Day Bidet #80

Please to tell a little pilgrim where the place called morning lies:

  1. Psalm 34.18: “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart: and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
  2. Clown World. Clown World.Clown World? Demon World. Demon World (language and content warning).
  3. “The mark of a fool is a lack of desire to understand.”
  4. “Twitter does not believe in free speech.” (Duh. Related. Related.) The FDA doesn’t believe in healthy baby formula. (Related. Related. Related.) Climate alarmists don’t believe in sustainability. And as for the CIA—it doesn’t believe in anything. (Related—whoops!)
  5. “The Son of Man comes to conquer and defeat the rebellious angels and ‘the kings and mighty’ enslaving the world, thereby setting the righteous free.” (Related. Related.)
  6. Ron Swanson was right: Nature is amazing. (Related. Related. Related—God bless this man.)
  7. “[Y]ou have to change your whole life to see more.” (Related: “We must each answer the most important question ‘But who do you say that I am?'”)

More:

1937. 1981 (and 1982—or was it 2019?)—RIP. 2014. (Related.) Peak 2022. (Or is this Peak 2022? Or this? Related.) 10,000.

Did not know there were autonomous enclaves in the Kingdom of Israel.

“People decry ‘sexualized society’ and they are correct to. This does no mean a shirtless man or woman in swimsuit. It means a shirtless man or woman in swimsuit as a unit of marketing capital.”

The human voice is the only instrument a church needs. (More.)

Day Bidet #79

You must fix your heart and you must build an altar where it rests:

  1. Richard Beck: “The post-Christian world is characterized by supercharged morality within a vacuum of meaning.” But don’t fall into the trap of Stoicism—or the cheap pleasure trap—or whatever this trap is (or this one).
  2. “Do not let anyone make you feel inadequate about your ability to teach your children. Parents have been doing it for thousands of years without the help of a college degree.” (Related. Related. Related—homeschool your kids. Related. Related. Related. Related. Related—boys will be and have always been boys.)
  3. “We are forced to postulate something which will account for the fact that a group of first-century Jews, who had cherished messianic hopes and centered them on Jesus of Nazareth, claimed after his death that he really was the Messiah despite the crushing evidence to the contrary.”
  4. Gangs are roving bandits. Governments are stationary bandits. Pick your poison. (Related.)
  5. “I am a Christian man, and I don’t want to take life. However, I want to make sure that he understand that his life was mine to take.”
  6. By golly. (Also quite good. This, too. And this—a classic. Bonus track.)
  7. Jeremiah 6.16a: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the wayes and see, and aske for the old paths, where is the good way, and walke therein, and ye shall finde rest for your soules.” (Related: “Well, you can read and see what you think.”)

More:

You can’t trust the Establishment propaganda organs fact-checkers. (Related.) Or the scientists. (Related. Related.)

“[T]he original guests (the religious establishment) have been replaced by new guests (Jesus’s disciples).”

“[O]nly one in five medical schools in the United States requires medical students to take a nutrition course.”

“Jesus is the Son who became the Son.”

Nature Utterly Pwned Nature

Consider the story of the identical twins Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, who were raised separately from the age of four weeks. They reunited at 39 and found that they were each six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds; bit their nails and had tension headaches; owned a dog named Toy when they were kids; went on family vacations at the same beach in Florida; had worked part-time in law enforcement; and liked Miller Lite beer and Salem cigarettes. There was one notable difference: Jim Lewis named his firstborn James Alan, while Jim Springer named his James Allan. Had Lewis and Springer never met each other, they might have assumed that their adoptive parents played big roles in creating their tastes. But it appears that those interests were, to a large degree, coded in their DNA.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, “The One Parenting Decision That Really Matters”

Cochran: “At least in this case, Nature utterly pwned Nurture. … [T]he environment influenced them all right, but it influenced them in exactly the same way.”

Three quick overarching takeaways:

  • The majority of what people blame on capitalism, “systemic racism,” “white supremacy,” “the patriarchy,” etc. has little if anything to do with any of the above. Unsurprisingly, our Establishment routinely underestimates the importance of genetics: “The environment influences people want to exist, mostly don’t.” Update your views on politics, history, education, etc. accordingly.
  • Parents should think carefully about what they can control and what they cannot control, optimize the former, and not stress out about the latter. If one identical twin is raised by the Amish and the other is raised by hippies, they will be profoundly different in some ways. But they will also be profoundly similar in other ways. Update your views on parenting accordingly.
  • People can change, and sometimes they do. But usually not easily, usually not without miracles. Pray accordingly.

Day Bidet #78

Thou Lord art seene face to face:

  1. “Your hillbilly ancestors went to church at places named ‘Cripple Creek Baptist’ or ‘Dark Hollow Presbyterian’ and could sing four-part harmonies and understand the elevated language of the King James Bible.” (Related—if you don’t have an accent, do you even have a culture?)
  2. Correct—as both sides agree. (Related. Related. Related. Related. Related—language warning—and no, they are not. Related—disenfranchise the childless. Related. Related. Related—Conservatism, Inc. is worse than useless.)
  3. “[I]f there is one covenant in Scripture, why does Scripture speak of multiple covenants?”
  4. Glorious. Glorious. (Related.)
  5. “For some kids, it’s their first meal since school on Friday.”
  6. “Fact-checking is the lowest form of journalism.”
  7. Jeremiah 3.22: “Returne ye backsliding children, and I wil heale your backslidings: Beholde, wee come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.” (Related: “Heal our wounded conscience.”)

More:

Delightful. Delightful.

“Obedience isn’t obedience when you are only ever told to do what you want to do or agree you ought to do.”

P.S. My apologies for the early release of the incomplete DBD!

Day Bidet #77

And sorrow and mourning shall flee away:

  1. “[W]e also have to monitor when our systems of interpretation are being privileged over hearing the Word of God afresh.”
  2. Clown World (buy hey, America’s got talent!). Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Demon World (the two always go hand in hand). Demon World—homeschool your kids.
  3. “Testing is a motif that runs through the whole narrative of God. … Affliction tests, probes, forming; it is character formation.” (Related—Tozer: “What pressure and suffering [Jesus] endured grew out of His position as the world’s sin bearer; they were never the result of moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment.”)
  4. “The American university does not have a pope. It might as well have a pope. It is as ideologically uniform as the College of Cardinals…. What is up with that?” (Related.)
  5. “[That] the quotation goes back to Jesus is clear from the intentional wordplay between ‘son’ and ‘stone’, ben and aben in Aramaic.”
  6. “One cannot begin it too soon.”
  7. Donne: “No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the SeaEurope is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” (Related.)

More:

Where’s the lie? Where’s the lie? Where’s the lie(s)? Where’s the lie? Where’s the lie?

Where was the Garden of Eden?

Para bellum? (Related, but good news. Related, but…not good news.)

Jeremiah 2.5, 11-13: “Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? … Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

At Last She Understood It

‘Éowyn, why do you tarry here, and do not go to the rejoicing in Cormallen beyond Cair Andros, where your brother awaits you?’

And she said: ‘Do you not know?’

But he answered: ‘Two reasons there may be, but which is true, I do not know.’

And she said: ‘I do not wish to play at riddles. Speak plainer!’

Then if you will have it so, lady,’ he said: ‘you do not go, because only your brother called for you, and to look on the Lord Aragorn, Elendil’s heir, in his triumph would now bring you no joy. Or because I do not go, and you desire still to be near me. And maybe for both these reasons, and you yourself cannot choose between them. Éowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?’

‘I wished to be loved by another,’ she answered. ‘But I desire no man’s pity.’

That I know,’ he said. ‘You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth. And as a great captain may to a young soldier he seemed to you admirable. For so he is, a lord among men, the greatest that now is. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle. Look at me, Éowyn!’

And Éowyn looked at Faramir long and steadily; and Faramir said: ‘Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Éowyn! But I do not offer you my pity. For you are a lady high and valiant and have yourself won renown that shall not be forgotten; and you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not love me?’

Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.

I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’ And again she looked at Faramir. ‘No longer do I desire to be a queen,’ she said.

Then Faramir laughed merrily. ‘That is well,’ he said; ‘for I am not a king. Yet I will wed with the White Lady of Rohan, if it be her will. And if she will, then let us cross the River and in happier days let us dwell in fair Ithilien and there make a garden. All things will grow with joy there, if the White Lady comes.’

Then must I leave my own people, man of Gondor?’ she said. ‘And would you have your proud folk say of you: “There goes a lord who tamed a wild shieldmaiden of the North! Was there no woman of the race of Númenor to choose?”

I would,’ said Faramir. And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many. And many indeed saw them and the light that shone about them as they came down from the walls and went hand in hand to the Houses of Healing. And to the Warden of the Houses Faramir said: ‘Here is the Lady Éowyn of Rohan, and now she is healed.

JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Day Bidet #76

Up from the grave he arose:

  1. “For years I used to make fun of that mimeographed map of Hades, Paradise, and Tartarus, these ‘holding places’ prior to the Judgment.”
  2. Thread—sing more. Thread—give thanks more. Thread—avoid artificial everything.
  3. “[T]his appearance to the women involves a difficult gender (women rather than men), difficult timing (before any appearance to men), and a difficult location (Jerusalem amid so much emphasis on Galilee).” (Related.)
  4. “Money ain’t everything.”
  5. “As tent dwellers, much of the population of Iron-Age Israel would be archaeologically invisible to archaeologists today.” (Related.)
  6. Whoops! (Related.) Whoops! (Related. Related.) But this is the most important (and saddest) take. (Related. Related: “It is better not to strike.”)
  7. Isaiah 54.7-8: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid My face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.”

More:

Not National News. Not National News. Not National News. Not National News. And Not National History, either.

“But why need I seek further for proof that Moses and Jesus our Lord and Savior acted in closely similar ways, since it is possible for any one who likes to gather instances at his leisure?”

“[F]or a rebel, all true victories are total. He who makes half a revolution digs his own grave.”

“I loved her without reserve, and reverenced her as the sheerest gift of God’s grace to me.” (Related: “You’re the thinking man’s trophy wife.” Related. Related.)

P.S. A blessed belated St. George’s Day to you all!

Breaking Forth in Infinite Flames

Gill Fox, “As kingfishers catch fire…”

For God is Love, yea, all Love, and so all Love, that nothing but Love can come from him; and the Christian Religion, is nothing else but an openfull Manifestation of his universal Love towards all Mankind. As the Light of the Sun has only one common Nature towards all Objects that can receive it, so God has only one common Nature of Goodness, towards all created Nature, breaking forth in infinite Flames of Loves, upon every Part of the Creation, and calling everything to the highest Happiness it is capable of. God so loved Man, when his Fall was foreseen, that he chose him to Salvation in Christ Jesus, before the Foundation of the World. When Man was actually fallen, God was so without all Wrath towards him, so full of Love for him, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world to redeem him. Therefore God has no Nature towards Man, but Love, and all that he does to Man, is Love.

William Law

Day Bidet #75

Carl Spitzweg, Aschermittwoch / Ash Wednesday

May the judgement not be too heavy upon us (nor upon me for accidentally posting an incomplete DBD yet again):

  1. “Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone, / Is much more sure to meet with him, than one / That travelleth by-ways.” (Related: “I am a little world made cunningly / Of Elements, and an Angelike spright.” Related: “Yea, in deaths shadie black abode / Well may I walk, not fear.” Related: “Unless Thou show to us thine own true way / No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.”)
  2. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct (we live in Clown World, after all). Mostly correct. And speaking of correct
  3. “[M]ost men would be jealous to have a wife like Anna not just because of her sacrifice to help Cooper but because of her graciousness, generosity, and kindness to all those around as well.”
  4. Carnivore success story. Carnivore success story. Carnivore success story. Vegan failure story Carnivore success story. But this carnivore success story takes the cake (or doesn’t, as it were).
  5. “Myth is not primitive proto-science. It is a qualitatively different phenomenon.”
  6. Why do they always send the poor? (Language warning, but this one hit right in the feels. Related. Related. Related—language warning. Related.)
  7. Isaiah 45.15: “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour.”

More:

“[A]nd they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them.”

“What does Haman have to do with head coverings and 1 Corinthians 11:1-16?”

“[R]edistribution policies don’t have a big impact on inequality.”

“[T]he world of the biblical writers was not, in fact, extremely limited but instead very cosmopolitan.”

Day Bidet #74

Thank God, we have a cause worth fighting for, and a cause worth losing, and a good song to sing:

  1. “The cross is shock therapy for a world addicted to solving its problems through violence.”
  2. This guy basically called it. (As did this guyand Pat Buchananand Alex Jones. Related. Related. Related. Related: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” Related. Related—another very good and clear analysis. Related—an update as of Saturday afternoon. Related.)
  3. “Never read a Bible verse.”
  4. A good list of concepts with which to familiarize yourself.
  5. “[T]he one who had struck me suddenly with an illness healed me with unbelievable speed, to frighten rather than crush, and to reform rather than to flog.” (Related.)
  6. You can’t trust the experts. (Related—”new medicines,” they said. Related. Related. Related: “As the general ability of our establishment intelligentsia declines, the reigning theories in every field become more removed from the world, less likely to be useful, and subject to insane arbitrary swings.”)
  7. Isaiah 43.18-20: “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour Me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen.”

More:

Clown World (and the clownishness has real-world consequences, doesn’t it). Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World (guess how many children she has in real life). Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Clown World. Literal Clown World. (Very much related.) Clown World. Clown World. Clown World—”Bourgeois”? The sim writers aren’t even trying anymore! Although I have to give them props for this.

“([A]t least) by the middle of the second century the fourfold gospel was received as authoritative in some parts of the early Christian movement.”

Not all heroes wear capes. (Or have hands.)

“To be true to something beyond this world.” (Related—food for thought).