It Really Does Seem Like People Do Want Truth...

The world continues to convulse under the weight of the value extraction that powerful people practice, but it seems no one is willing to do the hard work to discover what is really behind it all.

Do those who want to occupy Wall Street and every other Ivory Tower Street really understand how the World System works? How they are being played to give the very people they excoriate much more legitimacy to keep them enslaved to the System they willingly support and fund?

Do they know that the only Way to see the justice they demand is to accept that they themselves are just as much the object of that justice?

That realization is a brutal thing to face, and why so many refuse to actually see the truth...

Unless they encounter the Truth, who also happens to be the Grace.

The Truly Free Market

I've been reading a few books lately that interest me, and it seems everyone is upset that the free market isn't really free. That there is no real free market. That government must be in the picture to keep awful people from being awful so -- really, no free market, huh.

The truth is that it is completely wholly fully totally free -- that is, in the sense that people pay freely for a good or service and get that good or service. Government is really just one of those services people choose to buy. Government is really just part of the free market.

Don't want its services? Don't buy its product. Don't want to enter a contract that enslaves you to someone you've assigned to govern your affairs, don't sign on the dotted line.

Virtually every single person would then ask, "Don't you have to pay taxes?"

Do you?

Have you ever examined all the assumptions about taxes, and what the law is really about? If you live thoroughly by the World, you will only know of the World's perspective.

There is also the Kingdom's.

Except that, if you're going to remain awful, then the World may be just the right fit.

Who Are the Liars, Really?

Sometimes I just look with amazement at people spending so much time and energy trying to figure out who the liars are. So many of them give up and just resign themselves to working real hard at being the best liars they can be. Many work at lying only because they are so afraid of how much they'll be exploited by the best liars--it's like a game. A most lethal one at that.

One of the things that gets me about this is that in order to identify the liars you've got to know the truth. So here are all these people, like bugs on meat, scrambling around out there trying to know the truth so they can be liars. Comical! And yes, quite tragic at the same time.

One reason they are just spinning their wheels is they'll be dust in the end anyway, unless they come to The One Who Is Truth, who would free them from the deceit rathole, but He's nowhere in their purview. So they'll keep scurrying about looking for truth to be a good liar even though the better liars will always get the better of them.

Facing Reality

What is the reality of your place in the universe? Yeah, this question has been asked by everyone through the ages.

The only reason I think about this is that today there was a news report about a bicyclist killed by a drunk driver. The guy was biking across the country collecting signatures on a petition that I imagine he was planning to deliver to potentates when he arrived in Washington. He was specifically protesting the latest massive government bailouts.

I think that's a pretty good idea, really. Why should taxpayers be asked to rescue others who've made awful decisions and and who will not only refuse to learn from those decisions but are employed specifically to make them? The reality is, however, that the government always spends gobs of money to do what it thinks is best to crack heads of those under its thumb... as well as to reward those they like whoever they are.

The radio news report I heard was that the petition will now not be delivered. All those voices will go unheard. I thought as I listened, so what? Are those voices really heard anyway?

Nah. I just don't think so. It's the World echo chamber, voices bouncing about and vanishing in the vapors of deceit and dissembling.

It just seems all the bike trekking this guy did was so utterly pointless.

And it is, really.

Unless you are known by the One who made the universe you are in.

How Authentic is Good?

Berke Breathed, the mind behind Opus, is on an authenticity kick. I love it. His Bloom County was the greatest strip there ever was, because it so deeply penetrated the realm of truth. He's now running Opus, and here's his latest Sunday paper offering, here.

I am big on authenticity. Really big. Phoniness is something that I want to run from at five thousand miles per second. But the question here for consideration, something I've thought about for some time, is this:

To what extent can one be authentically unrighteous?

Is it perfectly fine for the gods of authenticity if one is perfectly authentic in his deceit, folly, arrogance, stupidity-- if one is so putridly awful, so wretchedly murderous-- could it not be okay if that is who he or she authentically is?

Of course I have my own thoughts. But for now, there it is.

Truthiness in Film

Stephen Colbert has made "truthiness" quite popular. Satire has a way of dispelling falsehood--his recent run for the presidency has given truthiness some credibility. Did he really run? Was his run truthiful?

Just wanted to point out a few major motion pictures that highlight the meaning of truth, belying the postmodern riff that each of us has our own truth. What is the meaning of each of the following unless there is Truth? (Note the capital "T"...)

"The truth can be adjusted" from Michael Clayton. A film about a lawyer who sees what's really what and bad guys go after him--what meaning would this have if there isn't a Truth that is being messed with?

"The search for true love begins outside the box" from Lars and the Real Girl. This film is about a guy who treats a blow-up doll as a real girl. The twist is when everyone else starts doing it as well. Charming. Thing is, it is only such when we all have firmly in the back of our minds what real actually means.

"Everyone wants the truth... until they find it" from Gone Baby Gone. Is truth painful? Sure it is, when we must confront our falsehoods. Most people just don't want to do that. When you do deal with it, then you're free. Actually.

"Something's happening to Dan. It's confusing. It's awkward. It's family." From Dan in Real Life. Ah yes, the "Life is messy" movie. Steve Carell is funny, but... yeah. Another "Life is messy" movie. True enough. What of it? Sometimes the messiness does mean it's authentic. Other times we really don't like it if it is too messy. Want it to be authentic and not-too-messy?

"If you don't stand for something, you might fall for anything" from Lions for Lambs. Scary-- that you'd fall for something that would destroy you. My question here is, what precisely is it that the "something" should be? What exactly is the "Truth with a capital 'T'"?

I think it's a Person.

The Assault on Reason

Al Gore has a new book out called The Assault on Reason. It is yet another plea, eloquent as it is, for us to all to get going reasoning together as we should. Sadly, he won't go beyond the typical censure of certain bad things--especially those things particularly bad to him. He will say "Look at this truth," but have no real answer for it.

I asked in my last post if God is responsible for not allowing us to see Truth. I still think about it, but one of my thoughts is simply that God blasts us in the face with Truth. Big-time.

It's just we like to stay behind the lead wall so we won't be infected with the radiation that is His love. If we choose to cower there, He's not going to force us out.

Al Gore makes a good, solid part of the wall.