The wheat and the chaff.

I speak these things to you through a glut of faith, knowing full well having received the grace of God in ways without measure.

Faith assures of one thing: 

not in regards the drinking of alcohol,

or the marrying of one woman,

or tossing teacups

or petticoats in pews

or planting George Washingtons like apple seeds.

Faith assures us that an implacable, indifferent universe which part and parcel of the Lord our God

is good.

100%.

In doubt, the absence of God, we are, in fact, in a theological version of hell, that which is enunciated so graciously in textbook language to reflect a great myriad of troubles.

A world of troubles,

but a world imbued with a some small piece of faith that propels one over and above such unmerciful.

We have all, indeed, received mercy, just as all have sinned(Romans 3:23): and not merely that the just have received mercy, or the faithful have received mercy, but included are those which exist in the impolite corners of the inner regions of hell, including all the addicted, the lepers, the layperson, the shunned.  God is with them too, in forms that aren't revealed to us.

The wheat and the chaff are cut from the field together; as our book says, "it rains upon the just and the unjust alike", "i reckon there have not been troubles that are uncommon to man".

It is our faith.

Our faith is the calling unto all believers into a portion of joy, hope, peace, and even if we never even so much as sensed it, mercy.

faith, teachings of the natural world, look here haters, a visage marred; nations sprinkled

"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than Godly edifying which is in faith."  

Our Lord uses the world to teach us, and in the world, our teachings, our textbooks and classroom that we too take up, each day.

"Display me as a token for the good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed, because thou hast helped me and comforted me, O Lord." Psalm 86

"...his visage was more marred than any man, 

and his form more than the sons of men;

so shall he sprinkle many nations;

the kings shall shut their mouths at him;

for that which had not been told them shall they see;

and that which they had not heard shall they consider."

-Isaiah 52

Of Dust and Mud. From Sept-Oct 2025.

A word in season, to him that is weary: via Isaiah.

The spirit of the letter is quickened unto the prophet Isaiah:

"Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to heart, neither did remember the latter end of it. Thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children."

"I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and the shall become drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh will know the Lord is the salvation and redemption."

"And to the believer? Where is the bill of they mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? Of which of my creditors have I sold you? For iniquities, you have sold yourselves. When I came was there no man? Was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened that I cannot redeem? With a single rebuke might the sea be dried up, the rivers made wilderness, and the fish stink that there is no water, dying for thirst."

He blotteth out thy transgressions for thy own sake: put Him in remembrance, and thus we'll plead together.

And moreover: even the kings shall be attendant fathers, and their queens wetnurse mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face to the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet: and thou shalt know that He is the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for the Lord.

...I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He awakens the day, each day, consistently. He awakens my ear to hear the learned.

Them that sell themselves, have their reward.

Them that pray for the sake of being seen, have their reward.

Them that hold the hand high in donating, have their reward. 

Nature resounds the name: exhortations to belief

In what do we trust when our own persons are so changeable? No matter if we eat clean or eat poorly, we excrete filth.

We go through trusting in ourselves, dancing crazily through our hour, hips bumping tea cups and before they hit the floor, we've went to something else.

The best among us acknowledge mistakes, make lists, decide to learn from their mistakes; some don't acknowledge their mistakes, or misplace responsibility, blame.

A man once said to me that if it was up to us, we'd mess it up.  We'd fail: look at our track record, after all. For all the good aims, doesn't it depend upon which list they look at? Its either all good, or all bad.

Of the bad, they say it speaks to our condemnation:

not quite.

It speaks of our need for the love of Jesus, and that the only reliable way, past our learnings, past our otherwise pure intentions, to achieve heaven.

Of the good, they pull it down easily.

But you're different?!?

You have faith? You believe?

They say, "the demons in hell also believe". But how do they show, when their very goal is to negate the Lord?

Regardless of if we have the name of Jesus, we are all little conductors for God, the great will of the Creator; but to believe is the key.  Is one passive or active in the fog of faith?

All of nature resounds the name of the Lord; all of nature likewise challenges us, and flashes to us a diarrhea flow of our mistakes.

All of nature resounds the name of the Lord.

Doesn't it sound like propaganda? 

Slogans are usually either a gross characterization of the age or enlightened gibberish.

The truth frisbees in between.

The Lord is so over that sloganeering, done with your mess, beyond all that.  You fiddled around and you found out. Salad cat answered your most profound questions.

And God above was here before you, is here now, and will be here long, long after your doings have worn away like marker ink, when your stench has cleared the room.

when the wolves eat....

the evangelists:

Am I not a disciple of the Logos? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?

Who spawns enmity at any time against his own? Who plants a vineyard and doesn't partake of it? And who feeds and tends a flock without having the milk of it?

To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak; I try to get along with all men, that I might save some. Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant to many, that I might gain the more unto the cause for Christ.

the wolves:

Do we not crawl on our bellies? Are we not tied to the earth? Have we no truth beyond?

Do we not eat our weak ones? Do we not try to eat everything else?

notes:

As I paraphrased, "I owe my people the truth."

The divine Logos, after all, is truth, light for light's sake--coming into its own, of its own being--

--perhaps in the very beginning of the concept of love, in a universe otherwise blind to sufferings.

At some point, Abraham Maslow pointed at it:

on full bellies, we ascend our mountain on the idea that we deposit social capital among our group.

In other words, with the house built, and the garden tended, Thoreau swam in the pond.  Thoreau read of Virgil and Homer.  Thoreau visited neighbors.

I saw it with my own eyes: a man completes his duty, say for the day or week, and then on to the higher arts.  The very Netflix of the spirit: servitude, fellowship, shepherding. And yet there is the very oven of existence for so many, to fulfill their claim of duty, the claim of humanity among the others: then the streambox.

The Netflix that is the Netflix.

As I paraphrase Paul, "I owe them the truth."

Mutating the words of John, Paul, James, Peter: "Of recent have I seen, beheld, the truth--that no sin is without a mercy in waiting--no mercy is without its sin--and even the demons in hell believe. I owe the truth to my people in meakness and "fear", in gentleness and respect, in decency and humility. To call upon the name of the Lord brings to you the cup of forgiveness. Just call on the name of the Lord."

When the wolves are fed, they sleep.

veil, buffer, barrel roll, and our varying visions of what is best

 aforetime was the veil of enmity among the peoples...  

Christ is the "buffer" between us and all now—not as a slogan or rote for recital by the fervent, but a reasonable program of love and hope.  "for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another." -1 John 3:11

And though their words may be bitter gall, their actions and attitudes reveal something quite different: they do indeed concern themselves with their fellow. We roil in a common barrel along the hillside: though we may betimes face uncertainty, there are those few things which lead us like a guiding star leading the magi.

If we contend with each other, we contend only for the best for all of us, not the best among us; for our vision of what is best tends to differ among us, worldly things bring about worldly attitudes.

“You are of God and have thrived despite other peoples: greater is He who walks with you, than he that is beholden to base things.” -1 John 4:4(paraphrased)