OUTFITS….. Shampooo Flower salopette
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sylph/6/224/22
Cardigan….. *COCO*_Cardigan(Lace)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/COCO%20DESIGNS/85/117/521
HAIR….. >TRUTH< Melinda
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Truth%20Hair/113/70/66
accessories …… ::BRILLANTE:: - Music Symbols
http://slurl.com/secondlife/adorable/98/233/22
SHOES…. *COCO*_LoaferMules
http://slurl.com/secondlife/COCO%20DESIGNS/85/117/521
We are the change we want to see in the world, right? Of course, there is no question.
As an artivist, it definitely gets overwhelming when there are sooooo many causes that are equally important to you. Some require more energy now, while others are a process. But sometimes, you just gotta get out there and give the people what they need. Fuck what they want. America needs truth and not the watered down version. We live in a police state and it feels as if it is the norm. Among a million other wrongs.
An amazing artivist here in Atlanta, Camron Wiltshire, has exposed me to a lot of truths that I would have not known and he just keeps bringing the knowledge for the world. Along with many artists like Afua Richardson and Corinne Stevie, Camron organized a mural in Little 5 Points to bring attention to a topic that has been covered up for nearly a decade. It’s really sad how people can get away with such vicious acts of inhumanity and murder and not be held responsible.
But this agenda isn’t new. Pay attention in history class. All of the evidence is there for you to be the judge. We have to demand that this atrocity be brought to justice. Now, it’s up to you.
WeAreTheChangeAtlanta.Org
[Check out my cameo @ 3:22 !]
Go further. Click below.
Pink Elephant Collective
I just wanted to touch on something this Shabbat. A few things that will help people in their study of the Hebrew Scriptures, and things to always keep in mind.
#1 The Scriptures were not penned in English. Now I know your pastor might say “Well if the KJV was good enough for Moses it is good enough for me…” Meaning is lost via translation and often times bias is added.
#2 Purchase some good concordances at your local bookstore. They are invaluable when reading Paul’s letters. You can clear up many seemingly contradictions with good Concordance or Lexicon.
#3 The KJV is not infallible. It is for the most part an ok translation of the Scriptures, but I repeat it is not infallible, and quite frankly has some very biased translations in it according to church DOGMA, especially in Paul’s letters. If you are under the delusion of the KJV only crazies you will most likely live in spiritual stupidity your entire life.
#4 There was no punctuation marks in Greek. See my article on “So you disobey the Creator because of a comma?”
#5 Understand that Chapters and verses were ADDED TO THE SCRIPTURES! I cannot stress to you how important understand this is! Let me repeat this, verses were added to the scriptures by a priest riding on a horse going through France! Verses were never meant to be doctrine! Many times entire thoughts are cut off with verses and even worse so with Chapters.
#6 Check your Bible to see what words in Italics, parenthesis, brackets are. Many times these words do not even occur in the Greek Text. They were added by translators. Sometimes they help with the translation but other times they totally change the meaning of what is being said. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND ANYTIME YOU SEE A WORD IN ITALICS IN THE KJV OF THE BIBLE THAT YOU GO BACK AND READ THE ENTIRE THING WITHOUT THE WORD IN ITALICS!
#7 When you read something in your English version of the Bible that seems to go against what the Creator teaches and what Messiah Yahushua teaches……OBEY THE CREATOR AND OBEY THE MESSIAH! Then grab a concordance and do some research! You will most likely find very biased translations that make that contradiction!
#8 The Scriptures were not written in 2010 America by western Gentiles that were christians! I cannot stress enough on this point! The scriptures were written by Hebrews from thousands of years ago, that looked at the world in a totally different way then the majority of the planet! If you do not look at the scriptures from a Hebraic point of view, you will come up with some wacky ideas! This is one reason we have so many denominations and cults! Just because you have a cell phone does not mean the Apostle Shaul did!
#9 I recommend having 3-4 or more versions! Do not fall into the trap of 1 version only! I also recommend a Bible that will show you when certain passages in the Bible are questionable! Yes my friends there is doubt to whether some things should actually occur or not! Use your brain! DO NOT FALL INTO IGNORANT ARGUMENTS LIKE “O MAN THIS BIBLE HAS 1,000 DIFFERENCES FROM THE KING JAMES BIBLE!” WHO CARES IF IT IS DIFFERENT FROM THE KJV COMPARE IT TO THE GREEK!
#10 LEARN AND UNDERSTAND THE RELIGIOUS FIGHT BETWEEN THE MESSIAH AND THE PHARISEES! YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE NEW TESTAMENT UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS GOING ON AND WHY THEY HATED THE MESSIAH DO BAD!
#11 Learn about the Culture and times of the people in the Scriptures!
Our inside joke,
ain’t so private anymore,
what is wrong with them?!
Your exs, my exs,
(I’m guessing-who else could they be)
Didn’t you see it,
Hating on you,
Hating on me,
They don’t want us to be happy,
Why can’t they mind their own biz,
Saying bad things about you to me,
Saying the same to me about you,
Can’t we talk somewhere the haters can’t reach…
How did we last even this long with so much opposition?
Don’t tell me you’ve been listening to them,
If you don’t trust me yet…why would you want to spend your life with me?
You really have to appreciate that there is never a dull moment on Match.com. The online meat market is the perfect place for you to fly your freak flag with reckless abandon. But it is also an excellent place to meet people if you open your heart and your mind to the possibilities.
No, I did not meet my future husband on Match.com. But without my experiences (the good, the bad, the ugly) I never would have met 2 very incredible women who I am blessed to count among my dearest friends! And isn’t that a happy ending, indeed!
So much has happened in the last month or so. As I compose this blog entry, I am perched on a lounger, 16 floors up, with a full view of Waikiki beach from my hotel balcony. It is a little after 8am and the sun is ascending high above the craggy incline of Diamond Head and the valley below, the delivery trucks are beeping down the alleys to replenish supplies across the city, and I can see and hear a man playing ukulele and singing soothing Hawaiian songs while a hula girl sways across the pool deck at the hotel next door.
My roommate from Los Angeles is still sleeping on the other side of the tinted glass partition, and in the bed next to her is the sassy stylist I met on Match.com last month. Life is good!
I may not be ready to find the love of my life on Match.com, but good friends are hard to come by, and I thank Match.com for bringing a few incredible women into my life. These are the kind of ladies I hope to one day see at my wedding, flanking me supportively in their taffeta gowns and updos so crisp from hair product that they pose a fire hazard that would make Smoky the Bear blush. I kid, I kid. Taffeta and Aqua Net are instruments of the devil… just look at what they did to the 80’s.
But in all sobriety, I think I have learned an important and surprising lesson about Match.com’s role in social networking:
Sometimes you don’t really need a good man. Sometimes you just need a few good women.
Heyya friends…my sis Rosee Kohime and me are going to show our today’s style!She’s sweet and SHOPAHLIC! Here pics and stylecards:
Me wearing:
Skin: .:Hermony:. Kriz ST3 – Chinstrap
Hair: “FA”Army-LB011/short[black/brown]
shirt: (part of) ::[ Mr.Poet ]::Off shoulder shirt White
pants: AMERIE M – Loose pants_Khaki
shoes: [ h ] Military Boots – Loose – Brown
Keychan: [CALYPSO GIANO] ~Pepper~ Keychain iphone male
Nails: Mstyle Perfect Male Nails – B&W+
Rosee wearing:
Skin: : curio:acorn-cupid-lovelorn
hair: >TRUTH< Sydney – black& whites
Shirt: -SU!- onik tank blue
Skirt: *linc*low rise mini jeans skirt black grey stripes
Boots: [stellar] Kemai boots- Charcoal
Socks: canimal – socks vertical stripes – blue
Nails: *Linc* finger tapes w/nails
Piercing: AddiCt-Doulbe Marilyn Piercing
Necklace: *::UM::* color change_ Necklace
I wasn’t going to post tonight but have since been provoked: Ryker Beck very kindly dropped some preview skins from her new Stephanie line on me. I couldn’t justify logging off for the night without having tried them on, and I must admit it was love at first sight.
Stephanie comes in four rich tones with various options for cleavage, freckles and dark or light brows. Watler is my favourite shade but in truth I liked the colouring on each, rich and smooth without exception.
The detail is excellent, with realistic naughty bits and subtle definition all over. Stephanie’s body isn’t overly toned; the stomach especially is softly done which I rather liked as something different. Having said this, everything is as it should be, with emphasis on the necessary – I’m a huge fan of Stephanie’s derrière, and the cleavage option offers an immediate improvement in the performance of your virtual underwear that is pretty unmissable.
Stephanie will be officially launched tomorrow, March 13 at 12pm SLT with a party where you’ll have chances to win one of five ‘Build Your Own Fatpack’ cards (with a L$5,000 value, they’re not to be sniffed at) as well as getting your mitts on the new Sienna fishing hole makeup which is a special for St Patrick’s Day.
Since I was in the process of winding down for the evening, I must admit my outfit is a little lacking by way of coverage, but certainly not in any other area. Truth released this gorgeous halter neck a few days ago; it’s simple but well done, two-tone with a seamed divide beneath the bust and stitched detail hemming the edges. The top features lovely stretch lines all around the torso, giving detail up close and from afar.
The knickers are part of the Cecile set from Insolence. Camilla Yosuke’s lingerie is always delightful, and Cecile is no exception; the sheer tulle is embroidered with florals, fringed in flicks of lace and running to a thong at the back. These are undeniably sexy, a must have whether you intend to spoil yourself or someone else with the view.
Stripy socks came from the quirky Narwhal store; the seams don’t quite match up but I forgive them this small flaw for the gorgeous colouring and rumpled texture that prevents them from feeling flat.
Finally the hair from Truth is the Veruca style, a cute twisted ponytail drawn forward over the shoulder. The colour change clips hold down the fringe to either side, loose tufts of hair flying to the back for a suitable untidy finish.
Outfit:
Tank: Truth, Halter Tank – Grey
Knickers: Insolence, Cecile Panties – Black (part of a set)
Socks: Narwhal, Purpul
Body:
Hair: Truth, Veruca – Mocha
Eyes: PixelDolls, Avatar Natural – Chocolate
Eyelashes: Symphony Skins, Sculpted Lashes
Skin: Exodi, Stephanie Watler – 5 (Dk/C)
Poses: Diesel Works, Shake 5
LAP, DG – Tart
Glitterati, Headshot 3
Chair: Gos, Queen Anne Chair – Black
I have very little knowledge when it comes to anything political but I do know the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately it would seem that in todays day and age the concept of what is right and wrong somehow got twisted and turned upside down. It reminds me of the verse Isaiah 5:20
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
I was having lunch in my car the other day when I heard on the radio something about Obama wanting to ban sport fishing. What is happening to us? Are you serious? This is so crazy. I guess there was an article by Robert Montgomery for ESPN, opening line reads as follows:
“The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.”
For the full article click here : Culled Out
Just another example of Romans 1:25
“because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
Now I’ve read other blogs and articles refuting the claims of Montgomery and I know politics is politics, there is propaganda on both sides. It’s sometimes hard to know what is true and what isn’t. I don’t know if Obama is trying to ban sports fishing. I do know that crazy enviro nuts would love to see it go along with hunting and just about everything else that requires the use of animals for the benefit of man. These are people who put the lives of animals above the lives of human beings.
Am I upset over this news? I love fishing and hunting but to be honest I am not to worried about it, because I know everything is leading to one end, The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord. Everything I read and hear about just leads me to believe that the Lord will return in my lifetime, that is exciting. These are certainly interesting times we live in.
RAINING TRUTH WATERING THE GARDEN
Watering the Garden 23
WHAT TO SEEK FIRST
Scripture:
And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Luke 12:29-31)
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns: yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought (troubled by cares) can add one cubit unto his stature? (time of life) And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin? And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:25-32)
Jesus said our first priority is to seek truth and everything else will fall into place. We are not to worry so much about food and what we have to wear. His promise is that if we seek his kingdom he will take care of our daily needs. Along with the Psalmist may this be your desire. “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.” (Psalms 27:8)
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
Our first priority should be to seek the kingdom of God and he will take care of our daily needs.
Our Father appreciates the fact that you are trying. May God’s blessing be upon this
study of His word, Amen.
Susan
So now Wolfscratch’s thousands of posts have also disappeared from the Tallahassee Democrat Cheryl Dunlap forum.
Don’t take my word for it. Go. Look.
I realize the Democrat is in control of that forum and has the right to kick off anyone they like.
But they have kicked EVERYONE off that forum. The only posters left are three people, and at least two of them are the same person! And they’re all the ones who don’t really want to talk about Cheryl, or even Hilton. Constantly changing the subject to other cases in other states, that have nothing to do with Cheryl Dunlap or her killer.
Sound like the public defender’s office working overtime? Sure does to me.
How is that legal? First they stifle information by keeping this case completely sealed for THREE YEARS now. Now they’re stifling public discussion on an online newspaper forum which is SUPPOSED TO be accessible to the PUBLIC.
Does this bother you? I know it bothers me, wolf, daffy and fungshway. Those are their handles and they keep their identities out of it. Smart. I put myself out there and now I feel exposed. We’re talking serial killers and associates her, and people who are in collusion with a serial killer. Which is why I learned karate, with a big ol’ shotgun in case kicks to the balls and gouging the eyes doesn’t work.
Obfuscate all you want, you crappy public officials. The truth and the lies will out. You can’t keep a bell jar on it forever.
I’ve been through a lot in my lifetime. To be honest with you, I never really felt loved by my parents. My mother pretty much abandoned me for the other men in her life. My father abandoned me for drugs. Everyone in my family, and I do mean everyone, has tendencies to backstab and gossip about everyone else. Therefore, I’ve never really trusted anyone in my family. My brother. I trust him. That’s about it. I even fabricated a lie about my Grandfather. That lie has been following me for nearly five years now. While he was a good man, he was not what I make him out to be. I like to say that he was the only father I ever had (which I suppose is true to a degree). I like to say that he and I were close, talking about life, love, happiness. I like to say he gave me good advice and that I seeked him out for it every chance that I got. But none of that is really true. Yes, he was a good man, but no, I did not have the type of relationship that I portray to some people. To be honest, I’ve never had a man in my life that I could trust completely. And I blame it on the lack of a father in my young home. And yes, it has effected every relationship that I have ever been in. Every man in my past hurt me. OR did I only hurt myself??? I think that I just made bad choices. I went for the “bad guy”, I went for the “older guy”, I went for the “guy that I had nothing in common with”, I went for the “control freak” guy. My life with these men consisted of Drinking, drugging, cheating, lying, controlling, abusing. By the time I turned 34 I KNEW that I would never find true happiness with someone. Yet, I was still determined to try.
Finally, I found happiness. At 35, just 5 months before my 36th birthday. I found it when I wasn’t even looking for it. During that time, all I was concerned with was a divorce from my husband and a life of my own. A fresh start. I did get the fresh start, but I wasn’t alone for it. I found a wonderful person. I found a friend and a lover. I found someone that I could be relaxed around. Someone that made me laugh. Someone that wanted to spend time with me. Someone that believed in family and being true to ones self. Yet, five years later, I find myself confusing paranoia for intuition. Those old “demons” from my past just won’t let me be. How do I decipher these feelings? ? Yeah, I’m not as bad off as I used to be but I still have my days and I hate it. I truly do. Instead of taking that giant leap of faith and just “going for it”…… I suit up in my armor and protect myself from my fears. I get this mentality that says….Up yours! I’m going to hurt YOU before you will ever hurt ME! Yes, I remember the PAIN. I want to forget it, but it’s always there….simmering in my subconscious. Just when I feel free of it…….it rears its ugly head.
I think that pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.
I want to fly. My wings are ready. So, so ready.
Though this is a Buddhist-oriented site, I’m always open to genuine insight and love wherever it appears, and I certainly don’t think that the grandeur and richness of life can be encompassed by any view we might hold—Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, agnostic, scientific, or whatever.
Recently I’ve been enjoying getting to know Peter D. Ouspensky, a Russian mathematician and philosopher who espoused many of the ideas and practices of George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher.
Here’s a short passage from Ouspensky on the meaning of life, which I found insightful:
P. D. Ouspensky
“Some say that the meaning of life is in service, in the surrender of self, in self-sacrifice, in the sacrifice of everything, even life itself. Others declare that the meaning of life is in the delight of it, relieved against ‘the expectation of the final horror of death.’
Some say that the meaning of life is in perfection, and the creation of a better future beyond the grave, or in future life for ourselves. Others say that the meaning of life is in the approach to non-existence; still others, that the meaning of life is in the perfection of the race, in the organization of life on earth; while there are those who deny the possibility of even attempting to know its meaning.
“The fault of all these explanations consists in the fact that they all attempt to discover the meaning of life outside of itself, either in the nature of humanity, or in some problematical existence beyond the grave, or again in the evolution of the Ego throughout many successive incarnations—always in something outside of the present life of man.
But if instead of thus speculating about it, men would simply look within themselves, then they would see that in reality the meaning of life is not after all so obscure. It consists in knowledge.”
Of course, Ouspensky had his views about how to “look within” and just what “knowledge”—self-knowledge—would be. I think his ideas about “self-study” are brilliant and readily applicable by anyone, anytime, anywhere.
What he says echoes that great aphorism of Ancient Greece: Know Thyself! That great truth echoes in the lives and words of all of mankind’s great spiritual teachers from Buddha to Ramana Maharishi to J. Krishnamurti, to mention just a few. Knowing ourselves is at once the simplest and the hardest thing to do.
No matter how much guidance and inspiration we get from spiritual teachers, masters, gurus, or saints, we finally have to roll up our sleeves and do the work ourselves. We finally have to see for ourselves what the truth is.
In the end, this doesn’t mean “one truth for me, and another for you.” Rather, every genuine insight into truth is an awakening to what is. If we believe something to be true that is at odds with what really is, experience will sooner or later reveal the error. Untruth always leads to suffering, but even the suffering of our false beliefs and views can become occasions for awakening to what is.
The more we are open to truth, to what is, the more confidence we get in our ability to see for ourselves what is true and what isn’t. We don’t have to look to outside authorities, but to our experiences, and to our hearts, and to our awakening minds. No wonder the Buddha said:
“Be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves.
And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.”
♥♥♥
This week’s design is called Mindreader. It is a design that is brought about by a thought that I have had numerous times. What if?
What if someone put a computer chip behind your ear and it recorded everything you thought, saw, and did for a week. Then, after that week, those recordings were retrieved and posted on Youtube for your wife, kids, parents, and friends to see. Would you change anything that you’re doing? What if there were a bubble above your head that showed everyone else what you were thinking at that very moment? When you looked at that woman/man with lust, everyone else knew it. When you were lying to your spouse, they would instantly know. Any time you did something that you know is wrong, everyone else around you would know it clearly. Your thoughts would have lasting effects wouldn’t they?
Now think about this: While your wife, your kids, your boss, your parents, or complete strangers may not have a clue what you’re thinking, God knows every thought that you’ve ever had. Not only that, those thoughts will affect where you spend eternity. While that may sound radical, it’s exactly what the Bible says. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
This isn’t an action. You aren’t physically committing the adultery. But you are looking with lust and thinking about a woman in a way that is not righteous. For the Lord Jesus, this is enough. It’s enough to be adultery and it’s enough to send someone to hell for eternity. The same goes for hatred. Jesus sees hatred as murder. You don’t have to physically commit the act for it to affect your eternal life.
What are your thoughts like? If others could see them, would they glorify God? Would they confirm that you are the type of person your claim to be or would they contradict your very words?
I am not a mindreader, but God is; and He can see your thoughts just like He can see mine. As the just Judge of all the universe, He is the One who determines where each of us will go when we die. Part of His judgment will be based on what you and I think…
The wind is whining outside my window…it sound almost like a cry…
I have mentioned that before I go to sleep every night I say thanks for what the day has brought. Well, I think today, there has been a lot to be thankful for so I feel the urge to share this in writing, five hours before I need to wake up to a “new day”
Maybe the wind will have found its rest by then…
Wouldn’t you agree that we understand the importance of gratitude more when we encounter situations where life’s frailties become evident?
Like an earthquake? Or a message of an incurable disease?
I had both things affect two of my friends just recently. The Chilean cleaning lady at work who not only has become a dear friend but a role model and a source of inspiration, was suffering very bad today from the earthquake (800 times stronger than the one on Haiti!) that struck the area where her family lives.
In my limited Spanish I gave her my support and in my unlimited language of humanity, I gave her a hug as she cried.
She is the strongest woman I have met and she reminds me everyday that life for a major part of people in the world isn’t about the size of their new flat screen or how many “friends” they have on Facebook.
Life – for many, many people, is a constant struggle and hard labor.
Trabajo - she says – is all that matters. You work hard and save your dinero and support la familia. Every month she sends money to her nephew so that he can go to school, while she doesn’t even allow herself a vacation. She talks about the importance of being a good person, amable, like Helen, she says, and smiles. And when I get back from my vacation (which in my opinion is when I leave the supermarket for good to start creating a life’s work in line with my dreams, although she insists I come back) we will joke about me being tired in the morning, “otro día mas”, el cafecito, the time that flies by rapido and about when I will come and visit her family in Chile.
A home that may not even exist anymore. How sad is that?!
What words of comfort are there, in any language, to that?
The other thing that made me remember how frail our lives are and how quickly things can change is that one of my closest friend’s father was diagnosed with incurable cancer, which completely turned her world around and instead of going to Australia, sent her off on another journey – one she was not prepared to take, but one that leaves no other choice than to arm yourself with a lot of faith – and good friends!
Therefor, having tea with my best friends in their living room tonight was oh so meaningful.
My sad friend – who has always been my most happy friend – my two best friends – who are leaving for the Philippines in two days – and me – who is staying – trabajando, experiencing la vida and soon, while the wind weeps outside my window – dormiendo.
I wanted to write a bit today about some of the things we can expect to see during the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah.
As the title of this post suggest, most mainstream American christians would utterly hate living during this time. I guess it is a good thing for them that only those who Keep the Torah and have the testimony of the Messiah get to partake of this 1,000 year reign!
You see, the religious leaders of mainstream christianity have sold you a false bill of goods. They teach the exact opposite of what the Hebrew Messiah taught! They teach you in direct opposition to the Messiah, that the Torah is abolished, and that obeying the Creator, or obeying Yahushua of Nazareth’s command to do and teach the Torah is legalism! O yes my friends, christians will turn red in the face and shake with anger, if you dare suggest keeping the feast of YHWH, and not keeping Satanic Feast like Christmas and Easter. When christians do this, they prove that they are actually Anti-Messiah, as they reject the very teachings of the Messiah, in favor of what their religious leader told them Paul said!
(if you are new to the fact that Easter and Christmas are pagan I suggest you click the right hand side of this blog, and read the threads under Babylonian sun god worship!)
Many times I am called a “Judiazer or Legalizer” because I keep the Feast of YHWH, and because I keep his eternal Torah. I do these things because the “New Testament” commands us to do them! We are commanded to walk as Messiah walked! Messiah is listed in the gospels as keeping the Feast, keeping the Sabbath, and teaching his followers to DO and TEACH the LEAST of the Torah! 1 John also makes it clear if we do not keep the Torah, we are liars, and the truth is not in us!
So let us take a look at just a few of the prophecies for the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah!
Isaiah 66:15-24 For behold, Yahuwah will come with fire And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For by fire and by His sword Yahuwah will judge all flesh; And the slain of Yahuwah shall be many. 17 “Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens After an idol in the midst, Eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse, Shall be consumed together,” says Yahuwah. 18 ” For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. 19 “I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. 20 “Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to Yahuwah out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says Yahuwah, “as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of Yahuwah. 21 “And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites,” says Yahweh. 22 ” For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says Yahuwah, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. 23 And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says Yahweh. 24“And they shall go forth and look Upon the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, And their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Friends let us take a look at some of these things.
#1 The Creator promises to bring judgment upon those who eat swine’s flesh and unclean things.
#2 Some of the Gentiles will be taken for Priest and Levites.
#3 The Renewed Moons, Sabbaths and Feast will be kept. Notice as the feast are being kept and we go up from Sabbath to Sabbath we see bodies of those who refused to keep the Instructions of the Creator for righteous living! Their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched! As you can see this will be quite the reign of us “legalist” who keep the Feast and Sabbaths and obey the Creator!
Let us take a look at some more!
Isaiah 2:2-5 - And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Yahuwah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahuwah, to the house of the Elohim of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Yahuwah from Jerusalem. 4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
What is this my friends? We will walk in the Creator’s paths and keep his Torah! The Torah shall go out from Jerusalem! Man the 1,000 year reign is like the ultimate dream of the “legalist” who obeys the Creator instead of his religious gurus! I cannot wait!
This is awesome! How about some more!
Zechariah 14:12-21 And this shall be the plague with which Yahuwah will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. 13 It shall come to pass in that day That a great panic from Yahuwah will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, And raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand; 14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations Shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. 15 Such also shall be the plague On the horse and the mule, On the camel and the donkey, And on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be. 16And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahuwah of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahuwah of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which Yahuwah strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 20 In that day “HOLINESS TO YAHUWAH” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in Yahuwah’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. 21Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to Yahweh of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of Yahweh of hosts.
Take a good long look at this my friends! Satanic holidays like Christmas, will no longer be kept! You will keep the true birthday of the Messiah, the Feast of Tabernacles! Wait! What is that you say? “Keeping the Feast is legalism!” Well my friend if you do not keep that feast in the 1,000 year reign, you will be struck with plagues, and your nation will receive no rain for a year! THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE! IS IT NOT AMAZING HOW MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO THE MESSIAH TEACH THAT KEEPING THE FEAST IS LEGALISM AND “ATTACKING THE GRACE OF JESUS (WHICH IS A FALSE NAME)! NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE THE MESSIAH’S EXAMPLE OF KEEPING THE FEAST AND HIS ORDER TO DO AND TEACH THE LEAST OF THE TORAH, WE KNOW 100% THE FEAST WILL BE KEPT DURING THE 1,000 YEAR REIGN, AND THAT THE CREATOR WILL POUR OUT HIS WRATH ON THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO MAKE UP THEIR OWN RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS INSTEAD OF OBEYING THE CREATOR!
My friends this is a small look at the 1,000 year reign! Your religious leaders have sold you a false bill of goods and have lied to you! The Torah is not abolished, the Feast are not abolished, the Sabbath is not abolished! Start reading the Gospels! Messiah upheld the Torah of Moses, while rejecting the man-made religion of the Pharisees which added and subtracted from the Torah! Christianity makes the Pharisees look like choir boys! They teach that the entire Torah is abolished, WHEN THE MESSIAH WARNED YOU FROM THE VERY START HE WOULD NOT DO THAT! WARNED YOU FROM THE START TO DO AND TEACH THE LEAST OF THE LAW!
Folks you have 2 choices in life.
#1 Play religion
#2 obey the Creator of the Universe, and obey his Son Yahushua the Messiah!
You cannot eat at the table of both the Creator and the Devil! You cannot partake of the Passover Lamb (Yahushua) and partake of the Easter Ham (the Jesus person the churches teach). Easter is the Babylonian sex and fertility goddess also known as Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, Easter, Semiramis, Dianne, etc etc. Her son Tammuz who was born on December 25th is the Easter Ham! (Read my section on Babylonian sun god worship!)
LEAVE YOUR RELIGIOUS DOG AND PONY SHOWS BEHIND, GET OFF YOUR GROVES OF OAK PEWS, AND START FOLLOWING THE MESSIAH! START OBEYING THE MESSIAH YOU CALL KING, AND START WORSHIPING YAHUWAH THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE!
moving on… it has been 3 years in this place… i thought i’d spend a far longer time here… but turns out my body just cannot go along with this plan…
yesterday was ok, i managed to escape the mild fever that sets in whenever i go out these days… i just came home exhausted, and when that happens i tend to eat too much… i hv to learn to regulate the eating… i hv a small frame, it won’t do to tax it with too much blubber… not to mention how ghastly it looks – a fat skinny girl? ugh!
i hate having to attend to admin details… gotta do some shit today for someone… i hope this wld be the end of it… oh no, not quite, cos when i am done with this place, the whole cycle will begin again, the admin of selling the place etc …
i m so pressed for time… i just wish i cld concentrate fully on my work, which i love and that is what i came here to do anyway… oh well, life aint perfect…
foggy day again, it’s so damp… rheumatic all day from the damp… i have the dehumidifier on all day… but it is noisy… ok ok ok time to get out of this place yes for sure… each time i feel uncertain, my body reminds me loud and clear…
as for pixie… u know, if u genuinely care for someone, that person always remains inside ur heart… and so he is there… but as with all other things in my life right now, i m moving on… i wish him well, if he is happy with that shallow idea of what love is, then well and good, for that is what i want for those i care about, that they find their measure of happiness… but the shallow pools will never be enough for me… i cannot say “i love u” to a fantasy effigy of my own creation and then change my mind when it turns out to be less than the perfect form i wanted it to be… i still care for the blue frog too… cos for me, love, in whatever way – friendship, family, lover – is something far deeper, embracing, accepting of all things, giving and persevering thru imperfections and tough situations… but i hv learnt a very valuable lesson – it took me a few encounters but that’s ok, cos i m autistic and it takes longer i guess – that ppl who utter words in haste seldom ever mean to follow thru… i hv very immediate feelings, but when i say something, i mean to follow thru… that is NOT the norm for other people and it wld do me good to remember that… 
finding balance and moving on… that will be what i need to do in this part of my journey… and embracing life with the same passion i was born to do…
During one of my many shopping excursions I picked up this very cute hat hair during an old 50L Fridays. Didn’t know when I’d wear it, or what I’d wear it with, but I knew I needed to have it. Sometimes I see an article of clothing and I can envision a story, rather than the style. A vibe rather than a fashion trend. Romanticism rather than trying to look all hip. I’ve never thought myself to be a trendsetter, lol! Far from it, there are many times I have dressed rather dorkily, or different than those I hang around with in world. I just love dressing up 
It starts with a hat…I love this hairstyle from Clawtooth. I love that it was 50L. It’s not my usual hair color or length. But when I saw it, I saw a character in a book I wanted my ava to portray. Idk..I’m weird like that lol
Sweet Dream’s Picture Details:
Hat/Hair – Clawtooth – Love Letter – past 50L Friday
Skin – :Curio: – Sundust – Beach2 – Black Pearl2
Eyes – Pididdle – Lost Princess Eyes
Lashes – LeLutka – Diva Lashes
Coat – Coco Designs – Check Swing Coat – Gray
Cig – Taste – (made by RC Cluster’s Redd Columbia)
Dress – Kyoot – Low Back Ruffle Mini Dress – Taupe – past 50L Friday
Leggings – DP Yumyum – race leggings – Champagne
Boots – Truth - Foxley – Group Gift
Poses – Leafy – Past Bunny Hunt gift
We have a church of some kind across the street from our church building. When we arrive on Sunday morning, they are in full bloom with their loud instruments. Their auditorium is very small, yet their preacher needs a loud sound system and preaches to the drummer’s back beat. We can hear most of what they say and sing all the way across the street, even if we can’t understand the words. The people inside must be nearly deaf. For the record, false doctrine isn’t any more true if shouted.
We also have a billboard less than a mile away boasting a start-up church where their husband and wife pastor team proclaim their motto for the year: “No Sin in 2010.”
How long do you think that lasted? (Romans 3:23; 1 Peter 5:8).
It is heartbreaking how confused people are in the religious world. *sigh*
As I sit here and think about what I believe as oppossed to what I don’t want to believe, and how I want to live my life as oppossed to how I am living my life, I feel a weight on my shoudlers. I can’t breathe. I feel claustorphobic. I feel like I am carrying around so much weight that I can hardly stand up sometimes. It’s so hard to go throughout the day a lot of the time with the things that are on my mind 24/7.
I feel like this weight won’t be lifted until I am finally true to myself.
Outline:
I. Personal: The Preacher of Justification (1:1-2:21)
B. Apostolic Credentials (1:10-2:10)
C. Apostolic Confidence (2:11-21)
Section 1: Defending the Gospel (vv. 1-10)
Out of these verses, I would like to focus on verses 3-5:
3 Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. 4 And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), 5 to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Let’s break this down verse-by-verse, starting with verse 3.
Section 2: No Return to the Law (vv. 11-21)
In verse 16 we find a verse that states this doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone that I keep referring to:
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
It is so important that we understand and believe this, “for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (v. 21). If salvation comes through good works or keeping the law, then there was no need for Christ’s death. Perish the thought. Christ did not die needlessly.
The last thing I want to look at is verse 20:
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
This verse essentially says three things:
On to Galatians 3 tomorrow and more on justification by faith.
pain… one never does get used to it, does one? no matter who, what, where, there will be humans crying out in pain of all kinds… so yes, pixie, i am “just like everyone else”… words haunt me, they ring inside my head with loud audible tones, and i m still trying to process ur many contradictory words, even tho u r no longer with me, and even tho in my intellect, i do understand and i do not harbour blame or bitterness… u r, after all, “just like everyone else” too…
there is a very strong ache and stiffness all over my right side… of course, the computer is to blame, poor inanimate machine that helps us do so much of our work nowadays, we attribute such ills to it… i m to blame, i spend far too much time in front of the screen, large as it may be, my eyes are now deteriorating, and my muscles wearing down… but i hv no choice at the moment, becos i chose to put myself in this position, i chose to do this project and now i must see it to the end and the best completion that i can muster.
scoring, video, photos, communication – all thru my trusty computer… take this away and i wld hv little of a life right now… but i long for the day when i wld use it less intensely… i long for the living where i can go out and do more with my hands and body… fresher air, better perspectives… when i can begin my other journey, of painting, making sculptures, teaching and inspiring others to develop their talents and stretching personal boundaries, bringing art and music into their everyday joys… and the computer wld just be my tool for writing my books and communicating… ah, my dreams, which i shall fiercely pursue and find ways to make happen…
but for now, it is cold, wet and foggy, i m shut up inside my cramped studio, chair and in front of the screen… i MUST finish this… pain and all… sore aching strained muscles, ulcers, arthritis, headache, vertigo, tinnitus, TMJ… still, i hv to do this for myself, becos i owe it to myself… and those who believe in me to believe in myself…
Psalm 119: 33-40
“Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight. Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way. Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear. Turn away my approach which I fear: for thy judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.”
See also,
Commandments of God are love
The royal law
Muslims, defend the actions in the following video. Non muslims, defend your inaction in the same video. The western civilization has overwhelming power to stop these atrocities, they don’t have the will. Obama and his tribe sit idly by as does the rest of the west and focuses on rights for Islamic terrorists and GITMO. They all , muslims and the west have their heads up their @sses. Muslims, wake up and save your “religion” unless you by your inaction condone what is being done. “Leaders” (and I use the term loosely) of the west get your heads out of your @sses and stop this genocide. WTF are all you people (and I use that term loosely) thinking.
These contradictions
savage convulsions
distractive compulsions
deceptions in spirit
manifest my nation
as politicians
disguised delegations
of rabid religions
dangerous liaisons
spewing insinuations
drumming hatred
into all situations
reducing conversations
to vote-bank transactions
outrageous crucification
shameless acts of deception.
millions in conversion
abnegation of commonsense
creating selfless me-too-isms’
now faith in damnation
logical extension
of these convoluted creations
multi-colored confusions.
More production
yet increased deductions
in inverse proportions,
agricultural devastation
starving population,
farmers’ suicides in continuation
but more superannuation
for our Administration.
More entertainment on television,
Ministers get pay revisions,
our country is on a mission.
My unanswered questions
turn killing accusations
if they kill me by strangulation
what happens to my children?
A vote at some polling station
with irreverence and gumption
I’m made a statistical assumption
told in repetition,
on my knees, that’s my position
submission is salvation
forever in condemnation
a no man’s destination
This is my Nation’s new proclamation
Freedom is an illusion
traded for cheap compassion
sin is a passion
it’s ready for assassination.
Dreams will be rationed
nothing will ever happen
in my nation without
the Master’s sanction.
Welcome Citizen, let’s begin
our spiritual prostitution.
A prayer based on Isaiah 6 and Luke 5
We pray to you, Lord Jesus Christ,
speaker of the Word of God.
Your words
touch the deep places of our souls –
places where we have laboured and come up empty
places where the hunger for holiness
waits for the feast of your promises kept
places where our fears make us small and timid.
Speak hope into our emptiness
and help us hear and believe
Speak truth into our sinfulness
and purify us with your great mercy
Speak love into our woundedness
and heal us.
Catch us in the net of your holy purposes
for our lives, for this city, for the world.
We pray to you, Word of God,
Word of Life,
Word of new beginnings,
LORD. Amen
I heard some guy say
that he was more in debt
than an honest man could pay.
.
I bet I don’t check my check book but
My needs are nameless
And exceed;
what a deceitful man might utter,
what a sweet woman might offer,
even all a clever man can never call.
.
I’ll ache, Cah Rist! icy bone fingers,
I’ll arch-stretch wide and hard, outward to outsides.
To outsides, otherwises, outreaching,
beseeching, imploring.
Discretely exploring
the notion
the ocean
of need
I first met you in a time of war,
You spoke from the heart until I could take no more,
I pushed you away from fear of love,
But you were like my angel sent from above,
You showed me strength and true bliss,
But by the time I realized it was to much to miss,
You heart weakened from the pain I gave,
And from that point on I became your slave,
I fell in love with the girl so great,
That I tried so hard to make up for the hate,
I can not offer you riches or gold,
But only my heart that could never be sold,
I made many mistakes over the last few weeks,
I wish I could take back all the tears and shrieks,
I want to be there for you and your child,
But I’m afraid I scared you away my love is to wild,
I would do anything to prove you my worth,
You are my purpose my reason for birth,
All I ask is true love and honesty,
And in return I want you to marry me,
I know we are young and our lives have just begun,
But I can’t imagine my life without you, you are the one…
It took the love of God, to send the Son of God, to die and be resurrected so that we could become the children of God as we read in the Word of God as witnessed to by the Spirit of God.
John, the beloved apostle, simply said “of God.” “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
How did we come to be “of God?” John wrote, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
We are the sons of God by virtue of a second birth. For we know that we were all born of the flesh, but those of us who are sons of God were born of the Spirit as well (ref. John 3:5-6).
If we then are the sons of God, the children of God, then let us live in such a way as to honor our Father with our lives.
The Word of God always endorses children to be in subjection to their parents. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1) .
The passage also says, “Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2-3).
Therefore we are to Honour God also, as our heavenly Father, and the church, who is our mother (ref. Galatians 4:26, Psalm 87:5, Isaiah 66:7-11).
Now I suggest to you that, the Love of God, sent the Son of God, to make us children of God, as explained in the Word of God, as revealed by the Spirit of God, how hard is it to believe that the church also is of God?
Well that’s what it says in Acts 20:28 and throughout the Word of God.
In fact, if you read it’s all “of God.” The kingdom of God, the city of God, the house of God, the temple of God, the people of God. The Word of God is full of that phrase of God.
Jesus said, “if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). Even the doctrine is of God.
And this is no suprise, let’s look at the words of John again in 1 John 4. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
Now, what are some ways to know what is “of God” and what is not? John gives us several ways, but look at one he emphasizes.
1 John 3:16-17 “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
Now some will say what they do for charity or what they’ve done for this one or that one… but we’re not talking about your giving or your efforts on another’s behalf, we’re talking about a 1 Corinthians 13 type of love and not just for other saints. The Word of God let’s us know we must also love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us as well (ref. Matthew 5:43-45).
We have to love like God loved. It says the love of God, not the love of man. The same love that prompted God to send His only begotten Son to die on the cross for those who had turned their backs on Him; a world full of lost sinners, for the lowest and vilest of us.
Jesus said,”if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even publicans the same?” (Matthew 5:46). Everyone gets along with those that love them back, but who treats the person who has done them wrong with that 1 Corinthians 13 love? Who loves that one that’s trying to get them fired? Who loves that one that’s mistreated their child? Who loves the one who’s stole something from them, or ran off with thier wife or husband, or has hurt them in some way? I’m not talking about just tolerates when they come around, but if they hunger, feed them; if they thirst, give them drink (ref. Romans 12:20)… not with a bad attitude (“I hope they choke on it”), but with love which thinketh no evil, which suffereth long and is still kind. Which endureth all things… which seeketh not her own. In other words you’re not just seeing what you can get out of it, or hoping to be repaid in kind, but you’re doing it out of heartfelt love.
The Word of God lets us know that “…though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, an though I give our body to be burned, and have not charity, it profited me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
How can we do this? How is this possible? How can anyone expect this to be manifest in someone’s life? Romans 5:5 says, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
We can’t do it in our own strength. We’ll kill ourselves (or somebody) if we try to do it within our own strength, but “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost…”
Now just because you’re not sanctified doesn’t mean you can fall short. The Holy Ghost is not in you, but He is with you and will guide you (ref. John 14:17). Yet the Spirit empowers us and enables us to go beyond what you can do of yourself, therefore it is necessary to go on to perfection, that ye may be, “made perfect in love” (ref. 1 John 4:17-18).
Wednesday, February 03, 2010 3:06 PM By Immortal Technique 
Rapper/activist Immortal Technique (nee Felipe Coronel) has composed a lengthy editorial dissertation on the present chaos in Haiti, which has graced headlines since the 7.0 earthquake on January 22, 2010. “From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites – Reflections on the Haitian Revolution and Present Condition” is a delicate mixture of opinion and history. Furthermore, Immortal Technique addresses why Haiti has been perceived as cursed or that there was some “deal with the Devil” in the past. This is a two-part write up that is informative and captivation for those interested in unearthing the truth.
Since the recent tragedy that has befallen the proud and persevering nation of Haiti, there has been an outpouring of support followed by a few disturbing falsities being spread about the history of the island and its people. I wrote the following to shed some light on events during and around the Haitian Revolution. Please remember memorizing and reiterating should never pass for learning. Deciphering the significance of individuals and events is what truly teaches us not just about history, but also about ourselves.
There is a wide spectrum of beliefs behind what has caused Haiti to suffer ceaselessly over the years. Some see the problem as being mostly political, bad governance, modern day colonialism, or the perceived necessity to make an example to the world of what a successful slave revolution will get you. There are even those on the fringe who cling to an ancient superstition that the island was freed by a mythological pact with Satan. In order to shed light on the issue I am forced to go back in time. Obviously not to the beginning of occupational history, but far enough to give a realistic perspective on Haiti and it’s struggle.
We join a story centuries in the making. It is the year 1794 and the scent of musket powder blows over all of Europe. The French Revolution may have changed the face of the world, but its unintended consequences that influenced its colonies would come to overshadow France’s own glory. It was during this year, on the 4th of February, that France’s First Republic Convention (under pressure from massive slave revolts) decided it had to transcend the stumbling efforts of the ‘enlightened monarchs’ of Europe and abolish slavery. Yet in the customary fashion of our own Declaration of Independence’s “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal,” the gesture, much like these words, became a glaring example of self-righteous insincerity. Equality, the fraternal twin brother of Independence, was aborted at the fetal stage of development and the Revolution came to betray itself.
Known then as “Saint Domingue” (French for Santo Domingo), the colony that we now call Haiti, yielded great fortune to those who possessed her. It was rich with sugar, cotton, tobacco, cocoa and other valued resources. So much so that the European Superpowers of that day fought bitterly against each other to control the island and her inhabitants. After all, the African slaves living on Saint Domingue were the proverbial engines that ran the machine. From among them appeared a man who was born a slave but who would become free and lead all his countrymen toward that same destiny. He was a glitch in the matrix, an act of nature, and a mistake to be corrected in the eyes of the island’s autocratic semi-feudal society. His name was Francois-Dominique Toussaint soon to be heralded, “L’Overture.”
As a former servant and carriage driver, he had abstained from participating directly in previous uprisings stemming from the refusal of slave masters to honor “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” He had waited patiently and then allied himself with other rebel leaders who had risen to the task of overthrowing colonial rule. His ideas were innovative and his guerrilla tactics highly disciplined. No wonder then that he rose through the ranks of the rebellious forces so quickly.
Before fighting alongside the French against other colonial powers, Toussaint had been in league with the Spanish, who along with Great Britain were at war with France. The Spanish were used as a support system for his designs when white colonials refused to endorse the full rights of citizenship to free blacks given by the French edict of 1792. In other words, for Toussaint they were there to serve his vision rather than him serving theirs. Having so many different nations vying for a piece of the pie proved a difficult task to navigate. To his credit, Toussaint had managed to out-maneuver them all, cleverly using their own tactics of pitting one against another. But when Spain and England did not follow through with their promises to free slaves, he discarded his allegiance to them.
After grueling and hard-fought campaigns against the Spanish and British, he took control of the French Colony. Toussaint promoted reconciliation among the races, which wasn’t any easier then than it would be now. He also engaged and renegotiated better terms of trade with Britain and the new American Republic alike. Catholicism was adopted as the national religion and slavery was abolished. The news traveled around the world like lightning- the African Slaves were undergoing the course of reversing 300 years of domination.
As news of the Independence of Haiti was circulating, the reaction was mixed. Toussaint’s actions openly received the approval of Alexander Hamilton, who saw Europe’s weakening in the West as an opening for America’s bid for commercial supremacy. He even aided in the drafting of the precursor to the island’s first constitution in 1801. However, when Thomas Jefferson came to power, American support was reined in. Jefferson openly owned slaves and had even fathered children with the now famous girl, Sally Hemmings. But much more than his personal stake in legitimized servitude, it was the perceived international threat that most likely shaped his opinion. The surrounding colonies and his new Republic being destabilized by the idea of a successful slave revolt obviously frightened him. His assertion being that their freedom would suddenly cripple the economy built around them. He is quoted as saying that it was necessary at all costs to “confine the plague to the island.” I guess “My emancipation / don’t fit your equation.”
By 1801, Toussaint was in full control of Saint Domingue. In a moment of perhaps self-preserving foresight and/or genuine altruism, he advanced onto the Spanish side of the island. His army defeated the remaining white colonial powers and freed all the slaves, showing the people of color the first glimpses of freedom they’d known practically since the time of Columbus. He rejected the ancient custom that dated back to the Middle Ages, of sending his children as hostages to his ‘Suzerain’ as a symbol of fidelity. He further declared his intentions in a famous letter addressing Napoleon himself. It was titled: “From the First of Blacks to the First of the Whites.” In it he pledged his loyalty to France. He stated firmly that slavery would be utterly annihilated; that he (Toussaint) would remain governor indefinitely (a suggestion from Hamilton and then Sec. of State Pickering). Furthermore Saint Domingue would be a free and independent state. The correspondence must have come as a shock to then Consul Napoleon. It was probably the sheer audacity of a former slave proposing terms of independence, albeit in the most polite and articulate manner, that struck him. This man was obviously more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Toussaint and his people represented something that had to be proved false no matter the cost.
See the very existence of their independence showed the entire human race a side of history that we are only now truly rediscovering. European society had relied mainly on creating divisions and the spread of epidemics, not simply superior military prowess, to overcome the indigenous populations of Africa and the Americas. The Haitian Revolution exposed the façade of European invincibility, and it tore away at their justification for invasion on the grounds of Christianization. The mythology of racial superiority began to take the shape of an ancient death mask from classical antiquity.
Napoleon (seen left) would hear no more and dispatched his brother-in-law Gen. Charles LeClerc, to the island with a huge force of infantry troops and warships. His stated intention was to secure the new state. At first confrontation ensued, but they arrived at a truce once Toussaint had been promised that the French would not attempt to reinstate slavery. However, the moment he let his guard down he was almost immediately betrayed. Toussaint and his entire family were arrested. Restoring the island to France’s control, LeClerc had Toussaint sent to prison in France. But this was just the beginning. He quietly moved to begin the process of re-enslavement. “Since terror is the sole resource left me, I employ it…destroy all the mountain negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age,” read his report to Napoleon.
The French now shifted their focus to using the former so-called “Mulatto” people who Toussaint had defeated in previous military campaigns to maintain control of the island. They, the “Mulattos,” had been at odds with elements of the Revolution earlier, although they had suffered almost equally from the torments of slavery. The very concept of the “Mulatto”, that still to this day plagues the African, Latin American, Caribbean, and so Called West Indian world, merits an explanation all to itself.
The Latin ‘mulus,’ became the Old Spanish or Old Castillian ‘mula,’ finally evolving into the Spanish and Portuguese “Mulatto,” that symbolized the reverse anthropomorphic semblance of a human being. A mule is the physical combination of a horse and a donkey. This part is simple enough. But the symbolic nature of this has a racial connotation that tears apart our society even today. The horse symbolizes the White European, elegant, regal and highly valued. And the donkey embodies what they thought the purpose of an African/Indigenous slave should be; a beast of burden to be worked until the day that ‘it’ dies.
The combination of a horse and a donkey creates a species that rarely if ever is capable of reproducing. The male is always born sterile, and the female is exceptionally similar in this way. Hence the idea that nothing good can come from them. This concept then became permeated in the portrayal of the “tragic mulatto” in 19th century American literature, leading into classic Hollywood cinema. It is a theme symbolized by the downfall of a “Mulatto” or “Quadroon”/”Octoroon” attempting to pass for white. It also focused on the conflict of those trapped between two races. Those who despised and pitied their darker half and their own skin color, while needing the approval of whites to validate themselves. In most of the stories peace is only found for the said main character in death. The very definition of its existence solidified the role of White and Black in the American caste system, whose remnants we all still presently reside in. It also laid out the role of Blacks to themselves, without many of them even to this day understanding the loaded straw man argument about race posed within the terminology.
It was the Haitian Revolution that challenged the very idea of slavery and the existence of a lesser man. It put the “enlightenment” of Europeans on trial, and forced America to confront what she was becoming as opposed to what she was supposed to be. The usage of concepts like the “Mulatto” were necessary for late 18th century white society to put institutionalized racism on life support for another 150 years, and create a violent split in the psychology of Mother Earth’s first children.
“From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites – Reflections on the Haitian Revolution and Present Condition”
It was the Haitian Revolution that challenged the very idea of slavery and the existence of a lesser man. It put the “enlightenment” of Europeans on trial, and forced America to confront what she was becoming as opposed to what she was supposed to be. The usage of concepts like the “Mulatto” were necessary for late 18th century white society to put institutionalized racism on life support for another 150 years, and create a violent split in the psychology of Mother Earth’s first children.
They had used a traditional stratagem inherited from the Romans/Byzantines of understanding an empire’s limited capacity for multi-dimensional warfare on a global scale, and employed the service of a smaller state to outflank its opponents in conflict. Only this time it was not using the Visigoths to fight the Huns (Battle of Chalon, 451 A.D.) or the Cumans to fight the Pechenegs (Levonium, 1091 A.D.). Napoleon and those that served his court were innovators of the worst kind. They perfected what other colonial powers beforehand had only begun. They created virtual new age “foederati” for their designs by ripping a subsection out of the very people they sought to subjugate. In return for cooperation, the French promised the desperate “Mulattos” more rights and more privileges in what they painted as a new Saint Domingue. Effectively this action created a safe haven for racism that is even now nestled like a neonate Viper storing the poison of generation after generation. The idea built itself within the conscious and subconscious mind of an enslaved people, to keep them in bondage psychologically even if they found themselves physically free. This is evident not only in the continued degeneration of Black and “Mulatto” relations well into the mid 1800’s under Jean Pierre Boyer, but in present Black & Latino society’s obsession with skin color.
In other words, the French colonization efforts efficiently solidified adding dimensions to racism and the notion of racial superiority by creating a different “race” in our own minds. It was wicked and brilliant in its service to the cause of reducing man to property as it was to being duplicitous to the so-called ‘Mulatto’ himself. For in the end he was closer to his Master in his eyes only. To the French he was still little more than an animal, subject to an active and de-facto ‘Code Noir’.
(The cruel logic of the seemingly schizophrenic reflections in King Louis XIV’s Code Noir of 1641, is regarded as a predecessor to the U.S. Black Codes, which shaped the legal standing of former African slaves in the post civil war Era. It covers everything from the immediate persecution and expulsion of Jews, to laws concerning a slave’s position, methods of torture and capital punishment that could be implemented.)
Click to read the Code Noir http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/335/
Tricknowledge, is a late 20th century Harlem terminology for an old cosmopolitan strategy. It is used to describe an imperial power not having the physical force to conquer a people, and therefore resorting to the art of deception to achieve victory. Calculating lies are used to manipulate the target into compromising positions before it is attacked. Yet even with all of her elegantly worded deception, sweet-accented mandates, and counter-mandates, France would only hold the beautiful island prisoner for a few more fleeting moments of history. Once the Revolution was set into motion there was no opposing inertia capable of stopping it. Toussaint may have been taken under arms to France, where he lived incarcerated in a frozen fortress near Bensancon (eventually succumbing to pneumonia although some suspected poison), but the Revolution rolled on. In fact, right before Toussaint’s death, a perhaps karmic parting gift of yellow fever swept Saint Domingue weakening the French garrison and even claiming the life of Charles LeClerc.
Napoleon’s Saint Domingue police state barely lasted a year, until it became blatantly evident that slavery was to be reinstated just as it had been on Guadeloupe. In the end, after watching the brutal conflict and horrific mistreatment of his own people, it was one of Toussaint’s young Generals, Jean Jaques Dessalines (who had ironically allied himself with LeClerc when Toussaint was captured), who decided to emerge as the leader that would avenge his people. Truthfully though, and perhaps more important to his own soulful vanity, he really sought to avenge himself. To hear him described by the contemporary European authors of his time, he sounds like the very manifestation of chaotic violence. But every scar has a story, and Dessalines had many scars. In fact a large percentage of his body was covered in painful grooves, partially healed lacerations and whip marks that made some of his skin look like it had melted over itself. He had received some of these in very visible places, and even the most sensitive areas of a man, for his perceived ‘insolence’ as a slave.
It is said General Dessalines would look upon his scars in the mirror and cry out in rage before battles. Then crashing into his enemies he fought with the valiant nature of a man seeking freedom, and persistent fury of a heart that would only be quenched by vengeance. His aim became to ensure the small Revolution’s continued success at any military cost. He was determined to maintain it by implementing the same campaigns of terror that the slave owners had recently utilized on him and his people. And this is what terrified white Europeans to the core of their being. Provoking most landowners and slave masters to flee. Some of them though, daring to look, must have surely seen a piece of themselves in him and been rattled. This is thought to be what initially led to the invention of stories about his pact with the devil and deals with voodoo spirits, as these then served the impertinent need to differentiate his actions from theirs.
To better understand how the slaves were treated and what exactly he sought to repay his former masters for, I chose this famous quote from Henri Christophe’s personal secretary. He, who was once a slave, describes in sick details the daily torture inflicted on the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue by the French.
“Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not forced them to eat s**t? And, having flayed them with the lash, have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms, or onto anthills, or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man eating-dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?”
His preferred mechanism for punishing European colonials, many of whom were former slave masters, was indeed ruthless. He implemented “Black Rage” as both his foreign and domestic policy, which meant the absolute destruction of the white colonists, soldiers, and civilians. Before him others had angrily suggested this sort of retribution but none had the gall to carry it out. After all, ideologues may design a Revolution and dismantle an empire verbally, but ideas are powerless without the hand that wields them mercilessly. In the end a combination of this, and allowing remaining whites to live without owning any property and having little say in government, was the result.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (seen below) was one leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti 
I make no attempt here to justify the actions of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, but a person cannot be made a slave unless they are terrorized and de-humanized. Unless they are mentally, spiritually and in many cases physically castrated, unless their women are raped before them and children are sold and tore from the womb in front of their eyes. He did in essence what he was taught to do by those that shaped his world.
His collective punishment & scorched earth policy frightened the remaining white colonials to such a degree that most migrated en masse to the other side of the island or to the mainland. General Dessalines fought many battles and eventually claimed the independence of Haiti on January 1, 1804. During this time period he had ravaged the Eastern side of the island and having swept away all opposition, made himself Emperor in 1804. His absolute rule inspired anger and resentment, and only 2 years after his coronation he was assassinated. The country divided itself between North and South until power was consolidated again. The legend of Dessalines came to life upon his death. Stories grew out of the resentment of the white exiles that had once owned his people and now happily welcomed his demise. Even the “Mulatto” section of Haiti that never received his trusting and felt shunned by him. His immediate demonization followed in these circles, without a thought or a backtracking moment in history to consider what circumstances caused him to be. No context that showed the nature of the slow, functional genocide of his people.
Just silence. And that silence without context continues even today while people suffer one of the worst natural catastrophes that has ever be known to mankind.
Not a word from proud France who defied the American War machine over Iraq, but has kept silent over these two centuries when concerning the 150 million gold francs it extorted from Haiti in 1838. The number was later lowered to 90 million gold francs but the factual story behind the extortion goes as such. Under the guise of a cessation of hostilities (a promise to curb re-invasion), repaying indemnities and for the loss of “property” (slaves) during the Revolution, France demanded payment. And of course since Haiti had no such sum in their treasury at the time, French bankers eagerly paid the first 30 million gold francs at exorbitant almost mafia-inspired interest rates. So high that it was not until 1947 that Haiti was actually able to repay THAT particular “loan.” By the mid to late twentieth century the IMF’s policy of changing it’s agricultural focus and conditional foreign aid had since indebted the island nation beyond ruin. In the wake of this current tragedy, I believe France should immediately repay the blood money it stole years ago no matter its legal apprehensions of reparations. This isn’t about reparations for slavery, it’s about the over 20 billion dollars in the modern equivalent paid to a reinstated tyrannical king. It is not the pinnacle of restoring Haiti, but the beginning of repair.
I would be remiss to not pause here and point out that this was written as a moderately detailed historical account of events in and around the Haitian Revolution. It is not the entire history of the island and does not go in depth into the modern self-defeating racial and political schism between Haiti and the Dominican Republican during the mid 20th century. I purposely steered clear of recent events concerning Jean Bertrand Aristide because it deserves an article on it’s own. I also cannot and will not lay the blame solely on Europeans for the condition of Haiti. The French themselves cannot be demonized anymore than the Spanish, English, Portuguese or Belgians, etc. for their role in colonization. Although to rule out foreign intervention for Haiti’s condition would be ignoring a huge amount of independent variables that affect the equation. While military backed World Bank policy has always kept the island as an economic vassal, the mismanagement of resources and corrupt leaders also bled the nation dry.
At some point we have to accept the personal responsibility for repairing the framework of society ourselves, and not relying on the people that ruined our indigenous civilizations to fix them all the time. Brutally repressive dictators, such as Duvalier, who were allowed to exist by the U.S. because of their stance against Communism, must be put into their proper context as well. They are not simply a Western invention, but rather the natural order of bequeathing absolute power to an agent of “stability,” an experiment that could easily be repeated in our own Republic. And so we as a nation cannot claim ignorance in our understanding of this political formula anymore, whether at home or abroad. The sad truth is that we as a public entity or a people may understand this relationship and dissect it now, but our own government has recognized it since the founding of the nation.
We may sometimes point to these historical figures and attribute superstitious characteristics to them in order to either justify or vilify their position. My main problem is when it starts becoming obvious that our own government uses complete and utter falsities to promote a military objective. The following is an account written by a Soldier who participated in the ousting of then President Aristide, it sheds light on the deliberate dissemination of such information:
http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/May96/haiti.html
If he (Dessalines) really made a pact to deliver his nation to absolute evil then why only the leader of the one successful slave revolt on the hemisphere? Why just him and not every other military commander throughout history that faced insurmountable odds? And when is that sort of such vindictive and violent force ever justified? See, that my friends is at the very core of what Haiti and it’s historic Revolution truly represent. That undiluted tactic of delivering oneself from slavery and oppression through physical force. The French Revolutionaries beheaded their King and did not pay his family restitution. The American Revolution gave Britain no reparations and in fact collected the land of it’s Indigenous allies after England ceded it without so much as a word to the Native American’s still living there. Yet only in modern history have enslaved people of color been trained to think suffering through the worst of what an oppressor can punish them with is the only way to gain legitimacy or victory.
Are we “tragically Mulatto?”
Are we as Black and Indigenous people only noble and righteous in an emasculated form of confrontation against such a fate? Are we only correct in our undertaking of a non-violent approach to confronting Imperialism or Fascism? More of white America praises Martin Luther King Jr. as peacefully resistant and the preferable alternative to Malcolm X’s truth without modesty. More would rather hear the scholarly Fredrick Douglass than experiencing the fear-invoking Dessalines. I do not seek to discredit the legacy of either Douglass or King. We are all indebted to the vital parts of the struggle for freedom that they played historically. But why are Europe and American spared the same constant criticism by present day historians. Would we turn the other cheek to Hitler? What would a non-violent march and a hunger strike against the Confederate South have accomplished? Without colonial militias, Native American Warriors, and the French & Spanish Armadas, wouldn’t the U.S. Constitution have ended up as British toilet paper? As a matter of fact, if Gandhi’s tactics had been used in the American Revolution, wouldn’t he have been lying in a ditch in Virginia some 234 years ago? Without the purchased attention of a global media outlet, is shaming the world even possible? And even if we managed to procure one, how could a profit margin be replaced by a soul, when that’s the one thing that a multi-national news corporation will never have?
I believe a balance is always necessary, and that might never makes right. It just makes right now. Having the power to take land, force payment or enslave others doesn’t make your cause justified. In fact I would argue that an oppressor who lies to his slaves about their ten thousand year old history, and presents them as a fraction of a human being to all, is in truth more savage than that which he has reduced his fellow man to. Strength and power are the tools that can reinforce a document, a government, a people and a nation. Without them there is only the word, and unfortunately we are not as evolved as we would like to believe because we do not respect words, not even the words of God when we write them in our own image. We are taught to only respect fear and violence.
I am not arrogant enough to claim to have all the answers, but I come rather humbly myself to pose these questions so that you may discover the answer. May we repay the slave master by acting like the slave master? Or have we already gone this route before? Perhaps in our forgotten history we have already employed these strategies amongst ourselves. Can it be that we treated each other this way when Rome was yet to be conceived and Greek civilization was still an adolescent student of Egypt? Why is violent Revolution coupled with diplomatic conflict settlement only the recourse of the Super powers alone? Why is it presented to us as fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Perhaps it was our oppressor’s pact with the devil that made it so. These are question that are easy to answer only if a personal bias already exists within us, they are harder to answer when they speak to all of humanity, and what it reflects about the future of our species.
The earthquake itself did not discriminate by skin color when deciding who would die in the collapsing buildings. It cared nothing for their religion, family connections, or politics. Corrupt diplomats have perished within the same epicenter as innocent hard-working families, and dedicated public servants. The old and the young perish together subtracted from both sides of the equation. Our evolution is the rediscovery of the past, not an invention of a mythical future. Will we always be a small, petty people as a complete and single human race that we do not look beyond what is obvious in our faces as opposed to what is obvious in the actions that our hearts strive us towards?
HAARP: High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program – Gakona, Alaska
As I look at the proud, resilient and suffering nation of Haiti. I have heard every sort of theory for this tragedy, an act of God, HAARP, and even superstition backed by the hands of social senility wielding faith. In the end I am left to ponder what role did the world’s super powers play in burying Haiti before the Earthquake, and what sort of role will we now play in digging her, and our own collective human soul, out of the rubble?
Beyond this though, I think we should begin to seriously change the way that we look at each other around the world. We are a global community, a single race of people who might one day all become Haitians.
To all my brothers & sisters: Those that I know personally, and those I do not, who have lost family and are suffering…
My Condolences along with Revolutionary Love & Respect,
Immortal Technique Felipe Coronel
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti
http://hashaiti.org/
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.yele.org
1.
Berkouwer emphasizes that, if we are to understand God’s truth, we must take account of two important points:
* The question of truth in itself cannot be asked without also involving ourselves in the question of truth for me.
* To ask the question of truth for me is to find that truth for me has its foundation in truth in itself (Holy Scripture, pp. 9-10).
We will explore the relationship the relationship between truth in itself and truth for me by looking at what Berkouwer says about (a) God; (b) Man.
(a) God
Insisting that the question of God is more than an abstract question concerning His existence, Berkouwer maintains that we must enquire about God with the kind of religious attitude expressed in the words of Micah 7:18 – ‘Who is a God like Thee, pardoning iniquity, and passing over transgression … ‘. When we ask the question of God in this way, we open ourselves to the atmosphere of ‘a latent doxology, a rapturous hymn (A. Weiser)’, an atmosphere ‘that leaves all doubt behind as it revels in admiration of Israel’s God’. Observing that ‘(m)any of the questions of our time arise not in doxology but in doubt’, Berkouwer points out that discussion of the traditional arguments for the existence of God is a far cry from asking the question of the living God. While the God of the old natural theology can be discussed abstractly, the living God can never be removed to such a comfortable distance. Maintaining that the God of Christian theology – the God of revelation – is more than a deduction which can drawn from the traditional proofs for His existence, he insists that we must move beyond the question ‘Does God exist?’ to the next question, ‘Who is God?’. Describing this second question as ‘a most existential and relevant question’, he contrasts it with the first question, pointing out that it is ‘not a theoretical question about God’s existence as a “thing”‘. He insists that asking the question, ‘Who is God?’ involves us in our entire experience of life as we enquire about its meaning and purpose. Enquiring about God in this way leads us on to further questions – ‘What do we mean by his presence in the world? Where does he reveal himself here and now?’. An openness to God and His revelation allows the possibilty of asking the question of God doxologically. Doxology is the only appropriate alternative to doubt. Doxology does not depend on the foundation of a faith that is built on a natural theology. On the basis of God’s salvation (and not that of natural theology’s attempt to prove God’s existence), the believer is deeply moved to worship God (A Half Century of Theology, pp.76-77; General Revelation, p.134).
(b) Man
For much of modern theology, the question, ‘What is man?’ must precede the question, ‘Who is God?’. The approach which begins with man (theology from below) is often set against the approach which begins with God (theology from above). In this situation of much confusion – with one side speaking out against the other side without really listening to what is being said from the other side – , Berkouwer’s doctrine of man has been commended as ‘a middle course between conflicting theologies … achieved by a strenuous independence of mind’ (These words of A. Willingdale – from a review in The Evangelical Quarterly – are cited on the front / inside dust cover of Berkouwer’s book, Man: The Image of God).
* Berkouwer emphasizes that man cannot be understood properly apart from God – ‘man’s nature … is not self-enclosed, and … can never be understood outside of its relation to God’ (Man: The Image of God, pp.22-23).
* He insists that divine sovereignty and human freedom are not be set over against each other. Emphasizing that the divine superiority is ‘the personal superiority of love and grace which in man’s experience is making room for him to act by not destroying his freedom’, he writes, ‘The divine act makes room, leaves open the possibility for man’s act. That possibility is not absorbed or destroyed by divine superiority, but called forth by it’ (Divine Election, pp. 49, 46).
* He emphasizes that man’s relation to God is inescapable so that, even in his guilt, the life of man is affected by divine grace. Taking full account of the radical effect of sin by emphasizing that there is ‘not … some last reserve in man, some untouched and untouchable ‘part’ of man which has escaped the power of in and corruption’ Berkouwer insists tha man has not been dehumanized. Despite the fact that we have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, we still remain man created in God’s image and called to glorify Him in our life as His creation – ‘Man stands and remains standing in his human responsibility and in his human guilt over against God’ (Man: The Image of God, pp. 127, 135).
* In emphasizing the relation beteen God and man, Berkouwer takes care to avoid the ‘erroneous’ interpretation of ‘the concept of relation’ which suggests that ‘man exists only in relation to God, and God exists only in relation to man’. Over against any suggestion that God is no more than a figment of our imagination and we are no more than a figment of His imagination, he maintains that, in using the concept of relation – God and man are understood in relation to each other – , we must speak also of ‘reality’. By emphasizing both reality and relation, we are maintaining ‘the Biblical outlook’ which ‘does not sacrifice reality to relation’ (p.35). When we emphasize the relation between man and God, we acknowldege that we cannot, without reference to God our Creator and Redeemer, give an adequate answer to the question, ‘What is man?’. When we ask this question Biblically, we think not only of man but also of God. To enquire – in a Biblical way – about the meaning and purpose of our human experience is to move from the pathway of defiance – we don’t need God – into the pathway of doxology – we worship God. In worship, we do not only ask, ‘What is man?’. We ask, ‘What is man that Thou art mindful of him … ?’ (Psalm 8:4)..
Returning to our initial observation regarding truth in itself and truth for us, we make two important points concerning Biblical truth.
* Biblical truth is truth in itself regardless of whether we believe it. If, however, we persist in unbelief, it is, in our experience, truth which stands over against us as a judgment upon our sinful unbelief. We cannot escape the presence of God simply by asserting, ‘I don’t believe in Him’. We may choose not to take God seriously. He will continue to take us seriously – in His judgment.
* Biblical truth remains truth which stands over against us in judgment until, through faith in Jesus Christ our Saviour, it becomes truth for us, a powerful, life-changing truth which leads us to glorify God as we learn to honour Him as our Creator and Redeemer.
