Breathe

“Father,
may everything we do
begin with your inspiration
and continue with your saving help
Let our work always find its origin in you
And through you reach completion.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.”

The modern definition of inspiration is the drawing in of breath. A more exact meaning is to breathe into something. The Greek word used for Holy Spirit in Holy Scripture is  pneuma.  Pneuma deals with the movement of air. It is also translated as wind or breath. Anywhere in Holy Scripture you see the word wind or spirit you can substitute breath, as in the breath of God. It really gives scripture a new feel when read this way.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the breath of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” – Genesis 1: 1 -2

“But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused his breath to pass over the earth, and the water subsided.” – Genesis 8:1

“And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing breath, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Breath and began to speak with other tongues, as the Breath was giving them utterance.” – Acts 2: 2-4

There are two parts to breathing, inhalation and exhalation. We breathe in, we breathe out. Kids often threaten their parents with holding their breath until they turn blue. If they hold their breath long enough they will pass out and begin to breathe normally again. The opposite of inspire is expire, to breathe out of the lungs.

When God inspires us, that is, when he breathes into us his Holy Spirit we must expire this breath for breathing to be complete. We cannot hold it in. It is not ours to keep. God fills us with his spirit so we may accomplish his will. He gives us talents and gifts to serve him and our fellow man but he also fills us with the breath we need to do this. We do not get inspiration to serve ourselves. Inspiration is always given for the service of others.

A body that has no breath within it is dead. Likewise, a person without the Holy Spirit is also dead. We receive the Holy Spirit at our baptisms when God breathes into us our new life in Christ. We rise from the font of baptism as a baby emerging from the womb. As we suck in that first breath of our new life the Spirit of God fills our lungs anew. And like the baby just from the womb there is little more we can do but breathe. We must learn to use this new spirit within us. We must continue to grow in faith until we are mature enough to use this breath for the purpose God gave it to us. Baptism is not just a onetime event where we get pictures with a man in funny robes and then go home, have some cake, and return to our lives lived the same way. We have just received God’s Holy Breath and have been made into new creatures with new life.

                “Father, may everything we do begin with your inspiration,”

Breath into us Lord your Holy Breath,

                “and continue with your saving help”

Lead us and guide us throughout this day,

                “Let our work find its origin with you”

Not my will but yours be done,

                “and through you reach completion.”

Use me, Lord, as an instrument of your will.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Breathe in – breathe out – repeat.

The Death of a Culture through the Culture of Death - Part III

“But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are allied with him experience it.” – Wisdom 2: 24

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned –“ – Romans 5:12

What does the devil have to be envious of from us? He is an immortal angel so much above us. But God shared with man something we did not share with the angels. God shared creation with man. We co-create with God new life. God gives the flesh an immortal soul so man, woman, and God create new immortal souls. Husband, wife, and child share the same type of connection as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Angels are created through the same love we are and share love but do not have the type of special union a sacramental marriage has.

The devil is envious of this. So much so that he rebelled from God and fell from grace. Now he spends eternity trying to destroy that which God created and he was not part of. He has attacked God’s creation at every level. Contraception gets us to walk away from our special gift of procreation. New Saints aren’t made. Abortion gets us to murder the children that do get created. The marital act went from being about unification and procreation to being a selfish act of pleasure. Marriages have become sterile and have gone from a sacramental covenant to a contract were each person gets something from the other for a designated period of time. When each no longer get what they want the marriage dissolves and they move on to another contract with another person.

As time feminized the man the role of father was trivialized and diminished. More and more the empowered woman took on the role of both mother and father. You cannot pass on what you do not have so children became less and less formed as they grew older. The model family that God designed began to decay to a bunch of single parent households where kids are often left to fend for themselves while the sole parent works to barely pay the bills.

The family, not the individual, is the primary building block of society. As the family decayed the society quickly followed. Things that were once taboo became common place as all boundaries were pushed. There was a time where you wouldn’t see a toilet on TV and married couples slept in different beds. Today you can easily see what could be considered soft porn during family hour. We have grown numb to it. In generations past people used to court another, that is, date someone with the intention to marry. Today there are apps that allow someone to swipe left or right in order to find a stranger to hook up with for the night.

When I was a teen our video games were Pacman, Pole Position, and Super Mario Bros. The most violent they got was having an animated ape throw barrels at Luigi or Mario stomping on a turtle. Our cartoons always had a coyote getting blown up but never dying. Today nine out of ten video games involve realistic killing, stealing, or other morally questionable conduct. You can’t play for very long before you are steeped in vulgarity, even from the kids as young as eight.

We have trivialized the father, masculinized the woman, feminized the male, destroyed tradional marriage, glorified violence, made women objects of pleasure, and instilled a culture of death. We have drilled into our kids a sense of entitlement to any and everything they could possibly want, including the ability to choose a gender to identify with. Few things are off limits and then we are surprised and shocked when a person has a fit of rage and does something tragic like shoot up a school. What is the big deal? Twenty-two people were shot and killed in the city of Chicago yesterday and no one cared. Over 3500 babies were murdered through abortion on the same day. No national outrage. No candlelight vigils. No sobbing teens on the nightly news demanding someone do something to stop the senseless violence. Just 3500 Americans who have been denied a voice because they didn’t have one to cry out for help with.

America is at a crossroad. When we have a city leveled by a hurricane, a tornado, or a wildfire we don’t sit back and wring our hands and say, “Why oh why? Why us, oh why us???” Americans come together, roll up our sleeves and get to the work of rebuilding that which was lost. That is exactly what we need to do now. Rebuild.

Our society is in shambles and if we are to rebuild we need to start with the primary building block, the family. Men need to reclaim their manhood. They need to accept the job of father. We need to accept that, although man and woman are equal partners in raising the next generation, there are two distinct genders with unique and required roles that one cannot do completely for the other. This is by design from a loving God or evolution. Take your pick. I am Christian so I recognize that God has designed us and without him we fail. If you are an atheist who believes strictly in evolution and you get to the same point so be it.

Pope Paul VI said four things would happen if contraception use became wide spread:

1: There would be an increase to marital infidelity.

Marriage has gone from a lifetime covenant to a limited time contract. Husbands and wives can easily cheat on each other without fear of pregnancy. Divorce among first time couples is well over fifty percent. We have entered an age where people care more about the hook-up, even with a complete stranger, than finding a spouse they will be with forever. It is rare for kids these days to graduate high school in an intact, non-blended family.

2: There would be a general lowering of moral standards.

We live at a time when moral relativism rules the day. Few believe there is one standard given to us from above for all to follow. The question no longer is, “Is that moral?” The question now is, “Am I good (by my standards)” Things like cheating and lying are no longer viewed as wrong but as expected. I am going to cheat on this test. If you catch me you can’t do anything about it. Everyone does it so it must be ok.

3: There would be a loss of respect for women.

All you have to do to see this is listen to just about any rap song. Pornography addiction is epidemic, even among women and girls. Girls as young as eight are sending naked pictures of themselves through social media. Now we have had a flood of women in Hollywierd who have come out with stories of abuse. Women who aspire to traditional roles like motherhood are often chastised and attacked even by those women who claim to be fighting for the betterment of women.

4: Governments would use contraception to forcibly intervene in citizens' sexual relationships.

This is easier to see in places like China, India, or Japan where people are punished, forcibly sterilized, and sometimes even executed for violating the country’s child birth policies. Luckily we have not had these types of things happen in the United States, yet.

For an old, white, celibate, Italian man I think he pretty much hit the nail on the head. Hopefully it is not too late to reverse the damage that has been done but it will take everyone to embrace life to counter the culture of death that has destroyed our culture. We cannot do this secretly in the privacy of our own homes. We must become a living witness to the truth and stand up for life wherever it is threatened or robbed. Don’t allow yourself to be fooled into believing the lie that death is better than a low standard life. One of those is permanent. There is always hope that the other can improve.

If we want to end the culture of death we have to embrace life from conception to natural death and restore the dignity that is due to every person.

The Death of a Culture through the Culture of Death Part II

The sexual revolution gave birth to the modern feminist movement, although it really wasn’t about feminism at all. A real feminist movement would have exulted the virtues and beauty of women. What we got instead was the masculinization of women and the feminizing of masculinity. The woman power moment measured its worth against that of the male. They demanded to do everything a man did, wear what a man does, and yes, even have sex like a man, with no attachment.

At the same time they tried to reduce the role of men as much as possible. Even today we see the more radical of this group call for the total abortion of male babies. It is in a man’s nature that where we don’t perceive a need for us we will step back. As more and more women stepped up and demanded to be treated as totally equal to a man more and more men stepped aside. This included the role of father and head of the family.

Then on January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision that would result in the murder of over sixty million Americans; a number that grows by the thousands each and every day. That was of course the historic Roe v Wade case on the legality of abortion. SCOTUS did not rule that a woman had a right to an abortion, nor did she have complete control and say over her body. What SCOTUS said was that we, as a society, have never officially stated when a life begins so they cannot say that a fetus is a life. If it is not in law that a fetus is a human life they cannot rule that it cannot be terminated. They did say that the state does have an interest in that fetus and may restrict abortions at some point, generally around the third trimester. If we, as a society, define by law when a life begins the abortion debate becomes null and void. The murder of the most innocent among us will continue until we are brave and sane enough to define by law when a human life begins.

Christians believe in a triune God, that is, one God consisting of three persons. These distinct persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At the very heart of God is agape. Agape is sacrificial love. It is the total giving of one’s self for another without expectation of anything in return. It is the truest sense of love. It is love perfected. It is through this love that all creation came into being and because of this love that God took on flesh and became like us to die for our salvation and redemption.

When perfect love is shared perfectly it wants to create and create is what God did. God made man in his own image and seeing God is a family he made man into a family. The family is also modeled in the triune fashion – father, mother, and child. At the heart of every family is God and at the heart of God is sacrificial love. At the nucleus of every family is agape. To quote and correct Obi Wan Kenobi agape surrounds us. It penetrates us. It binds all creation together. To quote a woman I met on a flight once, agape is what occupies the space between atoms and between the particles of atoms.

God created father and mother to be equal in authority but different in function. The tie that binds a husband and wife together is supposed to be sacrificial love. It was designed to be the total giving of one to the other without the expectation of something returned. This is called a covenant and lasts until one of the two dies. The love between father and mother is so strong that it manifests itself as a new creation that you have to give a name to – children. Father and mother then pass along the attributes unique to their gender and purpose, infused with agape, to create the next generation.

Marriage was designed by God with two purposes. The first is unification. Agape between husband and wife unifies them as a one flesh creation. The two become one that no one is allowed to separate. The second purpose of a marriage is procreative. This union of man and wife brings about the next generation. We join with God to co-create new life so that we can fill heaven with Saints. That is the meaning of life in a nutshell.

So the pill led to feminism and feminism led to mass shooting. Time to fill in the missing pieces.

Next up – Romans 5:12 and the reason why there is so much hate in the world today.

The Death of a Culture Through the Culture of Death - Part 1

A lazy doctor treats symptoms without concern for their cause. A good doctor uses the symptoms to lead him to find the true cause of the problem. The lazy doctor can relieve you of the symptoms for a time. A good doctor can get you on the road to better health.

In the wake of yet another act of senseless violence we have seen the typical knee-jerk reaction we have come to expect. If we had only had better gun laws and background checks this could have been prevented. This party or that party is to blame for doing nothing. The truth of the matter is that no gun law or background check can prevent a person with evil intent from doing harm. Even if every gun in America had been confiscated decades ago these tragedies would still be occurring. Cain did not need a gun to kill Able and neither does the modern day monster. The gun is nothing but a means and violence a symptom of a much darker disease.

So what is behind the increase of violence in America? A godless academia will never be able to find the root cause because they view the contributing factors to all be good things for a free people. We have an increase in violence because we have embraced a culture of death in this county. This did not happen overnight. We had to slowly embrace death as a way of life for the better part of a century. We have become boiled frogs. If you take a frog and throw it into a pot of boiling water it will instinctively jump out. If you put a frog into a pot of cold water and slowly increase the heat it will stay in the pot until it is boiled to death. That is America. We are boiled frogs.

The tale on how we got to this point is a long one. For sake of time I am going to start at chapter six, where things really get going. In May of 1960 the FDA approved Enovid to be sold in the United States. Enovid was the first legal birth control pill. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and Enovid was on that road. The pill was created to assist with prudent family planning and as a method of population control. The pill had been in the works since the depression. The thought was that if we had smaller families we would have more resources available for each child. This was a strategy to combat poverty. A motivating factor for one of the pill’s creators, Margaret Sanger, was eugenics. In short, eugenics encourages certain races to reproduce while attempting to stop other races from reproducing. For Sanger, the pill was a way to reduce the black and Hispanic populations in this country.

What the pill did was allow women to start having sex like men. Up to this point when a woman had sex she did so at the risk of her own life. Medical science still wasn’t all that advanced and there was a majority of women who would die from complications with or leading up to delivery. Sex for a woman was an all in proposal. The pill allowed women to have sex without the fear of getting pregnant. This sparked the sexual revolution which led to the predicament we are in today.

On July 25, 1968 an old, white, celibate, Italian guy by the name of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini released a prophetic paper that was met with great controversy. That man was better known as Pope Paul VI and the paper his encyclical Humane Vitae (Of Human Life). In that encyclical Pope Paul made four predictions on what would happen in society if the use of birth control became widespread and common place. His predictions were:

1: There would be an increase to marital infidelity.

2: There would be a general lowering of moral standards.

3: There would be a loss of respect for women. They would be reduced down to mere objects used for satisfaction of desire.

4: Governments would use contraception to forcibly intervene in citizens' sexual relationships.

One does not have to look very far to see how hauntingly accurate Pope Paul VI really was. So how do we make the leap from free sex to mass shootings? For that you will have to continue reading.