s just another beautiful June night in Florida. Hot and balmy. Sweaty and perfect. The sweet sweet summer. Here’s hoping you’re sailing on the water with a brother, loving your great wife, kissing your sweet children and praying to the good Lord above.