An ambulance was dispatched for a farmer who was vaccinating pigs and accidently stuck himself. I don’t know what was in the needle, but if an ambulance is involved, there is nothing funny about it. I was reading at the time. I put the book down to check digital mail. The book: The Pigness of Pigs, by Joel Salatin. Made me smile.

The Joel Salatin blog today is about Ecological Exercise. The state of Virginia is going to control burn part of the state’s property. Salatin says…,

These controlled burns are not blazing infernos.  They’re carefully planned and executed to reduce invasives, reduce mountain laurel and other marginal species while opening up the forest floor to a host of diversified vegetation.  The fire also stimulates oak health.

What many folks don’t know is that the oak forests of Appalachia are dying. Right now we’re seeing a rapid and massive die-off of White Ash due to the emerald ash borer. We have thousands of dead ash trees on our farm.  We’re trying to cut them as fast as we can before they fall over, but there are a lot of them.

For the last several years, almost every oak tree I cut has a decay spot in the center. They’re dying. In 200 years, imagine Appalachia without oaks. Why?  Disturbance. No fire, no buffalo, no landscape mosaic. The ecosystem needs periodic disturbance to freshen it up and keep it from stagnation. The worst forest ecology in the mid-Atlantic region is Shenandoah National Park. It’s an ecological travesty.

We are touching fewer than 100 acres with our pigs periodically running through the forest. That’s a help, but it’s hard to cover as much ground as a fire. Wildlife loves fire. Animals return immediately to lick the charred highly mineralized aftermath and even eat the ashes. (W)ild turkeys are especially attracted to a burn because it exposes worms and millipedes.

©2020 Joel Salatin—Musings of the Lunatic Farmer—Blog  8-27-20

Those four paragraphs are important to you and me for two reasons. One. Land management has been abandoned by government listening to their selected “environmentalists.” Australia learned that mistake. Government threw away the management expertise of the Aborigines to which they are deciding to return. Many of the wild fires in the west are result of bad land management choices. So I hear.

The real reason I share Mr. Salatin’s blog is his view of disturbance.

The ecosystem needs periodic disturbance to freshen it up and keep it from stagnation. 

“Students today are being influenced by a 24/7 news cycle covering a pandemic, protests, and panic attacks that will either make them wither or will make them stronger than ever. Generation Z is graduating into a VUCA world: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. They’re already the most anxious generation in modern history and now they live in a most anxious time.” (Dr. Tim Elmore)

Commentary magazine views the current chaos as The Unraveling of America. That’s a good description.

Most of all I don’t want to diminish the anguish or trivialize anyone’s anxiety about the VUCA world. I’m looking forward to reading Tim Elmore’s new book Pandemic Generation. In the meantime, I’m trying to make sense of every semblance of good sense.

This “value of disturbance” idea has been sitting in my head for a couple of years. John Eldredge talked about the vast wild fire in their part of Colorado. His description of looking out a window and seeing green sprigs on a hillside of ashes grabbed me. Resilience is such a wonderful gift, skill, habit. They make a nice couple—Disturbance and Resilience.

I like the idea of change. Generally. But I don’t trust change as it relates to me. A controlled burn is such a good idea! Unless, it is my forest. I’m not so sure there will be any green sprigs. I suspect you feel the same so I’m careful with my words.

I doubt we will return to the old normal. The point of a controlled burn is to get rid of the destructive old normal. Thomas Jefferson thought there ought to be a revolution every seven years—like a controlled burn. I don’t know if he still said that after the French Revolution. The Old Normal was a known commodity. I’m anxious in this “unraveling” that one of the “protesters” will pull that one dangling thread….

I don’t know if Jesus is coming this week. He may. The words—“He is expected imminently” is a good way to approach life. There is comfort in feeling, “He’ll be here by October 15,” but Jesus doesn’t give us that certainty.  Uncertainty breeds with burning buildings and anarchists attacking my favorite Senators on the streets of Washington D.C. to birth a lexicon of emotions. I would rather God and I discern and plan our future than an armed terrorist fixated, obsessed and verbally/emotionally/mentally limited to one four letter word. Jesus is coming soon! But what if soon means 2028?

We need a strategy.

In psychotherapy and psychology there is a practice known as “reframing.” That means to give a more positive description to something that is stressing or angering. Definition of reframing:

Cognitive reframing is a psychological technique that consists of identifying and then changing the way situations, experiences, events, ideas, and/or emotions are viewed. Cognitive reframing is the process by which such situations or thoughts are challenged and then changed. In the context of cognitive therapy, cognitive reframing is referred to as cognitive restructuring.

2020, so far, is one disaster after another. From space, our world must look like devastation: torched by a maniac—or satan & co. Reframing is a huge act of faith.

HUGE!

Ezekiel 34 was yesterday’s scripture reading. New Testament revelation related by a major Old Testament prophet. Yahweh calls Himself “The Good Shepherd,” and calls the bad shepherds to account—literally gives them hell. It is the Good Shepherd—Old Testament and New Testament (John 10:1-18)—in whom trust is to be placed.

The events of 2020 are not just a blip. Can we reframe them as a disturbance which can be used for our benefit? Faith, it seems to me, demands an image. Memories are never stored digitally—0 & 1s. They are stored with pictures. To step in faith requires a picture of what you want your future to look like. (Vision of how your personal burned mountain side will look with green sprigs.)

God and I did a question and answer. I don’t know which of us started. Question: Can my destiny be hijacked? We Q & A’d about nihilism, free-will and strict Calvinism. A “controlled burn” assumes (for me) that my destiny is wrapped up in my “new in Christ” personhood. (2 Corinthians 5:17.) It may be given away, but can it be destroyed? Satan will have you believe our personal and national future will be determined by anarchists and insurrectionists. That is soul-killing.

 Who are you in Christ? YOU? The saved and being sanctified you? What has God placed in your spirit and soul—which includes your imagination, which communicates with images? The strategy is to Q & A until that happens. What dream? What desire? What destiny? What mission? Who to bless? With that in mind, 2020 can be a meaningful disturbance. It demands adjustments and creativity—walking and living by faith. The enemy’s goal is to damage the soul so adjustments, creativity and hope are neglected—because “there is no use….”

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).

A song from childhood is background track for these words. The last line of the chorus says, “I’m walking by faith and I feel no alarm.” I am feeling alarm! It is that alarm that drives me to take the step of faith to decide what I want the future to look like and how walking by faith in Christ can influence it. If we Determine it. Declare it. Decree it. Live and walk it.

Not merely a disturbance. This can be a controlled and motivating disturbance. By faith.

©2020 D. Dean Benton—Writer, Wonderer, Walker

Walking By Faith    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwJfwYMuZEQ

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In January 1830, Edward Livingston—himself a Washington Insider and member of a notable family reaching to the Revolution—stood in the United States Senate to speak about partisan politics. He had earlier said that the cost of partisanship for partisanship’s sake—of seeing politics as a blood sport, where the kill is the only object of the exercise—“was too high for a free society to pay.”

“The spirit of which I speak creates imaginary and magnifies real causes of complaint: arrogates to itself every virtue—denies every merit to its opponents; secretly entertains the worse designs…mounts the pulpit, and, in the name of a God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance; invokes the worst scourges of Heaven, war, pestilence, and famine, as preferable to party defeat; blind, vindictive, cruel, remorseless, unprincipled, and at last frantic, it communicates its madness to friends as well as foes; respects nothing, fears nothing.”

I have two immediate responses: Our politicians and partisans have been involved in the vitriolic approach almost from the beginning. No party or interest group can be excused. Not all are cruel or verbally involved in witchcraft. When one of my former favorite female singers critiqued the First Lady, I was on the verge of calling forth a surgical fireball strike.

That leads me to my second response to Livingston’s words. When we search for reasons and content as we “…turn from our wicked ways…,” how about partisan blood sport? Is that a wicked way?

The power hierarchy of the political parties probably don’t read my blogs—they won’t return my phone calls, so I have to deal with my own vitriolic choice of words. So, I’m sending Holy Spirit—God’s living Presence—to that singer and front page political people. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would lead us (and them!) into all truth.

It is not just a prayer meeting or Sunday School topic. Listening to a man talk about “building up our immune,” he listed, “Sleep, limit fast food, stay hydrated, move your body-stay active and forgive.” Unforgiveness and emotional upheaval affects our body’s immune system.

I found in research for my seminars—“Stop Being So Damn Mad!”—Ephesians 4:17-32 describes how the Holy Spirit is grieved and quenched; what brings judgement upon us—negative anger that refuses to be resolved. God gave anger as a gift—not negative anger, but positive anger which is framed by Ephesians 4:32. Positive anger has a plan to build.

Watching my heart and watching my mouth

© 2020 D. Dean Benton

The seminar series, Stop Being So Damn Mad! is published as Turn Back The Tirade available free during the pandemic at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/529403

“…we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

2 Corinthians 10:5

All truth comes from God. This directive and skill is not a call to correct local rhetoric. The Godhead is bi-lingual and likes all truth. This is not a call to shun thinking that does not have the approval of a denomination, politic, theory or geography. It is not a call to refrain from wide-ranged thinking. The words from 2 Corinthians 10:5 are instruction to think thoroughly and measure every thought according to Jesus’ thinking.

The book and attached courses—White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo—are the current holy scriptures of the political Left. It is being called one of the most influential books in the nation. Major corporations and businesses are requiring all employees to read it and attend classes. I heard one lady who works for a company with 40,000 employees say it is mandatory. I want to know what business people and leaders in the 7 Mountains are thinking and who is mentoring them, so I’m reading White Fragility with subtitle: “Why it’s so hard for White People to talk about racism.”    (Beacon Press, ©2018. Beacon Press books are published under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.)

Since this is intended by the Left to be the guiding principles of the world they are building, I want to know their intensions.

According to Ms. DiAngelo, the basis of whiteness is “…two key Western ideologies: individuality and objectivity.”

“…individualism holds that we are each unique and stand apart from others, even those within our social groups. Objectivity tells us that it is possible to be free of all bias.”

Ms. DiAngelo says, therefore, we must abandon and move away from thinking and embracing individualism and objectivity.

Two words that capture Marxism rhetoric: Individuality and Objectivity. That social, economic and political theory seeks in every encounter to transfer the “collective” for the individual.

Sanctification as a work of grace and subject has been stirring my thoughts. I wonder if the work of the Holy Spirit in us known as sanctification (among other things) is a sharpened awareness of our bias.

           INDIVIDUALITY

‘White’ as the Default

“If white Christians want to understand their privilege, they’re going to have to stop seeing ‘white’ as “the norm” and everything else as ‘diverse.’”

My first impression of that headline: Most of us, regardless of skin color think of ourselves as the norm and the center. Since I cannot imagine me as black, I must find the “center of gravity” with who I am and what I’ve experienced. Even the wounded and abused find solace in “Doesn’t everyone feel this way?”

The response to Jesus’ call to “Follow” is to put Him at the center of my universe and my ultimate “norm.” Genuine repentance and conversion is so radical that we intentionally trade self-centeredness and self-preoccupation for Him. That is what we mean when we say from an individualist place, “Jesus is Lord!” The cliché, “You cannot legislate morality,” is not exactly true. Socially and healthy culture does that exactly with traffic laws and ways to act in public that affect others. It is a strong statement—“Take up your cross and follow me.” What legislation cannot do is change a person’s heart or mind. The boy sentenced to sit on a chair in the corner refused to sit on the chair until he was physically forced. He said, “I may be sitting outside, but on the inside—in my heart—I’m standing up!”

If white is all you know, white is your default. I don’t know how it can be any other way until we choose a more healthy way by asking Jesus to become our norm. If black is all you know, black is your default. Sanctification may bring to life in each person’s spirit our awareness we are not the center of the universe—we have bias—we have preferences. That is not bad. What happens in the grace act is that we now are empowered to decide that what I prefer damages or limits someone else, therefore, I will forego my comfort or pleasure—(The principle is ‘I will no longer eat meat offered to idols if it causes someone to stumble)—so my brother or sister can move forward. When individuals no longer have that option, but are forced to give up what they value, something precious to freedom has been lost.

Dr. Shelby Steel was impacted by the thinking and teachings of comedian/social activist/Marxist Dick Gregory. Steel says about his moving into that mindset,

“I learned to remake the world around the central truth of global racism. To do this I took on the notion…that man, loosely speaking, was a cipher, a non-individual creature, who was pushed and abutted by forces much larger than himself. I did not altogether deny free will, but intellectually I took on the sophistication that it was largely a delusion of the common man, a kitschy individualism that Americans like to flatter themselves with.

“I learned” (he’s talking about his change in the 1960s) “that my group identity as a black was more important than my individuality.” (White Guilt, ©2006, Harper Perennial)

Somewhere in his writing or interviews, Mr. Steel says it was his loss as an individual that affected him.

DiAngelo, if I understand what she is saying, contends that no one is unique. We are but the product of our culture. Nothing unique. As a Jesus Follower, I wonder if I have my basic belief about me from Campus Crusade’s Four Spiritual Laws—“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”—Law One and Law Four: “Individually we must receive Jesus….” Or from Jeremiah 1:4:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

Then I’m forced to decide if that revelation is specific to Jeremiah or true for all.

To use Steel’s word—in Marxism and the new culture that is being demanded in USA—each of us are but ciphers in the collective. We will have no value beyond that—we must abandon our self to support the “common good.” So says the proposed new normal.

I ran onto an answer to my question:  For what wickedness shall I turn from if I desire God to hear, forgive and heal? Micah 6 raises its own question in verse 8, “What does the Lord require of you?”

1. Act justly
2. Love mercy
3. Walk humbly with your God.

What do you mean, justly, mercy, humbly? The Message translation lays it out pretty clearly:

“But he’s (God) already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.

“Attention! God calls out to the city! ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen. So listen, all of you! This is serious business.” (Micah)

The rest of chapter six is fodder for contemplating wickedness—the kind of behavior that breaks people into many pieces. It also defines “worldliness.”

Having defined wickedness, we come to the ultimate question: How does God see individuals? How does God see you? Jesus seems to like the concept of whosoever for example, “…whosoever believes in me shall have everlasting life.”

     OBJECTIVITY

I keep getting White Fragility confused with White Frigidity. Ms. DiAngelo says in White Fragility,

“We must be willing to consider that unless we have devoted intentional and ongoing study, our opinions are necessarily uninformed, even ignorant.” (page 8)

“Interrupting the forces of racism is ongoing, lifelong work because the forces conditioning us into racist frameworks are always at play; our learning will never be finished” (Page 9).

“Many white people simply do not understand the process of socialization, and this is our next challenge,” DiAngelo says.

This sounds to me, and I will be glad to be wrong, a call to Marxism with the elites as our teachers in re-education classes. I’m wondering if that is what’s going on already.

“White” is not about your skin, but your individual pattern inside: how you think, what you are, why you do what you do and what dominates your soul. When you say that you know you better than anyone else and you are not “white” as defined, but you are told that your very denial is proof positive that you are! DiAngelo says, “These ideologies (Individualism and Objectivity) make it very difficult for white people to explore the collective aspects of the white experience.” So, we cannot know our white-ness or even see our bias—we are blind to it. And this white-ness is not removable—cannot be forgiven or cleansed. White characteristics are unique only to one race. (Note link below.)

Shelby Steel sees a changed interpretation of whites in the 1960s that dominates.

“…a new moral/racial iconography in which whiteness became more an icon of racial evil than of racial supremacy.” (106)

Imperative that we bring this, what is becoming primary thought in America, to compare with Jesus. “Bring it to obedience to Christ.”  Message Bible:”

“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there!…The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tear down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity” (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

Dr. Ed Stetzer is Chair of Billy Graham      at Wheaton. I’ve been listening and reading his books for several years. As a “Wheat Tender” he commissioned a group of academics to respond to White Fragility. The book outline and the responding essays are available at:

https://t.co/JmwkJVNU2G?amp=1    You will see on the left side of the linked page other responses to the doctrines of what is called a “Secular Religion.”  The articles help me understand what is going on.

©2020 D. Dean Benton –writer, wonderer, wheat-tender

Additional resources:

https://www.glennbeck.com/theblaze-tv/here-are-the-statistics-black-lives-matter-attack-on-the-nuclear-family-is-dangerous

https://www.artofmanliness.com/category/podcast/  #528 “The Rise of Secular Religion & New Puritanism.” Not a religious message, rather a discussion of philosophies that bear upon us.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/health/white-fragility-robin-diangelo-wellness/index.html

Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture from Smithsonian.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=aspects+and+assumptions+of+white+culture&form=ANSPH1&refig=39cf9e44e0964068b464a79126c457d2&pc=U531&sp=1&qs=AS&pq=aspects+and+assump&sk=PRES1&sc=1-18&cvid=39cf9e44e0964068b464a79126c457d2

One of our South Carolina friends reminded us that August 3-8 is Hummingbird Week in Mecklinburg County, N.C.  So that’s where our hummingbirds are! Two or three have been around all summer, but not the whole tribe. Carole faithfully cooks for them and keeps lunch fresh.

We ran out of regular bird food. I thought all those birds came to visit because they liked us. Apparently not. We’re down to a yard full of sparrows, a bald Cardinal, a tail-less squirrel and an opossum.

In his book, The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs, Joel Salatin asks,

“Is life fundamentally biological or mechanical?”

We better get that answer right!

“Let’s look at the word glory as it pertains to specialness, whether the thing is living or non-living. When we say ‘the glory of God,’ what does that mean? Moses want to see God’s glory. When God’s glory left Israel, what did that mean?

“Glory means the distinctiveness of something, the specificity and uniqueness. That’s the common thread throughout all the (biblical) uses of “glory.”

  “…if the chief end of man is to show forth God’s glory, then our lives should honor God…. Notice how many times the Scripture uses the word glory for things other than God, showing a deep respect and honor for the uniqueness of created beings—and things. The point is that the sum and substance of our lives should point toward the Godness of God. And He wants us to understand that how we extend that respect and honor to his creation indicates our level of honoring His specialness.” (Page 19)

Maybe I better drop this caveat in here:

“To the greater Christian community, however, a phrase like pigness of pigs conjures up notions of animal worship and environmental flakes. It’s the kind of statement you’d expect from vegans and animal rights whackos. But I would argue that our view toward animals is a direct manifestation of our view toward each other and to God” (Salatin—page 25).

The bald-headed Cardinal has been around this whole season. At first, I thought it was molting, but if so, the top feathers forgot to grow in new. Somewhere, someone said a Cardinals head feathers are its crowning glory. It’s hard to tell if that bird feels like it has lost its glory. That squirrel climbs trees and has learned how to balance without a tail. I’m unable to speak about his/her self-esteem.

“You’re my glory, Lord, and the lifter of my head” (Psalm 3). God has deposited His glory in us—the image of uniqueness and distinction.

The story of Temple Grandin. Ph.D. alerted me to seeing “glory” in each living thing and respecting that uniqueness even in slaughtering. Salatin says, “This is not about making animals into people.”

“And God said, LET US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God….” Genesis 1:26-27

I think that image is seen in humans as uniqueness, specialness, distinctiveness. Since God is not physical, we can’t say that we got “God’s nose.” Amy Grant sings that she “Got my Father’s Eyes,” and that may be close to truth. Scripture says of God–He will not share His glory. Another use of glory, but He can’t and He doesn’t want want you to either.  Or to trade for pot of stew.

When God is dismissed as absent, a myth or incapable also dismisses all He stands for and for all authority. That dilutes the value of persons and the result is burning of Bibles, the mass abortion of babies and disregard for personal and physical rights. There are consequences when a nation abandons Yahweh. As said of Israel and several tribes in the Old Testament, they lost their glory.

The current philosophical battles—2020 Chaos—is a battle about and the results of answering Joel Salatin’s first question: Is life fundamentally biological or mechanical? The street battles and fighting the pandemic is about biological vs. mechanical. He says,

“Viewing life as mechanical, like industrial farming does, cheapens it, which in turn cheapens death. Is it any wonder that our culture is wrestling with increased violence among humans through…and a cheap food policy, which is actually a cheap life policy?”

“Price is definitely not the number one criterion: glory—does this food honor life’s distinctiveness?—is the number one criterion. After that’s been met, then be frugal.” (Page 28)

Seeing uniqueness, specialness, distinctiveness in each living thing and certainly in each person changes things. Seeing the value of each as an individual instead of value only in the “collective,” demands they be treated with respect. Uniqueness or distinctiveness are never a reason or excuse for misbehavior or lawlessness. The presence of glory in us raises the need for redemption. It is for the uniqueness of nations that Jesus said and says, “…go and make disciples of nations…” (Matthew 28).

Oh, the glory of Your presence!

There is a growing community of people trying to eat “right”. This pandemic is pushing more and more into home schooling, gardening and acreage farming. I hope the Green Deal extreme hollering, extortion, hyperbole and turning America into something other than what is her glory, will stimulate us to calculate our stewardship of this land.  Soil & Immunity.

We heard David Sinclair, Ph.D—author and longevity researcher at Harvard say, “I prefer death to an inconsequential life.” Some read the lines “…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as “life, liberty and pursuit of significance.” Seems to me, that need for consequence or significance is the indwelling glory being awakened. That is not possible in the mechanistic life. It is part of what Jesus alluded to when He said, “abundant.”

You will benefit by reading, considering and discussing The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs, Joel Salatin, (Faith Words-Hachette Book Group, 2016).

©2020 D. Dean Benton