The Colonel begs permission to interrupt your holiday festivities (Merry Christmas, by the way) with this important announcement:
December 31, 2019 is not (the Colonel says again, NOT) "the last day of the decade."
The Colonel knows this comes as quite a shock to many of you recovering from other shocks received lately.
Some of you were shocked to find that, despite the fulfillment of your congressperson's pre-inaugural impeachment promise, Donald Trump is still ensconced in the Oval Office. Understanding just a little bit of our Constitution would have insulated you from that voltage.
Some of you were shocked to see that a college football team, from another state, to which you rabidly claim allegiance -- even though you've never been within 50 miles of the campus, wear a Walmart-bought affinity T-shirt, and proclaim "We whupped y'all!" after every win -- didn't make the play-offs this year. Don't worry, Bama Bandwagon Boors, there's still a few LSU T-shirts left at your local Wally World -- Chinese sweatshops are crankin' 'em out faster than you can ask, "Siri, where is Baton Rouge?"
Some of you (like the Colonel his own self) were shocked to see that Ole Miss, whose administration has been so active in the erasure of any name, monument, or tradition that even remotely infringes on the tender feelings of whiny social justice warriors and tyrannical political correctness priests, would, after dismissing one coach for "indiscretions" and his successor for "failure," hire a new coach for whom those characterizations are career hallmarks.
The Colonel will admit that he is responsible for his own exposure to the voltage in this case -- he started to care about Ole Miss again. Bad habits are the hardest to break.
Some of you were shocked (as was the Colonel) to hear that the new "sixth" branch of the military services -- the Space Force -- would fall under the Department of the Air Force. Hello?!? Anybody whose ever watched an episode of Star Trek knows that Space belongs to the Navy.
Plus, the Department of the Navy already has experience with managing rouge elements it knows absolutely nothing about.
Looking at you, fellow jarheads.
Fear not, gentle readers, the Colonel is getting to the point of this prattle.
In introduction of that point, a history lesson.
The year was 1999. As that year drew to a close, breathless (and brainless) commentators, prognosticators, and charlatans began an ever-increasing drum beat of retrospection and prediction regarding the impending end of the millennium. There was just one little problem.
They were a whole year early.
The second millennium -- the second set of one thousand years, as established and counted by Christian societies (and a Roman emperor) -- actually ended on the 31st of December in the year of our Lord 2000. January 1, 2001 was the first day of the new millennium.
Shocking!
Here's even more shocking news: Each decade ends in a year with the numeral 0 (not 9) at the end.
The Colonel knows that some of you are skeptical of his claim. So, try this. Take out ten one dollar bills from your wallet and place them on a clean, flat surface proximal to the reach of your arms. Grasp the stack of bills in one hand and count them out as if you were paying yourself one dollar for each year you lived this decade. One dollar for 2011, one more for 2012, and so on. When you get to 2019, how many one dollar bills will you have counted out?
C'mon, this is easy math -- even for the Colonel. Doesn't even require taking off your shoes.
The answer is: NINE.
"But, but..., Colonel," you argue, "you started the decade at 2011. That's a trick!"
Yes, yes he did. And, no it's not a trick, because the first year of the present decade was 2011.
Okay, the Colonel knows this is hard to take at face value. So, let's try this experiment with the same parameters, but in a different setting.
Let's imagine that we are shepherds working on the outskirts of a wide spot in the road south of Jerusalem, called Bethlehem. We had a life-changing experience ten years ago, and we have accounted for the passing of the years since by numbering them as each began. For example, one shepherd says to the next, "We are in the first year AA (after angels)". We are at the beginning of the tenth year since that startling night. What year is it?
For the LSU and Bama grads struggling with this, there's a not-so subtle clue in the eighth word of the second to last sentence above.
For the rest of you, congratulations for saying the correct answer, "Ten" out loud and startling those around you (even though your shame if caught reading the Colonel's drivel probably means you're sitting somewhere alone).
Now let's assume that we shepherds only get paid at the end of each decade. The not-so bright shepherd (you know, the one wearing the "Feel the Bern" tunic) announces at sundown of 31 December 09, "See y'all (well..., he is from south of Jerusalem) later. I'm headed to town to collect my wages." He shows back up at camp at sunrise on 1 January 10 after having made a trip to town to see the boss and complains bitterly to the rest of the lads (and lassies) that "I worked the whole decade of the 00's for that scrooge and he only paid me for nine years!"
So, what do the rest of us do? Does the old retired centurion stand up and bellow, "Follow me boys (and girls)! We're on strike! Let the boss tend his own stinkin' sheep!"
Or, do we shake our heads at the utter stupidity of the members of the DSJ (Democratic Socialists of Judea) and go back to poking sticks in the fire?
See, there is no year 0 in our modern calendar. It begins as 1 A.D. (or C.E.). So, in the first decade A.D., only 9 years had elapsed at the end of 9 A.D. In the first century A.D., only 99 years had elapsed at the end of 99 A.D. In the first millennia A.D., only 999 years had elapsed at the end of 999 A.D. In the second millennia A.D., only 1999 years had elapsed at the end of the year 1999.
So, the current millennium did not begin on 1 January 2000. It actually began on 1 January 2001. And, the current decade did not begin on 1 January 2010, but 1 January 2011, and will not end until midnight on 31 December2020 / 1January 2021.
Here's where the Colonel has to admit that what he just told you may not be 100% true.
For about 1600 years the western world marked the passing of days and years using a calendar commissioned by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. This Julian Calendar began each new year on 1 January, but during the medieval period western Europe, Britain in particular, began to begin each year in the middle of March (for various reasons associated with either solar cycles or religious holiday associations). The Julian Calendar did account for the scientific fact that the earth revolves around the sun every 365 and almost a quarter days (365.24 to be more exact), by adding an extra day to February every four years.
The problem with this quick fix was that over centuries that .01 day (roughly 11 minutes) error added extra days to the actual count of days elapsed. By the middle of the 16th Century A.D., that .01 day error had badly un-synced the human calendar and actual solar calendar. A calendar commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII (no relation to the Colonel) in 1582, attempted to correct the flaw in the Julian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar included a more accurate calculation that added an extra day to February in years divisible by four...
...unless the year is also divisible by 100.
The Colonel ain't makin' this up, and it gets even more complicated.
If the leap year is divisible by 100, but also divisible by 400, the leap day is added anyway.
Makes the Colonel want to watch "Catch 22" and "Monty Pithon's the Holy Grail" again. For the umpteenth time each...
Viewed as a nefarious "Papist Plot" in many quarters, the Gregorian Calendar was not uniformly adopted across the western world. By the time Britain (and her far flung colonies) got around to adopting the Gregorian Calendar (nearly two centuries after its introduction), the British Empire's calendar was out of sync with the rest of the western world by nearly two whole weeks.
An act of Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, and the British had to jump from 2 September to 14 September to adjust to it.
The Colonel kids thee not.
While lots of British subjects were unhappy with the loss of those 11 days for a variety of reasons that you can well imagine, Ben Franklin is reported to have remarked favorably about the idea of going to bed on the night of the 2nd of September and not having to get out of bed until the morning of the 14th.
The Colonel kinda knows the feeling -- when he hit the rack last night he was 22. When he woke up this morning, the Colonel was four weeks shy of his 64th birthday.
And, if you think that the calendar we are using today (it's the Gregorian Calendar, by the way) is keeping perfectly modern track of time..., well..., you're wrong. The eggheads that make their living studying the numbers tell us that, if we keep the Gregorian Calendar until then, by the year 4909 (in which the Colonel might not be still be pestering you with his posts) a twenty-six second error per year will result in the Gregorian Calendar being one full day ahead of the solar calendar.
Anyway..., the Colonel's bottom line, regardless whether we've kept track of the actual count of days elapsed since the inception of the Julian Calendar (and it's minor Gregorian modification), is that all of you breathlessly celebrating that "last" this and that "of the decade" are a year early.
The Colonel thinks he'll settle the matter in his own life by burning all the calendars within reach of his frost-nipped and tendinitis-ravaged finger tips.
Oh, and a year-long nap might be in order, as well.
See you next decade!
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Why the Shepherds?
You've read and heard Luke's account of the birth of Jesus countless times, the Colonel is sure. The Roman emperor, Octavian -- or, as he called himself, Caesar Augustus -- wanted to know how many folks made up his empire, and commissioned a census. It was billed as a matter of determining the tax base, but the Colonel suspects, from what he knows about Octavian, that it was just as much a matter of Octavian's egotistical desire to know the extent of his dominion over humanity.
At any rate, Luke tells us that in order to be counted, citizens of the empire had to return to their cities of birth. So, this man named Joseph, whose wife Mary was expecting to give birth at any moment, took his new bride back to his ancestral home.
Bethlehem.
The city of David.
Bell and Gore hadn't invented the telephone and internet, yet, so Joseph had no way of making reservations for a place to stay in Bethlehem. When they arrived after traveling nearly 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, they found the tiny village so packed with folks who had, like Joseph, left the farm to work in the big city, that there was only room to sleep in a stable.
Now, English translations of the original Greek in which Luke's account was written use the phrase "because there was no room in the inn." From what the Colonel has studied about the size of Bethlehem two thousand years ago, he is apt to believe that there was no inn at all. It's possible that the home of Joseph's family in Bethlehem had no private room in which Mary could give birth.
Anyway, Mary gave birth to Jesus in a livestock shelter and used a feed trough for a cradle. Pretty humble for the King of the Universe.
The Colonel believes that we have these very intimate details of Jesus' birth because when Luke began writing his Gospel and the Book of Acts for his patron, Theophilus, he interviewed Mary. The events of Jesus' birth were so dramatic and wondrous that Luke tells us that "Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2: 19)
As memorable as giving birth in a stable was for Mary, an even more memorable occurrence was the visit shortly thereafter from a bunch of shepherds, and the story they told her.
Can you imagine the incredulity of Joseph and Mary when these shepherds told them their story?
Luke tells us that the night of Jesus' birth, these shepherds were keeping watch over their flock in the fields outside of Bethlehem. (Luke 2:8)
Now, humor the Colonel and put yourself in the place of these shepherds.
It's dark.
Pre-Edison dark.
Dark enough that the brightest light you can see is the Milky Way splashed across the sky overhead.
It's so quiet that you can hear your hair grow.
You're sleepy, but your job is to stay alert and keep your flock safe from predators and thieves.
Your senses are heightened in the dark and quiet -- eyes dilated to take in as much ambient light as possible and ears attuned to the slightest rustle from the sleeping sheep, or the footfall of a predator.
Now just maybe you can understand the abject terror the shepherds felt at what happened next. Luke tells us -- and the Colonel believes that Mary told him what the shepherds told her -- that an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to the shepherds and "...the glory of the Lord shone around them." (Luke 2:9)
Imagine going from hidden in pitch black dark to spotlighted by the brightest light you have ever seen. And, oh, by the way there's an angel in front of you.
Not a winged, chubby baby. Angels don't look like that.
The angel in front of you is a fierce, inhuman creature, unlike anything you have ever seen before.
That the shepherds didn't scream and scatter like a bunch of adolescent girls at a haunted house shows just how terrified they were.
Don't know about you, but as much as the Colonel's flight or fight reflex has a trained bias toward the latter, he's not sure he wouldn't have been leading the choir of adolescent screamers and scatterers.
The angel's reassurance to the shepherds is one of the most quoted of all passages in scripture:
"Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10-12)
As if this angel's appearance and message wasn't traumatic enough, the shepherd's then saw "a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Luke 2: 13-14)
Because the Colonel believes that Jesus was the incarnation of God's Son, and that God's Son is the Commander of the Army of the Lord, he believes this "multitude of the heavenly host" was the Army of the Lord.
The Colonel can't prove that, and far more learned men than he may scoff at the notion, but the Colonel likes to think that the Army of the Lord wouldn't have missed out on singing in this cantata.
But, why are a ragtag group of lowly shepherds the recipient of these "good tidings of great joy." Why the shepherds?
Why not the High Priest at the temple in Jerusalem?
Or, some other literate person or group of people. Why not make this angelic appearance and announcement on the steps of the temple at high noon on the day before the Sabbath, when all of Jerusalem would be in attendance?
Two reasons, the Colonel thinks.
First, he believes that the angel of the Lord and the multitude of heavenly hosts appeared to the shepherds at the very moment of Jesus' birth. And, the Colonel believes the shepherds were chosen to receive these good tidings for their symbolism throughout God's word. God didn't just pick the shepherds on a whim.
God does nothing on a whim.
God inspired David to write the Psalm to demonstrate the loving care God has for His people -- like a shepherd cares for his sheep.
Jesus' Himself used the shepherd analogy numerous times to teach regarding God's love and the purpose of Jesus' own ministry.
Secondly, but perhaps most importantly, the Colonel believes God picked the shepherds for what they were watching.
Just up the road a few miles from the fields outside Bethlehem, stood the temple in Jerusalem -- the only acceptable location to which all Jews were to bring their most important sacrifices. From the beginning of His relationship with man, God demanded a blood sacrifice to atone for sin of man.
Not just any sacrificial animal would do. It was supposed to be one without blemish. An animal of higher value than the rest.
And, in remembrance of the Passover lambs whose blood marked the doorposts of the Hebrews and excluded them from the plague of the death of the first born in Egypt; young, defenseless sheep were the traditional sacrifice brought to the temple in Jerusalem.
It's entirely possible that the shepherds outside of Bethlehem were watching over flocks from which came lambs for blood sacrifice.
The Colonel likes to believe so.
The Colonel believes that sacrificing a lamb only temporarily atoned for a man's sin. He believes this because a Jew didn't just sacrifice a lamb once -- he did it every year.
The Colonel believes that God sent His messenger angel to proclaim to shepherds watching over lambs, whose sacrifice was a temporary atonement, that the Lamb of God was come whose sacrifice would be final.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Remember Your Oath
The Battle of Athens, Tennessee was the culminating point of resistance to a Memphis-based political machine that had run the state of Tennessee for the better part of three decades. It was a totalitarian government -- no less so than the regimes of Hitler, Tojo, and Stalin. The Memphis machine chose who ran for, and won, seats in local and state government from sheriff to governor; determined what businesses would thrive; and usurped the rights and property of citizens who resisted.
When the young men of McMinn County, Tennessee returned from fighting in Europe and in the Pacific, they wanted nothing more than to forget that they had fought to the death with the foreign enemies of the American Republic. They never dreamed that they would have to fight just as fiercely to defend fellow citizens against domestic enemies of America.
When the totalitarian political machine attempted to steal an election from veteran-backed candidates -- just as they had stolen elections for thirty years, the veterans took up arms and defended the rights of their fellow citizens guaranteed by the Constitution. They probably never saw their actions as fulfilling the oath they took when they enlisted, but that's exactly what it was.
The Memphis-machine McMinn county sheriff seized ballot boxes (filled with, it turned out, overwhelming votes for the veterans' slate -- from both parties) and was in the process of altering the vote count when the veterans attacked. He sought, and received, help from neighboring Memphis-machine county sheriffs and the ensuing battle involved several hundred men on each side.
The veterans prevailed. The Constitution prevailed.
When the Colonel was eighteen years old, he raised his right hand and swore a "solemn oath."
"I, Thomas Edward Gregory, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear truth faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
By law -- Title 5, U.S. Code 3331 -- that oath is administered to every man or woman who accepts a commission as an officer in the armed forces of the United States. Regardless the duty status (active, reserve, retired) of the person who takes the oath, it has no exceptions nor expiration date -- save death.
The oath of office (law found in Title 10, U.S. Code) taken by men and women who enlist in the armed forces of the United States is a little different:
"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
The officer's oath contains but one authority to which a commissioned officer swears allegiance and obedience -- the Constitution. The enlisted oath, in addition to that prime directive, includes the enlistee's submission to the orders of the chain of command that stretches unbroken from the last man in the last rank all the way to the current occupant of the Oval Office. That formal recognition of the chain of command, headed by the senior-most sworn defender of the Constitution, is the bedrock on which rests the discipline and effectiveness of the most capable military in history.
The unwritten presumption in the phrase, "...I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me..." is that orders from the President and officers down the chain of command are indeed Constitutional. The phrase "...according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice" provides the lens through which orders are to be evaluated for their Constitutionality.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is the legal -- Constitutional -- framework for military conduct. It is an enormous tome, containing every imaginable transgression against the Constitution, the laws of the land, and the chain of command. The UCMJ establishes the authority by which the chain of command orders and executes every aspect of military conduct. Without the UCMJ, and a strict adherence thereto, there can be no assurance that the most fearsome military beast the world has ever seen will remain chained in good order and discipline and prepared to fight the nation's enemies.
But, most importantly, without the UCMJ there can be no assurance that the most fearsome military beast the world has ever seen will not be turned on the very citizens whose Constitution guarantees the protections of their natural rights against those who would use the machinations and tools of government to usurp, restrict, or infringe their rights.
Today, there are 1.2 million men and women serving on active duty in the United States Military. Another roughly 860,000 serve in the Guard and Reserve. A two million man army protecting the freedom of 330 million Americans.
That force is focused externally; on threats to our security from outside our territorial boundaries. Without a Presidential emergency declaration, the U.S. military is forbidden, by law, from exercising law enforcement functions outside of its federal jurisdictions (bases, posts, forts, and stations).
Veterans, men and women no longer in the active duty or reserve components of the U.S. military, number approximately 21 million.
That makes twenty-three million American men and women whose most important promise of their lives -- one without an expiration date -- is the support and defense of the Constitution of the United States, and all of the enumerated and un-enumerated rights guaranteed therein.
Supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States "against all enemies foreign and domestic" seems quite abstract at first consideration. It has a nice officious and patriotic ring to it. For those who spent two or three decades in uniform it trips off the tongue, memorized from hundreds (if not thousands) of reaffirmations, witnesses, and administrations.
What does the concept, "supporting and defending," entail, in practice? What is a veteran's continuing responsibility?
The Colonel submits for your consideration that, for a veteran, supporting the Constitution means far more than lip service or the posting of a glib social media meme.
To swear by your own life to "support" the Constitution, first requires you to know the Constitution.
To know that it provides the most balanced and individual liberty-protecting form of government ever devised by man.
To know that our Constitution tempers the inherent dangers of democratic mob rule by combining democracy's cherished ideal of self-governance with the protections of State diversity and self-determination found in federalism and the inherent bias toward deliberation and compromise found in (little r) republicanism.
To know that the Constitution is indeed a living document. But, not living in the sense that it can be interpreted (mis-interpreted) in whatever way current pandering politicians wish. No, the men who crafted the Constitution knew that it was not perfect and so included mechanisms for updating it through the amendment process. And, that process is purposely laborious to protect the minority against the capricious whims of a majority.
Supporting the Constitution requires recognition that maintaining the balance of self-governance, States' rights, and the rule of law is not easy. Those who would make governing easy by short-cutting the processes enshrined in our Constitution -- ruling, at any level of government, by feelings and fiat -- do not support the Constitution. It may seem utilitarian to disregard the will of the people expressed by their vote; making governing decisions by virtue-signalling because that's what feels right for the people. But, that is not just unconstitutional -- it is anti-constitutional and anti-American.
So, the Colonel challenges all of his fellow veterans to remember their oath and to place their solemn promise to support and defend the Constitution above all other considerations.
Place the Constitution above political party affiliation. Avoid the intellectual vacuousness of party platform platitudes and inter-party fractiousness.
Place the Constitution above favored politicians. Remember that they are no less responsible to the rule of Constitutional law than any other citizen.
Place the Constitution above personal feelings and privately held positions on current social issues. The Constitution guarantees citizens' God-given "natural" rights to free association, speech, and property... for ALL citizens.
Fellow veterans, remember your oath. You are the last line of defense. On you once rested the defense of our nation. On you now rests the future of our Republic.
Thursday, August 08, 2019
Height Supremacy
It always surprises the Colonel when he hears complaints about white "supremacy" and the actions of supposed white "supremacists."
He for dang sure ain't never known or seen one in action. Not during his career in the Marines, nor during his retirement here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.
But, the Colonel can testify for hours on end about the egregious endeavors of countless height supremacists.
That's right. You know who you are. You and your not-so clever jabs and nicknames thinly disguising your bias toward someone of lesser physical stature.
You didn't think you were height supremacists, but your words spoke volumes. Consider the following not all-inclusive sampling of nicknames the Colonel lived with -- and he's not making one of them up.
"Short round."
"Inky-dink."
"Half-pint."
"The Fly." Well, that one may have been hung on him by the members of his first rifle platoon because (and the Colonel quotes), "The Lieutenant eats (barnyard excrement) and bothers people."
"Guilder." You know, because the Colonel could have been a member of the munchkin lollipop guild.
"Mini-me."
"Small-fry."
"SU." Pronounced "sue" -- acronym for "short and unimpressive." Actually hung on the Colonel by a boss. That boss was projecting a bit -- he towered over the Colonel by no more than an eighth of an inch. The Colonel supposes height supremacy knows no altitude limits.
"Edapolian." Hung on the Colonel by his seminar group at the Air Command and Staff College, supposedly for his views on imperialism and territorial expansion. Not so bad, you say. They could have picked a taller imperialist...; say, Genghis or Attila. Frankly, if you're gonna hang a height supremacist moniker on the Colonel for his unabashed imperialism, he would much prefer a nod to the great (and quite diminutive) James K. Polk whose nickname, "Little Hickory," would be far more preferable. (Then again, Polk's other nickname -- from his campaigning -- was "Napoleon of the Stump," so...)
"Little Doug." The Colonel shares Douglas MacArthur's birthday -- January 26-- and the latter's penchant for dramatics.
"Pup."
"Knee-high."
The Colonel could go on -- his list of growth-impaired grievances is long -- but, you get the picture.
Or, maybe you don't. Maybe you secretly harbor your height supremacists views. Maybe you think there ought to be a separate world for those of us whose existence below your sight plane pose a dangerous trip hazard.
Or, maybe..., you aren't a mere height supremacist at all. Maybe you're just an out and out heightist -- someone who views all of us below your sight plane as (no pun intended) beneath you.
Someone just not as capable as you.
Someone whose outward genetic appearance prompts your disdain.
Whatever, dude.
That's your problem.
It was never the Colonel's. In the long-run, it didn't stop him.
The Marines don't grant honorary colonelcys.
Now, if you will excuse His not-so Highness, the Colonel has some trouser legs to hem up...
He for dang sure ain't never known or seen one in action. Not during his career in the Marines, nor during his retirement here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.
But, the Colonel can testify for hours on end about the egregious endeavors of countless height supremacists.
That's right. You know who you are. You and your not-so clever jabs and nicknames thinly disguising your bias toward someone of lesser physical stature.
You didn't think you were height supremacists, but your words spoke volumes. Consider the following not all-inclusive sampling of nicknames the Colonel lived with -- and he's not making one of them up.
"Short round."
"Inky-dink."
"Half-pint."
"The Fly." Well, that one may have been hung on him by the members of his first rifle platoon because (and the Colonel quotes), "The Lieutenant eats (barnyard excrement) and bothers people."
"Guilder." You know, because the Colonel could have been a member of the munchkin lollipop guild.
"Mini-me."
"Small-fry."
"SU." Pronounced "sue" -- acronym for "short and unimpressive." Actually hung on the Colonel by a boss. That boss was projecting a bit -- he towered over the Colonel by no more than an eighth of an inch. The Colonel supposes height supremacy knows no altitude limits.
"Edapolian." Hung on the Colonel by his seminar group at the Air Command and Staff College, supposedly for his views on imperialism and territorial expansion. Not so bad, you say. They could have picked a taller imperialist...; say, Genghis or Attila. Frankly, if you're gonna hang a height supremacist moniker on the Colonel for his unabashed imperialism, he would much prefer a nod to the great (and quite diminutive) James K. Polk whose nickname, "Little Hickory," would be far more preferable. (Then again, Polk's other nickname -- from his campaigning -- was "Napoleon of the Stump," so...)
"Little Doug." The Colonel shares Douglas MacArthur's birthday -- January 26-- and the latter's penchant for dramatics.
"Pup."
"Knee-high."
The Colonel could go on -- his list of growth-impaired grievances is long -- but, you get the picture.
Or, maybe you don't. Maybe you secretly harbor your height supremacists views. Maybe you think there ought to be a separate world for those of us whose existence below your sight plane pose a dangerous trip hazard.
Or, maybe..., you aren't a mere height supremacist at all. Maybe you're just an out and out heightist -- someone who views all of us below your sight plane as (no pun intended) beneath you.
Someone just not as capable as you.
Someone whose outward genetic appearance prompts your disdain.
Whatever, dude.
That's your problem.
It was never the Colonel's. In the long-run, it didn't stop him.
The Marines don't grant honorary colonelcys.
Now, if you will excuse His not-so Highness, the Colonel has some trouser legs to hem up...
Wednesday, June 05, 2019
Stand and Be Remembered
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| Photo by Jeff Widener; AP |
The standoff actually occurred the day after the Chinese authorities had used tanks and armored personnel carriers to literally crush a student-led pro-reform protest movement that had occupied Tiananmen Square.
The movement was not spontaneous. Revolutions (and counter-revolutions) rarely are.
Fifty years before, another revolution had culminated at Tiananmen. On the first of October in 1949, one of the most ruthless in a long line of ruthless Chinese tyrants -- Mao Zedong -- stood on the ramparts of the Tiananmen Gate to Beijing's ancient Forbidden City and proclaimed an end to the civil war that had pitted his forces against the pro-western Nationalist Chinese government of Chiang Kai Shek. In the civil war's wake the People's Republic of China (PRC) emerged with Mao's Communist Party at its all-powerful head.
Over the next 25 years, Mao's internal policies and campaigns were responsible for the deaths of as many as 70 million Chinese.
The first thing Mao did was fundamentally transform Chinese society, by executing one million landowners and redistributing the land to farmers. Those who favor the socialist tenet of wealth redistribution in our Republic today, have murderous Mao as their patron saint.
Next, Mao purged his own party of any he deemed "rightists." Led by Mao's future successor -- Deng Xiaoping -- the "Anti-Rightist"campaign resulted in the executions of half million and the social and political isolation of a million more whose power and influence were seen by Mao as a threat to his vision for China.
The "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" campaigns that followed were designed to both "purify" the communist ideology of the PRC and catapult China's economy from its primarily agrarian foundation to an industrial powerhouse. The central government redirected farmers to factories -- crops failed, millions starved to death. Those who would transform our Republic's economy from decentralized capitalism to state-planned socialism have Mao's excellent examples to follow.
At the height of Mao's political correctness campaign, which he called the "Cultural Revolution," his student-led para-military "Red Guards" roamed the cities, attacking any who were deemed politically incorrect or anti-Maoist. Mao used the Red Guards to help wipe the cultural slate clean -- the crazed children were cynically steered by their "educators" to attack and destroy any vestiges of pre-revolutionary China. Statues of famous Chinese ancestors were torn down. Shrines and cemeteries were desecrated. Millions were killed or sent to "re-education" camps that made Hitler's work camps look like Club Med by comparison. George Soros' paramilitary ANTIFA and the self-appointed priesthood of political correctness and social justice on today's American college campuses have the Red Guards as a model.
When Mao Zedong died in 1976, he was eventually succeeded (after an intra-party power struggle) by Deng Xiaoping. Deng, who had led Mao's ideological purification programs, seemingly reversed Maoist course and embarked on a number of economic reforms designed to decentralize market planning and allow capitalist activity in industry. But, Deng refused to allow any discussion of political reform.
Introducing capitalism in a tyrannically socialist society is like raising a tiger cub in an apartment -- the big cat may not be living in a jungle, but it's still a tiger. By the end of the decade, Deng's capitalist tiger cub was a roaring adult, ushering in a rapidly increasing standard of living and a burgeoning urban middle class. Foreign investment -- prohibited under Mao -- exploded under Deng, and with it came increasing exposure to the cultural and political freedoms enjoyed by the non-socialist world. Educational institutions, which had withered under Mao, sprang to life under Deng, and students (many allowed to study abroad for the first time in 30 years) were exposed to radical professors who taught the natural rights of man and democratic ideals still anathema to the PRC's ruling elite.
As Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese politburo kept a tight lid on political dissent, the children chaffed and yearned for freedom. A student-led reform movement blossomed into a full-blown revolt by the beginning of 1989. By the end of May, the world was transfixed as CNN beamed images from Tiananmen Square as tens of thousands of protesters unveiled their 10-foot tall "Goddess of Liberty" modeled on America's Statue of Liberty.
Then the troops moved in.
As many as a thousand unarmed young people were killed on the 4th of June as divisions of the ironically misnamed People's Liberation Army cleared the square. Scores of civilians (many parents of the children in Tiananmen Square) were shot as they streamed toward the square to reinforce the protesters.
By the morning of the 5th of June -- 30 years ago, today -- it was all over but the recriminations.
As a column of tanks attempted to leave the city center, a lone man in a white shirt, armed with nothing but shopping bags, stood in the middle of the broad avenue. First pictures show him standing there well before the tanks roll into the frame. He remains stock still as the single file of 50-ton armored vehicles roll up to him.
He could easily have been another of the hundreds of unarmed civilians hundreds killed in the massacre.
What prevented the lead tank commander from effortlessly running him down?
Was he shocked, disgusted, or traumatized by the events of the night before?
We'll never know.
But, we do know that he was unwilling to add this one more man to the tally. He even tried to steer around the civilian blocking his way. The standing man simply stepped over and blocked the tank's path.
Then, the man climbed up on the tank. The hatch opens and a discussion ensues with the tank commander.
The Colonel can guarantee you that the discussion was not a pleasant one for either man. It almost certainly wasn't about the price of tea.
We'll never know what was said, but the Colonel believes that the standing man was appealing to the tank commander to lead his unit in support of the political reform protests.
Standing man climbed back down off of the tank and resumed his position front and center blocking its path forward down the avenue.
He stood alone.
Thousands of civilians were gathered hundreds of yards away, but not one joined him.
Eventually, two men ran in, grabbed the standing man, and hustled him off and into the crowds. To this day, no reliable information is available to identify the man or verify his fate.
Eleven years after the event -- in November of 2000 -- the Colonel stood in Tiananmen Square. He was on a short vacation tour to Beijing with the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda at his side. Despite her pleading to behave himself, the Colonel couldn't help but ask the young Chinese lady serving as their tour guide / minder,
"So, Li, what happened here in '89?"
The Colonel kids thee not, her response was, "Nothing."
But then, stealing a furtive glance in the direction of the nearest squad of soldier's on the square, she added quietly, "Some criminals occupied the square for a few days and the army came in and moved them out."
The Chinese authorities still tightly control the history of the crushed reform movement. Any media that would show pictures or contain discussions of the truth is heavily censored.
It is politically incorrect to study history in China.
Monday, May 27, 2019
Earn This
"James..., earn this. Earn it."
The "it," of course, is the sacrifice of most of Miller's special detail sent on an almost impossible mission to find and retrieve one American paratrooper among the tens of thousands of American soldiers scattered across Normandy in the immediate aftermath of the June 6, 1944 landings.
The movie is fiction. The sentiment is fact.
Nearly a million and a half young American men and women have given their lives in the wars of our Republic since its founding.
It's not possible to accurately determine an average age of the fallen -- but it can scarcely be more than 20 years of age.
Twenty years old. A life just begun.
Think hard on this. When we say that a soldier "sacrificed his life" we aren't talking about someone giving up the last few years of a full and rewarding life. We're talking about someone giving up the vast majority of his adult life. Never experiencing any of the joys of adulthood.
Never falling in love.
Never marrying.
Never hearing the birth cry of a first son or daughter.
Never experiencing the pride of a first civilian pay check..., a first home..., a first car.
Never seeing a child's first steps..., hearing a child's first words..., watching that child grow to adulthood.
Never having the opportunity to teach a son how to be a man, or walk a daughter down the aisle.
All of these things, and so much more, are given up -- sacrificed on the altar of freedom -- when a young American soldier dies.
Picture in your mind's eye, Arlington National Cemetery, or any of the dozens of American Cemeteries around the globe, in which young American soldiers are buried.
Listen intently with your heart as you gaze upon row on row of white markers.
Listen.
Do you hear it?
Thousands of voices, imploring us,
"Earn this. Earn it."
On this Memorial Day, the most sacred day on the calendar of our great Republic, perhaps the foremost question we -- the living -- should ask ourselves is,
"Have I earned it?"
How do we earn the soldier's sacrifice? May the Colonel be so bold as to make a recommendation beyond just the flippant "be a good citizen" tripe?
May the Colonel recommend that we earn the soldier's sacrifice of
his adulthood by being...
Adults.
In the Colonel's not-so-humble estimation we are fast becoming a nation of spoiled children -- all 300 million of us.
We are allowing politicians (the Colonel refuses to refer to the current crop as leaders) to tax and spend our earnings in wanton disregard of even the most basic tenets that have grounded our grand Republic for the better part of three centuries.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing a nanny-state bureaucracy -- the intrusive breadth and depth of which our self-reliant and liberty-loving forefathers would have found horrific -- to deny our rights, trample our freedoms, and restrict our liberty in ways that the tyrannical enemy governments -- against whom the sacrificing soldiers fought -- could only dream they had the power.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing self-appointed social justice and political correctness priests to determine the altars at which we are allowed to worship, the history we are allowed to read, the traditions we are allowed to keep, and the manner in which we are allowed to speak...; the very definition of fascism -- against which the sacrificing soldiers fought.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing children -- who have never contributed anything to our Republic outside of using their parents' money to stimulate the economy -- to drive policy, determine our national mores, and tear down monuments honoring the fallen.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing college educators (the Colonel uses the term as loosely as a new-born's diaper deposit) -- who have never contributed anything to our Republic outside of using exorbitant tuition to stimulate the economy -- to indoctrinate our children in the most vile and anti-American doctrines imaginable.
Adults don't allow that.
The Colonel could go on, but he tires of his own pedantry.
May the Colonel not-so-humbly suggest that it is time for us to earn the soldier's sacrifice and tell the "children,"
"Enough!"
It is time to stand and draw a solid line beyond which we will no longer allow spoiled children -- of any age -- to dictate to us.
That's how we can earn the soldier's sacrifice.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Cataclysm's Ark
A little over six months ago, a Category 5 hurricane came ashore just to the east of Panama City, Florida. Directly in the path of the eye, on a sliver of land protecting a shallow bay, was Tyndall Air Force Base.
"Was" is the operative word. The base was completely destroyed.
Hurricane Michael swept north and over the working class/retirement community of Callaway, nestled just inland of Tyndall, and the results were cataclysmic.
Upon retirement from the Air Force in the late Seventies, the Colonel's in-laws settled in Callaway, and built a modest home in a new neighborhood carved out of a sandy pine barren. They joined a very small church located at the entrance to their neighborhood and leaned in to build, and reach the lost.
Carlisle Baptist Church, named for an early benefactor, had very humble beginnings; and, from the Colonel's close association with it over the last forty years, never lost its humility -- even as it grew from a dozen folks meeting in a tent to a campus with a beautiful worship sanctuary, and a half dozen other buildings providing office, education, and recreation space.
Perhaps the signature building of the complex is the unadorned two story cinder block, metal-roofed -- the Colonel searches and the best descriptor is -- "ark" that houses classrooms, a commercial kitchen, and a basketball court-sized gym.
"Is" is the operative word. The ark is the only building standing. The only building on the complex that did not have catastrophic damage.
The "ark" was/is, in the Colonel's not so humble opinion, not a pretty building. It sits tall, squat, ungainly, and out of place on the corner at the neighborhood's entrance, looking for all the world like a beached...
well...,
ark.
The Colonel and his bride -- the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda -- attended Easter Services at Carlisle last week. The Colonel spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to put into words what he saw and felt.
He's still not sure he can.
It's been six months since 150 mph winds flattened Callaway and blew away the pretty part of Carlisle Baptist Church's campus.
It still looks like it happened yesterday.
The skyline of tall pines and oaks is gone. The tallest features on the landscape now are enormous debris piles. The color blue (tarps covering holes in walls and roofs) dominates the palette.
Many homes are abandoned. Some have already been bulldozed.
It is as near a post-apocalyptic scene as the Colonel has seen, outside of photos of 1945 Japan and Germany.
Whether or not Michael's ground zero will ever recover is an open question. A significant portion of the area's population is gone. The stores that are open (and there are more destroyed and closed than open at this point) are hard pressed to find workers. Workers are hard pressed to find housing. Repairs to repairable housing is moving at a snail's pace, for a variety of reasons not the fault of the residents.
The one sure way to invigorate rebuilding would be the rebuilding and reopening of Tyndall Air Force Base. But that depends on massive Federal funding, so...
In the gap stands the brave and faithful members of a small church with one building left standing.
The Colonel spoke briefly to the pastor -- a young man whose family the Colonel has known for 40 years; who grew up in Callaway, surrendered to the ministry, and led two churches before returning to pastor his home church just months before the hurricane flattened its buildings -- before services that Easter Sunday morning.
His spirit and leadership in the midst of the challenge of his life is amazing. He told the Colonel, "Not having any church buildings has forced us to look outside of our buildings."
Carlisle church has done just that. From the moment they were able to make their way past the abatis of fallen trees blocking every road, they converged on their one standing building -- their ark -- and made it a rallying point for hope and relief for the entire community. As supplies poured in from outside help, the ark's gym became a distribution center. When power came back on, the ark's kitchen provided hot meals.
Carlisle is ministering in a community in which hope is in very short supply.
Can the Colonel tell you about their Easter services? He wishes he could.
All he remembers is wiping away tears for a solid hour.
"Was" is the operative word. The base was completely destroyed.
Hurricane Michael swept north and over the working class/retirement community of Callaway, nestled just inland of Tyndall, and the results were cataclysmic.
Upon retirement from the Air Force in the late Seventies, the Colonel's in-laws settled in Callaway, and built a modest home in a new neighborhood carved out of a sandy pine barren. They joined a very small church located at the entrance to their neighborhood and leaned in to build, and reach the lost.
Carlisle Baptist Church, named for an early benefactor, had very humble beginnings; and, from the Colonel's close association with it over the last forty years, never lost its humility -- even as it grew from a dozen folks meeting in a tent to a campus with a beautiful worship sanctuary, and a half dozen other buildings providing office, education, and recreation space.
Perhaps the signature building of the complex is the unadorned two story cinder block, metal-roofed -- the Colonel searches and the best descriptor is -- "ark" that houses classrooms, a commercial kitchen, and a basketball court-sized gym.
"Is" is the operative word. The ark is the only building standing. The only building on the complex that did not have catastrophic damage.
The "ark" was/is, in the Colonel's not so humble opinion, not a pretty building. It sits tall, squat, ungainly, and out of place on the corner at the neighborhood's entrance, looking for all the world like a beached...
well...,
ark.
The Colonel and his bride -- the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda -- attended Easter Services at Carlisle last week. The Colonel spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to put into words what he saw and felt.
He's still not sure he can.
It's been six months since 150 mph winds flattened Callaway and blew away the pretty part of Carlisle Baptist Church's campus.
It still looks like it happened yesterday.
The skyline of tall pines and oaks is gone. The tallest features on the landscape now are enormous debris piles. The color blue (tarps covering holes in walls and roofs) dominates the palette.
Many homes are abandoned. Some have already been bulldozed.
It is as near a post-apocalyptic scene as the Colonel has seen, outside of photos of 1945 Japan and Germany.
Whether or not Michael's ground zero will ever recover is an open question. A significant portion of the area's population is gone. The stores that are open (and there are more destroyed and closed than open at this point) are hard pressed to find workers. Workers are hard pressed to find housing. Repairs to repairable housing is moving at a snail's pace, for a variety of reasons not the fault of the residents.
The one sure way to invigorate rebuilding would be the rebuilding and reopening of Tyndall Air Force Base. But that depends on massive Federal funding, so...
In the gap stands the brave and faithful members of a small church with one building left standing.
The Colonel spoke briefly to the pastor -- a young man whose family the Colonel has known for 40 years; who grew up in Callaway, surrendered to the ministry, and led two churches before returning to pastor his home church just months before the hurricane flattened its buildings -- before services that Easter Sunday morning.
His spirit and leadership in the midst of the challenge of his life is amazing. He told the Colonel, "Not having any church buildings has forced us to look outside of our buildings."
Carlisle church has done just that. From the moment they were able to make their way past the abatis of fallen trees blocking every road, they converged on their one standing building -- their ark -- and made it a rallying point for hope and relief for the entire community. As supplies poured in from outside help, the ark's gym became a distribution center. When power came back on, the ark's kitchen provided hot meals.
Carlisle is ministering in a community in which hope is in very short supply.
Can the Colonel tell you about their Easter services? He wishes he could.
All he remembers is wiping away tears for a solid hour.
Friday, April 19, 2019
Why the Cross
The Colonel doesn't care near as much for Christmas as he does Easter.
The Colonel cares not one wit on which of Santa's lists his name appears. If his name did happen to appear on the "good" list, the Colonel assures you that nothing in his own character and conduct landed it there. The only redeeming quality of the man curmudgeoned before his time is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And that's why Easter is the holiday that means the world to the Colonel.
Like every other man who preceded, and will follow, him, the Colonel's sin and imperfection separates him from his Creator. The Colonel fervently believes that his God is so Holy, so perfect, that He cannot allow sin and imperfection in his presence. Nothing the Colonel could ever do in his own strength and personal conduct can ever bridge the great gulf that separates his sinful mortality from God's perfect and holy immortality.
The Colonel believes that God loves him despite his possession of the blackest, most sinful heart any man has ever possessed. The Colonel can not, even in the wildest delusions about himself, come to any conclusion other than that he is just as imperfect and bent toward evil as any man who ever lived. And yet, he can come to no other conclusion but that God loves him.
Allow the Colonel to explain why he believes God still loves him in spite of his sinfulness.
Man is God's greatest, most beloved creation. God placed man at the head of His earthly creation -- privileged to the fruit and responsible for stewardship. But, as beautiful as all of creation may seem to man, it is not perfect. It is corrupt and transitory.
So, why would a perfect God create imperfection?
The Colonel doesn't pretend to know the perfect mind of God, but he believes that God created man for a relationship built on man's free will. God didn't want man to love Him because he had to.
When God selected Abram (and later renamed him Abraham), from whom to establish His People, He was not picking a perfect man to father a people special in their own right. The only thing special about Abraham and his descendants is that they were chosen for one purpose and one purpose alone -- to reveal God to man.
Abraham's descendants -- God's chosen people -- endured four centuries of captivity in Egypt. At the time of their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were a nation of millions -- and still they needed a Savior God to free them. It was the overwhelming power of a Savior God that liberated the Israelites, a people as stubbornly sinful and rebellious as any who ever existed. God miraculously saved them from captivity and miraculously sustained them on their return to the land God had promised to them.
Look, for all the "flowing with milk and honey" descriptions of the land between the Euphrates and the Nile, the "Promised Land" isn't any more special -- in its own right -- than any other territory on this big blue marble. The Colonel has trod on a goodly percentage of God's creation, to include the "Promised Land," and there isn't anything to recommend that sliver of land at the western end of the Mediterranean above any other.
Except that God chose it, and a people to populate it, to reveal Himself to man.
On the way out of Egypt, God established a covenant with the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man. He provided His Law -- the Commandments -- as His expectations of the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man.
God expected man to follow His Commandments to the letter, but knew that he couldn't.
The Colonel knows that just don't make sense. Not to man, anyway.
Just as God chose Abraham's descendants to reveal Himself to man, He provided His Law to reveal His perfection and man's imperfection. No man, save the human incarnation of God's Son, has ever perfectly kept the Ten Commandments.
The Colonel hasn't even come close. In fact, he has swung and missed at every one, in thought and deed (no difference in God's perfect vision), of the slow-pitch softball offerings of the Ten Commandments.
Seriously. The Ten Commandments don't require anything that man would consider Herculean effort. There's no requirement to slay dragons, no demand that one fly like an angel, no need to perform miracles -- just demonstrate by your actions that you love God and love your fellow man.
Search your heart. What is your score?
(Rhetorical question. Please don't tell the Colonel your failings -- he has more than enough on his own conscience to be burdened with yours as well.)
One infraction of God's Law makes one imperfect and guilty of sin. A sinful, guilty man cannot enter into God's presence of his own accord. God just won't allow it.
So, all of mankind falls far short of the glory and perfection of a Creator God who loves them above all of His creations. It doesn't make sense to this man. And that's the point. The Colonel ain't God.
From the very beginning of His relationship with man, God required a significant sacrifice to demonstrate a man's sincere remorse for his sin -- the life blood of the best of the beasts for which God made man responsible. But, this atonement was always temporary and ultimately insufficient.
Why? Because any sacrifice of even the very best, any lamb without outward blemish, of God's imperfect creation was..., well...,
...imperfect.
What's so imperfect about a lamb without any blemish?
Simple. It is mortal. It will not live forever. If it was truly perfect, it would be immortal.
In God's perfect timing, He sent His perfect Son into the world as a human. This was the Messiah, prophesied about and promised to His Chosen People -- again, not because they were special in their own right. It was not the first time (nor the last) that God's Son would appear on Earth.
The disciple with perhaps the closest relationship with God's Son incarnate preambles his gospel with the following revelation from God:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1: 1-5)
Let's unpack that.
God's Son -- His only Son -- has existed (and will exist) with God for eternity in either direction mortal man my look in time. Man refers to Him as God's Son because there is no other way man can comprehend the concept. There is no God Mother of God's Son -- none mentioned by God; none referred to by God-inspired scripture. God's Son was with God at Creation -- indeed, He is the Agent of Creation.
The Colonel's journey with his Savior God has led him to the following conclusion about the Bible's account of Creation -- it isn't about the Creation; it's about the Creator.
God's Son is God's Agent of Eternal Salvation. Outside of the Son, there is no eternal life -- no means by which sinful, imperfect man may escape the sentence of mortality and enter, completely pardoned of all sin, into the eternal presence of God.
Remember the blood sacrifice requirement the Colonel mentioned earlier? That sacrifice of a superficially "perfect" animal only temporarily atoned for a man's sin. The sacrifice had to be repeatedly made, and still did not completely pardon a man's sin.
A truly perfect sacrifice was required. And because imperfect man was (is) incapable of making a truly perfect sacrifice, Perfect and Holy God had to make that truly perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of His most loved creation. The truly most perfect and greatest sacrifice God could make was to allow His Son to set aside His perfectly holy, most-high divinity and be made low.
How great was that fall?
God's Son is not only the Agent of Creation; He is the Commander of the Lord's Armies. Check out the account of Joshua on his commander's recon in front of the great fortified position known as Jericho found in the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua.
Moses is dead and buried on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Joshua has taken command, led God's People across the Jordan, and now stands on the Plain of Jericho scratching his head and trying to figure out how his light infantry army is going to reduce and capture one of the most impregnable fortresses ever faced by a military force. Joshua sees a resplendent warrior standing at a distance and cautiously approaches, asking, (the Colonel paraphrases) "Hey, soldier! Are you one of my men, or do you belong to the army of Jericho?"
The resplendent warrior's answer is a curt, "No!"
The Colonel can only imagine the look on General Joshua's face at that answer. The warrior saw the look and then changed it, "I am the Commander of the Lord's Army."
What does it mean to be the Commander of the Lord's Army? It doesn't take a military genius to figure out that chain of command. But, lest there be any doubt as to bona fides, the warrior facing Joshua commands him to remove his sandals because, "you are standing on Holy Ground." That's the same thing God told Moses to do when He appeared as the burning bush. Mere angels don't do that -- mere angels cannot and do not accept the worship of man.
In the 19th chapter of the Book of Revelations, the Commander of the Lord's Army returns with the entire army of Heaven at his back. The Colonel used to take a perverse pleasure in believing that he would be fighting in that final battle against evil..., until he realized that the entire army of Heaven doesn't lift a finger to help the Commander of the Lord's Army. One word from the Son of God's mouth destroys the army of evil.
That's the nature of the sacrifice made by God, whose Son loves mankind with the same perfect heart of His Father. The lamb offered by God was indeed perfect, but it was not just a lamb.
The most familiar verse of scripture -- the eternal hope of mankind -- is John 3: 16, "For God so loved the world, that He sent his only begotten Son..." But, when you realize that God's "only begotten Son" left heaven as a perfect, immortal, holy king (and the greatest warrior) to become mortal flesh in a form without any inherent social privilege, to live as a mortal man, and to (in the prime of life) willingly go to the cross..., well..., that's a true sacrifice.
And on that cruel cross, God's Son, made manifest in the body and soul of Jesus of Nazareth, gave up His sinless, perfect, holy life-blood to cover the sins of mankind...
Forever.
God created man for voluntary relationship. God's requirement for that relationship is the voluntary acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son.
The Colonel is beyond grateful that his own earthly conduct has no bearing on his eternal salvation.
The Colonel cares not one wit on which of Santa's lists his name appears. If his name did happen to appear on the "good" list, the Colonel assures you that nothing in his own character and conduct landed it there. The only redeeming quality of the man curmudgeoned before his time is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And that's why Easter is the holiday that means the world to the Colonel.
Like every other man who preceded, and will follow, him, the Colonel's sin and imperfection separates him from his Creator. The Colonel fervently believes that his God is so Holy, so perfect, that He cannot allow sin and imperfection in his presence. Nothing the Colonel could ever do in his own strength and personal conduct can ever bridge the great gulf that separates his sinful mortality from God's perfect and holy immortality.
The Colonel believes that God loves him despite his possession of the blackest, most sinful heart any man has ever possessed. The Colonel can not, even in the wildest delusions about himself, come to any conclusion other than that he is just as imperfect and bent toward evil as any man who ever lived. And yet, he can come to no other conclusion but that God loves him.
Allow the Colonel to explain why he believes God still loves him in spite of his sinfulness.
Man is God's greatest, most beloved creation. God placed man at the head of His earthly creation -- privileged to the fruit and responsible for stewardship. But, as beautiful as all of creation may seem to man, it is not perfect. It is corrupt and transitory.
So, why would a perfect God create imperfection?
The Colonel doesn't pretend to know the perfect mind of God, but he believes that God created man for a relationship built on man's free will. God didn't want man to love Him because he had to.
When God selected Abram (and later renamed him Abraham), from whom to establish His People, He was not picking a perfect man to father a people special in their own right. The only thing special about Abraham and his descendants is that they were chosen for one purpose and one purpose alone -- to reveal God to man.
Abraham's descendants -- God's chosen people -- endured four centuries of captivity in Egypt. At the time of their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were a nation of millions -- and still they needed a Savior God to free them. It was the overwhelming power of a Savior God that liberated the Israelites, a people as stubbornly sinful and rebellious as any who ever existed. God miraculously saved them from captivity and miraculously sustained them on their return to the land God had promised to them.
Look, for all the "flowing with milk and honey" descriptions of the land between the Euphrates and the Nile, the "Promised Land" isn't any more special -- in its own right -- than any other territory on this big blue marble. The Colonel has trod on a goodly percentage of God's creation, to include the "Promised Land," and there isn't anything to recommend that sliver of land at the western end of the Mediterranean above any other.
Except that God chose it, and a people to populate it, to reveal Himself to man.
On the way out of Egypt, God established a covenant with the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man. He provided His Law -- the Commandments -- as His expectations of the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man.
God expected man to follow His Commandments to the letter, but knew that he couldn't.
The Colonel knows that just don't make sense. Not to man, anyway.
Just as God chose Abraham's descendants to reveal Himself to man, He provided His Law to reveal His perfection and man's imperfection. No man, save the human incarnation of God's Son, has ever perfectly kept the Ten Commandments.
The Colonel hasn't even come close. In fact, he has swung and missed at every one, in thought and deed (no difference in God's perfect vision), of the slow-pitch softball offerings of the Ten Commandments.
Seriously. The Ten Commandments don't require anything that man would consider Herculean effort. There's no requirement to slay dragons, no demand that one fly like an angel, no need to perform miracles -- just demonstrate by your actions that you love God and love your fellow man.
Search your heart. What is your score?
(Rhetorical question. Please don't tell the Colonel your failings -- he has more than enough on his own conscience to be burdened with yours as well.)
One infraction of God's Law makes one imperfect and guilty of sin. A sinful, guilty man cannot enter into God's presence of his own accord. God just won't allow it.
So, all of mankind falls far short of the glory and perfection of a Creator God who loves them above all of His creations. It doesn't make sense to this man. And that's the point. The Colonel ain't God.
From the very beginning of His relationship with man, God required a significant sacrifice to demonstrate a man's sincere remorse for his sin -- the life blood of the best of the beasts for which God made man responsible. But, this atonement was always temporary and ultimately insufficient.
Why? Because any sacrifice of even the very best, any lamb without outward blemish, of God's imperfect creation was..., well...,
...imperfect.
What's so imperfect about a lamb without any blemish?
Simple. It is mortal. It will not live forever. If it was truly perfect, it would be immortal.
In God's perfect timing, He sent His perfect Son into the world as a human. This was the Messiah, prophesied about and promised to His Chosen People -- again, not because they were special in their own right. It was not the first time (nor the last) that God's Son would appear on Earth.
The disciple with perhaps the closest relationship with God's Son incarnate preambles his gospel with the following revelation from God:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1: 1-5)
Let's unpack that.
God's Son -- His only Son -- has existed (and will exist) with God for eternity in either direction mortal man my look in time. Man refers to Him as God's Son because there is no other way man can comprehend the concept. There is no God Mother of God's Son -- none mentioned by God; none referred to by God-inspired scripture. God's Son was with God at Creation -- indeed, He is the Agent of Creation.
The Colonel's journey with his Savior God has led him to the following conclusion about the Bible's account of Creation -- it isn't about the Creation; it's about the Creator.
God's Son is God's Agent of Eternal Salvation. Outside of the Son, there is no eternal life -- no means by which sinful, imperfect man may escape the sentence of mortality and enter, completely pardoned of all sin, into the eternal presence of God.
Remember the blood sacrifice requirement the Colonel mentioned earlier? That sacrifice of a superficially "perfect" animal only temporarily atoned for a man's sin. The sacrifice had to be repeatedly made, and still did not completely pardon a man's sin.
A truly perfect sacrifice was required. And because imperfect man was (is) incapable of making a truly perfect sacrifice, Perfect and Holy God had to make that truly perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of His most loved creation. The truly most perfect and greatest sacrifice God could make was to allow His Son to set aside His perfectly holy, most-high divinity and be made low.
How great was that fall?
God's Son is not only the Agent of Creation; He is the Commander of the Lord's Armies. Check out the account of Joshua on his commander's recon in front of the great fortified position known as Jericho found in the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua.
Moses is dead and buried on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Joshua has taken command, led God's People across the Jordan, and now stands on the Plain of Jericho scratching his head and trying to figure out how his light infantry army is going to reduce and capture one of the most impregnable fortresses ever faced by a military force. Joshua sees a resplendent warrior standing at a distance and cautiously approaches, asking, (the Colonel paraphrases) "Hey, soldier! Are you one of my men, or do you belong to the army of Jericho?"
The resplendent warrior's answer is a curt, "No!"
The Colonel can only imagine the look on General Joshua's face at that answer. The warrior saw the look and then changed it, "I am the Commander of the Lord's Army."
What does it mean to be the Commander of the Lord's Army? It doesn't take a military genius to figure out that chain of command. But, lest there be any doubt as to bona fides, the warrior facing Joshua commands him to remove his sandals because, "you are standing on Holy Ground." That's the same thing God told Moses to do when He appeared as the burning bush. Mere angels don't do that -- mere angels cannot and do not accept the worship of man.
In the 19th chapter of the Book of Revelations, the Commander of the Lord's Army returns with the entire army of Heaven at his back. The Colonel used to take a perverse pleasure in believing that he would be fighting in that final battle against evil..., until he realized that the entire army of Heaven doesn't lift a finger to help the Commander of the Lord's Army. One word from the Son of God's mouth destroys the army of evil.
That's the nature of the sacrifice made by God, whose Son loves mankind with the same perfect heart of His Father. The lamb offered by God was indeed perfect, but it was not just a lamb.
The most familiar verse of scripture -- the eternal hope of mankind -- is John 3: 16, "For God so loved the world, that He sent his only begotten Son..." But, when you realize that God's "only begotten Son" left heaven as a perfect, immortal, holy king (and the greatest warrior) to become mortal flesh in a form without any inherent social privilege, to live as a mortal man, and to (in the prime of life) willingly go to the cross..., well..., that's a true sacrifice.
And on that cruel cross, God's Son, made manifest in the body and soul of Jesus of Nazareth, gave up His sinless, perfect, holy life-blood to cover the sins of mankind...
Forever.
God created man for voluntary relationship. God's requirement for that relationship is the voluntary acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son.
The Colonel is beyond grateful that his own earthly conduct has no bearing on his eternal salvation.
Friday, April 12, 2019
Nothing More Than Feelings
You want him that way.
The Republic needs men and women like the Colonel -- cold, calculating, rational...,
...unfeeling.
While the rest of humanity pines for the ease of a life where the phrase "I feel that..." precedes all pronouncements of policy positions, there must be those hated few who keep the rest grounded in reality.
The Colonel's bride, best friend, and permanent life journey co-marcher -- the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda -- is a world-class "feeler." She possesses a heart the size of Montana.
Why Montana?
Because the Colonel likes to see his Texan friends pay attention, and slighting them is a sure way to accomplish that mission.
Works with Bama and LSU fans as well.
But, the Colonel digresses.
Last evening, the Colonel was ensconced in his comfy leather chair parked front and center of his far-too-small 50" flat screen (he means, c'mon there's room on that wall for at least a 75"), perusing the cable news opinion prattle. The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda was couch-side tending to her current quilting project and paying about as much attention to the discussion of politics and policy as an armadillo pays to traffic, when one of the talking heads said something that caused her to pause mid-stitch,
"That's not right."
The Colonel jumped at the sudden sound to his right, unaccustomed to any other sound during his nightly perusal of the cable news opinion prattle, save his own shallow breathing. He turned to see the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda glaring at the far-too-small flat screen (seriously, the Colonel could easily fit an 80" on that wall), "What's that dear? Did you lose your needle again?"
She pointed toward the far-too-small flat screen with her dainty chin (the Colonel loves that chin..., and seriously, if Vizio ever comes out with a 100" model...), "That's not right. I don't feel that they should be able to do that."
"Your 'feelings' have zero bearing on the issue," the Colonel growled dismissively.
"Don't be dismissive with me, old man!" The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda was no longer pointing her dainty chin at the far-too-small (see previous paragraphs) flat screen. Her green eyes were flashing at the Colonel over her readers, "and, what's wrong with your voice? You sound like a puppy fighting over a bone."
"Who you callin' a puppy? That was the Colonel's dismissive growl, developed during a career of interminable staff meetings, and meant to strike mortal terror in the hearts of staff weenies wasting the operators' time."
"Whatever..." Obviously the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda had realized the error of her ways and was now submitting to the intellectual superiority of...
"What's wrong with your face, knucklehead? You've got that haughty Obama look going on."
The Colonel glared toward his beautiful bride, "That's the 'Colonel's haughty look.' Obama stole it from the Colonel."
"Whatever..." (The Colonel has a very submissive wife.) "I just don't feel that they should be able to do that."
"Well...," the Colonel dropped his dismissive growl (puppy, indeed! -- she probably thinks Moby Dick was a minnow) and assumed his practiced pedantic pontification persona. "There's no law against it."
"Well, I feel like there should be."
"It would be unconstitutional. And..., nowhere in the Constitution of our great Republic is the concept of 'feelings' found."
"How would it be 'unconstitutional?'" The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda emphasized the last word in what the Colonel recognized as her mocking attempt to impersonate the Colonel's practiced pedantic pontification persona. The Colonel might have been offended if..., well..., if he had any feelings.
"Ever heard of the Bill of Rights, dear? What you are proposing would violate at least two of the rights protected in the first ten amendments to our Constitution."
"Well," the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda huffed, "they need to change those amendments, then."
"First," the Colonel shifted into a whole 'nuther gear in his practiced pedantic pontification persona, "you can't 'change' an amendment to the Constitution. In order to undo something in the Constitution, or an amendment thereto, you must ratify another amendment. For example, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, outlawed the production, transport, and sale of alcohol. It was superseded in 1933 by the 21st Amendment lifting this prohibition; but, the 18th Amendment itself was not changed and remains in the Constitution."
"Well, that's stupid. Why do they do that?"
"In the Colonel's not-so-humble opinion, that's part of the overall genius of the U.S. Constitution -- leaving the language of the amended portions of the original Constitution and superseded amendments intact provides an historical road map for posterity."
"Yeah. I know, I know. It's always about history with you isn't it?"
The Colonel didn't so much ignore the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's jibe as much as took it as a compliment. He continued, "The constitutional process for changing anything in the U.S. Constitution is prohibitively protracted." The Colonel was wound up and reveling in the opportunity to educate, "Article V of the Constitution provides for two means of proposing an amendment for ratification consideration. One is via Congress -- either by a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate, or by a national convention called by Congress (which ain't likely to happen). The other is what is currently being called "A Convention of States," where two-thirds of the states themselves call for a national convention."
The Colonel paused in a quick beseeching prayer, "Lord, if you love me -- and I don't doubt that you do -- you'll allow me to be selected as a state representative to the coming convention of states. Amen."
The Colonel noticed that the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's patience was wearing ever-so-slightly thin and began to wrap up his practiced pedantic pontification, "Any proposed amendment must be ratified by two-thirds of the states in order to take effect. So, you see, it ain't an easy proposition."
"Why is it so hard for you men to do anything?"
The Colonel ignored the overt sexism in the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's remark, "Because..., had it been easy, anytime somebody felt that a change should be made -- based on their heart and not their head -- the limitations and protections of the greatest form of government ever devised by man would have been erased and the Republic would have foundered within its first generation."
"Well, I still feel like we should..."
The Colonel, empty of empathy, short on sympathy, and lacking even a modicum of tact, cut her off summarily.
"Yep, you and 150 million brainless socialists."
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