But God, who is rich in mercy, like an American billionaire, has hidden away his vast fortune in a variety of corporations, trusts, public-private partnerships, and foundations in jurisdictions with low taxes and strong privacy laws. In tax sheltered shell companies and offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss accounts. Concealed in other unlisted foreign accounts with falsified records and laundered proceeds.
How else would he remain so rich?
Ephesians 2:4:
I was living a bifurcated existence, like most everyone in those debilitating, degenerate days, divided myself from the world, with one foot on the upward path and one foot on the pitch, on the city streets at night, walking in the flickering, projected light of digital advert displays. It was best to avoid looking at those lights. They are false luminaries. And to beware of the shifting shadows as well. They are whispering spirits.
All the moist elements of murder were there: a woman with stolen money and a hole torn in her thin white blouse, her lover starting fires in the stairwell, her ex-husband, and a gun. It is commonplace, but untrue to say that there was no motive for the crime; some things just resist explanation. Some wounds never heal.
The words blurred like an everflowing river.
I was dreaming of a place with no memory and had no memory of my dreams, of a life of authentic choices made by the principles of determination.
Meanwhile he was screaming outside their apartment, trying to get in, screaming from the stop and go streets. It might have been two or three weeks. Maybe six months to a year. It’s hard to remember now after so long. And the currents of time are unstable.
He saw her kissing in the park. He saw the fire. He saw her walking hand in hand down the sidewalk. He saw the river. He saw her in a parked car with a stranger.
I remember hearing about it – though I was very young at the time. I remember seeing the bloody photos. Why did my parents allow that? I didn’t understand it then and only later, much later, realized what had happened.
He had unresolved issues, problems of aggression behind a cherub’s face, burning pitch behind a Boy’s Life smile. No one believed it. No one believed him. Even when he confessed to the fires.
I remember the images on television: a woman, face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, a message scrawled beside her. “We are deeply distressed by the brutality of this age.” Was that irony or confession? But I do not remember the midnight gunshots just before the hour. I don’t remember hearing them. As I said, I was very young then. Only a boy, but I read about the blood and the glass. And how he was screaming outside the apartment, trying to get in to see her.
Outside the building’s stone black walls, the crowd had assembled. Not yet a mob. Not yet. A mob has a purpose. These were only waiting for instructions to strike. The austere apartments towered above them. I could push through the crowd. Retreat to soulless safety. Turn back. Turn back. Turn back again.
“Listen up, you liberal twat. No American Christian has ever embraced socialism as a guiding principle. It has no place in this country. No value.”
“But it was a socialist who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance,” I remind them. I was having my lunch, eating an apple on bus bench. “A Baptist minister, Francis…”
“I don’t know where you studied history, sir, but I suggest you take another course from a different source. You couldn’t be further from the truth.
The agitations of the crowd surged and rolled. They surrounded me on the bench. Knocked the half-eaten apple from my hand.
“The United States of America is the protector and defender of freedom and democracy.”
“But the US of A has a history of toppling democratically elected governments around the world.”
“Liar!
“Costa Rica, Syria, Guatemala Iran. Chile… I could go on.”
“No! You’re not going to convince us to jeopardize our freedom and security with your leftist lies.”
We don’t see. So we don’t know. Won’t see. It’s not ignorance but a willful, belligerent unknowing. Open eyes and shuttered minds. The lights shining in darkened corners have been snuffed. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4:6
I got a chance to be the bad uncle at church this morning - sharing a silly song with the kids. Start the video at the 14:30 mark.
Hog butcher, gold digger, the United States is the greatest country in the world. Say it again. Say it more. Robber baron, arms dealer, the United States is the greatest nation in the history of nations. A model of hard work humility, and honest golden worship. Decent men and proud women living lives of good fortune. The envy of the world.
Look to the unrivaled military straddling the world, land and sea and air and space. Our marching millions. Look to the unparalleled wealth accumulated in cities of glass and steel. Global power, high above all nations of the earth just as God promised in those pivotal Old Testament prophecies.
But, and hear this, only two in ten will affirm it. Only two in ten will say Amen. Two in ten who understand that America stands a golden head above the other nations. All others are America hating blasphemers who do not understand that gain is godliness. And that we will take it all.
1 Timothy 6:5
There Once Was a Prophet from Judah: Biblical Limericks for Fun and Prophet
