A FOREWORD AND MORE
about a whole lot of words
that follow.
It has taken a month
of uncomfortable effort
to prepare this sharing.
It's not been easy to write.
It's not going to be easy to read.
I hope you will.
It will mean a bit more of time
and a lot of Soul Stretch.
It's a long hard look at
what's before us.
In The Love Who Is God
John Frank
******
Dear All of Us,
Remember those attractions
at amusement parks
that simply spun you out?
Prime was the one where
the very floor under you
was totality in turmoil,
constantly undulating
and bucking.
You just could not
stand up straight
and move forward
without falling.
Nor could you keep
from crashing
into others.
Rather freaky.
It's not amusing
but its current.
The very foundation
of our shared life
is in terrible turmoil.
It is constantly
undulating
and bucking.
It's terrifyingly difficult
to get a sure footing,
stand up straight and
not crash into others.
It portends a freaky future.
Sanity, spirituality, society
stand or fall on
TRUTH
It is foundational.
It is being undermined.
Hitler knew all about that.
He more than
pulled the rug out
from under a whole nation.
He initially came to power,
as Abraham Heschel noted,
not with guns and tanks.
They came later.
Hitler came to power with words.
Those words were lies,
deliberate distortions of
TRUTH
He played to fear and pride.
He cut the ground out
from under his nation.
He set up a downfall
by making innocents
into scapegoats and positing
a supreme fatherland -
the white supremacy of his day.
Hitler's lies, his perversion of
TRUTH
meant murdering over
five million human beings
and traumatizing millions more
in the Holocaust,
plunging the Western World
into the hideous devastation
and slaughter of the
Second World War.
It all started with
undermining the
TRUTH
Political and
church leaders
fell in line as did
too many citizens
and so fell millions.
This blog is not about
partisan politics.
It is about principle.
It is about foundational
TRUTH
that which undergirds,
supports, upon which depend,
sanity, spirituality, society, the
TRUTH
Jesus is and offers;
I am the way,
the TRUTH,
and the life.(1)
Then Jesus turned
to the Jews
who had claimed
to believe in him.
"If you stick with this,
living out what I tell you,
you are my disciple for sure.
Then you will experience
for yourselves the truth,
and the truth will free you." (2)
Truth is what is
real and actual.
It is participation in the
"Is-ness"
that is God.
Jesus is that incarnate.
He offers it.
If we live it
(not talk it)
we are his disciples
and we will experience
the foundational
TRUTH
that he is
and that truth will free us.
Sanity, spirituality, society
are today being undermined
by words, dirty words,
words that are a perversion
of the
TRUTH
Those words are deliberate
public misinformation
and divisive diatribe.
They are chipping away
the grounding of
TRUTH
which we need to be
sane, spiritual and a society.
It is fearfully similar to what
Hitler initially did as he lied,
playing on people's fear and pride.
It is pitching us at each other
in terribly destructive ways.
Sadly and dangerously
many politicians and their tribes,
many religious leaders,
many ordinary people
are falling, falling for
UNTRUTH
Our personal and collective
sanity, spirituality, and society
suffer this tumult cracking
our foundational footing.
It's way beyond surreal.
It's unreal
and making us that way.
We and our society
are in a drift not unlike
that which lead to Hitler
and attendant devastation.
Examples:
POLITICS
- Saturday, May 30, 2021
Dallas, Texas
For God and Country Roundup
Retired Lieutenant General,
former National Security Advisor,
Michael Flynn called for a
Myanmar-Type Military Coup
to take over in the United States.
That is not only sedition.
It is blatantly untrue to
democratic governance
and The Common Good.
Flynn also said he's
"not a conspiracy theorist,"
but then declared:
"Trump won! He won!
He won the popular vote,
and he won the
Electoral College vote." (3)
None of that is true.
It is all a lie.
Never has there been
an election more monitored,
recounted, often more than once,
with no evidence of fraud
and judiciously verified
each and every of many times.
The Electoral College vote was
duly certified and judiciously upheld
state wide and nationally.
Flynn produced not one iota
of proof, nor have others like him.
RELIGION
- Pastor Greg Locke
Global Vision Bible Church
Mt. Juliet, TN
He recently preached
that the Covid vaccine
" is not FDA approved."
He preached that anyone
who believes that
"political elites actually got
that vaccination"
is "smoking meth in
your mom's basement" and that
what was actually injected into
those political elites was
"sugar water." (4)
The FDA approved
Moderna and Pfizer
in December 2020 and
Johnson and Johnson
in February 2021.
There was subsequently
a temporary pause
on Johnson and Johnson
to clear up questions
about side effects.
It is now fully approved
and in wide use.
Words unfounded
attack manifest truth
social stability
sanity,
spirituality
They pitch us at each other.
IN TRUTH
we are one
in the One God.
As Paul said, we are
One Body,
The Body of Christ.
Jesus shows us how
to do unto others
as we would
have done to us.(5)
He presses
the Oneness,
the togetherness,
that we are in him:
Whatever you do
to the least of these,
you do unto me." (6)
Words unfounded on
TRUTH
sicken soul,
make us like a body
that is tearing itself apart.
There are among us people
determined to override
Jesus and life in him, the
TRUTH
he is and he offers as
foundation to wholeness
of person and society.
They are determined
to dictate a society
captive to their ideology,
dominance and privilege,
to the exclusion of
other and different.
They are lying
their way to it.
They are perverting
TRUTH
and that means God.
So depraved, they often
invoke God in an attempt
to legitimate and bless
their demonic doings.
So horribly Hitler-like,
and see what that begot!!
This is no time
to pull the covers
over our heads trying
to avoid freight
or the task of
TRUTH
Multitudes did that
in Hitler's
time and country.
It allowed him to brutalize.
What can we do?
How do we react?
Before we ask
what we stand for,
we need to answer
the question
what do we stand on.
Noting but nothing
will hold up but
being four square
on sheer
TRUTH
We need to ask
The Spirit
to free our fears
and purify our sight
so we can find our way
to stand up straight,
secure and stable,
founded, on the
TRUTH
that is what is
that is God
On a practical,
functional,
every day level
we need to discern
if what is before us
is actual and factual.
Is it baseless say so
or is it solidly so?
Is it founded on Jesus
and life in him and his
TRUTH
We remember he said:
"If you stick with this,
living out what I tell you,
you are my disciples for sure.
Then you will experience
for yourselves the truth,
and the truth will free you."
Are we and others really,
TRUELY,
living out
what Jesus tells us?
We don't want to bend the Gospel
to our persuasion and politics.
We bend them, found them,
on for real
"living out what I tell you."
So we hold up every
persuasion, action, reaction
of ours and others
to the bright light
of what Jesus tells us,
to the Gospel.
We need to band with others
doing the same.
Do I "attend" church,
or am I in living communion
with for real disciples
in a Gospel community?
We refuse to hate people
doing and saying
hateful things.
We do are darndest
to draw them into
a mutuality
of concern and care.
We get busy trying
to get us together
doing things that help
those in need.
The more we live
the truth together
the more we will live
in a society founded on
and flourishing in
TRUTH
We may prefer a more
conservative form
of government,
or a more liberal one.
That's politics
and that's relative.
What's absolute is
GOD'S TRUTH
So we never ever
let up on leaders,
holding them
to say and do
exactly that,
sheer
TRUTH
In non-belligerent ways
we challenge people,
media, movements
that savage
TRUTH
It's risky.
it's necessary.
We pray in the
most profound way
for our society
and its viability,
one built on a base of
TRUTH
We do all we can
to work with others
as together we struggle
to deal with
the actual,
the underlying factors
that are the real, causal,
if often denied,
factors in our current chaos
and instability:
- in a few years the United States
will be less than half white.
- the white people coming
to these shores centuries ago
to claim this land
committed genocide
- white people built slavery
into our way of life
as a nation.
The people trying
to lead by lie
are so far
unable/unwilling
to deal with these.
Nothing will change
for the better,
for our viability
as a society,
until we do so together.
That's going to be wrenching.
It will take nothing short
of a massive spiritual
reckoning and renewal.
It ain't pretty.
It's essential.
Continue to duck it
and we will go down
in flames,
flames scorching
the earth of how it is.
Our society is on the line.
We may or may not make it.
In either case,
nothing can keep us from
working for the Common Good,
for the rock solid foundation of
TRUTH
In the meantime
and all the time
and beyond ever time,
we are invited,
empowered to live
right here, right now,
in the kingdom of God.
We have Jesus and his word on it:
For behold God's kingdom
is in your midst. (7)
Truly Yours,
John Frank
******
Oh My!
That was a drill.
Thanks for hanging in.
( 1) John 14:6
(2) John 8:31-32
The Message
(3) Newsweek Online
May 30, 2021
(4) Newsweek Online
May 24, 2021
(5) Matthew 7:12
(6) Matthew 25:40
(7) Luke 17:21
A wonderful goodness this week
was that a sizable contingent of
people from Turkey joined in with us.
Welcome to you and all new to
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
it is posted online
early Thursday mornings
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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Please invite others to share
"frankly speaking"
as detailed above
May we all have
the wisdom and courage
to be based on
The Truth
******
-
Turkey 118
not suggesting a do nothing get everything social compact
you do evil to us we won't do evil to you, but we will put you were you can't hurt other but you will have an opportunity to reform.
If you don't/can't, you can't leave.
John 8::31-32
Tenn pastor: sugar water
Michael Flynn, former Trump Nat Sec Director
