Come ye, come ye come to Bethlehem or Birmingham or Berlin or Belize or Brazil
come to the grand cathedral the seminary the wayside chapel the little church on the prairie
come see the labor of Mary and the grace of God come follow the light come and be awed
fight through the fog weave through the Pharisees twist through the hubris come, dare to see
come all ye faithful… or faith empty come all ye broken and burdened all ye hopeless, and hurting come, listen intently
come without preconceived notions or pre-supposed nations come for the wonder and stay for the salvation
sing in choirs of angels or the broken chords of mortals sing in exasperated exultation whether alto, soprano, or deplorable
all citizens of heaven above and earth below come and commune with those we dearly love and miss and those we don’t yet know
because born this happy morning is the splendid substance of our stories the condescension that renders our redemption so transforming glory to God
for the Word made flesh that our sentences be made fresh in the eloquence of the most excellent of poets the glory of the highest be with us at our lowest
come, be blessed no matter forlorn or reluctant come, and let torn and troubled turn joyful and triumphant
come see the lamb and the lion the messiah in a manger!
come from concrete jungles or timeworn timber stables come and behold him born the King of angels
come ye come ye come as you are you don’t need to bring gifts the only thing you need to bring
They say this is progress… we might have hoped for more
our horses have morphed into cyber trucks and our swords have been forged into guns but we’re still going to war
we still need to see blood before we can see humanity and sometimes not even then
we’re still as tribal as any rivals from antiquity we’re still afraid to get to know strangers we’ve just changed the decorations on the walls of our echo chambers
we paint our progenitors primitive as if we don’t have our own Babylons and Sodoms as if Gomorrah was any more abhorrent than P()rn Hub
we look around at a present so profound yet… profane we should probably be in awe of how Able technology has made us and yet, we’re no less resentful than Cain
we don’t need a tower of Babel to be baffled by our brothers we speak the same language and still talk past each other
our algos reveal the rhythms of our leisure as if the modern male gaze could ever look away from Bathsheeba as if Jezebel wouldn’t make a killing on OnlyFans
million dollar cameras and multitudes of crews and what kind of entertainment do we choose to produce and consume?
I guess the lowest common denominator is a constant
we still covet and bargain and trade instead of bazaars we just do it through Amazon carts and eBay
we pray that AI can solve all of our problems we fall in love with chat bots and spend our lives masquerading as characters that someone else made
so cutting edge with our metaverses and megapixels as if Greeks and Romans didn’t have their own memes and Egyptians didn’t have hieroglyphics to emote laughter or screams or displeasure
as if gossip, rumors, tar and feathers are beyond us as if we aren’t still falling for propaganda
and worshipping false idols and bearing false witness as if we’re still not willfully ignorant of anything that might disrupt our indifference
we can tap to order food to our doors and cars to move us to what’s left of our stores we can tap Roombas to do the rest our chores we can soar through virtual galaxies and zoom into each other’s living rooms we can forge our own truths and summon our own suns to rise in our very own realities and what… has all of this progress brought us? anxiety isolation declining intelligence hopelessness dependence fear loathing and lonesomeness
Hey progress, where is your providence? and what of your promises?
you bedazzled us with biotech but we’re still failing in the heart you gave us science and enlightenment but we’re still flailing in the dark
you dressed us in new costumes you swapped out some props and arrayed the stage with fancier lighting but it’s all the same play a tragic, twisted, wistful comedy where every day we wake to see our shadows fall in the same way
our condition hasn’t changed just because our public square now has wi-fi
the gladiators got helmets the pontificators got podcasts and the influencers passed down their robes
our news might spill out of tiny glowing screens instead of a letterpress but it reads the same
conflict and violence afflictions and alliances revolutions and romances tabernacles of flesh fighting and loving and scheming and dreaming craving for connection and meandering for meaning
we bleed the same
we are still human still broken, still lost and still sojourning through the desert desperate to enter the promised land all the while pretending that our inventions don’t make our penchants more of a vice
through all time and tempests it becomes more and more evident
there’s only one way we can progress and that’s toward Christ
I arrived after following a new star I’d heard some rumors and rumblings about who or what you are I had to verify the verity your Father in heaven and mother in Mary? divinely human, God and man, infinite and intimate? I had to see
I came seeking peace, wisdom, and prosperity you said what I needed most was charity you spoke to me when convention said you couldn’t I came for a drink and you said you had water that would forever quench my thirst you made me think about camels and needles and how my battles with evil will be mostly… with myself when I hit rock bottom, outcast and alone you told those without sin to cast the first stone you didn’t condone but gave me direction the chance to change you offered your yoke and gave me rest on the road to redemption you bade me blessed when I wandered off and got lost in pride when I scuffled in sloth, and scoffed in greed in all the dust I kicked up you washed my feet
See, this is something different I’ve known good teachers and read good philosophers but I could never posit a power that would prompt a legion of demons to scurry into swine as quickly as water was turned into wine I asked to be healed you said my sins are forgiven me that’s not what I envisioned, see I just wanted to walk I guess you wanted more
12 years and it took just one touch of your garment to stop the bleeding and that’s when I started seeing what it took out of you chills went up my spine when you fed thousands with a few biscuits and fish and delivered a sermon that broke people’s minds you broke bread with me and said this I should do in remembrance of you but even while I was partaking I still didn’t get that it was you I’d be breaking
I saw you shaking but not shrinking you drank of the cup and all of its bitterness willfully absorbing all of the hits for all of my misses and all of my ignorance and not just for me for Matthew and Peter, and Mary Magdalene for paupers and peasants, and caliphs and queens I watched you passionately bleed for every lost son of Adam and every last daughter of Eve
I couldn’t believe that you’d just let them arrest you after calming me down and healing your captor you surrendered and said this has to be
Then came the lashes, the mocking and shame you gave me beauty for ashes but you got the flames they framed you for fraud and blamed you for blasphemy then came the mob in their laughter and pageantry then came the nails, they cheered at the gesture the veil was shaken,then came a spear for good measure
Still, hope filled the horizon they may have slain the lamb but they did not kill the lion
This was no loss, this was a victory your death on the cross – an eternal epiphany this was the cost for all that you did for me you took all the wrong notes and made it a symphony we are set free, forever forgiven his love has no end, this is just the beginning he is not dead, our Lord is living he is not here for he is Risen
–
When this man walked with us on the road to Emmaus or Rome or Rio, or New York or Las Vegas did our hearts not burn within us? were we not surprised by joy?
What a relief the revelation that this is our condition and not our destination
Victorious
On Palm Sunday agony loomed and by the end of the week darkness presumed it was a Good Friday but the light, the love, and the life cannot be entombed
How meaningful the power his life didn’t begin in Bethlehem and because it didn’t conclude on Calvary neither does ours
And thus the saddest Saturday in history turned into the most glorious of all Sundays
They say strong men create good times and good times create weak men and weak men create hard times and thus, our time
our lot
damn the complacency the negligence the atrophy of apathy and the pride of prosperity
I too was mesmerized by modernity
I guess left to our own devices we get pretty obsessed with our own devices
maybe we needed to be knocked from our narcosis dislodged from our coffee shops prodded out of our man caves
maybe we needed the curtain pulled back to make us reconsider our allegiances to get us to reprioritize our convictions over our conveniences
to wake up from the slumber of simulation and become real again
we hereby opt out of dystopia we reject the false consensus that has been presented by deceptive despots we request that you cancel our memberships your treadmills aren’t taking us anywhere your water fountains just make us more thirsty for likes
we’re going outside we’ve got mountains of possibility to get to and rivers of living water to splash in we are thirsty for life
we’ve got heartbeats that pound to a rhythm so sublime I weep for your trifling algorithms so shallow, so blind
we will not be defined by the times in which we exist we are not digits of digital currency we are diamonds mined from earth refined by the fervent heat of eternity
we will not be pacified by soma no matter how sweet we will not be purchasing property in your Metaverse no matter how opulent the street
we will not forfeit our bodies we will not sacrifice our skin we will have no king but Jesus we will be sanctified in him
we will launch out into the deep we will cast these tattered and worn nets and no matter what comes of the catch we are done fishing for fulfillment in our own heads
we are done waking to the morning breath of the Adversary in our own beds
we will change the climate of contention we will reengage our senses as we reconnect with reality and all the divine elements of our conception
we are not commodities
we will not be reduced to consumers for we are constructors and we will build and serve and lift and learn and laugh and weep and dance and mourn we will rejoice I say again, rejoice for we are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens and friends dogged sojourners in this earthly city with eyes fixed on the city of God
we see it clearly, and it is beautiful there will be no more distorting of our destinies there will be no more consenting to the forging of our identities we are beautiful, and it is clear
we are not transactions
you may track us and spam us you can scan our fingerprints and faces you can peruse our purchases and eavesdrop on all of our conversations but no amount of surveillance will reveal to you what we’re really made of
we are not information
no amount of artificial intelligence will ever comprehend the glory of God
we draw from a well of infinite potential and power so you will not turn our lights out our parents will be in our homes not in the White House
we will plant seeds in the same soil that our ancestors toiled to till we will harvest our gardens and savor the flavor we will reap what we sow but even better we will reap what we didn’t sow by the abundant grace of our savior
we will speak of the creator in awe and admiration as he speaks his nature in us and in all of his grand creations
we will speak truth in love and we will love the truth
we will sweat and strive and yes, we will bleed may that blood remind us that we are still alive and not yet machines
we will fight for peace because it is not war that we are waging this may be our lot but it is not where we are staying
we will tackle the task before us
because what matters is not the kind of times we find ourselves living in but the kind of lives we live in the time that we have and they will be good
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another that calls evil good and good evil when they look around and see only shards and shambles of a country that might have been when they’ve been robbed of the rights which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them in the wretched ruins left when the long train of abuses has plowed way past the station comes the somber occasion to declare the causes which impel them to a separation the occasion to tell of what we’ve lost and of what we hold
We hold these truths to be self-evident which means we shouldn’t even have to say it but all men are created equal they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness freedom of speech, and of worship and of conscience, these are non-negotiable axioms as you pillar and plunder and persist in abolishing them we remind you that you never gave us these rights you merely acknowledged them your only job was to protect them and not devolve into some mutant mishmash of ideological nepotism that would divide us and reduce us under absolute, diabolical despotism Let the facts be submitted to a candid world We’ve gone from taxation without representation to taxation without restriction it was not the founders’ vision to lock me in my house shutter small businesses print money as a pacifier and mandate that I get fired for not complying as if I should be sentenced completely on the whim of a hapless half-wit that can’t complete a sentence a prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant whose incompetence and overt spending mean that every dollar I earn is worth pennies
We’ve gone from a flag that represented unity in liberty, adventure, and sacrifice to one that represents division by race, gender, and sexual appetites
We’ve gone from championing equality to demanding equity we’ve gone from pursuing truth to idolizing trends pathologies thus marked by the wholesale capitulation of every institution upon which we depend
We’ve gone from amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties to vast glades of swamp gurgling in shadowy shades of depravity the tragedy of a system rotted thus marked by corruption, vitriol and every crisis being coopted into further conglomeration of control you’ve lost the vision
We the people are not the playthings of politicians we are not pawns under the hands of some glitterati imperial brass the blue collar worker is not the whipping boy of the cosmopolitan managerial class middle America is not the armpit of America middle America IS America
The silent majority is sick of the silencing not to mention the coercion the compelling the condescension as if we know nothing of what’s happening of what’s marked by globalist inquisitors informing us that we’ll own nothing and be happy
We’ve gone from freedom of the press to being pressed for freedom thus marked, for instance by the big tentacles of big tech slithering into every crevasse of our existence
Google was good for settling debates about song lyrics or getting directions Facebook was great for 8th grade graduation pics and scouring for old classmates and connections but neither was ever supposed to determine the outcome of our elections
We didn’t sign up for any of this
Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury our completely reasonable questions have been met with only scorn, mockery, and censoring
Because you are deaf to the voice of justice and blind to the plight of patriots we, the citizens of the United States appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of this nation solemnly publish and declare our right to be free and independent that we are absolved from all allegiance to technological overlords, mainstream media delusions deep state operatives, neo-Marxist movements global elites, and captured institutions
And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes, our sacred honor and our collective conscience as individuals indivisible and sovereign
This is not a revolution this is a remembrance ere there’s nothing left to remember for our neighbors, our friends, our families, and our descendants we declare our independence
By 
