Well, Maybe I Am an Anarchist

    Summer’s nearly gone and now we’re in those in-between days filled with those little black bugs that bite like fire and an endless stream of political mailers to be delivered. Changing leaves and falling rain. I came home from another day on the postal routes and sat on the porch to rest and to play with the little cat Leto who’s often waiting for me to return.

    The cat was clambering over my lap when Gunner pulled into the driveway in his noisy pickup truck. Leto bolted under the porch to hide.

    “That’s a new cat, isn’t it?” Gunner called out as he approached.

    “He’s relatively new,” I affirmed. The strays come and go as they please. We feed them and play with those that are friendly enough to approach. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Gunner. What’s it been? A month? A month and a half?”

    “Listen. I’m busy with other things, Carter. I’ve got a job and a family to raise. I can’t spend all my time correcting you and your pigheaded heresy.”

    “Porcinecephalous, eh?” I grinned.

    “Cut it out, Carter.” Gunner sat down on the porch next to me and continued. “You criticize Trump and his administration a lot for someone who calls himself a Christian.”

    “Yeah. I suppose I do. But I was critical of Biden, and Obama, and W. as well.”

    “Then it’s just as I thought,” Gunner laughed. “You won’t submit to any government. I remember that you told me once that you were kicked out of seminary. It’s that way with you. You are rebellious at heart. You refuse to submit to any legitimate authority.”

    I didn’t say anything in response to his challenge. I just made pss, pss, pss, noises for Leto under the porch.

    “Yeah,” Gunner smirked. “I knew it. You’re just another of those liberals who can’t respond when he’s confronted with the truth. You’ve got no viable way to respond. Just another…”

    I interrupted him just then. “No. I’m just trying to figure out which is applicable here. I don’t want to get down in the mud with you. I’ve had a long day and I was enjoying the cat. So the biblical instruction, ‘Do not answer a fool…’ seems to be the way to go.”

    “Typical,” Gunner snorted. “You should try reading that Bible you keep claiming to know. It actually says, ‘Answer a fool, lest he think himself wise.’”

    “Well,” I sighed. “If you insist.” I paused briefly, then said. “Do you think you’re the first to accuse me of that kind of thing? Do you think you’re the first to lay those charges at my feet? Be serious.”

    His smirk widened and he laughed again. “So you confess that you’re an anarchist.”

    “Well, maybe I am an anarchist. But it’s more of a Leo Tolstoy, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin kind of anarchy and not the Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistols kind of anarchy.”

    “Use whatever legitimization you think will cover your pride, but what you need is to learn to submit to authority. Like Joseph in Egypt. Like Paul in prison. Like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Look at them. They lived in an evil empire, but they didn’t rebel. They served in the Babylonian court. They didn’t raise a fist. They obeyed.”

    It was my turn to scoff. “You’re not the first to accuse me of being rebellious, but you are the first I’ve heard use Daniel and his friends as an example of obedience to empire. That’s a pretty wild take. Even for you, Gunner.”

    Leto poked his head out between the steps and looked at me. I reached out to stroke his head but he ducked back under.

    “Romans 13,” Gunner said.

    “What about Romans 13,” I asked.

    “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God,” Gunner quoted. “Anyone who rebels against the government is rebelling against God. And you have a rebellious heart.”

    I could see that Leto wasn’t going to come out from under the porch so I looked around. I saw Gunner’s truck in the driveway. “Gunner. You’ve got a couple of flag decals on the windows of your truck. An American flag and a Confederate battle flag. I know you’re a patriotic kind of guy. We’ve talked about that. But the leaders of those nations began with rebellion, yeah? Especially the Confederates – the rebels. By your definition, they would have been rebelling against God.”

    “That was different,” he stammered.

    “Yeah. It probably was,” I said. “Tell me, Gunner. How did Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah – or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, end up in the furnace? Which act of obedience led them to that? Or Daniel. Tell me how he ended up in the lion pit. I’m not sure what you’re reading, but the book of Daniel in my Bible is start to finish about resisting empire.”

    “That’s different,” he said again.

    “And one more. What’s on Thomas Jefferson’s seal? Rebellion to tyrants is what?"

    “Obedience to God.”

    I looked again for the cat, but he was either gone or hiding far under the porch. “Back to Romans 13,” I said. “The only thing I owe anyone is love. Love fulfills the law, even when tyrants rule. And love resists evil. If I’m an anarchist, I’m an anarchist because of love.”

    I could see that this line of argument hadn’t set well with Gunner. He looked at his watch and slapped his thighs. “I told you I was busy, Carter. I’ve gotta get home to have dinner with my family.” He stood and walked down the porch steps and back to his pickup truck.

    And I watched him go.

Previous Conversations: 

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll (the first of the series) 
I Will Not Fight the Argument (the second)
Supermarket Wrestling (third conversation)
Do You Even Pray (the troll returns)
All Means All (A fifth conversation)
The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged (sixth conversation)
Toward Sodom - (a halfhearted seventh conversation)
Millions of Years of Death (the eighth conversation)
Truth with Untruth (the ninth conversation)
Bulls, Dogs, and Villains (the tenth conversation)
The Righteous Forsaken (the eleventh conversation)
A Sabbath Garden (conversation number twelve)
Doesn't Doctrine Mean Anything to You? (conversation thirteen)
Real Christian Men, Real Christian Marriage (conversation fourteen)
Allah Azeem (conversation fifteen) 

A Word from the Sidewalk

    I saw her from the street, silver hair and upraised arms. She was standing on the sidewalk, not screaming exactly, but speaking forcefully, directly. People heard her, of course. How could they not? But no one stopped to listen.

    “How long will we be tied to belligerent ignorance and ill-disguised racism, shackled to a patriotic frisson? We all have to live, with falling skies and civil defense alarms. With melting glaciers and flash flood death.

    “How long will we endure antinomian leaders hawking law and order through late night screeds. Apocalypse mongers and war criminals calling down a blood moon at noon. Glorified war on television but ethnic cleansing never in the news.

    “Overcrowded prison cells and three hundred years of malignant policing. Rock of Ages stenciled in the prison yard.

 “Strip-mined copper and toxic arsenic residue. Drinking water on fire. The shithole stench of a gravemouth trench. The machinery of money grinding flesh and guts. Night after night of self-slaughter. Black mass and massacre. Terror storms and whirlwind dreams.

    “It is the hope and stimulus of false reality. Delusions of death. We choke on schemes. We choke down screams. How long?”

    I listened to her for a while, but I had to continue on my way. The boss can tell if I linger too long in any one location. I wrote down what I could remember of her speech. I tried, but I’m not sure I got it all.

Proverbs 1:20-23

Unsatisfied Unsettled

    Say nothing for those who see nothing
    concealed, suppressed trauma
    and unchecked philosophy

    The grinding, ruthless race
    of unsatisfied winner takes all
    the plots of violent hearts
    and lies of mischievous mouths

    We are conditioned by a lifetime of storms
    taught the ambitions of greed and malice
    brought up to believe this is the way

    But watch without envy
    and wait without impatience

    There is no future here, no reward, no hope
    the unsettled glow behind his eyes
    will flicker into darkness.

Proverbs 24:19-20

How Small Your Strength

    Samira, now living underground in sunless, soulless caves, unable to anticipate the changing of the seasons, and helpless to the elements, with burnt patches and skin lesions. Now suffering beneath the Babylonian spirit industry and hypocrites with cultured countenances. Spiritual influencers without scripture.

    Ignored disjunctive accents. Paused without proceeding. Will goodness itself be raised from the dead? Be not faithless but believing, right? Please. Please.

    House to house, imprisoned by militant Tribulationist agents of the government. Years and years given to cruel blackmailers. Soft vexations behind the stone. Scrubbed of profanity, but the vulgarity remains. A modern murdered disciple.

    “I’m tired of being…” Samira began but could not complete the thought. “Tired of being afraid? Alone? Exhausted? Maybe I’m just tired of being.”

    Heaven for height and unsearchable earth for depth. Climb into heaven and dig into hell.

    “My body. My hunger.” A human desperation out of her hell. A freedom of confusion. “I’ve stumbled my soul.”

    She examined her wounds. Daily injuries and strong stabbings.

    “What do you do when the world spins further into chaos? Overwhelmed by a near constant report of collapse. The housefire spreads and our children are electrocuted at school. What do you do when your heart fails, when you faint in days of adversity?”

    She sobbed. “My strength is not worth much.”

Proverbs 24:10

Filled to Full with Seven Abominations

    You know the man, you know how he seethes and burns from the inside, though he occasionally masks it with a smile and smooth words. You know the malevolence within.

    - an old-man’s lust for a young girl’s flesh, his fingers in her hair, on her skin

    - a black-hearted scorn for people of color coming up from “shithole” countries. He calls them vermin. He calls them dogs

    - a gleeful delight as he imagines his enemies imprisoned. Tortured. He is concupiscent for their screams

    - a blasphemy of the ego. I don’t need to be forgiven. Don’t bring God into this

    - a vainglorious pretension grasping for power and money. I am a king to be adored, a god to be revered

    - a never-ending torrent of worthless lies. He lies with every breath

    - a predator’s hands splashed with blood

    Do not trust him, even when he grins for the camera; his unctuous heart is filled to full with seven abominations.

Proverbs 26:24-25

In Search of Words

    Yahya stood in the bathroom, looking into the mirror, trying to see the reflection of images in the television – a thousand hidden faces, twisting, kicking arms and legs captured by some impossible wreckage. He saw strangers and foreigners and pilgrims beyond the door.

    And he began to wonder

    about catacombs and cathedrals, soccer fields and train depots
    about the many multiplied paintings of Christ’s crucifixion
    about late night diners and midnight drone attacks

    And the glass shattered.

    “What is this?” he asked as a wave of panic washed over him. It was the same question he’d asked ten, twenty, a hundred times before. The same quiet exhaustion. He wiped his face with a towel and got dressed. That’s when he decided to go looking.

    ...he went in search of words
    but there were none to be found.

Proverbs 19:7b

Driving the Back Roads at Random

    It’s been a number of years so now we can openly acknowledge the story. Even with all the burdensome little asides, we can tell the truth. Try to reconstruct the story from the scattered fragments she left behind.

    She had time to kill, driving the back-roads at random, hurt and wounded, with a sandwich and two cups of coffee. She couldn’t go home to make things right. Or wouldn’t. She’d injured him. Reassured him. Shamed him. Shamed him and caused him to suffer. Hiding her disdain with twenty years of lies. And now the money was gone.

    What is happening here? The two of them, faces close, wedding pose...Flip the photograph and read the message. Reveal what was written even if it leaves us helpless. “My Darling...”

    I have no honest idea. I don’t know who she is. Or was.

    Behind the photograph, a newspaper clipping – something about a fire fifty miles away. Yesterday. For what purpose? Money? It’s always money, right? A significant amount of money. And maybe that was part of it. But she left and she’s not talking.

    Not about the money. Not about the fire. Not about her family. Not about the past.

    Whoever has the discipline of correction – she drives toward life.
    Whoever rejects it – she’s already gone astray.

Proverbs 10:17

White House Promises

    “Looks like rain,” said the man standing next to me as he sniffed the air. But, born and raised in the Midwest, I knew better. When the sky’s red and overcast in the morning, I know it will be storming soon. I know clouds in the west are for rain and wind from the south is hot. But this is neither.

    There were news cameras from all the major outlets, with a clear title and clean report. Cleared for the press corps by presidential aides, gathered on the lawn with their anchors prepping and primping in the ringlight. And me, taking notes for my forthcoming book – Misgoverned Houses and an Inheritance of Wind. No one would read it, of course. But the words must be written. Fame is better than gold, I am told. But I have neither.

    Meanwhile, dangling high for the cameras to see, was history in the making. A sentimental moment for salesmen without an ounce of self-denial. Salesmen with asymmetrical smiles, chewing the carpet. Explaining the complexities of imported mining exports and residual dividend transfers. Drilling holes for natural gas and paying off companies to not build renewables.

    The president was there. He was, of course, primarily concerned with conducting personal business under the presidential seal. Leaving a trail of unmarked graves and unexamined bodies. You know what they say about the pretensions of White Horse promises – conquering and to conquer the world. Only I can fix it... 

    And the press conference began. Flashbulbs and shouting. Can we ask about:

    Affordable health care?
    Reduction of the national debt?
    Lower grocery prices?
    Lower gas prices?
    Lower energy bills?
    Stimulus check? DOGE check?
    Greenland, Canada, Venezuela?
    Where are we with Iran?

    Over the intercom, a response, “No. No. Not yet.”

    “Is everything okay?”

    “No. Put that man out. Revoke his credentials. Put those questions aside - there are tourists exploding on the mall. We are as polite as overwhelming anger. All you weak reporters. Lazy. Failing.”

    “Looks like rain,” said the man standing next to me as he sniffed the air but you know what they say - White House promises are heavy clouds and wind, but no rain.

Proverbs 25:14

Long Time, No Time

    I don’t want to see it.

    Her face framed in the doorway like a mistake, through dimmed and dreaming eyes. You should see her now-bruised and bound, sick and wounded, erring. Her hair is different now. She is alive and well, honeyed and oiled, but looks abandoned. I reach out, react. Feel my throat break free. Out. Down.

    She says, “C’mon. One more kiss.”

    I don’t want to say it.

    She took and split, my ex of one brief period of grief. Forsaking friend and covenant. Why does she look abandoned? The way she leans, tilts one hip. She opens the door and moves closer with a mischievous smile, her most Cheshire. The ground is shaky. I notice her shoes-oiled and scuffed.

    She says, “Long time, babe.”

    She says, “long time, no time.”

    Outside her empty window, a basement staircase plunges into soil. A heart of shadow glooms in the doorway like tokens of light in a graveyard lot. The air folds. The porch lights flicker. The steps and sidewalk furrow. The driveway falls.

    I tumble into the collapse with her silhouette of sinking concrete, with damp earth and forgotten things. Flesh and body consumed.

    I don’t want to be led this way.

(Proverbs 2, 5)

A Biblically Indexed Police Blotter

    Repeat Juvenile Runaway Near E. 9^th St. N.
    1.0 mi East 9^th St. North

    Deputies responded to possible repeat runaway report involving a juvenile. The same juvenile reportedly involved in similar incidents all this year.

    See: Proverbs 22: 6 and 29:17 and Jeremiah 31:16-17 - “...your children will return to their homeland.”

    High Speed Pursuit of Maroon SUV on Highway 8 
    1.6 mi US-8

    Law enforcement units were involved in pursuit of a maroon SUV traveling eastbound on Highway 8. County and state agencies were notified for assistance.

    See: Leviticus 26: 8 – “five of you pursuing a hundred of them, one hundred pursuing ten thousand; and your enemies will fall beneath your sword.”

    Suspicious Persons Reported / Possible Burglary in Progress 
    0.5 mi East 11^th St. South

    Deputies investigated a possible burglary after a caller reported a suspicious person or persons who may have entered their home. Unidentified person was described as white, male, wearing gray clothing and a pink backpack, last seen running toward a nearby liquor store.

    See: Mark 3:27 – “no one can make his way into the Strong Man’s house and plunder his property unless he has first tied up the Strong Man. Only then can he plunder his house.”

    Youth Driving Recklessly on Moped 
    1.7 mi East 13^th St. North

    Deputies responded to report of a juvenile driving recklessly on a moped. Caller was waiting for deputy to make definitive identification of the youth.

    See: Proverbs 14:16, and Judges 9:4 - “...Abimelech hired reckless and violent adventurers to follow him.”

    Unresponsive Female in Alley 
    2.9 mi East 18^th St. North

    Emergency responders were dispatched to East 10^th St. N. for a report of an unresponsive female. Caller indicated that a medical alert button had been activated, but there was no response from the individual.

    See: Numbers 31:9 – “The Israelites took the women and their little ones captive and carried off all their goods as booty.”

    High Speed Pursuit Ends in Collision 
    3.4 mi IA-234

    Deputies pursued a maroon SUV at high speeds on Highway 234 and into rural roads including North 750^th Avenue. The chase reached speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Pursuit concluded when vehicle crashed into a large stone. Two individuals were rushed to the hospital.

    See: Psalm 91:12 - “They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

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    ERROR.Coherence.threshold.exceeded+5.X
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    SYSTEM.OVERLOAD>>RESET.EISEGESIS-1.8X>>RESET.EXEGESIS+3.X
    X.X>>REINTERPRET.X

This Man Only a Moment

    He is on the news again, this man. This man, who never shuts up. This man, this man – is not a man. He is a living lie. Even when he tells the truth it is in furtherance of a lie. Big hair, big mouth in front of the cameras and microphones. But the internal indicators are not functioning. No light. No tick, tick, tick haptic. Whatever you think, or feel, or vote – this is his time. This man, this moment.

    He sits upon the surface of evil – marking divisions and offenses. Using leverage as the key to the deal. It goes like this: with easy way capitulations or hard way negotiations in the back room. The artifice and the fraud become accepted reality. Packaged for grift and for graft.

    This man, this man – mighty before but urgent now with a loss and lack of integrity. Disintegration on the screen in front of us. A living lie falling apart. And we are herded into semiautonomous waiting in small rooms in a smaller and smaller world. Dangerous dimensions. All that sorrow, all that ache. We are thundered asunder. Waiting to be pulled under.

    He never shuts up. A thousand thoughtless words -for a day, a week, a year – like a sword, cutting and slashing anyone at hand. Striking and lashing out at friends and allies as often as his enemies. Active for decades, but soon he’ll be done. Sincere lips endure forever but the lying tongue – this man – with his lying lips lasts only a moment.

Proverbs 12: 18-19

A Daily Resistance – January 25, 2026

    There are six things the Lord hates. Make it seven detestables. Deplorables.

    Haughty eyes.

    You’ve heard it yourself – the tone, the shrill, the shriek. You know the smug dynamic tough guy vibes. You know him – the American Vulgarian brandishing his piety like a goddamn hammer. The governing authority without credibility. Zero.

    A lying tongue.

    Wicked. Perverse. Depraved in front of the cameras of the White House press room

    Hands that shed innocent blood.

    I’ve had enough of staring down the line. Jumping impossible hurdles. I’ve had enough of the barrel and the bullet. A funeral test. A failure trial. These are debts that can never be repaid.

    A heart that devises wicked schemes.

    Another Midwest shooting. Another state sponsored murder. Another extrajudicial execution on a Minnesota street. Antinomian disregard. No jurisprudence. No moral law.

    Feet quick to rush into the evil of the American nightmare

    Your absurdities have become atrocities. Another every day. Without regret. Without remorse. You delight in the cruelty. Pleasure in our pain.

    A false witness pouring out lies one after another as if we didn’t see the videos ourselves.

    Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers” – but this is not you. You are lawlessness and chaos. You are death and destruction. Without a profession of doubt you’ll never realize your mistake.

    A person who stirs up conflict in the community.

    Don’t ask for reverence. Give me no more confessions of faith. I no longer believe.

(Proverbs 6: 16-19)

Proverbial Trump

"Like a madman hurling firebrands,
arrows and death,
so is anyone who lies to a companion
and then says, 'aren't I amusing?'"
Proverbs 26: 18 - 19 (New Jerusalem Bible)

Biblical Limericks: Proverbial Euphemisms

Live all your life with joy and with zest;
enjoy your wife and fondle her breast.
And drink deep from her well,
that’s where pleasure will swell,
and may your, ahem, 'fountain' be blessed.

Proverbs 5: 15 - 19

And - if you like the biblical limericks that I've been writing for a couple of years now, take note:  I am working on, and nearly finished with a book length collection of them. I'll have it to my publisher by the end of this month, and it will be available sometime not long after that.

A Limerick Prayer

Oh, my faith, like my life, is broken;
my hope is not more than a token.
I know I can’t fix it,
except Deus Dixit.
God, give me a word fitly spoken.

Proverbs 25: 11

Biblical Limericks: Alternative Facts and Evil Acts

If the leader accepts and then backs
those lies which are “alternative facts,”
be on guard and beware,
you be sure to take care
for his crew is up to evil acts.

Proverbs 29: 12

Biblical Limericks: Proverbs After the Election

After the worst election in history,
filled with frauds, falsehood, and frippery,
it’s a good time, I think,
for us to have a drink,
so we can forget our misery.

Proverbs 31: 6 - 7

Biblical Limericks: Vomit

Eat honey whenever you find it -
eat, be content, and find enjoyment,
but don't go to excess
or you'll make such a mess;
overindulge and you will vomit.

Proverbs 25: 16

Biblical Limericks: Liars

Those who are honest will rise higher,
be praised in song by heaven’s choir-
but there’s nothing but woe
for deceivers, you know,
the Lord hates the lips of a liar.

Proverbs 12:22

Biblical Limericks: That’s Treason

Our objection to this verse is strong;
there’s no way we can say it belongs.
We’d rather that it said
that we should shoot him dead-
giving aid to the enemy’s wrong!

Proverbs 25: 21