Poof!

Oh, well . . .

That was a long piece . . . and all I had to do was hit publish. But the publisher within me killed it. Sometimes it is the act of writing--sorting out thoughts and events and potentials--that serves the purpose. Other times, things get published because the need to respond is greater than the peace of solitude and personal reflection.

Some 3,000 words to the place wherever keyboards strokes of cyber-communication are sent when the delete key is hit. In Trekkian fashion, I could imagine that the cosmos channels all such to a specific location which, on some distant stardate in time, Kirk and Spock will wrestle with the great avalanche of lost words that threaten the Starship Enterprise and its crew. One can only imagine Spock intoning:

"Captain, it is logically obvious that if we set up a perimeter of ancient, rudimentary Canon and IBM printers, they will absorb any further shocks of the floating cyberwords crashing against the hull of the ship."

I have often wondered in spare moments, betwixt and between the crush-rush of this whatever we call daily life, what actually happens to each thing said and done and thought and existentially experienced by each of us? Is there some ultra-repository where all that has been, and will be tomorrow, is stored? And to what end?

Credit the theologians for having a ready answer for that, as they do many other things that science only wrings its hands about and wonders. God as a conceptual "filler-in-of-the-blanks" can satisfy many of the mysteries (real or so-called) of life. From things religious, to Him being on our side all the time in every war, to being the bad guy when things go wrong and the one thanked when things go right--especially at one special moment when it seems everyone believes in God (the cigarette after that is always the best!).

I myself, I believe the simple answer, because, as with all other things in life, it answers the most questions, and when all is said and done, stands when all the dust of the battle of life has settled. There is a right, and there is a wrong, and the subjectivism that passes for present day morality is really a deep chasm into which one does not merely descend, but casts oneself headlong, almost certainly never to be retrieved.

I used to love Rush Limbaugh. I was his biggest fan, because in my journey of growing up, he was there at that very point when I had realized that the philosophy of the left was no more than man replacing God with man, and doing a rather poor job of playing God to other men. To me, Rush vocalized what seemed to be an elementary understanding of the nature of things. It could be defined, measured, and appropriately packaged or stored as either a useful commodity, or discarded and burned. Black and white emerged from the grey shadows of subjectivism, as I saw things then. But there was one little annoying thing about it all ...

It wasn't merely Limbaugh's quaint little schtick about how he was correct 97-point-whatever of the time, but the fact that as I further observed the very matters he espoused and embraced, I kept finding myself thinking he was like Oz, speaking from behind a curtain that signaled, theologically--invincibility--all the while, setting off alarms within that said God did not come from Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

One day, I just quit listening. It grew into a second day, then four, then a month . . . that was 10 years ago. At the same time, I got loose on the internet, discovered the thing called a search engine, and lo and behold, I had what anyone with a theological degree would consider the closest thing to the Last Day. Short of the final revelation of all things by God, I could do a search online on any topic whatsoever, and get results.

Whoa!

I virtually forgot about Ole What'shisname on the radio. And I discovered that there is not some odd alternative truth lurking out there, but that the alternative truth is the one most all Americans, and the world, have chosen to embrace as their worldview. I stumbled, happenstance, across an article entitled Jesus Is an Anarchist. Anyone can google it and read--some folks knee-jerk away from it, true, but since few have traveled the theological route, that is understandable. In any case, twenty-five years of theological studies found culmination, with the simple realization of one small fact--

God told Israel they did not need a king.

That might seem to be theological trivia not worth a moment's thought to most, but it hit me like a bunker-buster in the brain. All the other threads that had been forming in my thoughts suddenly weaved together, and I immediately began to review life in light of two opposites . . . government, and the lack thereof.

With it, I realized that a social compact/contract, did not need the formation of a government. All other political theorists have automatically assumed a government was necessary to fulfill that role. I came to realize what others--most notably Henry David Thoreau, a la Strike The Root--had always known . . .

In essence--government is our excuse for being too lazy to be free.

Unfortunately, that realization caused more problems, initially, than it solved. Problems that still exist to this day. When my mother asks my opinion on this or that in the news, I can only say "It is interesting." I tried once explaining what I had found to her, and frankly, I won't go there ever again. Likewise with the bro's and sis'--except my youngest sister. She understands, but she hasn't grabbed the ring just yet. I kinda think she will eventually.

My son? I found it ironic that he was in many ways already there . . . and he credited me for being that way in raising him. Something in my sub-concious all those years? Perhaps, but I am more inclined to think that it is in the sub-concious thoughts of us all--even--hard-wired as part of the system. We intrinsically know we are supposed to be free--and free to learn from the Creator without restrictions from those who pretend to be God and rule our lives.

There, I said it. Government is a false god, an idol, a caricature of the ideal, and when the "ideal" questioned Israel about wanting the idol instead of the real deal, they took the idol. So do we.

While virtually everyone defines anarchy as some vague, violent lawless sort of thing, the word has a very simple meaning: without a ruler. Can it be an simpler? No. The critic might say--"Well, reversion to such a thing means that God is your ruler now." Uh, no, not quite. The Lord's Prayer--prayed by gazillions of people everyday, puts the lie to God as a ruler, does it not? "Our Father" . . .

So, in a roundabout (the licks to which my son is now amusing himself on the guitar, for those in the know), I am enjoying yet another roundabout in life. I write too much, say too much, think too much, prolly drink too much beer but I am Irish so that doesn't count, and I think that tomorrow will be even better than today.

So if, on a distant planet, Mr. Spock comes face to face with my cyberwords presently presumed lost wherever, I hope that his worst comment might be his trademarked raised right eyebrow.

That would be a compliment.

Poof. Outta here. :-)