The French have a saying from the 15th Century: “Fleuris là où tu es plantée”, which means, “Bloom where you are planted”

It seems to me, it is an odd thing for something which does this by it’s nature, to criticize the soil it grows in.  That’s not it’s duty, or it’s penchant.  Can the pot say to the potter why have you made me like this?

Study of Tulips. Jacob Marrel.

And it seems to me the glory of woman is that she blooms where she is planted, even when she is they, the church or all men.  Chesterton said that women are more elemental than men.  They are fruitful and fill the earth like all the boundless energy from each wave of creation, on those first six days.  But that task is not all there is.  There is a seventh day made for man, or perhaps men.  Martha is blooming, while Mary seems to have gotten this male truth, at the feet of The Male.  The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks “What is the chief end of man.” and answers “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.”  I think also of John Piper’s Christian hedonism, very appropriate to a culture which often worships work.  But do you think a woman would come up with these concepts?  Certainly not, it’s the men lounging in the pub over a beer, or the same men as a committee of elders looking over their Bibles.

It seems to me that feminism is the rebellion of fertile soil, even clay soil become pottery.  I suppose if you break the end off of a pot you get a sort of megaphone for shrill rebellions.  No less so than other rebellions, but more apt for us.  We shouldn’t make our work too serious, and we shouldn’t pretend that broken pottery is fruit.  Chesterton also said that it is funny when a man falls because he is a man.  He walks about on two legs with a certain dignity, not possessed by the other animals.  You can’t mock something which is not serious and has no dignity.  And so it makes sense that men are the butt of ridicule and not women.  A man falling down is a joke, a woman falling down is pitiable.

And so what have our men made?  They have made these women around us, blooming where they were planted.  Exchanging natural relations for relations with one another. The obvious cosmic joke of two electrical outlets trying to get it on.  Exchanging natural relations for a task, a desk, a job, a doctorate of doctorates.  Or simply selling their bodies in various forms online and on the street, and calling it empowerment.  But the fruit is withering, sucked out by Planned Parenthood and sold to the highest bidder.  The soil really is bad.  They are in no position to criticize their own soil, it’s just silly, but we are. One potter may tell another potter that his work stinks.  I think in some ways this is being remedied.

Men are leaving academia, the source of much bad soil, and trying to build another world.  Most women haven’t gotten the memo yet.  It takes time.  They are still stuck in that soil from the last generation which said college and career are all that matters. There is nothing more heart breaking than watching a liberal, feminist transplant trying to survive in the new rich soil of full quivers.  That’s not where they were planted.  They are a bird of another feather, or a flower of a different petal.  Fathers can begin to break this trend, by encouraging daughters to be lovers of husbands and lovers of children, as Paul said, rather than lovers of graduate programs on graduate programs.  They can encourage them to be feminine, instead of living it up in hunting camp with the boys.  They have set this old agenda we now find ourselves in, and it is diseased soil.  We need to repent and purify it.

I don’t think enough children read George MacDonald, and I am certain not enough adults read him.  C. S. Lewis summed up his writing perfectly in his introduction to a collection of MacDonald’s stories.  His style isn’t that great but his stories are good. ‘Good’ in the real meaning of the term, morally good through and through.  They are the kind of stories that make better men.  Chesterton’s stories are all meant to accomplish this as well.  They give us a brief glimpse at  eternity poking into our world, for which Lewis borrowed a german word ‘sehnsucht’.

These men were not the sole creators of such work, this used to be the norm, but they are becoming more rare in the modern world.  Most of the old faerie tales were in this vein.  Including Pinocchio, which is why it is so maddening to see the bland soulless thing that Disney turned these wonderful, good stories into.

But this atrocity Knives Out is a whole other level of corruption.  From moral tale defanged of it’s morals to pure evil stealing the devices of it’s creator to push it’s twisted agenda.  Our culture is full on evil.  Tertullian said that the “devil was the ape of God”.  He is not creative, he can only steal and corrupt, twist.  Lewis picks up the theme with his character in The Last Battle, an ape, called Switch, who masquerades as Aslan.

And so this movie masquerades as a sleuthing tale, when in reality it’s just preaching left wing nonsense about the downfall of presumably ‘white’ civilization at the hand of superior immigrants.  The characters are ridiculous caricatures, which are merely the figments of leftist’s imaginations.  Or more accurately the vary evil the left personifies, directed at their opponents.  Because accusing the other side of what you are doing is really all you can do when you are the devil, the ape.  And of course the whole movie is based on the lie that Trump put kids in cages.  And it’s not artfully stated, it’s flashed on the screen like a satire of a Soviet propaganda film.  Of course the fact is that Obama started this program and exacerbated the situation by encouraging immigration.  Even Snopes, the left wing’s second level of lying to the media’s first, admits this. The lamest part is that while the host of rotten tomato lemmings think they are all part of an inside joke, every normal person who went to this movie and enjoyed it, proves them and the whole religious purpose of the movie wrong.  America is not a bunch of racists, we have no problem with immigrants, and our measure for right and wrong is based solely on character, not skin color as those liberals obsessed with skin color can only surmise.

But this is a second or third degree lie built on a foundation of the lies of Howard Zinn, which masquerades as history in every institution masquerading as a University, across this nation.  The real story is the one written before 1968.  Christians took over the Roman Empire with love.  That empire was assailed by various northern Barbarians, who won and then became Christians themselves.  This is where ‘whitey’ comes in for you liberal nut jobs.  Then the Medieval world, dreaming of the old glory days of Rome, built the most rich civilization the earth has ever known.  Catholicism became corrupt was Reformed, and the fruit of that Reformation sailed around the world spreading the Gospel, not perfectly but they did it. Encountering any number of cannibals and other pagans, they laid down their lives and the world was changed.   They gave birth to a new Nation based even more firmly on the Law of God, which spread the Gospel even farther and wider.  That gave birth to another new Nation which was defeated, and now all we talk about is slavery.  Then in 1968 the hippies decided that that old history was a little too Christian, so they fixed it for us.  And that brings us to today, a bunch of ignorant fools blaming race, and accusing ‘whitey’ of confiscating the world’s wealth.  When nearly the opposite is true.  It was reported recently that only ten percent of the world now lives in true poverty. It was almost forty percent only twenty five short years ago.  The story of the Gospel is incredible from the first day when a man rose from the dead to reverse the curse, to today when the world is becoming free from sin.  But evil is not dead.  The evil of Hollywood, Knives Out, Broadway, Hamilton, and all those who lie about the great things done on this earth by the Body of Christ, the Church, is real.  We must keep fighting, tell better stories, sing of His greatness, remember, and put down these lies when we can.  Middle Fingers up to Knives Out!

Further Reading:

Phantastes, George MacDonald

anything else by George MacDonald

Pinocchio, Original and Unabridged by Carlo Collodi

So civilized man moves into an area.  He builds houses which he owns,  in keeping with God’s law.  Do not steal implies that property ownership is good.  He forms a government to peacefully handle relationships between people in public spaces, again a good thing.  He grows tired of walking in the mud and so puts a boardwalk in front of his property.  But the streets are still a mess so the community gets together and paves them.  But who owns the streets?  The community does, they put in the effort, of time or money.  Yet they share the streets with outsiders because, we are an hospitable people.  But then addicts want to live on the streets.  Streets they didn’t build, or put any effort into, streets they show no respect for.  They spread garbage and drug needles all over the street. Is it inhospitable for those who put the effort into them, and those who maintain them, and those who respect the system handed to them, to ask the homeless to leave?

Self Portrait as a Beggar. Rembrandt. c.1630.

What are some other options?  Maybe these people can’t afford to meet the high standard of living required in the US today. Either by choice, laziness, or physical/mental incapacity.  But we don’t really know which is which anymore.  There are so many safety nets, again provided by the people, by their sweat, that it makes it hard to tell what is real.  But let’s consider the real cases, those who honestly can’t.  Who should take care of them?  Again God’s Law is pretty clear, their immediate families, then extended families, then the church(Ruth, I Tim. 5:8).  But there is a lot of breakdown here, families are broken down.  Whose fault is that?  Do we create communities legally or culturally that encourage families to cohere?  I think it’s pretty clear we don’t.  We are all mostly fine with divorce, including most in the church.  And government policies attacking families at every turn are also widely accepted. So the first line of defense is a failure.  What about the second?  In a further burden on these people the responsibility, which should be part of church ministry has been pawned off onto the government.  And the government doesn’t have a stash of money like most people think.  Those are resources deducted from every paycheck everyone earns.  Which means it’s a further burden to going to work every day.  Which creates more homeless. Because you not only have to earn enough to make your employer money, you have to make enough to pay the government to attack the family and handle the poor—poorly.  It’s no wonder some people just throw up their hands and live on the street, especially in California, where it’s warm.

So, what about people who really can’t contribute enough to afford living in the high standard created by our culture?  Well let’s say they can contribute some, they could work or do a task which would cover some percentage of their expenses.   Unfortunately they are not allowed to.  Welfare programs discourage work.  It’s all or nothing.  In addition minimum wage laws make it illegal for people who are not capable of producing the minimum wage to work.  So instead of encouraging people to be productive, to contribute even what they can, we tell them to stay home or on the street and that we will pay them a pittance to do nothing.  This seems really dumb.

Also, who decided that everyone needs to live in a gold plated society? Most cities have rules about minimum housing size/quality supposedly to prevent slum lords and help the poor.  But again they are pricing the poor out of the market.  If you can only afford 200 square feet, you are not allowed to make a private contract with someone for that space, because it’s illegal.  Again, it’s all or nothing.  And what about forcing landlords to charge the 200 square foot price for 500 square feet? Why isn’t that slavery?  Why should he put in the effort or money into building something of value and then be forced to give away free value?  Or you might say the government could subsidize it.  It’s really the same thing, only now you just got the government to go take money from person A the taxpayer, to give to person B.  You have made A a slave of B.  Of course people can freely give their money to help people in need.  That’s charity, the duty of the church, not the business of government.  And because no one connects these things anymore, they vote in more and more luxury items like parks, pools, bike lanes, running paths, walking paths, biking paths, open space and more parks.  Because they think it’s free.  But all of these things  drive up the cost of housing, in two ways, by decreasing the supply of land available for houseing and by raising taxes on existing property to pay to build and maintain them.  Maybe some people could form communities and actually afford all these things, but most can’t.  Forcing a gold plated society is generally immoral, when not based on charity, especially when you can’t afford it.    Making an affordable society illegal is also immoral.

People today want to talk about social justice.  Well slavery, destroying marriage and the family, and attacking what the poor can afford all seem pretty unjust to me.  You want to rewrite the definition of the family to suite your lust, this mess is the result.  You want the conveneince of leaving your marrige when it gets hard, this mess is the result.  You want to let the government do your dirty work, and handle hard people so you don’t have to, this mess is the result.  The problem with society out there is the problem with us in here.  And it’s pretty clear from history that if we stop this immoral behavior (I mean really stop it), social problems will work themselves out.  Those who can contribute, will have the meaning in their lives that comes from hard work.  Those who can only contribute a little will share the same blessings.  And those who can’t contribute can be cared for by their families and in those rare cases, by the church.

I know exactly how Democrats feel right now.  I watched the immoral Bill Clinton get elected.  Then I watched all his salacious behavior in office, under the actual Oval Office desk.  Then I watched him lie about it and question the meaning of the word ‘is’.  Then I watched the media faun over how he got away with lying.  I watched his political machine including James Carville treat all the women he had abused as if they were garbage.  Then I watched homosexuality become acceptable.  Then I watched oral sex be redefined as a completely acceptable thing to do to interns under your desk.

House Vote on Clinton Impeachment.

Then I watched the impeachment proceedings hoping he would be removed from office.  Of course there was still the Algore problem and isn’t it too bad that we changed the original Constitutional proportional representation to a winner-take-all system? But nothing really happened, he was disbarred, and he continued abusing women with his pals Jeffery Epstein and Harvey Weinstein and his slobbering political hack wife stood by him clinging to the scraps of hope that she would one day rule the world.  Then even though the world supposedly loved Clinton, 9/11 happened, the tech bubble popped, Enron happened, the housing crisis happened. The dream of the Clintons, became reality, a harsh one.

It is 21 years later, the evil Clintons have still not been put in their place, but there is another impeachment.  I followed the original line for a bit, lamenting that someone so immoral was elected.  But then there were no interns under the desk.  There was no dress.  The office is more respected than it was by the previous President. Religious freedoms were expanded, regulations were cut, excellent judges were appointed. Real evils like backpage.com were shut down.  Little tyrants across the globe are being brought to heel.  The insane liberal narrative is pushed back every day on Twitter.  Nothing immoral happened.  In fact many Democrats who had been living immorally for decades were called out by the overreaction to Trump, #metoo.

I know how you feel, but your feelings are unfounded.  While trying to act all pure as the wind driven snow, Democrats touted a sleazy lawyer and his porn star client, as a possible Presidential candidate. The only salacious details that did come out are in a document dreamed up by Christopher Steel which was used illegally by the previous administration to spy on Trump and create a phony Russia Collusion narrative. Democrats now celebrate the murder of their unborn children, in the streets, with signs, finally coming out of the back alley.  Impeachment is based on little more than the President asking Ukraine to restart an investigation they stopped at the behest of Biden.  Even as new and better trade deals are formed.  Though time will tell how these and his other actions fare, it is looking good so far.  And corruption at many levels of government is being rooted out.  Any of the evils which continue to expand like, accept gays as normal, or else.  Making crossdressing and child mutilation normal.  Hardly have anything to do with Trump.  This is certainly no Clinton presidency.

Like most sequels this isn’t as good as the original.  But it seems more good is being done.  Heaven is shining down upon us.

What exactly is worship?  Like many concepts or words, worship has become too familiar.  A watchful dragon as C. S. Lewis would put it.  We cozy up to it because it is ours, forgetting it is a slimy serpent.  Such dragons require the magic of elf land to free us from our delusion.

Thinking about some other contexts will free us from our dragons.  What does it mean to worship a king?  Of course a king wants praise, anyone does.  There is some new use of the word thirsty among the post Christians that means desiring online comments.  But this is only fun for a while.  Only the simple are content with mere praise.  And what is the praise for?  Most leaders want to earn their praise and be praise by those qualified to praise.  If someone praises your work, who knows nothing about your field, it doesn’t mean much.  And if you don’t have any work to praise it means even less, unless you are a Kardashian.  Perhaps there is some divergence between the sexes on this one.  Men like to accomplish and build things, women like to build relationships.  Relationships for relationships sake, is a house of cards or compliments as the case might be.  And so perhaps this feminine propensity has affected our view of praise in and around worship.  But there are very few kings who are known merely for being kings.  Well maybe if you count the Marxists, but in the pre modern world that wasn’t enough.  There have been many great leaders in history who were asses, yet we must revere them because they got things done.  This is true from Steve Jobs to Alexander the Great.

Saint Hedwig and the New Convent. Silesia, Poland. c. 1353.
“At the top of the page an inscription describes one of Saint Hedwig’s charitable acts: “Here she convinces her husband to have a monastery for Cistercian nuns built at Trebnitz with his own money.” Hedwig stands with her husband, supervising the construction of the building. Her emphatic gesture suggests that, although Henry supplied the funds, she was the guiding force of the project. Henry wears full ducal regalia, with numerous heraldic devices, while Hedwig is modestly dressed. On the right, laborers construct the Gothic building, using scaffolding and a pulley system. “

The first part of getting things, big things, done is getting other people to do what you want.  One man might throw words about on a blog but it takes many men to accomplish great things.  The pyramids on the plain of Giza are a testament to organization and leadership.  The great Pharaohs didn’t want praise they wanted every man to put those massive stones in the correct order, according to his plan.  He didn’t want sycophantic managers repeating ridiculous choruses over and over, he wanted them to get every last worker to work, to meet his goals.  And he heard the prase of every generation until now. But then a neighboring kingdom decides to attack.  He doesn’t just want people standing around telling him he is a good commander.  He wants to win the war.   He wants his generals to execute his battle plan.  And his generals want the same of those under them all the way down the line to the lowly foot soldier putting his foot in the right spot.  Refraining from badmouthing your superior is important but praise without works is dead as St. James might say(James 2:14).

There is little difference in these matters between a tyrant and a good leader.  Both want their commands followed.  The difference is in the goals or intentions.  Some men want only to make a name for themselves like Obama.  Other men like Churchill want to make all England great again.  But both must be obeyed.  One uses his talents for his own glory the other for the glory of all, which ultimately gets him more glory.  And so there is a slight distinction in the nature of the commands.  Tyrants issue arbitrary commands, which make no logical sense, in order to prove that they are obeyed.  If the command made sense the peon might just be doing what makes sense on his own.  If the command makes no sense you can be sure that he is doing it just because the tyrant commanded it. You see this in gangster movies.  Hold your hand over the flame—because I said so.  Shoot your friend—because I said so. Prove your loyalty.  Biblical leaders should never be tyrants but they should still be followed.  That’s how hierarchy works,  someone must lead.

For the Church, that someone is Jesus the Christ.  You would think this was simple.  But we Americans don’t like kings and we have been pretending for a long time that pastors are not leaders, that they are just hanging out and sharing.  We also pretend Jesus is not a King.  Which is why things have gotten so bad in our culture.  We have lots of praise floating around but nothing gets built.  Then we invent orthopraxies to suggest that buildings don’t matter, even though every person on the earth, ever, knows that they do.  Christ wants us to take dominion.  We are children of the king, we should be acting out his will, not just singing repetitive, simple, stupid praise choruses over and over until we feel good.  This doesn’t make Jesus feel good, it’s clear, as the King of Kings he isn’t interested in our stupid songs.  He wants his whole Kingdom to flourish, to defeat it’s enemies, to make the whole world one under his rule.  He wants us to build Christian things and write Christian books and compose Christian symphonies.  Where is the proof that you follow Jesus?  Is it just in your heart?  What good is that? Who cares how you feel?

I thought of another example, which has almost become so ridiculous as not even to work.  The feminists have ruined our concept of marriage, but I will try nonetheless.  What sort of marriage would it be where the woman said to her husband, “I like the way you make me feel on Sunday morning in the bedroom, but I don’t really want to have anything to do with you the rest of the week.”?  Sadly this is almost the case, in marriage and in the Church.  But the Bible, the New Testament even, says that Sarah was blessed when she called her husband Lord(I Peter 3:6).  And repeatedly the husband is said to be the head of the wife.  Surely even we can understand how shallow it is to only like your husband for sex, when he is making you feel good?  Surely we must see that wanting to execute his idea of a house for you and the kids is a good thing? And any decent husband only seeks to organize his house for the good of everyone in it.  Do you really think praising him for being a good husband and then not doing anything he says makes any sense?  Don’t you see this is a sure formula for sending him into depression?  To be praised for the work of your hands when it all disintegrates is not healthy.  Then why do we do the same thing to Jesus?  We repeat over and over “I have come to worship” and God is thinking, “Ok, good, so do it. Stop telling me you are going to do it and do it already!”  Stop telling him he is a good husband and instead trust what he says.  He is looking out for you, he loves you, so truly worship him by believing that. Do what he says.  Make his words reality and then he will have something worthy of praise. Other men will praise him in the gates as the Proverbs 31 woman accomplishes for her husband.  So we should see Christ praised in all the world, for our works of redemption.

We might need special revelation some day, when we have executed everything that the Bible already commands us. Like that rich young ruler saying “these have I kept from my youth, what should I do now?(Mat. 19:20)” it’s mostly ridiculous.  We don’t need something more.  Chesterton said that Christianity had not been tried and found wanting but found difficult and left untried.  So why don’t we make a change and stop talking about worship as mere words flung about in a warehouse thinly veiled to look like a church?  Worship is action.  The true Christian is a militant Christian.  Faith without works is dead.  Faith with works is true religion, true worship.  Do you love me?  Feed my lambs(John 21:17).  Do what I told you to do. He who loves me is he who does the will of my father(Mat. 12:50).  So stop allowing music to make you feel good on Sunday, and start feeling bad about what you don’t do the rest of the week.  This is true worship.