177 Trinity: Atunement to the Power
177 Trinity: Atunement to the Power
"Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, You have ordained strength because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger." ~ Psalm 8
Atunement to the Power
Volume multiplied by gamification results in atunement to the power of time.
Put another way, the amount you do something combined by the replicative instinct that comes from enjoying it results in a mastery over the conditions of the space inhabited.
Or, for the meathead, the longer you are on the mat with your mind engaged in the adrenalized curiosity of competition, the better you’ll be at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
But the implications are far reaching in the same way that Proverbs 6:23 is the most potent kind of cosmic analogy: As the light is to the lamp, so the Law is to the command.
As the truth is to its source, so today’s Word of God for you is to the Holy Scriptures.
Atunement to the power of time means awareness of its value, recognition of its space and notice of its loss. It is the opposite of ignorance. It is targetable situational awareness.
Don’t believe me? Master something. Master anything. You will see.
When you own the space, time slows down.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
The Mad Christian
No brakes, all gas
Clickbait Paradise
In this edition of Mad Mondays:
Low trust nation
TV in Bhutan
Adventures in political theater
Major League Pride goes before a fall, a review of last week's headlines and some funnies for your Monday..
Once bitten
You won't have to search very far to find someone pointing out that modern America is a "low-trust" society. And there is plenty of evidence that this is so. Trust in institutions is at an all-time low. The covid pandemic revealed that the scientific establishment were not above mixing truth with lies. Neither are the media. The education system has long been captured by ideologues and we have known for a while that governments can be careless with the truth. Well-loved brands seem to have no qualms about selling out their customers either.
But surely this lack of trust is well-earned? Institutions and corporations have lost touch with average folks. Their sheer size, their desire for profit and ability to accumulate power makes them impervious to the criticism from the little guys. This lack of trust doesn't just go from low to high, however, as we wrote some time ago – elites are suspicious of the unwashed masses also. Perhaps saddest of all, with all the failure of organizations, we are now trusting each other less, too.
Recently, a spate of tragic shootings in the USA were the result of simple mistakes like people knocking on the wrong door or getting in the wrong car. A teenage girl was also shot while playing hide-and-seek on a neighboring property. The man who fired was convinced that he was dealing with an intruder. Time magazine reports that store-owners are increasingly hiring private security guards to protect their businesses. They don't trust customers and they can't rely on the police to respond quickly, if at all.
If you listened to Rev. Fisk and Dr. Koontz speaking on Brief History about the mysterious mound-building tribes of ancient America, you'll note that trust is not a default in every community. Societies without trust are more common in human history than our modern social norms would lead us to believe. The mound-builder's golden rule was largely "trust no one and look out for yourself."
A few years ago, NPR produced a podcast about trust. One story, of a man whose realization that he is being surveilled by an unknown enemy almost sends him mad, illustrates what can happen when the expectation of trust is violated. But what about societies where trust is not valued to begin with?
Researcher Matthew Carey, who lived for over a decade amongst ancient Berber tribes in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, says that in these societies, there is no such thing as trust. The reasoning, he says, is that you can never truly know a person, so you can't rely on them to be predictable. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. To protect yourself from the shock of betrayal, it is better to assume that people are lying and will let you down. Carey argues elsewhere that trusting people less can be liberating and beneficial. Assuming people will let you down means you are "more likely to be tolerant and perhaps forgiving of..fault[s].”
There is a sense in which Carey is on to something. The hurt we feel when someone lets us down is the result of a broken, often unspoken, expectation. If we could "hope for the best, expect the worst" when dealing with people, perhaps life would be breezy. But what Carey misses is that the distress of being lied to is real because sin is real. It hurts. It is not a matter of just expecting less of people that is needed (although that can help!) but an acknowledgement that we are offenders and need to forgive as we have been forgiven.
Perhaps the recognition that trust is eroding is especially jarring for us today, coming as it has after a "golden-age" of Judeo-Christian values. An understanding based in natural law that we were singing from the same hymn sheet – "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a principle that has been taken for granted for a long time. Now that this foundation is being undermined and displaced by godless worldviews, it is becoming more obvious how much we stand to lose.
One day in the not-too-distant future, we may find ourselves in a nation where people are less trustworthy. There is some value in Matthew Carey's advice to just aim lower, but one expert believes that societal trust is worth fighting for – "trust is society’s immune system. We need it to protect us against a host of other social ills." So how shall we live?
A paper published about faith groups and trust found that trust is contagious. Infants who learned that they could trust their parents grew to be more trusting adults. When people have experiences with folks they see to be consistent and looking out for others, their level of trust rises. "The experience of a community which is trustworthy and supportive, that lives by the values that it proclaims, contributes to trust."
Hey Christians, could we go first? Could we be the ones who are painfully reliable, though it is unfashionable and hard? Yes we know full well the potential for faithlessness in the human heart, because such were some of us! But we were washed of our sin and can be the ones whose "yes is yes" because we trust our faithful Savior. So for the traumatized ones in our pews who have been betrayed and let down, for the ones who have yet to come in, rebuilding trust – in our families, our churches and our nation – can start with us.
Cloudy with a chance of discontentment
A clever person on Twitter brought this 2003 news article to our attention. The small nation of Bhutan in southern Asia has largely kept to itself for centuries. Shunning most modernizing forces, the Himalayan Buddhist population claim that happiness is the most important thing to them. Bhutanese measure their output using a Gross National Happiness index.
Tourism is limited and national identity is strong. According to The Guardian, "There were no public hospitals or schools until the 1950s, and no paper currency, roads or electricity until several years after that. Bhutan had no diplomatic relations with any other country until 1961, and the first invited Western visitors came only in 1974, for the coronation of the current monarch: Dragon King."
However the biggest change came in 1999, when the Bhutanese government decided to lift its ban on television. Satellite broadcasts had reached Bhutan previously, but the World Cup in 1998 sealed the deal for the soccer-mad nation. The government attempted to mitigate what it knew would be a cultural atom bomb, setting up an official broadcast network with programs to reinforce cultural values. But commercial networks and cable soon followed. One government official was sure that "a culture as rich and sophisticated as ours can survive trash on TV and people are quite capable of turning off the rubbish."
That confidence might be overly optimistic. Yes, it is easy to place the blame for every societal ill on TV and such claims have merit. But Bhutan presents an interesting example of how quickly things can change. While the happy kingdom in the clouds has not had an entirely serene history – violence erupted as recently as the 1990s when the government ousted an entire people group to maintain ethnic purity – observers noted a massive spike in crime following the introduction of the small screen, increased drug use, changes in fashion and diminished religious adherence. According to some Bhutanese, happiness has been tempered by the rise of discontentment and consumerism.
The words of James the apostle are apt here: Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
It is not that the hearts of men have no imagination for things to covet, but modern media saturates the opportunities for discontent. Hopefully, the folks of Bhutan have learned like Mad Christians are that TV is not reality. Increasing your happiness might be as easy as switching it off.
Same thing but slower
The months-long battle over the U.S. debt ceiling has been settled, in a manner of speaking. A number of conservative media organizations praised Speaker Kevin McCarthy for keeping his coalition together and staying the course. All that despite President Biden's insistence that he would not negotiate and the media's insistence that the Republicans were playing a dangerous game, is not too shabby. But in the end, most Democrats voted for the measures and most Republicans voted against it, so it's hard to say who conceded the most ground.
If we understand rightly, there will be a slight chilling effect on government spending in the next couple of years. The savings are mostly coming from recovering unspent covid relief money and reducing some discretionary spending. Defense hawks were upset that there will be no meaningful increase in military spending at a time when America is depleting supplies of materiel in its support of Ukraine. Progressives were upset that social programs would be subject to modest work requirements.
So was the brinkmanship/political theater worth it? In many ways, the Bill may have just kicked the can, setting up more squabbling over spending later in the year. With a narrow Republican majority in the House, fiscal conservatives accused Speaker McCarthy for squandering any remaining leverage the GOP has for the remainder of this presidential term. McCarthy may have inadvertently summed up everything contentious about the Bill when he said, "We let government grow but at a slower rate." Americans say they want the government to slow its roll when it comes to spending, so that is why this bill likely won't please anyone.
It's fairly clear that administrations of both stripes are very good at justifying their own spending and blaming the other side for financial fallout. It would take a level of seriousness that seems absent in our politics to reform the welfare state and encourage independence in citizens and interdependence within communities. Investing in things that encourage tenacity and innovation require a long game that it is not politically expedient.
This is not a time to be black-pilled. We don't place our hope in princes, but in Jesus Christ who is faithful. This is an opportunity to turn our attention to the places where we live, to turn our hands to things that make for human flourishing and to that which feeds souls.
Staying power
As others have noted, June is pretty much a high holy month when it comes to the Sex and Death cult of progressivism. The LA Dodgers thought they'd show their devotion to wokeness by honoring a charity group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at an event held at their stadium. The group raises money for AIDS-related causes, but it consists of men who dress as nuns, mock the church and sexualize portrayals of Jesus. The cross-dressing former nuclear waste officer for the Biden administration, Sam Brinton, was once a member of the group.
Some players (Blake Treinen, Trevor Williams, Clayton Kershaw) let the Dodgers know what they thought of the decision, owning their Savior's name in the face of hostility. We thank God for any act which helps others to find their boldness too. Bishop Barron called for Catholics to boycott. Maybe Major League Baseball is not as committed to the revolution as what it appears anyway, changing their logo back to their usual one within 24 hours of adopting a Pride themed one.
Who has staying power in this battle? We are not fighting against people but principalities in the white noise. So hold the line! We may suffer the loss of all things, but when this world and its folly have been folded up like a scroll, the eternal word of God will still stand and we will be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own but that which is through faith in him.
Odds and Ends
Sex and gender
Rolling Stone is mad at a Florida law which caused a convention of "furries" to change its mind about letting children attend the event. "What does a law about exposing kids to sexually charged content have to do with people dressing as cartoon bunnies and foxes?" Well, you tell us. We presume if the event did not include lewd displays then they would not have erred on the side of caution to keep children away? to avoid breaking the law? (Rolling Stone)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he is considering sanctions against Uganda after the African nation signed bans against homosexual behavior into law. We're not sure if Mr. Blinken realizes that 64 countries in the world still have some laws against homosexuality, half of which are in Africa. Al Mohler took up the subject on his podcast, noting that this was due to three factors: the presence of Islam, Christianity and traditional societies. It would seem some of the only nations with healthy birth rates are also in Africa – probably just a coincidence. (Reuters, BBC, The Briefing)
Daily Wire decided to make Matt Walsh's documentary, "What is a Woman?" free to watch for a 24 hour period. However, Twitter staff censored access until Elon Musk got wind of it and posted the link himself. The video received over 100 million views and the head of Trust and Security at Twitter resigned. (Post Millenial)
Medicine
Hundreds of studies on covid-19 have been retracted for not being us to snuff. The reason for the poor standard is that during the pandemic "relatively more people suddenly started conducting research on a topic they really knew relatively little about", said one expert. (Epoch Times)
Israeli data shows that no covid deaths occurred among healthy young people. (ZeroHedge)
A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that "significant risks" such as heart damage should have triggered safety warnings for young people before covid-19 vaccination. (Not the Bee)
A number of new member nations have been elected to the board of the World Health Organization, including North Korea. Being on the Board allows NK to have a "say in determining the organization's agenda and policy prescriptions." Pyŏngyang recently launched a rocket, putting North Korea's neighbors on high alert, but the rocket ultimately failed, falling into the sea. (Fox)
Food and health
New York City has joined a number of other locales which have made it illegal to discriminate against people on account of the their height or weight. "Supporters cited difficulty navigating seating at restaurants and theaters, getting turned away by landlords, and butting up against weight limits on the city's bike sharing program." There are exceptions for "jobs in which weight and height are a "bona fide occupational qualification" or where there is a public health and safety concern. (BBC)
Air New Zealand is now asking its international passengers to be weighed before boarding. "We weigh everything that goes on the aircraft – from the cargo to the meals onboard, to the luggage in the hold". (CNN)
New French study links refined carbohydrates to poorer cognitive function. So no more croissants? (The Federalist)
Study says that 45% of children given drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes lost enough weight to no longer classify as obesity. 12 % of kids in the placebo group performed similarly, with both groups being given nutrition and exercise counseling. (KTVH)
Politics
After initially refusing to deliver a subpoenaed document to Congress, the FBI has agreed to hand it over. The memo reportedly contains information into corruption on the part of the Biden family. (Just the News)
IRS whistleblower who claims that Hunter Biden was not investigated in the usual fashion says he didn't want to come forward, but his conscience compelled him to speak truth. (ZeroHedge)
The U.S. Senate has voted to overturn President Biden's student debt cancellation program. (Just the News)
Arts and sport
Worth it or woke? A new movie review website aims to take the guesswork out of watching. (Not the Bee)
Movie review site, IMDb, applied "an alternate weighting calculation" to Disney's new live-action "Little Mermaid" after it was bombed with one-star reviews. Maybe Disney will stop re-making their old movies? (Gizmodo)
Sound of silence: The band Vulfpeck tried a clever idea to make money from streaming – record silent tracks! Then fans could play the tracks through the night, while the band racked up "listens" and royalties. (Billboard)
Home of Kentucky Derby suspends racing after the deaths of 12 horses. (NBC News)
Climate and natural world
Climate envoy John Kerry says US farmers must "radically transform" their practices to meet "net zero" goals by 2030. (Post Millennial)
Scientists find that plants "know" when they are being touched. (Futurity)
Religion and the church
Utah schools debating whether the "sex-ridden" King James Bible is appropriate for children. (The Blaze)
Illinois investigation claims that the Catholic church underreported sexual abuse cases since 1950. (WNG)
Technology
Report: A.I most likely to take "repetitive jobs" held by women. (Buffalo News)
Eating disorder hotline replaced its staff with chatbot. (Vice)
Neuralink says it has FDA approval to put computer chips in people's brains. (ArsTechnica)
Japan is aiming to beam solar power from space by 2025. (Engadget)
Policing and firearms
Defund the police? Not so much. San Francisco mayor London Breed has requested a 9% increase in spending on police to help combat crime waves and officer shortages. (Washington Examiner)
Hawaii will allow more concealed carry of firearms, in keeping with recent SCOTUS ruling, but at the same time has banned guns from most public spaces. Governor Josh Green maintains that "gun violence is a public health crisis." ( AP)
Headlines from far away
Suspected Russian spy whale seen off coast of Sweden. Russia is not the only one recruiting animals for espionage. Israel was accused of using a vulture and the U.S. trains various marine mammals. (Guardian, BBC, NIWC)
Japan has approved additional sanctions against Russia over its deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus. (ABCNews)
China has sent civilian astronauts to its space station. Bejing has also announced that it intends to send astronauts to the moon by 2030. (NPR, AP)
President Erdoğan has been returned to office after run-off elections in Turkey. Mr Erdoğan has lead Turkey for twenty years. (Axios)
Sierra Leone loses centuries-old and symbolic cotton tree during storm in Freetown. (Guardian)
Latvia elects first "proudly homosexual" president. (Fox)
Train crash in India kills at least 280, injures over 1000. (CNN)
John Michael Jones Gets a Life is produced for Mad ⳩ Mondays by E. Darwin Hartshorn. Episodes can also be found on Tuesday, along with previous episodes, on Bunny Trail Junction at bunny-trail.com.
Quick Hits for the Eyebuds
🇩🇰 Danish masters prepped their canvasses with beer
🚒 Fires that have been burning for a really long time
😻 Oh, he's trying.. Kitty tries to catch fly
🐕 Dogs love sliding into daycare
🇯🇵 In case of earthquake, release the snacks!
⌛ Smoking a cigar is "committing to doing nothing for at least 30 minutes"
💥 Georgia driver goes full Dukes of Hazzard
🇦🇹 Austrian town might need to let it go, let it gooooo
🤣 Squirrel fakes own death with crime scene and all
🏨 The world's oldest hotel
A Good Word: Links from the Show Notes
Meridith brought the fire to Stop the White Noise, relaying some wisdom on men, women and marriage. Also, with a reminder to re read good books as you grow older. If your memory needs a joggin', here's our list of some recs mentioned:
For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men by Shaunti Feldhahn
The Fruit of Her Hands: Respect and the Christian Woman (REV)
Summary: The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World by Gene Edward Veith Jr.
Promo of Friends
The Mad Christian will be speaking at Advent Lutheran Church, Zionsville, IN for
"The Aim of Our Charge" conference
July 11-13, 2023
Sweetness You May Have Missed
The Journey: The Way of Proverbs
#145 Unity is Normal
Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, You have given us grace to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity by the confession of a true faith and to worship the Unity in the power of the Divine Majesty. Keep us steadfast in this faith and defend us from all adversities; for You, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, live and reign, one God, now and forever. Amen.