Category: End Times, Apocalypse

Is Anarchy Loosed Upon the World? Fall of Rome, anyone?

Watching the news about the Las Vegas shooter I actually wondered if he’d been demon possessed or inspired by Satan. I wonder that also when ISIL-inspired freaks commit mass murder. I can hear my grandmother’s voice, “It’s the Devil’s work”.  But maybe it’s more mundane — gambling debts and a psychotic personality.
Then today I received an email invitation to a Damned Ball about “enlightened darkness”. Truly makes me ask, as generation after generation has in the past,  “What is the world coming to?” Tiberius wasn’t even this depraved with his orgies. Or maybe he was. I don’t know.
The news often feels like the Fall of Rome or the Book of Revelation.
One of our seminarians mentioned Yeats’ hundred-year-old poem, The Second Coming. Sure seems to fit, especially lines 5 thru 8.  The final 2 lines have always been scary to me…  (see below). Last century, everyone thought how uncanny that Yeats seemed to predict Hitler’s rise and the holocaust — “burnt offering” — the great genocide in Europe. Now his apocalyptic poem could mean something altogether more horrible coming down the pike — or should I say, “slouching” down the pike!
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The beast rises up to destroy the last valiant light worker priest
How small but valiant is the light standing up against the Beast

Life Eats – but is it a Predator v. Prey System?

God did not create evil. Evil is the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of life.
My friend wrote:
I have often contemplated the nature of evil, along with the pervading ‘system’ in this world, the predator vs prey system of life.
No matter what dietary choices one makes in life, life in this world exists by the living consuming the living.
For humans: pescetarianism may be more humane than eating animals. Vegetarianism may be more humane than eating fish. Veganism may be more humane than eating dairy products…. but each and every diet on Earth, including veganism, consumes the living. Plants are living and are more aware than ever previously understood or recognized, as scientists are beginning to discover. The living must eat the living in order to survive on this Earth.
I wrote back:
“Life Eats,” my mythology professor wrote on the board. He wrote it several times during that semester. He made us contemplate it and write about it. It made a huge impression on me. Class after class I began to realize the deep meaning of this rule of life.
He further explained:   “Life also longs for itself.”
This longing for itself is what makes men and women want to have children, drives our biological urges. “Bio” means life…. our LIFE-ological urges of reproduction and eating are part of Earth’s wonderfully organic life-system. The other extreme is Jainism for instance, where they will go hungry if the cooking fire is harming insects. The Shakers decided all biological urges (except eating) were “unholy”, and so they stopped reproducing completely. They no longer exist among the living because of that choice. They chose not to “play the game of life,” but every day they were alive they were part of the LIFE EATS system.

My friend also wrote:

It only makes sense that as we pulled further and further away from Our Mother, the higher vibration of the Pleroma and the higher realms, our world and our bodies would become more and more dense. This density requires a more dense fuel or nutrition hence, the predator vs prey system.
* * * * * * * * *
 
Now don’t go all Gnostic on me. Our Heavenly Parents in the Pleroma were spiritual beings but also had bodies.  They wanted physical bodies for their spiritual children. They had experienced, and wanted us to experience, the amazing intersection of spiritual and physical, divine and human, the THEOSIS — of becoming like the Godhead. So they created an organic planet, a petri-dish, a “school”, a “garden” where things can grow. Earth is an organic garden where physical bodies can grow — and hopefully house wonderful spirit-bodies that experience theosis and “eternal life”, that someday experience a resurrection when divine-evolution takes the next leap. So-called Judgement Day, really Decision Day, and the “End” of “Time,” are the end of existence bounded by imperfect bodies. Someday we will have perfect bodies that are not dense, but are real bodies, not the spirit-bodies we had in the pre-existence. We will have light-bodies, resurrected bodies — it brings to mind all the teachings both exoteric and esoteric regarding The Body of Light and Transfigured Body, etc.
 
We spirit children agreed to come down and go thru this growing process in this garden. We passed thru the veil into the physical realm to this dirty place. Gardens are so dirty. Muddy and gross with worms. But oh the life they yield up! Life is dirty until the physical becomes transfigured and merged with the divine. We knew there would be predators. We agreed to it. Although it has no consciousness, has no amazing human brain (most differentiated object in the universe) the plant kingdom “agreed” to help. So did the lesser animals such as livestock. They help meet our nutritional needs willingly. We made a covenant with them to absorb from their numbers only what we need. Many have broken that covenant by wasting food. I never let my children waste meat. I remind them the animal Kingdom agreed to work with us in this LIFE EATS LIFE LONGS FOR ITSELF system, so we do no dishonor that. We do waste plants sometimes and try to put it in a compost. Recycling.
 
Yes, there are predator vs. prey situations all over this planet. But Life does not prey on itself. It rather consumes and recycles the energy of lifeforms WITHIN itself. Perhaps we are all one big Gaia-organism, as some philosophers have considered.
 
Evil, the absence of Good, Spiritual Darkness, the absence of Light does work against us — against the LIFE EATS-AND-RECYCLES SYSTEM. It perverts our LIFE system into the Predator vs. Prey in which no recycling occurs, such as cultural bankruptcy, violent crime, and even mental abuse. This is the cesspool, the mud-pit you mentioned. Civilization does seem to be in a decline. But I’m not sure it’s “the End”.
The Christians in Iraq and Syria think this is the end of the world. Christians in Egypt are starting to believe “this is it,” too. I wonder if the Romans felt the same way during their “end” as the invaders and barbarians came in wave after wave.

Margaret Starbird explains why 666 Mark of the Beast is not Caesar Nero

Margaret Starbird 666 Mark of the Beast not Caesar NeroMargaret Starbird writes:

For anyone who saw Morgan Freeman’s “The Story of God”, please do not believe that “666” — the number of the beast” — is to be identified with “Caesar Nero.” That theory is half-baked at best!

The number 666 is the ancient Greeks’ (Pythagorean) equivalent of “Yang” energy in the extreme: “power without mercy.” It is the power of the sword, the crocodile, the dictator, the predator in any form–including Nero, but also Caligula, the Roman Inquisition, Hitler, the holocaust, ISIL… and you get the picture. The Beast is “masculine-solar” energy stripped of its “feminine-lunar” counterpart — now rampant and uncontrolled.

The earliest Scriptural references of “666” are found in the Hebrew Bible: 1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13: “The weight of gold paid in yearly tribute to Solomon was 666 golden talents.” Apparently “666” golden talents was a fitting tribute for a powerful king — a pure reflection of his status.

Using John Michell as a major source, I explain this pretty thoroughly in my 1995 title, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy: Symbolic Numbers and Sacred Union in Christianity — especially in the two chapters about the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) in that book: http://margaretstarbird.net/magdalenes_lost_legacy.html

peace and light,
Margaret
The Woman with the Alabaster Jar

Hanukkah, Assimilation, Light of the World, Russia, Turkey

Please watch this short, awesome video…and read my reaction below

 
I got teary-eyed watching that video and I am not even a Jew.  What got me emotional was the whole idea of clinging onto your heritage no matter what, while surrounded by murderous hostility. Resisting the cultural assimilation demand to “be exactly like us or DIE!”, is valiant indeed. As is not falling for the insidious, less violent pressure to just give in and conform.

Light of the World

As I always tell my children each year, “Yeshua and Magdalene, Mother Mary and Joseph — they all celebrated Hanukkah every year.”  It’s amazing how long the Jewish people have made it in a world surrounded by brutal enemies without being stamped out. 
 
Another inspiring part of the video was the concept of light in the darkness, and each of us having an inner light.  As followers of Yeshua the Jewish Sage and Messiah, we also know him as the Light of the World and his birthday also occurs along with Chanukah during the dark time of the year, the Winter Solstice.  Our inner light, as mentioned in the video, is also a reflection of the Messiah-Light. We must choose to allow our inner light to shine forth. Otherwise it won’t. Think of songs like “Let your light shine,” and “This Little Light of mine”.
Other ironic-seeming connections that come to mind as I type:
 
Christos is the Greek word for Messiah (means anointed one) and the earliest followers of Yeshua were called “Little Messiahs” or Little-Christos aka “christians”. The first place that word “christian” was used was in Antioch, Syria. Syrian Christians are very ancient — the Assyrian Christians. Now that city is called Antakya, Turkey because a century or so ago the moslem Turks stole it from the Syrian Christians, burned the entire city-center, chased out the Christian inhabitants, and incorporated Antioch into the country of Turkey.  It’s very near the land whose air-space the Russian jet flew over for 17 seconds last week causing the Turks to shoot it down.
 
Ancient events and ancient peoples do seem to tie into current events more and more these days.  Be sure to LET your light shine in the darkness. A little light can move a lot of darkness, goes the saying. Help those around you to keep theirs burning, too. Bring out the best in each other, not the opposite! 
 
+Katia

Gods of the Copybook Headings Coming True – Supposedly

So this poem Rudyard Kipling wrote just after losing his son in World War I, is being talked about now as prophetic regarding current events, WW3 dawning, etc. See below. I read The Gods of the Copybook Headings again to see if I agree, and whoa, this thing is obtuse. Supposedly it’s about humans constructing false gods, war being a pattern that always repeats. Copybooks.  They are those composition tablets into which schoolchildren would write out stuff they were supposed to learn, memorize, etc. Fascinating how the last line has the word “terror” in it. I thought I was getting the gist of the poem until that last verse threw me back into what-the-heck status again. Aye aye aye.  See for yourself…
The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Killing children, selling women, beheading, crucifying – and burning manuscripts from church history

Was just reading Matthew 24 again looking at the “signs of the times”: Wars and Rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, false prophets, etc.  Elsewhere in the Greek Bible there are prophecies of pestilence (Ebola?) and slaughter of Christian martyrs.

Finally the US started to help the ancient Christians in Iraq, and the Yezidi sect (descendants of Zoroastrianism), but is this just the beggining of the end? Are we all marching to Armageddon? Just don’t know…

Iraq Jihadists Remove Crosses from Churches, Burn Manuscripts

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية

by Naharnet NewsdeskComment

W460

Jihadists who took over large areas of northern Iraq Thursday have forced 100,000 Christians to flee and occupied churches, removing crosses and destroying manuscripts, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako said.

“There are 100,000 displaced Christians who have fled with nothing but their clothes, some of them on foot, to reach the Kurdistan region,” he told Agence France Presse.

“This is a humanitarian disaster. The churches are occupied, their crosses were taken down,” said Sako, the leader of Iraq’s largest Christian denomination, which is aligned with the Roman Catholic Church.

He added that up to 1,500 manuscripts were burnt.

Pope Francis later called on the international community on Thursday to protect the mostly Christian communities of northern Iraq fleeing the jihadist advance.

A statement delivered by his spokesman said the pope joined the urgent appeals for peace from bishops in the Middle East and called on the international community to “ensure the necessary help” reaches people fleeing fighters from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

The 77-year-old pontiff “calls on the international community to protect all those affected or threatened by the violence, and to guarantee all necessary help” to those forced to flee their homes, “whose fate depends entirely on the solidarity of others.”

“The Holy Father renews his spiritual closeness to all those who are suffering through this painful trial, and makes the impassioned appeals of the local bishops his own,” the statement said.

The Islamic State (IS) group, which swept across much of Iraq’s Sunni heartland two months ago, attacked several towns and villages east of its main hub of Mosul, the country’s second city.

Among them was Qaraqosh, Iraq’s largest Christian town with a population of around 50,000, and several surrounding areas that were previously controlled by the Kurdish peshmerga force.

Fleeing residents reached by phone as they tried to enter the neighboring autonomous region of Kurdistan confirmed the jihadist takeover.

AFP could not immediately verify the current status of those towns, which witnesses said have been completely emptied of their usual population.

“Daash (IS) militants last night attacked most villages in the Nineveh plains, firing mortar rounds and seizing some of them,” Sako said, speaking from his base in Kirkuk.

“The government is unable to defend our people, as is the Kurdistan government. They need to work together, receive international support and modern military equipment.”

“Today we appeal with lots of pain and sadness, to all people of good will, the U.N. Security Council, European Union and relief organisations, to help those people who are facing mortal danger,” Sako said.

“I hope it is not too late to avoid a genocide,” he added.

SourceAgence France Presse

Show Your Support of Middle East Christians Suffering Ethnic Cleansing

Support Ancient Christians of the Middle East
Show solidarity with Christians in the Middle East who are suffering ethnic cleansing at the hands of the murdering ISIL “the Islamic State”. These are descendants of ancient Christians who settled in Iraq and Syria 2000 years ago — which is 600 years before the religion of Islam even existed. Now they are being killed or forced from their homes by the tens of thousands. Besides killing their Christian victims by beheading, the Islamic State army are also crucifying some victims. Videos of both methods surfaced last week.

Many Twitter and Facebook people have changed their profile photo / image / icon to this black and gold image. Friend Christine Chase is displaying this symbol and tells here what it means:

“In Iraq, the homes of Christians are being marked with this by ISIS aka ISIL and their Sympathizers. It is the Arabic “N” for “Nazarene”, marking the people so identified as Christians. In much the same way the yellow star marked Jews in Germany. I and some others have adopted it as our avatar as a sign of solidarity with those so marked.”

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood under the Morsi government forced the Egyptian Coptic Christians (whose ancestors were there since the beginning of Christianity 2000 years ago) wear black crosses on their clothing, and black crosses were spray painted on their houses, cars and shops. The guy that made the video that supposedly caused the Benghazi Libyan hit on the US consulate there was a Coptic Christian from Egypt. I used to go to church with ancient Copts (because they are Eastern Orthodox like the Greeks, Russians and Ukrainians.  Copts are so cool. It’s ashame they are being chased out of Egypt in droves.

Luckily the Egyptian Army kicked out the Muslim Brotherhood and the Christian citizens have a better chance, although their churches are still getting burned and their houses are still getting marked with black crosses.  My daughter says she wants to wear a black cross in honor of the persecuted Christians and we discussed putting the Arabic “N” as shown above onto our front door.  Yeah, we’re Nazarenes, you got a problem with it? we will be saying.

Wish we could do more, something tangible to help those suffering in Iraq on the Ninevah plain especially.  I am still sick just thinking of that video showing the Islamic State freaks blowing up the 1600 year old church that surrounded the 27oo year old(!) tomb of Jonah (the guy swallowed by the whale in the Old Testament).  They blew it up two weeks ago, just like the Taliban blew up the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, the only standing Buddhas in thee world.  Muslim extremists are on the rise everywhere it seems.  They are perpetrating ethnic cleansing in Africa (Boko Haram kidnapping the school girls), the Middle East, and no doubt want to keep going.

Are we living in the Seventh Day of Creation? Scientist says Bible Supports Age of Earth & Evolution

If each of the seven days of Creation were an epoch — an Age – then maybe we are living in the 7th Day, the Day our Creator(s) rested?  No new life forms are being created during our era (“And on the seventh day He rested”) unlike the previous 6 ‘days’ when everything was created and evolved via millions of years. God is now perfecting his-and-her creation by resting, letting evolution proceed, and like the Great Scientist she/he is — observing.

Get Ordained on Line, PhD in Metaphysics online**I wonder what new age will begin after this 7th Day evolution testing / perfection era is over.  Esoteric Christianity teaches since the Greek Bible shows Jesus  resurrected aka awakened on the 8th day, this caused the earliest Christians to worship on Sunday instead of the 7th Day Sabbath of the Jews. Sunday was not chosen because it was the first day, but because it is the day AFTER the 7th Day, the New Age “Eighth Day”. It was the day of awakening, of enlightenment, of evolution of consciousness.

The cool theory about earth’s inhabitants currently living in Creation Week’s “Seventh Day” is explained by astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross in his new book, Navigating Genesis.

Fox News’ Lauren Green spoke to Ross about his search to bridge the gap between science and religion, beginning with finding the true age of Earth.

Ross says … there were three different definitions for the word “day” in Genesis one and two when describing day and night, as well as days and years.

“I realized that this word ‘day’ must have multiple, literal definitions…” …Those include part of daylight hours, all of the daylight hours, a 24-hour period, and a long, but finite, time period.

While there might be several interpretations in English, Ross says in biblical Hebrew, the language of Moses, “yom” is the only way to describe long periods of time.

“So I see no contradiction between the time scale and astrophysics and what I see there in the Bible,” Ross said.

“No problem with the Earth being 4.5 billion years old and the universe 13.8 billion – it’s consistent with Biblical texts that tell us the mountains and hills are ancient and aged-old,” Ross said. “It’s making it quite clear that we do live on a very old Earth.”

Ross, who founded Reasons to Believe, suggests that the world’s inhabitants are still living through the seventh day described in the Bible.

“We are living in that time period when God is not creating new life forms for example which we have reasons to believe is an opportunity to test creation, [and] evolution models,” Ross said. “We can do real-time evolution experiments in biology to see if we see a difference between what is going on in the human era and what [existed] previous to the human era.”

Watch the full interview with Dr. Hugh Ross above.

* * * * * * *

The author Dr. Hugh Ross is also an ordained minister

This kind of “esoteric” aka “inner” and hidden interpretation of the Bible gives our alternative clergy rich material to teach in their churches and synagogues. (Find out how you can become an ordained minister or rabbi and teach this stuff, too).

Palm Sunday – Why Jesus rode in on a Donkey

Ordained minister says donkey means Jesus drove an ordinary vehicleIt’s Palm Sunday and here at our House Church we were just discussing Jesus / Yeshua’s choice of a donkey for his vehicle on the first Palm Sunday.

Okay yes, he was fulfilling a prophecy and there are many layers of esoteric meaning there, but why didn’t he ride in on a beautiful, noble horse? Why a work-animal, a funny-looking donkey?

Horses in Jesus’ time were like tanks today. They were used by military and marauders and very few ordinary people owned a horse. Horse hooves coming into town often meant burning and destruction of the village. Wealthy aristocrats sometimes rode horses too back then, but not that often. They usually rode in litters, were carried in chairs, and some had coaches of a sort.

Donkeys were the vehicle of choice for the everyday person and were the equivalent of today’s pick-up trucks. I once heard a sermon on Palm Sunday where the minister said a small donkey might have been seen as a VW Beetle Bug “Peace-Mobile”.  I like that image, too.

Whether a VW bug or pick-up truck, Jesus chose his vehicle to show he was an ordinary person, not a militant, not an invader, not a wealthy aristocrat. He didn’t arrive on a mighty steed like a tank rolling in. He fulfilled a prophecy from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), and he also showed the people he was an everyday man, he was one of us. At the very end of the book of Revelation (which is also the end of the Bible and explains the end of days) Jesus rides in on a white horse — Carrying a sword. Those end-time symbolisms are very different. He came the first time as a peacemaker and will return to kick butt and take names.

For other esoteric and alternative interpretations of Easter week, please visit our Easter Cycle page. 11 Esoteric Days in Spring, The Kristian Easter Cycle Events

 

How should Ordained Ministers & Clergy help after a tragedy

Last week we were discussing questions our many ordained ministers were asking about how to offer spiritual counsel to the thousands afraid of Mayan Doomsday. (Can’t believe it’s only hours away, by the way…I remember studying it 25 years ago and observing Harmonic Convergence in the 1980’s. But I digress).  But this week questions of a much much more serious and grave nature have been coming in. Such as why do the innocent have to die. What is going on with this rash of shootings. So very tragic. One of our ministers even lives in the next town and her daughter’s bestfriend’s brother is one of the deceased. What are we to think in the face of such Evil, how are we to respond as clergy, as human beings?
Here is some wisdom on the matter from not only an ordained minister and Rosicrucian, but famed esotericist.
* * * * * * * * * *
Esotericist Mark Stavish writes:
Dear Friends,
 
Below are two posts I recently made to Facebook, and am sharing here, regarding recent events.  Please take the time to read them, and to pass them on to others who may benefit from their message.
 
Sincerely,
 
Mark Stavish
 
Sandy Hook, and What You Can Do….Last night my wife mentioned that there was discussion among her and several co-workers (all teachers) about the recent slaughter of the innocents in Newtown, Conn., about two and a half hours north of here. After much discussion it was mentioned that when discussing these events with their students, or even children, they would consider suggesting that each person do 28 acts of kindness in memory of the dead, and the suffering that not only brought about the events, but the suffering it has caused.

I like this idea, and in fact, find it to be the only real ‘solution’ to the problem of violence, as love and hate are ultimately about human relations and how we treat one another. Yes, there are many issues that can be dredged up, but there is no “policy” that can be set in place to “stop” violence – we already have secular and religious laws that make murder illegal, but they are ignored daily – even hourly.

I like this idea because it requires individual effort. It requires conscious decision making, and the formulation of a new habit, a new perspective on one’s self and others. Encouraging individuals to act as individuals, especially when those involved are children, and to consciously develop a compassionate attitude towards others as a living memorial to help lessen suffering in the world, those are seeds that can bear real fruit in the Tree of Life.

Please do more than Like this post, Share it, and pass it on.

The Way of Action, The Way of NegationThank you to everyone who Shared yesterday’s post on positive action we can individually take in light of the recent mass killing of adults and children in Newtown, Conn. Today I am going to make a suggestion that is my own, not borrowed from my wife as yesterday’s was, and it falls under the realm of The Way of Negation.

The Way of Negation is of things to avoid, wherein the Way of Positive (Action) are things to do.

For this Holiday Season, the Season of Light, I am encouraging you to think about the meaning of the season, and not give war toys as gifts. Now, to be very clear, I am not talking about strategy games such as Risk, Stratego, or Axis and Allies, or even some of the simple video games such as Star Wars Lego (yes, even thought it is Lego, it is still about guns and swords, even if they are lasers), or buckets of green plastic army men.

No, what I am referring to are toys that have no moral or ethical redeeming value, whose sole purpose is to make war (and the business of war is killing) into a child’s game, and appear natural and even fun. These would be toys easily found at the big box stores, and include .50 caliber machine guns, M60 machine guns, bazookas, hand grenades, and even toy survival knives and body armor. These are not the toy guns we played with a children, nor are they meant to be.

Along with this, and I am emphatic about this, are first person shooter video games, particularly Call of Duty, Halo, and all video games that glorify and entrain the mind towards war and murder. These games have no other purpose and are the greatest form of mind control yet created.

I am not against historical or even practical items. A real rifle or even BB gun with care and instruction is a tool not a toy, and it would be far better if we encouraged respect for the tools of violence rather than be fearful on one hand, and flippant on the other.

What I am talking about is the pure psychological indoctrination of the individual and collective mind in regards to violence, in a social environment that is increasingly ‘value free’ therefore, there are few solid moral and ethical standards by which to assist youth in understanding the world and their place in it. As I have quoted often, “If you want to know the future, look at the games your children play.”

While it sounds simplistic, it is time, with this the Initiation of the Nadir as some call it, to return Christ to Christmas and remember what the Season of Peace is all about.