MAY 2022
One of the most common theological questions – especially these days – “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?”
One answer. This points to God’s threefold will: (i) his perfect will, (ii) the will of his law, and (iii) his permissive will. Ideally, what God wants is for us to observe his perfect will – living in integrity and rejecting vice and error (sin), without needing to be directed or disciplined to do so. Living truthfully and embodying goodness, naturally. This would result in little or no need for suffering (purification). If we fail to observe his perfect will, and instead, choose to live in vice and error (which we do), we then come under the will of his law. Basically, he gives us laws and standards to follow. If we follow them (which we don’t), more suffering (purification) is necessary, but not a ton. Finally, if we ignore all that, and just live selfishly for ourselves (which most people do), as if our life is all ours to do with whatever we like, then we come under God’s permissive will. He allows suffering (purification) to accumulate and escalate, generating greater and deeper disharmony, until we finally start to observe his innate, baked-in, natural teachings by way of our own free will. Ultimately, this leads to a path of intuitive, rational, humble alignment with his original perfect will. The good go onward. In stark contrast, selfish, ignorant, world-focused people are obliterated. Destroyed forever. Total equity and perfect justice. Everyone judged equally, based on their own free will choices, proportionate to their abilities.
That’s the short version.
It gets more complex when we consider that, at times, God also brings suffering on truly good people (like Paul, John, James, Job etc.), when he wishes for them (and others) to see something of particular importance in their educational journey. Once again, it is not punishment, but purification for the purpose of encouraging profound honesty and humility; essential qualities for genuine in-dwelling Spirit.
Suffering arises when veils of falsehood are torn away, burned, and reduced to ashes. This tearing, burning, and deconstruction is painful. But it purifies. Happens to us all throughout life, to varying degrees. Ultimately, suffering is not a bad thing. You can remind me of this next time I am in debilitating nerve pain hell from my wonky spine. Or a loved one suffers with cancer, dementia, MS, etc. A hard lesson to witness, within and without.
God’s perfect will for us always means the best, strongest, deepest, most loving, most sincere, most gracious inner being. We just can’t always perceive that from the fleeting space-time preparatory schoolroom of Earth. God always knows what is best for us. We don’t.
Just one esoteric theological view.
NK
Footnotes.
1. The issue of why innocent children suffer is too lengthy to address here. Involves pre-incarnate spiritual agreement, conditions of fallenness, and God’s omniscience (future seeing, whole knowledge). The passage of true innocents to the next world is assured.
2. For linguistics buffs, technically, the above question can properly be considered a “theodicean” question. That is, a question relating to theodicy, the branch of theology that deals with the existence of evil in a good God’s creation.
JAN 26, 2022
Truth is a fire. Incandescent and enriching. Ferocious and annihilating. Do you know how to hold it in your hands? Can you afford to bring it into your life? It burns everything it comes into contact with. Genuine things are enlivened by this burning. False things are devastated by it. If a person’s life has become too disingenuous, too compromised, too fake, then the scenery of home, work, relationships, perceptions, and aspirations becomes like desiccated parchment. Introducing a living flame into this tinderbox will lead to spectacular disintegration. Mental and emotional super-meltdowns; agonizing catastrophes of no value to most. So, if you ever wonder why people won’t accept the truth of something – even when the irrefutable reality is right in front of them – this is one reason. Truth burns down lies. Eventually, all of them.
JAN 10, 2022
Emotional intelligence = intimacy. The greater the emotional intelligence, the greater the faculty for intimacy. Without emotional intelligence, no real intimacy is possible. (1). Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, express, and manage emotions. It is both inwardly and outwardly essential for healthy relationships. It is a practice. It requires honesty, fortitude, refinement, and spiritual propriety. (2). Intimacy is the capacity for deep contact. From the Latin intimus: inmost, innermost, deepest. Without intimacy, we cannot know ourselves, each other, or God. Because of this, emotional intelligence and its powerful relationship with intimacy lies at the very center of spiritual life. Especially germane in these times of encouraged emotional naivety and gross narcissism. GENUINE deep hearted contact in one’s personal life unveils truth and accelerates the disintegration of evil worldwide.
DEC 25, 2021
Christmas is bloody strange at the best of times. There are some wonderful moments. The hallowed contemplation of divinity. The beauty of winter solstice mists and ice. Glimmering lights in warm homes and tall trees. The fragrances of feasts and frivolity. Good people coming together in love, laughter, and peacefulness. And… there are some uniquely bizarre horrors too. Especially in these times of open lunacy. For many, the excruciating spectacle of witnessing the credibility of frayed family delusions being stretched to the absolute limit. Will the grotesque artifices be held together by string, chewing gum, and cocktails for another year? Or will it all completely disintegrate? Which is best? And there are far graver trials. Plenty of people haunted by loneliness, often in secret. Others fighting to stay afloat amid illness, debt, poverty, despair. All further amplified by the calculated depiction of a consumer Christmas. Certainly, a lot of people are not really where they want to be at Christmas, on many levels. Just as there are some who are exactly where they want to be and feel blessed. For everyone though, Christmas is utterly ruthless in how it discloses our relationship with truth. How we genuinely feel inside, how we live, how we think, how we lament, what we yearn for, what we need. All laid bare at this time of year. Wherever you are in this procession of teachings, know that God loves you whether you know it or not, like it or not, feel it or not. You are being cherished, known, and tested, night and day. Meet the challenge head-on by uncompromisingly choosing truth in 2022. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
DEC 14, 2021
Our approach to reality dictates what level of anxiety we feel. My approach to life on earth is that it’s half classroom, half battlefield. I expect to be tested. I expect to suffer. I expect to encounter evil. I expect long campaigns. I expect it to be hard. I expect to be held 100% accountable for my inner state and outer actions. I am not here on vacation to be happy and fulfilled. That is a profoundly immature and anti-spiritual point of view that many people nevertheless fetishize to damaging degrees of selfishness. And yet. I see massive courage in this world, shining truth, exalted beauty, deep kindness, endless creativity, miraculous healing, enriching wisdom, and transformative love. Sometimes a bit. Sometimes a ton. These are the character traits we are being taught, slowly but surely, step by step. So many gifts from the Creator. Hints at what is to come after basic training in this world. For now, it’s about cultivating right context and attitude. Good approach = abiding peace. Bad approach = creeping anxiety.
SEP 8, 2021
We are currently receiving a first-class education in evil. Glory be. Everything is so clear and starkly polarized. No excuses for not knowing evil anymore. Here’s my take on just one topic. Your personal healthcare choices are your private business. You take responsibility for your own body and, naturally, act conscientiously towards others. Like all mature reasonable people would do every day. Reality check. Mandating or coercing vaccinations is evil. Immoral, unethical, unprincipled wrongness of the highest order. What you decide about your medical life is your business alone. Nothing to do with anyone else. Not governments, schools, institutes, corporations, no-one. It’s not even a question of whether you’re vaccinated or not. That’s up to you. It’s about whether you have confidential authority over your own body. You do. Even when you’re told you don’t. Embody the truth.
Compelling people to disclose personal medical histories is grossly improper and invasive. I hope you will remember those who participate in vaccine intimidation so you can vote them out or boycott them. This isn’t always on independent businesses, who are often ordered into adopting stupid measures and put in a real tough position by governors or county health officers. If your local authorities, government, or employer are complicit in this evil, I’m sorry. But now you know what kind of people you’re dealing with. They are uninterested in objective reality, disapproving of personal liberty, and prefer instead to willfully propagate tyranny. Sad, but critically important to recognize. On the flipside, be sure to acknowledge people and organizations who respect your privacy, individual authority, and freedom. Give them your time, patronage, and thanks. Upstanding, thinking, honest, moral people doing the right thing. Especially now. Hold tight. Our life on earth is a supernatural teaching. Good and evil. Right in front of your eyes. That’s why we came here. Know this above everything. Your individual truthful choices matter more than anything else in the world.
MAR 31, 2021
Self-described recovering liberals have been emailing me a lot recently. Not to complain about me being European, or English, or American, or middle class, or male, or heterosexual, or carrying a 45, or questioning the consensus, or talking about God, or liking the constitution, or birdwatching, or not getting vaccinated, or anything like that. No. But rather to fess up to something that’s become crystal clear to them over the last few months. They are recognizing that modern democratic socialism, along with its associated identity politics constructs, is all a complete and utter disaster. And with a volcano of political sewage already erupting from the current unpresidency, there’s plenty of visible evil to corroborate latent suspicions of gross malpractice.
People are also beginning to wise up to one of empire’s favorite psycho-emotional tactics. The con is predicated on the interrogation model of leveraging a child’s desire to please the authority of a dysfunctional mother and father. Through prolonged conditioning (mostly through school, media, and tech), the bad guardianship appeasing impulse is broadened into an adult subservience to unjust governmental authorities. The principle is the same. Unthinking acquiescent behavior is rewarded with acceptance and love. Thinking autonomous behavior is punished with rejection and hate. This accounts for the apparent ease with which otherwise sensible people are apt to throw logic and reason out the window. It’s a conditioned emotional response, not a rational thinking one. Never underestimate how badly people will deceive themselves for the faintest rumor of acceptance and love.
Once again, the ghastly situation we see out there in the big sad world, is due to the damaging complacency of ordinary people. The connection is unmistakable. Unthinking acquiescence sustains empire. Morons and empire suckle on each other like something from a grotesque Hieronymus Bosch painting. The reverse is also true. Every time a single person is roused from their own selfish hallucinations, and starts to think honestly, examine reality, and exercise discernment – empire slips another inch downwards toward its final theologically inescapable state of eternal oblivion. It is happening right now before our very eyes. The worse things get, the more people wake up (those who were ever going to wake up, that is). The more people wake up, the better things get. Either way, goodness wins.