day no. 16,678: the growing forces of dissolution

"Do not, I beseech you, be troubled about the increase of forces already in dissolution. You have mistaken the hour of the night; it is already morning.” — Hilaire Belloc

The darkness is not growing, it is gathering. It is being herded together and led to the slaughterhouse. Days include a period of both dark and light, but they are defined by the day. A night is simply put, just another part of the day. It is said to be darkest before the dawn, but by that time the night is nearly defeated. Though it appear to be making a final conquest of the light, it is merely exhausting its last breath before it expires.

1 Corinthians 15:25-26

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Every darkness will be rooted out. It may be darkest in the corners, but that is merely a symptom of its defeat. It is huddled and cornered and outgunned and coming to an end until only death will be left. And even then, it will go down. Death will die and darkness will be snuffed out by everlasting light.

day no. 16,677: single or sundry?

"Pluralism is just the political name for what in theology is called polytheism. And Christians are not polytheists, or at least they didn’t used to be. The Christians of the future won’t be, at any rate." -- Douglas Wilson, Trump, NFTs, Fremdschämen, and More

Pluralism is polytheism. You cannot have competing gods of the system without having competing gods. And if we learned anything from our mythologies, there is never enough room in the kitchen for multiple chefs. You cannot have more than one god without having at least one duel to the death. You cannot have multiple ultimates. Those who multiply gods multiply sorrows and those who cannot be satisfied by a single God cannot be satisfied by sundry gods.

"Whoever thinks one God too little, will find two too many, and yet hundreds not enough." -- Mathew Henry

Christianity cannot be re-branded to meet the new DEI requirements. It cannot remain Christianity and compromise on the matter of Christ's assertion of unilateral authority (Matt. 28:18-20). The Kingdom of Christ will cover the world as the waters cover the sea, but it will never have more than one throne.

day no. 16,676: good homes and good medicine

"Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear and sadness.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

A good home is good medicine. It can fill myriad prescriptions. A perfect place must be suited to differing demands. It is a place of productive activity for the laboring and rest and respite for the exhausted. It is a place to lay your head and to lift it. It can tend to the needs of the mending or the growing. It gives rest to the worker and work for the rested. It is a place of quiet and belly laughs, of sitting and standing, of silence and singing, of fasting and feasting, 

Godly parents strive to give their kids this kind of blessing and should teach their kids how to provide this gift to their children. It nourishes health and teaches how to feed. It comforts and teaches how to be a comforter. It raises and teaches how to raise others. A good home reproduces good homemakers. A good home is one that does not insist on being superior to the subsequent homes it produces. It shows those in it how to make one of their own, it cheers them on in their endeavor, and it welcomes back its former members without obligating them.

In short, a good home is simultaneously somewhere you want to be and something you want to replicate somewhere else.

day no. 16,675: pig sty repentance

Ephesians 6:4

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Christian parents are obligated to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This command was given to Gentile Christians in Ephesus who did not have a robust history of Christendom to lean into. They had to build it from scratch. If there was going to be a Christendom, they were going to have to create it.

So, they did.

We find ourselves two thousand years downstream from those who received Paul's letter and others like it. We have a rich inheritance that has been largely squandered on loose living or taken for granted by entitlement. We have wasted the fruits of our father's hard work by waxing fat and kicking. Like the prodigal in the pig trough, we are now dead broke and the economy is falling apart around us. He was out of cash when in came the famine. But back home there was plenty. There was work to do and food for the asking. 

The prodigal considered the pigs and headed for home. He had nothing left to eat but crow. 

So, he ate it.

May we similarly see the swine and return to our Father's house empty-handed with hearts full of repentance.

day no. 16,674: what craftsmen and centurions have in common

"Every wise craftsman who seeks to exercise true dominion in the world knows two things: first, he has creative authority to arrange—he is the craftsman. And two, he must respect the nature of the material he is using. The craftsman does not just exercise authority; he also submits to the nature of his material." — Douglas Wilson, Church Music and Other Kinds

A craftsman, like a centurion, is found faithful when he is in authority by being under authority. Creative genius is a creature. An artisan cannot create without acknowledging the created nature of the materials and more importantly, the created nature of the mind and fingers performing the work. Derivative minds working with derivative materials cannot be authoritative in their artistry without first submitting to the Author of all things.

day no. 16,673: the stars always shine

Philippians 2:14-16

Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

The stars always shine, but we see them better at night.

We are called to conform our behavior to Christ's commands wherever we are and whatever we are doing (1 Cor. 10:31, Matt. 28:18-20). But our behavior shines brightest when everyone else is rebellion. The contrast only draws attention to our shining conduct. But like the stars, let us burn bright for Him who sees us in broad daylight. Let us not only show up and show off at night. Let us labor to light up anywhere, all the time.

1 Peter 4:3-5

For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

Stars are strange as far as the heavens are considered. The night sky is dark with rare exceptions. But those exceptions shine all the brighter for the backdrop in which they are placed.

Isaiah 60:1-3

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

day no. 16,672: Lord Light and Lady Dark are Mr. and Mrs. Day

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In the beginning, God made the light and separated it from the darkness. He called the light, “day” and the darkness, “night”, but the pattern of light and then dark that has followed is called a “day." The darkness is defined by the light. They are a set with the Light assigned as the head of the darkness. The darkness was married to the light by God and took on light’s last name. In other words, Lady Dark and Lord Light are Mr. and Mrs. Day.