Spirituality

A Laughable Strategy: Part 2 of 3

A LAUGHABLE STRATEGY : Part 2 of 3

Joshua 1:1 – 6:27

Though the tent nation from the other side of the sea languished in the wilderness, they routinely surmounted challenges far exceeding their proficiency. Year after year they evidenced no commitment to national strategic initiative or infrastructure development. The efficacy of their theocratic governance could be objectively debated as they repeatedly uprooted the entire citizenry according to the random movements of a single perennial cloud, a laughable strategy.

Eventually their neighbors dismissed them as a menagerie of nomadic savants going nowhere. The One who’d secured their emancipation, enrolled them as student-ministers in the most advanced University of Spiritual Cultivation since the cessation of studies at the Garden of Eden and before the coming of Pentecost. Comprised of twelve different schools, this university of higher calling taught only three courses: reverence, faith, and obedience. Some forty years later the first and only graduating class celebrated its baccalaureate, dressed in war regalia rather than caps and gowns, on the shores of Jordanian destiny.

As it was in the beginning, destiny again lay on the other side of an aqueous barrier of impossibility. Led by representatives from the School of Levitical Studies, they proceed resolutely without so much as a single floatation device, a laughable strategy. After an inexplicable splash-free crossing, they constructed a profound but simple monument to remind their progeny of the faithfulness of the One who’d called them unto Himself.

It yet appeared that breaking into destiny would be every bit as challenging as breaking out had been forty years earlier. Though shielded by a second purportedly impenetrable fortification, the adroitness with which they vanquished the first gave rise to grave concern throughout the region. Ensconced in a defensive but determined posture, the experienced adversary relocated critical resources and non-combatants to the rear. However, their reconnaissance suggested these would be invaders were more adept at revelry and marching than fighting.

Day after day the tent nation from the other side of the other side, marched around the fortification separating them from destiny, blowing horns, yet another laughable strategy. Eventually the alert-status within the protectorate was lowered and non-combatants were allowed to lampoon the spectacle first hand. However, on the seventh day, the Word called for the music to be remixed and instructed that the marching be extended. These changes coincided with the complete collapse of the heretofore-impenetrable fortification. Thereafter, resistance was futile.

Resisting the Word is far to daunting a task for even the richest or most powerful, yet today self-anointed sovereigns remain dedicated to this pursuit. Standing on the Word requires exercise of but a portion of the faith each has been gifted; yet today few are willing to march to the beat of Word music.

A Laughable Strategy: Part 1 of 3

A LAUGHABLE STRATEGY: Part 1 of 3

Exodus 6:1 – 14:31

They had been considered a treasure because of their giftedness, and then a national security threat because of their perceived potential. Their fate appeared to rest upon the negotiating skills of a reluctant Ambassador sent from somewhere in the desert by a Sovereign whose press kit described him simply as “I Am that I Am”. The Ambassador’s curriculum vitae included forty years of governance studies, forty years of wilderness survival studies, and would soon be updated to include a forty-year residency in both.

The Ambassador was directed to command the most powerful Monarch of the province to immediately surrender his most valuable organic assets, allowing them to fulfill their destiny as the chosen servant-ministers of another King and Kingdom. Intelligence reports confirmed that the Ambassadors’ home Kingdom held no military, geographical, or economic resources of consequence. Theirs was a laughable strategy, given the prowess and comprehensiveness of the Monarchs capabilities. No point-spread was posted for this “Rumble on the Nile”.

With contempt, the Monarch implored the Ambassador to either throw in the towel or let the games begin. Convention dictated that the Ambassador return home, pending a military buildup. However, the Ambassador resorted to yet another seemingly laughable strategy. He simply repeated his Kings Words to the Monarch and then extended his shepherd’s staff. From the Word and such a seemingly pedestrian gesture came nine cataclysmic judgments in the form of ecological, biological, meteorological, and cosmological phenomenon. Each judgment was met with defiance and retaliation, rather than capitulation. The Ambassador reticently pondered whether another strategy would be required for Kingdom Power to overcome World Power.

The Ambassador received a new Word from his Sovereign that held fast to the same laughable strategy. So compelling was this Word, the Ambassador directed all would be servant-ministers to first seek a parting gift from their neighbors, and then to book their reservations for the trip by marking the door post of their homes. Unbeknownst to the Monarch, the cost of ignoring the Word was to be far greater than the loss of silver, gold, low cost national palaces, and unfettered personal leisure.

The Word is the most powerful force in the universe; it can never fail. The Kings Word and article of faith in the hand of the Ambassador was powerful enough to provide a red carpet through the sea of impossibility. World Power always laughs first, then dismisses, and finally resists the Word. The Monarchs determined resistance led ultimately to a genealogical holocaust, military annihilation, and economic collapse. So long as the World continues to resist the Word, calamity will remain indelibly imprinted on the human historical experience.

Ahab Begot Jezebel : Highly Contagious and Deadly – Part 4 of 4

AHAB BEGOT JEZEBEL : HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS AND DEADLY – Part 4 of 4

…I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the Lord’s servants shed by Jezebel. The whole house of Ahab will perish…2 Kings 9: 7-8

Ahabs may arrive from nowhere, but seldom without a plan to get somewhere. Jezebels may have personal potential limited vision, but are adept at leveraging the potential of others. While their sticky potential in the natural is obvious, Ahab and Jezebel are bonded by a dark spiritual agency, mutual immorality and loyalty to deception.

After sufficient exposure, deception yields the highly contagious and deadly spiritual virus of delusion. The strength of the virus increases exponentially so long as delusion resides. Infected by delusion, Ahabs beget many more Ahabs, and Jezebels beget many more Jezebels. Only personal reconciliation with biblical truth can arrest this deadly spiritual virus. Delusion, having anesthetized the spiritual senses, makes discerning deception difficult. Delusion embraces emoting as confirmation of true worship.

Structure has brought membership growth, but not liberty to the human spirit. Within organizations acutely infected by the virus of delusion, few lead their lives, households, or relationships in agreement with the spirit of truth. While members may have been infected by Ahab and Jezebel inspired viral delusion, this spiritual infection can’t be eradicated by attacking its communicable agents.

The actual battle for release and relief from debilitating spiritual diminishment is between the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. Ahab and Jezebel have two abiding connections with deception; it is the progeny of their personal immorality. Should this progeny come under assault by the truth, they will resist dissemination of the truth by attacking the source of revelation or obfuscating the truth itself. They will also enlist the support of the many Ahabs and Jezebels, their viral delusion has birthed.

Truth has its own spiritual authority and power of revelation. Truth is impenetrable and unimpeachable, undaunted yet accessible, courageous and survivable, peerless yet reviewable. Truth needs no gift-wrapping nor ruggedized containment. Truth excavates and evacuates, while seeding and liberating. Truth sets those arrested by deception free, while causing patrons of deceptions to flee. Truth causes dark spirits to cower, while the spirit of life towers. Only the same truth that empowers the Angel Armies can overcome deception. Truth disrobes Ahabs and exposes Jezebels. Truth sets the captives free.

The end of Ahabs who are malfeasant with the authority entrusted to them by God, and the Jezebels who usurp and fraudulently exercise it, is well understood. The end for those who join this sinful mob, choosing the spirit of deception over the spirit of truth is no different, never mind having been infected by those they trusted.

Ahab Begot Jezebel : Defeating Deception and Delusion – Part 3 of 4

AHAB BEGOT JEZEBEL : DEFEATING DECEPTION AND DELUSION – Part 3 of 4

“Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?” “There is still one prophet… but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me…1 Kings 22: 8-9

Immorality begot deception, which begot delusion, and delusion always begets destruction. The delusion that controls Ahab and Jezebel is the same that developed in Satan, leading him to attack God’s sovereign rule in heaven. Ahab and Jezebel are but clandestine agents pursuing this same initiative. Ahab’s and Jezebel’s mission is to take authority over and disrupt the mission of God in the earth realm. Satan must resort to deception to obfuscate the truth regarding his defeat at the hands of Christ Jesus, and God’s magnanimous plan for His creation in eternity. He has no other weapon or choice.

To allow delusion to operate unchallenged is to invite both spiritual and natural calamity. Those who embrace the author of truth and life must realize that the spirit that indwells them has both exposed the deadly intent of delusion, and tread upon the pernicious spirit of deception. Discernment and embrace of truth are sufficient for victory. While truth and transparency have their own power and have already overcome the world – how are Ahab and Jezebel able to conquer so much territory and take so many captive?

The strategy employed by Ahab and Jezebel is no different than that seen in Heaven and Eden. A choice for truth ushers in the assurance of deliverance and eternal relational access to a holy God. Deception is the only arrow in the enemies quiver with any potential to carry out an attack on the truth. However, a sound understanding of this diabolical strategy is second in importance only to the revelation of truth itself. The arrows of deception can only find their marks when by free election one disengages their loyalty from truth. Such disengagement is often induced by human alliances and wanting-what-we-want, which pushes away the giver.

Does God sit ideally by while Ahab and Jezebel covertly and clandestinely reap havoc on the truth? No. God has already defeated the author of deception and provided His own with potent resources for exposing it. Nevertheless, the people of God must both chose truth and remain loyal to truth. The purveyor of deception is fully aware of his defeat, yet he remains committed to discrediting the truth, his objective being to destroy God’s elect. Only through those who yield their loyalty, does deception achieve new facility by which to operate.

Fully aware of his eternally defeated status, God’s enemy has not retreated. Ahab and Jezebel embrace their undeclared mission similarly. Only by embrace of the same power of truth and life that brought about the defeat of darkness at Calvary, can Ahab and Jezebel be delivered.

Ahab Begot Jezebel : Discerning Deception and Delusion – Part 2 of 4

AHAB BEGOT JEZEBEL : DISCERNING DECEPTION AND DELUSION – Part 2 of 4   

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, how long halt ye between two opinions…

and the people answered him not a word – 1 Kings 18: 21

Jezebels are the boots who march to the beat of their Ahabs brokenness. To overthrow Jezebels destructive campaign, one must engage the source from which she draws sustenance, rather than the infidelity of her counterfeit authority. Assault in the natural by wrong words and actions, are impotent against spiritual immorality and deception. A battle in the natural against spiritual forces will have tragic consequences for such ill-advised combatants. All must maintain prescient awareness that Jezebel is first and foremost a spirit as opposed to only a personality.

Jezebel’s embrace of counterfeit authority took flight on the wings of immorality loyal to deception, but now spiritual delusion maintains her purge of the truth. Blinded by the applause of the spiritually deluded, she believes herself to be all-knowing and all-powerful, and her authority to be authentic. Disavowing that she is actually the progeny of Ahab, Jezebel considers Ahab to possess scant potential for accomplishments of note that are not facilitated by her. Ahabs disavow the mutuality of their delusion until the arrow of misadventure penetrates the very gift he sought to surrender to Jezebel.

Jezebels possess unique reptilian qualities, but you can’t kill a Jezebel by simply severing the head of Ahab. Unlike reptiles whose regenerative powers exclude the head, Jezebel is capable of beguiling the spiritually vulnerable into supporting a new titular head she endorses. His given name might be Ahaziah, but his aversion to accountability is even more potent than that of Ahab. Ahaziah functions in even less relational balance with Jezebel than had Ahab. Neither Ahaziah nor his conscripted supporters eschew the delusional ethos of Jezebel or the fatal spiritual consequences of her deception.

Minds blinded by spiritual delusion often manifest what might appear to be spiritual vision, giftedness, and human compassion. Darkness searches out others it can similarly addict to the same elixir of deception. Only hearts that embrace spiritual truth can discern such spiritual delusion. Ones true nature is undeniably revealed by the standard established by the Savior Himself; you shall know them by their fruits. Spiritual diminishment and discord are signatures of deception, whereas spiritual growth and harmony are fruits indicative of commitment to divine truth in operation.

Failure to operate with spiritual discernment exposes every man and woman to the same deception governing Ahab and Jezebel. Whether person or faction, sharing power, providing cooperation, or extending consideration to an Ahab or Jezebel, constitutes spiritual opposition to the Kingdom of God. Though knowledgeable of spiritual truth, immorality advocates aperitifs of deception, where after delusion certifies and facilitates operations in the natural realm that war against the authority of God and His Kingdom. Ahabs and Jezebels know what spirit they operate in, and so must you.

Ahab Begot Jezebel : Immorality Loyal to Deception – Part 1 of 4

AHAB BEGOT JEZEBEL : IMMORALITY LOYAL TO DECEPTION – Part 1 of 4

    So she [Jezebel] wrote letters in Ahab’s name, placed his seal on them, and sent them

to the elders and nobles – 1 Kings 21: 8

Whether natural or spiritual, conception requires a seed and first cause event. There can never be sunrise or sunset absent sunlight and planetary rotation. There can never be progress absent objective and initiative. There can never be choice absent the right and capacity for free election. There can never be accountability absent responsibility and immutable authority. There can never be a Jezebel absent commission and sanction; all Jezebels, no matter their pre-existing potential are foremost the progeny of Ahabs.

While the disastrous impact of classical Jezebels is well chronicled, how Jezebels attain their thrones of misadventure is seldom scrutinized. Ahabs and Jezebels may be the progeny of aberrant emotional and circumstantial conditioning: adolescents unduly influenced by decidedly matriarchal family structures or denied maternal approval and acceptance. While Ahab can ignite the Jezebel potential in an otherwise disinclined women, a couple so predisposed harbors great potential for treachery and betrayal.

Ahab and Jezebel may at times exhibit a form of giftedness exercised for the benefit of others, yet the discontinuity that undergirds both their effort and inaction is disquieting. The attraction entrapping them is neither authentically romantic nor conventionally social, its inspiration derives from premeditated unethicalness, the spirit of immorality. Conflicted worldview, intellectual, and cultural cues are insufficient to either illuminate or dissuade their pernicious addiction to one another. Tragically for those subject to their influence or leadership, Ahab and Jezebel are devout patrons of deception.

Throughout the Eden era, Prophetic age, to more recent contemporary periods, Jezebels have been presumed to be scandalous and self-inspired. In reality, Jezebels are the boots who march to the beat of their Ahab’s brokenness. Ahab’s aversion to accountability gestates in Jezebel a compulsion to assume responsibility for that which she possesses no authority. Blinded by deception, neither appreciates that Ahab can forfeit his authority, but cannot delegate it. Jezebel confiscates counterfeit authority, for which she must become adroit at both beguiling subterfuge (BS) and spiritual deception.

Jezebel exudes an aura of all knowingness and all powerfulness, beguiling those lacking spiritual discernment. Jezebel craves adulation for herself not Ahab. Jezebel: drives Ahab to attain possessions and positions that enhance her personal prestige, subsumes community accomplishments for her personal glorification, and demands financial tribute to nourish her unquenchable appetite for treasure. Jezebel only destroys, while Ahab lashes out in anger to ventilate that his lament cannot comfort.

When mortally wounded in their death chariots or on their death beds, Ahabs experience their last opportunity for clarity and spiritual redress regarding the tragic consequences of their own creation; Jezebel.

Because You Are Far More Than A Valentine

BECAUSE YOU ARE FAR MORE THAN A VALENTINE

The self cannot be itself if it does not grow, and for a creature made in the image of God,
to grow is to love…Eugene Peterson

When one deeply in love with another, begins to describe with passionate appreciation what has been unnoticed or ignored by others, some are sure to dismiss such words on the pretext that, “Love is blind”. They mean that love diminishes our capacity to see what is actually there. They mean that fantasy, tailor-made to fit ones desires, has been projected on another, making him or her acceptable as a lover. The cynical follow-up to this view is that whether one is the giver or object of such affections, were one to see the other truly, they would never get involved.

While a popular saying, as popular sayings so often are, this one is wrong. Love opens eyes. It is fear and hurt that blind. Love enables one to see what has been there all along but was overlooked in haste or indifference. Love corrects astigmatism so that what was distorted in selfishness and the need for control inspired by insecurity, is now perceived accurately and appreciatively. Love cures shortsightedness, so that the blur of a relationship that should have been can be seen in wondrous new focus. Love also cures farsightedness so that opportunities for intimacy transcend expedient emotional release, becoming multifaceted blessed occasions of mutual invitation and discovery.

Foremost, true love always draws our attention to Christ who has no cultural or political swagger with which to capture our attention, and no beauty that would cause us to crave His attention. In Him we see the only one among the sons of men free of bias, dishonesty, and injustice; a vessel of truth dedicated to the will of God the Father. This love penetrates the defenses of spiritual darkness, the patron of deception that deceives us into embracing impotent god rivaling enlightenment and self-sufficiency.

While there are many belief systems and belief-free persuasions, only one reveals and redeems the life created by God specifically for love, at no costs to the recipient other than yes!

So no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do,
I’m bankrupt without [this] love…1 Corinthians 13:3

At the Cross Roads of Light and Darkness

At the Cross Roads of Light and Darkness

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

While hate and corruption are the progenitors of misunderstanding and exigent circumstances, here cause and effect have their genesis in different realms. Though composed as misunderstanding and exigent circumstances in the natural realm, hate and corruption are nevertheless the offspring of evil, which has its genesis in the spirit realm. No matter the realm of origin, metamorphous from like inspiration to like expression is immutable.

The spirit realm is comprised of multiple imperishable dimensions, operating in parallel with the natural realm. The natural realm is comprised of three specific temporal dimensions providing both visibility and tactility. Confining belief to only what can be seen or held defrauds life of its immeasurably abundant potential. The consequential sense of limitation and unquenchable dissatisfaction, is both un-natural and un-spiritual.

Evil has a spirit realm advocate whose very substance of existence is fear, which can only be resisted in the realm of its genesis. Evil cannot be abated by political, social, economic, psychological, or religious tonics; natural realm intervention is impotent against spiritual agency. The ability of evil inspired in the spirit realm to perpetrate in the natural realm is facilitated by deception. Further, the devastating weapon of deception takes advantage of the most powerful delivery system in the universe, words. By this means, evil attained dominion of the natural realm.

The universal sovereign, whose very substance of existence is love, has already defeated the advocate of evil in the spirit realm, and endowed a new natural realm weapon, truth. Truth has its own formidable power, capable of thwarting both fear and deception. However, truth cannot be discerned or engaged by intellectual, clinical, analytical or heuristic assessment. Inseparable, truth and love culminate in unbounded liberty and abundant life, nourished in spiritual Light. Fear and deception culminate in the illusion of control, ignorance illuminated by spiritual Darkness.

In the natural realm darkness seeks to suborn the conscience of the influential and powerful, and to beguile all into false confidence. The witting and unwitting agents of darkness are actually victims, addicted to deception and disinclined to truth. These victims declare the spirit realm a fantasy province, and evil agency a phantom companion of the gullible. Pronouncements pertaining to spirit realm principles have been declared politically incorrect and even illegal in some jurisdictions; spiritual province and agency may only be embraced privately and silently.

While the inferior Spirit of Darkness invades the mind, the superior Spirit of Light must be welcomed into the heart. This subconscious proximity is exploited by the inferior to impersonate the superior. Affirmations of conflicted aspirations abound; the spiritually inclined often live indistinguishably from the spiritually disinclined. No matter that the superior has bruised the head of the inferior, now under spirit realm house arrest, the merry-go-round of self-providence remains the bon vivant of the natural realm.

Deception and fear provide the primary seismic energy dismembering relationships between nations, cultures, orientations, and individuals, yet attention remains laser focused on hate and corruption, which are but transient aftershocks. Only those freely indwelled by the Spirit of Light can operate in unconditional love and discern truth. They must not and in fact cannot, surrender under the white flag of silence. There will be neither armistice nor détente between the natural realm ambassadors of spirit realm adversaries. The conflict is actually a conquest for dominion and power.

Prompting peace and prosperity by natural realm practices and methods such as intellectual development, journalistic disclosure, economic and social initiatives, military conquest, and philanthropy, has proven futile and disastrously contagious. No corner of humanity has managed to circumvent the signature achievements bequeathed by enlightenment, such as: sectarian conflict, criminal confiscation, nuclear proliferation, kidnapping, rape, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, abortion, and pernicious greed.

The human heart is the fertile abode where the Spirit of Light inculcates truth and gestates discernment. The sages of enlightenment, who consider the mind the seat of wisdom and propitious providence, lambast this position. Nevertheless, just as many consider sitting the new smoking, all had better recognize enlightenment as turbo charged deception, with turbo charged destructive potential.

Over two hundred years ago, her Majesties reluctant subjects chose to resist demands for tribute rationalized by deception. They possessed underwhelming resources and experiences with which to contend against overwhelming technology and organization. These reluctant colonists committed yet another subversive act when they disavowed self-providence to embrace the well familiar refuge of Spiritual Light. The miraculous power of truth was brought to bear in the natural realm against the agency of deception.

Victorious, the infant nation chose to begin its most seminal written expression of national creed with the words, “We hold these truths to be self evident”… The same nation is now challenged to lead a world in turmoil, not by bent of political, financial, or military swagger, but into the same Spiritual Light embraced at and before it’s founding. However, this nation must first resign its own world-class addiction to enlightenment and return to the Light.

In every arena of life and on every occasion, whether personal or private, each of us must determine under which spirit we are operating.

America and the Great Sheppard: 1620 to 1960 (Part 1 of 2)

AMERICA AND THE GREAT SHEPPARD: 1620 TO 1960 (PART 1 OF 2)

The Lord is My Sheppard…Psalms 23

By December 21, 1620, the Old World was fully aware that the New World was not located off the coast of China, but Cuba. Nevertheless the New World was far enough away that the trip required many arduous weeks on the open seas. In 1620 the New World was not yet bi-coastal or bi-sexual, had no Travelocity or Expedia specials, no Holiday Inn or Ritz Carleton suites, no Park Avenues or Sunset Strips, and no Red or Blue States. What it had was lots of new communicable diseases, low yield harvest seasons, and an infant mortality rate exceeded only by that on board Slave Ships crossing the Middle Passage. Contrary to contemporary folklore, New World settlers were far more often inspired by the potential for economic gain than religious conviction. These hearty settlers would soon realize they were no more capable of surviving New World challenges alone, than were sheep to find green pastures and still waters in the absence of their Sheppard.

Even with an attentive British Monarchy, manageable agrarian conditions, and a treasure-trove of soon to be discovered natural resources, what was needed for survival in the New World of 1620 was a Sheppard. Religious Pilgrims and Entrepreneurs alike realized their most valuable asset was trust in the Great Sheppard who’d crossed over with them, nestled in the posh cabin of His Word. These New World Sheep mixed their Faith and the Word, summoning the Great Sheppard. By his power and authority: all their wants were addressed absent re-supply pipelines, their security assured against a formidable indigenous foe, and they realized immunity to infections for which they bore no biological resistance. They experienced His presence in the disquiet valley, in the shadow of no place to retreat. They feasted on Word pudding and cups of more than enough.

Never did it occur to those who organized this sector of the New World into an America to disavow their dependence on the Great Sheppard. Its first President who proclaimed every man’s right to worship any Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience, also wrote, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible”. Founder class (high, low and in between) Americans, to numerous to mention, openly proclaimed their allegiance to the Great Sheppard. The Capital City of America itself was laid out architecturally in the sign of the Great Sheppard, as if it would be His forever. One beam of His Cross was formed by the Capitol Building and Lincoln Memorial, and the other by the White House and Jefferson Memorial. The Washington Monument, whose capstone was engraved, “Praise be to God”, occupied its center. In that America, the Great Sheppard was welcome at home, work, school and play.

The Great Sheppard lovingly nurtured His unique Nation of Sheep drawn from many flocks by rod and staff. Throughout American history, to include the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Agricultural, Industrial, and Technological Revolutions, the Great Sheppard maintained an urgent relationship with His melting pot flock. During these epic eras, America’s economic and emotional vibrancy were unmatched in the annals of history. Americas embrace of the Great Sheppard was so fertile: school days began in solemn reflection on Him, its currency advertised trust in Him, its most revered anthem implored His blessings, elected officials considered their duties sacred before civil, and His Word led America from the emotional disfiguration of slavery. The New World and its Sheep of every ilk belonged to the Sheppard.

Since the Vietnam War, Sexual and Counter-Cultural Revolutions, circa 1960, America’s relationship with the Great Sheppard has become increasingly discordant and distant. His purpose is being supplanted by the power, passion and pleasure addictions of the Sheep, the True Vine is being pruned to accommodate New Age foliage, and spiritual illumination is being dulled by the air bush of enlightenment. In this America, Politics, Economics and Religion adroitly campaign to create a New New America. Yet, absent an abiding relationship with the Great Sheppard; Politics constitutes no more than a choice between a blindfold and earplugs, Economics is a pseudo science where borrowed hope is substituted for assets, and Religion is but loss of personal liberty at the hands of another. Will America have to reprise the winter of 1620 before it shuns its New Old World fascination and returns to the fold of the Great Sheppard?

Coming PART 2 OF 2, COUNTRY WITHOUT A SHEPPARD: 1960 TO 2010