Gone - A - Roaming

Revolting Peasant has gone to see what the world is like outside his small village. He will be back the first week of December, God willing.

History Is The History Of The Church

John Ball writes:
There are people who claim that history is all about class, or money, or armies, or sex or power, but, in reality, history is the history of the Church.
The greatest history book is the Old Testament. When God's people turn their back on him, and chase after false idols, disaster ensues. And so it continues to be, to this day.
In the Old Testament, the greatest history book of all, we witness the history of the world. We see God creating the world, mankind's fall from grace, the break with human sacrifice with Abraham, the debt servitude of the Egyptian people accomplished by Joseph, the rebellion of the assimilated Hebrews under Moses, the giving of the Law, the obedience to God replacing the tyranny of the kings, and later on, God's people rejecting the kingship of God, and creating a state under Saul.
The same disasters occur over and over again, right to the present day.
Sure enough, when man loses his faith in God, and puts his faith in great armies, great crimes occur. By the early twentieth century the Church had largely turned its back on the mysteries of salvation, replacing the Lamb of God with a moral teacher of man, a teacher whose purpose was not God, but man.
The Church turned its back on holy poverty and sought worldly power. She took on board the utilitarian doctrines of the atheists.
And today, as we enter another dark age of tyranny, mankind seeks to build ever more Towers of Babel, the Church sells herself to the idols of Democracy, Equality, Prosperity, Ecology, the idols of Power.
God's righteousness has been traded for fairness, the ideology of grievance and self pity. Serious trouble is just a step away.

Johnny Cash Is Bigger Than Elvis

Thirty six years ago, when Elvis Presley, 'the King' died, it was hard to imagine a bigger star. His charisma, his songs and his good looks put him a different category than any other singer. Yet today, while there is acceptance of the worth of much of his music, he is something of a joke figure, with his outlandish garb and his pelvic thrust.
For a start, Elvis did not write his own songs, and was a manufactured star, promoted by the media and corporate interests in a way that was a little too obvious.
On the other hand, ten years after his death, Johnny Cash is still regarded as a major star, though back in 1977, the year of Elvis's death, Cash was very much yesterday's man. After some fine recordings in his final years and an ongoing interest in the poor and fallen, especially prisoners, an essentially Christian worldview, in spite of his divorce and drug use, his stage persona spoke of sincerity, not glamour.
Today, young people indoctrinated in Political Correctness find refreshing a music that is at times naïve, yet is exotic to modern ears as it speaks of crime, regrets, sorrow and suffering, values that rise above modern self pity and grievance taking and hedonism.
The simplicity of his music is part of Johnny Cash's charm. He is an ordinary man like you and me he tells us, a man who sees the world not as a tourist seeking pleasure wherever he may find it, but as a pilgrim waiting to be called home.

Robert Herrick - The Holy Spirit

In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When I lie within my bed,
Sick at heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drowned in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the artless doctor sees
No one hope but of his fees,
And his skill runs on the lees,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When his potion and his pill
Has none or little skill,
Meet for nothing but to kill, -
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the passing-bell doth toll,
And the Furies in a shoal,
Come to fright a parting soul
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the priest his last hath prayed,
And I nod to what is said
'Cause my speech is now decayed,
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When, God knows, I'm tossed about
Either with despair or doubt,
Yet before the glass be out,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the tempter me pursu'th,
 With the sins of my youth,
And half claims me with untruth,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the flames and hellish cries,
Fight mine ears, and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprise,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the judgement is revealed,
And that opened which was sealed, -
When to thee I have appealed,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

The Attributes Of God - Immanence

John Ball writes:
A lot of religious groups see God as only transcendent, that is outside of the material world. In Islam, for example, Allah has a messenger, but he stays strictly outside the field of play. Dualist religions, which view the world and the body as evil, have solely transcendent gods.
But in the Christian faith God is Incarnate. There is nothing inherently evil about creation. It is only sin, the misuse of creation, that is evil.
It is not prosperity, or well-being, or love, or sexual activity that is inherently wrong, nor friendship, nor games, nor work that are bad, but it is the misuse of the things that are inherently good that is bad.
Creation is so good that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son to suffer and die on the cross in order to reconcile his creation and mankind (made in his image) to himself. God himself to on the condition of a human being, with all its suffering and temptations. Yet you can often hear atheists say that Christianity is against the body, against the physical world. This is far from the truth. We are to be resurrected in the body. God is only against the abuse of the body. God does not hate the world like the Cathars of old or the Buddhists of today. He does not waste his energies condemning and punishing as do the Moslems or the Politically Correct.
God is the Living God. He is the God of life affirmation. Without God in their world, the heathens can only rage, can only hate life and give free rein to their lust for death.

Ivan Illich - Deschooling Society

'Even the producers of body counts kill only bodies. By making men abdicate responsibility for their own growth, school leads many to a kind of spiritual suicide.'

'Health, education, personal mobility, welfare, or psychological healing are defined as the result of services or 'treatments.'

'Rich and poor alike depend on schools and hospitals which guide their lives, form their world view, and define for them what is legitimate and what is not.'

'During the sixties institutions born in different decades since the French Revolution simultaneously reached old age; public school systems founded in the time of Jefferson or of Atatürk, along with others started after World War II, all became bureaucratic, self-justifying and manipulative. The same thing happened to systems of social security, to labour unions, major churches and diplomacies, the care of the aged, and the disposal of the dead.
Today, for instance, the school system of Columbia, Britain, the USSR, and the US resemble each other more closely than US schools of the late 1890s resembled either today's schools or those of  their contemporaries in Russia. Today all schools are obligatory, open-ended, and competitive. The same convergence in institutional style affects health care, merchandising, personnel administration, and political life. All these institutional processes tend to pile up at the manipulative end of the spectrum.'

State Feminism And A Lack Of Love

Mary Malone writes:
Over the years  I have taken on the occasional part time job, working in a friend's flower shop, doing small academic projects, but most of my activity has been within the private sphere. I often visit elderly aunts and help run a mum's 'n' tots group and take care of my husband and children.
All these years my husband has gone out and earned the money, which is very good of him, really.
In my opinion career women are fools, many of whom have serious issues. They are bitter resentful creatures in self-denial.
At work the rules which men play by are unsuited to women. At work men are playing. The competition between them is a game. Even warfare is often a game to them.
In the domestic sphere a woman needs to dominate, so while she serves her family she is is respected by them, and they learn to serve her too. The qualities that a woman requires at home can make her bossy and unreasonable in the work place. Her earnestness makes any competitiveness psychotic.
Nearly half graduate women are childless. Small wonder, for which man is genuinely interested in his wife's office work? After their own work, men just want to grab a bite to eat and go out to play, getting out from under our feet. When they return, bright eyed and  bushy tailed they are in a good mood to serve their women.
A career, a domesticated husband who cooks and cleans? No thanks. There's no love in equality, just masturbation.
Give me a real man who let's me be a real woman, who gives me a home, my children and lots of love.