Fellow rebels,

I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew.

What my mind can ponder abstractly, I often consider myself capable of conveying.

Turns out, that isn’t really true.

Being able to encompass the whole of an idea is not the same as comprehending each of its constituent parts.

My own home is a great example of this.

When my wife and I bought our land, we decided we would build our own home. This was as much a financial decision as a spiritual one.

In practicality, that meant that I (John) would be the one building the home.

This is not a problem except for the fact that I had never built anything in my entire life.

Sure, I’d handed a few boards to my dad while he built things, but I myself had never done more than pound a few nails into their final resting places.

At the outset of the build, this translated to complete overwhelm and what ensued over the coming year and a half of building was one grueling day after the other as I learned every different aspect of what it really takes to create a habitable building in my Central-US environment.

Augering holes for posts, setting each post plumb and straight in line with the others, adding gravel base, roughing in the plumbing, pouring the concrete slab, framing the walls, roughing in the electrical, insulating, sheathing, hanging the exterior sheet metal, building the lean-to and carport, adding firewood storage, building out a rainwater collection system.

You get the idea.

I could say I “built our house”, but that doesn’t quite convey the same degree of detail as the paragraph above naming each step.

You know what I mean?

Ideas are similar.

Recently, the idea I’ve been trying to grasp is the extent of the current societal rot besetting the western world.

And as I do so, keep finding myself questioning even the words and phrases I use to summarize my thoughts.

“Western world”, for instance.

What is The West?

Cultures united by Judeo-Christian values? Cultures with a shared European origin? What about the Balkans? When you say Christian, do you mean Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox? All of the above? Then what do you do with that part of European history where the Catholics were hunting down and slaughtering entire cities of Protestants in France?

I know I don’t need to elaborate and bore you with the interminable line of questions this leads to.

But I simultaneously do not want to diminish their value.

I believe these questions are legitimate and critical.

Without their contextual insight, we are moored to the folly of the present.

But endless academic droning is an evil in itself. And study, beyond the point of sufficiency, quickly becomes just that.

Personally, I’ve had enough study time.

What I am interested in is ACTION.

Considering where we are in this current iteration of human history, what should we be doing?

This question haunts me.

And yet, I know great minds have already considered this topic long before me.

They’ve even written books about it.

“How Should We Then Live?” by Francis Schaeffer comes to mind.

But my awareness of the topic and my ability to envision it as a whole have not soothed my soul.

As the leader of a family and a concerned citizen of two nations (Heaven and the USA), I know there are at least two fronts to which precious marshal energy must be consigned: the preservation of the lantern of Western Culture and the saving of souls from the damnation of eternity in hell.

Along these fronts, there are many battles raging.

• Islam is invading yet again, seeking to subjugate the world beneath the scimitar of shariah law.
• American liberals have turned militant, now declaring that you must agree with them or face your just comeuppance.
• Christianity has become so effeminate and tepid that it can no longer even declare that sinners are bound for hell without Christ.
• Our children are being turned against us by an education system that tells them they are evil for being white, everyone evolved from monkeys, and the world will burn up in five years unless their parents stop driving cars.
• The financial future of the world is being deliberately sabotaged by people who have already ensconced themselves like ticks in the hide of the elephant of inflationary government spending.

In such a complex war, the exact next step is hard to know.

But what I do know is this:

• Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"
• Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
• Proverbs 16:9 “A man's heart devises his way: but the Lord directs his steps.”

I know the answer I seek is simple. The truth always is.

However, the journey to finding it is anything but.

I guess that’s what I am inviting you to join me in with this newsletter.

A journey.

I am asking big questions, and dichotomously hoping to live a quiet and peaceful life marked by godliness and honesty.

But I want to know the truth, and to live my life accordingly.

I know that the Lord has made me for battle, and it seems that my number has been called to join the fray.

Will you go with me?

I do hope so.

More soon,

John

May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Like what you read? Share it with a friend.

Feel free to write back to me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

God bless.