The end of the world is coming. But, you already knew that.

The end of the world comes every day, and it is always coming in every generation of man. It's always something. When I was in school I was treated to propaganda movies predicting the end of the world by Ice Age, by over-population, by pollution. A man and woman leave the restaurant together, and as they do so, don their gas masks. One says to the other: "Well, it's almost 1983..."

Laugh

out

loud.

But of course, the end of the world did come, we are told, in the form of a great flood. In my bathroom I have a little picture of Noah's Ark. The Ark has a multitude of windows in the picture - like a cruise ship. All the happy animals are checking out the view.

Well, if Noah had designed the Ark it may have looked something like that. I know if I were to design an Ark to carry the seed of Creation it would have lots of windows. Heck, I'd add some sun decks, shuffleboard courts, a swimming pool - all mod cons. Why not see the end of the world in luxury? Goodness - it seems the obvious thing.

The real Ark, however, was designed not by Noah but by God, we are told. God gave Noah very specific instructions about just how to build this vessel. They resemble other very specific instructions about how to build another Ark later on - the one which would carry the Covenant. What is an Ark? An Ark is a container, a vessel of some sort designed to contain something, a box, a Body.

Unlike the picture in my bathroom, the Ark God designed had only one window. Try to imagine driving your car by looking only through the sun roof. Indeed, it would have been just like that for Noah, for the window looked out not upon the flood waters but up into the sky. No happy animals looked out a multitude of windows upon the screaming multitude of humanity awash in the end of the world - no no no no NO, you sillies. Noah might have had only God's word to assure him there was even a flood at all! He couldn't see it.

Put yourself there aboard that Ark. Can you hear the people screaming? Can your hear your neighbors' fingernails digging into the wood, as they trod upon the bodies of their drowned children - just like in Hitler's gas chambers - Can you hear that? Maybe Noah could hear the calamity. Maybe not.

Maybe he had nothing except his faith to tell him there had been a flood at all. Just as he had nothing but his faith to assure him that there would be one - because God said so. To top it off, Noah had nothing but his faith to steer the Ark. He didn't really need to steer it, did he? His one window allowed him only to see the one singular thing of any importance: his God above in the Heavens. The flood? Well, I suppose the flood would have taken care of itself without Noah having to watch it happen.

God's promise to Noah - His Covenant with Noah - is what the Ark really carried. Just as later on in our Book the children of Israel built another Ark to carry another Covenant. At last, the Body of Christ is the vessel of the New Covenant.

What's a Covenant? Well, it's like a contract; it must begin with a contract. In a Marriage there is a contract, to begin with - an agreement which is legally binding. And we know that the larger part of Law is concerned with unbinding what was thus bound, tearing down what was constructed. The Brazen Tower - Tower of Babel - that is just like a legally-binding contract - something we build, not out of the solid Rock (God) but rather the ever-shifting sand (Flesh, Matter). It is practically made to be broken. But a Covenant begins with a contract. It is then made permanent. When it is permanent it becomes a Covenant.

We know nothing in the world is permanent. The Apocalypse we so anxiously desire will come. There is no question of that. You will die. It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when - to cop a phrase. Nothing is permanent that is made of Matter. That includes our bodies, of course.

But there is a Body, both physical and supernatural, that will never change, never fall apart, never die (again). Just as that flood will never come (again). This Body is an Ark, a vessel, a container that carries a Covenant. It is Christ. So, it must follow that a Covenant, if it is to be permanent, must be something that exists in Heaven.

It isn't on earth. If it were, it would have been washed away. All we have is a single window, and it doesn't look out on the changing world - the world that is always ending. It looks upon the only thing that never changes, and never ends.

Noah's story is a story about faith. There's lots more in there, too - if'n you want to go down the rabbit hole. I would build a multitude of windows in an Ark of my own creation. I would want to see the calamity - see the trouble. But, Noah's story tells us not to gaze at the trouble. Fix our eyes only on Him; put Him in place of the trouble. And what will happen? The flood will subside and the world will be renewed.

Close your eyes at night and the world ends. Open them in the morning and the world is put back together. How will the world be assembled today? Will we build it out of the ever-shifting sand of our silly, breakable contracts? Or, will we build it out of the Rock - stone, like Solomon's Temple - the Covenant?

Just a thought. I was in my bathroom this morning - in Thinker's position - and there it was, my little picture of the Ark. 

I posted a Lights Out episode starring Boris Karloff over on Heavenly Days. It's one I particularly like. I have a cassette tape recording of "Cat Wife" with much better sound quality. Why am I telling you that? You wanna come over? I'll play it for you. We'll have lemonade or something.

I'm painting an 1830's farmhouse during the nights, whilst pursuing my usual daily adventures. That's why my posts are sporadic. But I write every single day. I write something every day, even if it's just a random thought, or group of thoughts. Well, geese come in flocks, fish in schools, lions in prides, and crows in murders. Thoughts? Mine are not at all like crows. They arrive unassembled, like these great Adirondack chairs I found at my local Ace Hardware - all cedar - only 30 bucks! That's a deal.

Yes, this posting of The White Lodge has been brought to you by Ace Hardware... They better pay my invoice.

Anyhoooooooo,

I have a business partner who really needs her own TV reality program. I suppose I would be in it in some capacity. Oh, here's my normal friend, John! Can you imagine? Somebody calling me normal?

The picture in my head is of a young lady splashed on the front page of both NY newspapers, looking a little worse for wear. Still haven't figured out how that's news, but I've never understood the appeal of celebrity. Oh - I hear a lot of reasonable sounding explanations, but none of them really account for it sufficiently. I'm thinking: in my experience - which I admit amounts to no more than hundreds rather than thousands - no one under the age of 35 (maybe 30?) recovers from alcoholism, assuming that's what the young lady has. What I mean is I have never personally known, or even heard of, a youngster successfully recovering - that is, getting more than a year or three together. That's not to say it doesn't happen. Just an anecdotal basis for saying that it is less likely under a certain age. I wonder why that is? I don't know.

That's what I say whenever I don't know something - I don't know. What do you think? Good? Is that a good thing to say when you don't know something? Whatever. The poor thing...

There's an old story about the Indians who witnessed the arrival of Christopher Columbus. I doubt it's true - so I'll tell it. The best kind of story to tell is the kind you can preface that way, right?

When Columbus arrived the Indians were unable to see his ships, according to the story. Oh, they were in clear view - right there in the water. (Maybe that's ship - singular. Did all three make it? I don't remember. Who cares?) The Indians were unable to see the sailing ship(s) with their eyes - even though they were right there in front of them - because the Indians had no image in their minds, their experience, of anything remotely resembling a sailing ship. Perception precedes reality is the point of that story.

I think the story is a crock because the Indians probably would have seen what appeared to be really really big canoes, and the ships were made of wood, I gather, and the Indians certainly knew what wood looks like. But let's accept the point of the story for the moment, or for the sake of - well, not argument 'cuz I'm not in the mood, but for the sake of something. Perception precedes reality.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say perception alters reality because that takes a smaller leap. I'll buy that: perception alters reality, sure. I've witnessed that much. My business partner who really requires a reality TV show inhabits a somewhat different reality than I do. Different sorts of things happen to her that don't ever happen to me. Our realities intersect at various place - that's how we're able to see each other and say, Hello, how are you today? Would you like some cheese? - or something like that. I write a lot about wavelengths - people traveling through time and space in different wavelengths. This is what I mean.

Somewhere in Proverbs we are told What I fear the most has come to pass; What I dread befalleth me. And, my friend fears. And, as she fears, there is much of that befallething. (Yes, I wrote that. Thank you, good night.) Is she psychic? No - definately not. Can't give me a good tip on the horses to save her skin, God bless her. But, if she locks her door she will be the one the thief picks out. If she buys insurance she will be the one to need it.

A very practical person. Lots of common sense. I do wonder if sense is really that common, but there you are.

Never had a job. You know, the way people do. Always working. But she has absolutely no idea what it is to punch a clock. Why? Well, she's a hustler. Not rich - oh no. Born into a 'working poor' family, neighborhood, all that, she decided one day to start doing whatever - selling something, making something. Making something and selling it. She became a well-known and sought-after fashion designer. She has pictures of herself standing next to presidents, the whole bit.

It's almost as if by managing and juggling so many diverse enterprises - for she has quite a few - something has to fall apart, so it may as well be a wheel on a car or a doorknob that sticks, or a precancerous tumor that requires eviction.

Well.

I see some things that other people are unable to see. I admit it. And I know for certain other people see things I don't see. I'm not crazy. I just have a different way of looking at things. Where one may see a tree I see its shadow. Where one may see sailing ships I see large, floating women in purple dresses eating chocolate chip cookies. I also see sailing ships, but I like my version better because it's just so daffy.

I don't know. What do you know?

Anyhooo, my friend - business partner, whatever - used to ask me to come along on jobs that require wrangling people. I love people; people love me back. They're crazy, of course. They go nuts under pressure. They drive too fast. They eat comfort foods. They care about following the ill-fated life of some celebrity or other. Sometimes they can be very sensitive and jumpy. I don't understand them.

That's all.

 

Busy busy busy.

But! It just occurred to me to recall an article I read quite a long time ago in a weekly newspaper somewhere in this enormous country - I don't recall where, Podunk, maybe - and my mental "response" to it at the time. What was I doing then? I was reading quite a lot about Ceasar's experiences with the Gothic peoples. Very interesting. In one famous story, a King of an area in what we now may call France ordered quite a few thousand of his own army to jump off a cliff to their deaths - which they did - in order to provide the soon-to-be Roman despot with a more evenly matched battle. It's really a story about the workings of the ancient mind. Would it occur to any of us to do such a thing? Of course not. We are actually incapable of thinking that way. We modern people operate under an entirely different thought paradigm.

Now, when I went to college, like most of us, what I found there was not education but indoctrination. Religion was viewed not as a supernatural agency - creation of God's - but as a purely human one. I've since learned the opposite is true. I've since learned the opposites of many things I was taught in college are true. But, within the context of academic atheist orthodoxy the answer to any charge of atrocity against their God, Socialism, was the argument that many millions have been slaughtered in the Name Of God. That much is factual. What they never explained was that they were talking about a period in human history when EVERYTHING was done in the Name of God. Every good thing that human beings did they did in the Name of God. And everything that we, in our modern minds, now judge to be bad they also did in the Name of God.

We can no sooner understand the thought processes of the pre-Aquarian mind that built cathedrals than they can understand our minds that build computers. For years I had wondered: the brains of people then were no smaller than ours. The Earth's resources were exactly the same then, as now. Why on earth didn't people build computers 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, even 3,000 years ago? They were certainly capable of doing so. And why is it today that we lack abilities that they possessed? Why are we no longer connected to the aesthetic principle of our human natures?

One way to look at it is provided by the metaphysical interpretation of the Book of Revelations, which although I refute, is quite convenient symbolically-speaking. The Four Horses: Pale = flesh, money, things that change and die (matter); Red = Passion, emotional thought, hedonic pleasures/pains; Black = Intellect, creative and otherwise, the inclination to take things apart and see what makes them tick; White = Spiritus, balance of human nature in harmony with God's Will. One might say that we, as a human race, may once have ridden a horse of a different color. Different attributes of mental activity dominated the mass consciousness at different times.

So, in this article - well, it was really a column written by some lady - the author was musing about "How do I fit God into my busy life?" That's a rather typical modern question. But, it occurred to me then - even then, when I was in my desert period - to question whether an earlier mind would have been capable of even entertaining such a thought. The answer came back, of course not! In the column the author was recounting how she went from this church to that church - you know, really searching. It was plain that she had certain conditions to be met, as we all do, but was primarily looking for a church that "feels" right - whatever on earth that may have meant to her. I don't remember whether she ever managed to "find God," - and in my present mind I would be able to affirm God was never lost; she was - but that's beside the point.

Non-modern people would have been inclined to ask themselves, "How do I fit my life into God's Plan?" rather than the other way 'round. Maybe. Or, maybe they would have expressed it in some other way. In any event, the atrocities justified by an affirmation of God's Will may be found, in greater or lesser abundance depending upon the source, during the so-called Dark and Middle Ages - and before, dwindling geometrically in frequency through the Enlightenment and into the 19th and 20th Centuries. In the 20th Century acts of genocide were the total property of a philosophy that actually worships The State in one form or another, and these atrocities were committed in that Name. Of course, there was absolutely, positively no mention of that history in college - except that the Nazis were bad people because they didn't like the Communists - but that's simply the pot calling the kettle black. They are shoots from the exact same root.

Now I'm officially late. Oh well... 

Well. Happy Memorial Day. Please don't forget to thank any of our boys you may see, or any that you may know, for their service. It's not only those who have died that we should bear in mind, and Veteran's Day is long way off.

I think there is a desire - I should say I know  there is a desire, for I share it passionately - that the time for war in the history of humanity is over and done, that we have grown beyond it. I know that it is wishful thinking, and that by such thoughts we will bring about such a reality. I know that we create reality with our thoughts - collectively. There are many people - perhaps the mass of people - who see themselves as being powerless, as being victims of circumstance, by nature. But I believe that God has given us His power to change matter with our thoughts - hence our civilization, our inventions; everything in fact that we can do which animals cannot do. We create reality. Individually, we have God-like power to create our own destinies. In mass, we have the power to make real the things that we imagine. I don't believe that war must forever be necessary. No - I don't forsee a Heaven on Earth, but I do perceive that we are becoming capable of ever greater self-mastery. We begin to aspire to our better natures to the extent that we are free of the interference and oppression of governments. I believe that war will become totally obsolete when all humanity has what we have, what we so take for granted.

Only in the last century have we come to the point where envisioning such a thing as world peace is even possible, conceivable. The human thought paradigm changed as we entered the Aquarian Age. We now ride the Black Horse. In time we will ride the White. It will happen just as our Book tells us it will. Following WWI - the "war to end all wars" - we rose as a people to an unbelievable level of divinely-inspired courage and defeated the devil himself in the persons of the Axis powers which plunged us into the even more devastating war to follow. That generation of us who were so inspired are like giants, like Superman, Superwoman, the morseo because of their humility. And following our victory, the notion that world peace is possible became even more prevalent among us.

When people say "That's too idealistic," I disagree. When ideas are what creates the world there can be nothing which is too idealistic. But I know - just as I know that yellow disc above is called The Sun - we dream of world peace because we live with rights and freedoms given to us by God. We live in the United States of America. (And Rosie lives in Australia. Hi Rosie!) This idealism of ours is possible because our freedom makes it so. World peace is possible when the freedom of all people on earth will make it so. That time is not now. Too many people still are not free.

Evil still exists. The same evil that possessed half the earth in the 20th Century still exists today. Socialism is a cancer from Hell itself that continues to spread its vile corruption across Europe, ensuring peace in Europe will not soon be the reality we long for. Socialism is making a desperate play for power here too, using its weapons of Envy and resentment to do so. Evil still exists in the form of radical religious Socialism in the Islamic world. Some of us recognize the gathering storm of the third world war. Others - too many others - are still blinded to it. Perhaps this time - perhaps with God's grace inspiring our armies and our citizens - it really will be the last.

The most powerful thing we can possibly do to bring about peace is to pray for peace. Pray every day for peace. Pray for victory over evil. But, first and foremost, pray for peace.

Remember that our soldiers go to Heaven when they die in combat. Few indeed possess the courage to live, much less to die, for something beyond themselves and their own appetites, comforts, needs. Yet, everybody dies. There is not a human living who will not die, except Our Lord, who did die in suffering beyond our imaginations. Surely, we have the freedom to die in bed, with bellies full, with life well lived behind us, surrounded by our families, friends because some very special people - some people very close to God - decided to follow a calling to service in our defense.

Remember this: When we must go to war it is with profound reluctance. And - to us - it requires a resolve we so sorely desire was unnecessary. Our goal is victory over evil; our goal is peace, for peace follows victory. There can be no peace without the defeat of evil - one way, or another. War is one way, but never our way. It is the way of evil, the terms that evil makes that we must rise to answer. Our soldiers don't go to war in order to die. They go in order to win. They will die anyway, as will we all, whether in the service of that effort or not. Often it happens that way, as we know. Far more often, however, they come back alive, sometimes wounded, having performed this service for us. We face an enemy now whose goal is not to come back alive. Peace does not follow the victory they seek, but rather a Dominion of perpetual apocalyptic darkness. There is nothing hidden about such evil. There is nothing that can be offered to it that will not simply give it strength to wreak further havoc until the world's end is brought about by their fanatic zeal. That statement is either true, or it isn't. Those of us still on the fence might want to take a good look at what these people are promising, and make that decision.

I really believe all this. I love and respect those of you who may not, for there can be no victory over evil without its opposite, love, being in charge. What we have in ourselves we make in our surroundings. But I think you will find time will bear out what I've written. 

So, anyhooo, Happy Memorial Day! We will, under God's guidance, bring about the peace we long for with our better selves. Let us remember those who have gone before us to the glorious fulfillment of that very end, particularly those of World War II whose courage and character we miss and lack, and now so greatly require.