As Traditional Values collide with Progressive Hopes and Visions. The old are syncretized to fit the new. As a Noticer, I observe, I research and I share. Join me in exploring the effects of CHANGE and the events that drive it in culture, media and politics through dynamics in Practice and Policy across the globe. This is truly an amazing time to be living! For other types of postings, paste www.jackandcarlayoutube to your browser and open and explore posts and Powerlinks.
Several years ago when I was volunteering as Camp Nurse for our church youth group, I had a very challenging experience. It was during the NOROVIRUS outbreak, an outbreak that was so contagious that it completely shut down the mental health unit at my hospital, all of the staff and all of the patients became violently ill. The unit was shut down for weeks of deep cleaning.
A few weeks later I left to work as Camp nurse for our church's, "Kidz Kamp." A week long church/bible camp offered to grade school aged children that incorporated high school and Jr high school aged counselors and helpers.
On our departure from the church we had 120 people on two buses going to the camp facility at the beach.
When we arrived, before leaving the buses, I asked the riders if any of them had been around anyone who was sick in the last week.
Three girls responded and one said she was feeling, "kinda icky", but also said, "I get car sick a lot." Fortunately these three all sat together on the bus and all were assigned to the same cabin at the camp. I talked with their counselors and asked them to keep an eye on the girls and let me know if any thing got worse.
Within an hour one of the counselors was at my door with a girl who had just thrown-up on her mattress. Immediately, I went to the cabin and had all of the Kidz go to wash their hands before closing and locking the door. I asked them to sit together and talk as I went to the local supermarket to get a spray bottle, some Chlorox, 3 pair of kitchen rubber gloves and 3 pair of cheap, small garden gloves.
I mixed a spray bottle of 10% bleach water and had everyone in that cabin hold their hands out to have them sprayed as we sang a multiverse washing song. Then I had them go back into the restroom and wash the bleach water off their hands.
I taught the counselors how to clean up the mess wearing the kitchen gloves with bleach water. I taught them how to clean the whole area, "at least twice as big as the mess." and then to do the spray and rewash their hands when done.
I had the sick girl wear the garden gloves with the instruction to always take them off to touch her mouth or face in any way and when she ate or went to the bathroom. After taking them off she was to wash with the spray and then soapy water before putting them back on. I also told her counselors to do the spray, wash, song ritual every time after they touched one of the three girls.
Even though they followed the rules, through the week each of these girls got sick, and eventually their parents came to take them home. Their two counselors and one of the male counselors that helped them also got sick and went home. One counselor became so ill that, I had to take her to the emergency room after she fainted after intensely vomiting. Her mother, our camp photographer took her home. The last, the male counselor became sickened on the last day an rode home with me in my car clutching and retching into a plastic bag as we drove. So of the 120 on the bus, 6 became ill, and only 3 were infected at camp.
I and the others were most fortunate, as at an earlier camp everyone that attended became violently ill!
The key to success? clear and simple...
I believe that the garden gloves made it much easier for the sick children to remember to follow the rules of systematic hygiene.
The gloves also made it much easier for those who were not sick to know who they should be more careful with for appropriate social distancing.
Since that time we have all gone through a Global Covid Pandemic.
During the pandemic political narratives of allegiance rather than applied innovation according to effective reasoning, resources and rational were used to control and punish with very poor outcomes.
Could we have done something similar during Covid? Could we deliver food and check in on the sick through phone contact and social media? Would this have encouraged the sick to stay home for infectious period of the illness?
Perhaps using a red scarf rather than garden gloves to identify the ill or vulnerable?
or even better...
Air Filtering Pressure helmets! to protect our most vulnerable neighbors from exposure.
I believe the discipline of stopping to evaluate levels of risk and safety through a social mitigation process could have been a great community building opportunity.
Even in our failure, it can be a teaching tool, forcing us to look at the true risks and unnecessary losses we impose on those around us. We are now in a good position to continue as we eventually modify our strategies to provide even more effective protection to our high risk groups.
We could have sought to increase ventilation in public areas and lessened the early increase of self exposure that comes with rebreathing virus particles while wearing masks. We could have suggested wearing them only while in very close quarters. And we could have provided our high risk populations with a social marker like, (a red scarfs), or similar marker to signify to others that they are isolating and desire more personal space, (perhaps 20 feet outdoors).
We could also provide pressure filtration helmets for their use to protect them when they are required to be in closer contact like public areas. Our electronic Medical Health Record could also be used to identify high risk individuals and trained health care workers could provide teach-back education of the specific best practices to avoid exposure to infection.
In time the rest of us would eventually return to business as usual, even as our most vulnerable may be forced to wait anxiously for a safe and effective vaccine to be created.
The costs of providing the (PAPR), Powered air purifying respirator helmet, above would be hundreds of times less costly than the forced shutdowns we experienced. A fraction of the cost of treating the Covid-19 illness in the ICU for just one day. One statistic showed the average hospital stay is 6-days at a cost of $73,000 according to CNBC.
These helmets could be returned after the pandemic and refurbished for future use by hospital staff or the public preparing us for the next pandemic which is sure to come.
Consider the similarities of the populist leader of Brazil, and that of America. In Brazil, did legal activism through the courts win? Or were the outcomes just?
With all of the fear and dread floating so thick in the air today, a person's sense of well being, and even their mental health can feel compromised, even unstable.
Do you know what to do when this happens? Did you know that you have options? That things can improve?
We all have choices in our behavior. Choices, that if habitually practiced will improve and strengthen our very souls.
Do you know what these choices are, and where to begin?
To begin, we can choose to be deliberate. To deliberately embrace truth and health and growth and actively reject the temptation of destructive habits and influences.
We can become intentional and choose to lessen loss and grow to increase in personal strength and depth of character.
Instead of being swept away by the emotions of the moment. Be it personal hardship or the distraction of social activism, or recoiling in fearful opposition to cultural change.We can choose sanity and become intentionally focused and purposeful in living out our own internal values.
There is a saying that, “talk is cheap.” But in reality obsessive talk devoid of understanding can become painfully confusing and costly in the long run. Especially on the emotional level.
What do you see going on in the world around you? Is it beckoning you toward reactionary fear? What is the fruit of the perspective you have been feeding? Is it toward personal growth? Or creating a growing sense of emptiness and looming personal chaos?
Gaining and maintaining accurate perspective can be immensely helpful! And providing help to others, and receiving help from others in a helping community can be life altering! We can find personal accountability and even recovery in support groups, churches and structured community involvement. Even personal interest groups and shared hobbies can replace the loneliness of self absorption with experiences of connection, accomplishment, strength and gratitude.
But consider carefully, the paragraph above describes activities and gatherings that are committed to, "Creativity and Order."
Not ones prone to emotional reaction, social agitation or displays of intimidating power. Not aggressive activism and not, gatherings centered around, celebrating intoxication or careless licentiousness in any form.
Today, the variety and options for using intoxicants has exploded!
And these have become the first choice of relief from many suffering from anxiety and stress and boredom. Stress often maintained and accentuated by an echoing deluge of fearful narratives from associates and media sources.
Today, even a sporadic or casual use of intoxicants can be fatal as accidental overdose is the leading cause of death among those under 35. And the chaos of intoxication has become the lifestyle norm for an ever-growing portion of our culture.
Today, we are quick to celebrate, "Change." Even as we ignore the realities of, "Loss." We even celebrate our blindness, as we embrace what is revolutionary in the, "Destructive," sense. Ideas that bring both personal and societal destruction!
In the past revolutionary ideas of, "Peace," were celebrated. But today these Revolutionary Ideas are catapulted forward through Social Influencers, Agitators and Activists to the status of modern Sainthood.
Today, being agitated or agitating others is considered desirable, even heroic! But we must remember that being agitated is very unpredictable at it's core, and there is often very little difference between an Activist led gathering and a Destructive Angry Mob. They may even be one and the same.
Historically social breakdown and even anarchy occur as these groups, disregard civil discourse and throw off legal restraint to intimidate and manipulate the the greater population. They coerce submission through destructive violence. This is what we saw in Seattle as the police station was burned and the murders took place.
The most famous and most effective protest of this type was, Kristallnacht, on November 9th of 1938. It virtually silenced public opposition to Hitler's abuses.
These gatherings and events of this type must be shunned. Don't be fooled, if nonviolent protest was the goal, than why didn't the leaders and crowds leave when the violence and destruction erupted.
If eliminating the destructive effect of chaos in your life is your goal, these type of events must be shunned.
The destruction of our inner cities in much of America today, shows the terrible cost of our failure to understand this. It may be a shock to our senses, but this isn't new. The history of this last century repeatedly bears this out. Consider the chaos, and the subsequent “Inspirational Stories,” that are compiled in this playlist. I compiled it about ten years ago. It is titled:
"For Freedom's Sake, Displaying Sanity in the Face of Opposition"
The playlist has six inspirational stories. The first is pictured in the (picture link) below. If you like this one and want to see more, click the (internet link below the picture) to see the other five. (If you are on a computer) There, you can also click the title (on that page) to see the connecting text that goes with these stories. It will appear on the Left of the screen. On my phone internet link auto-played the videos, but I couldn't click through to the text potion for reading.
On a more personal level, did you know that there are other positive ways to escape from internal chaos and negative emotions. But it usually requires more focused help and encouragement from others. Isolated we are vulnerable and captive to our own habits. But with real help we can find real escape, just like the Jews in Denmark did in the story above.
Have you ever wished you could exchange your fears and compulsions for genuine strength and courage?
Details for this option are presented in the Faith, Mental Health and Recovery messages below. Click the Helicopter (Picture) to hear the stories and testimonies. To see the corresponding written text you will have to click the link below the picture, Then on that page, click the text in the description, or (more) below the video to read it. This did work on my phone.
Consider BOTH the TALK and TEXT. Both were prepared to encourage you to take the deliberate steps that will strengthen you in your sense of wellbeing and personal integrity, as well as navigating in the mental health system. If you are having a crisis read the text and follow the instructions.
And finally consider this much more recent lesson from the past. Just a few months ago Israel celebrated their 75th National Anniversary. The video below highlights portions of their 2023 Yom HaShoah observances that occurred at the same time.
In it, Israel's President Herzog reviews past Academic and Social Anti-Semitic Propaganda. He shares how it was used to reshape public education, social institutions to create ridicule, apathy and hatred across much of Europe toward the Jewish populations. He explains how it separated them from past traditions and the values. And talks about many who displayed noble strength and courage in resisting.
He talks about how it was propagated through misapplied, "Science," to align the culture from early childhood with the, "Evolutionary Assumptions," held by Hitler.
President Herzog called for greater social accountability among Israel's political leadership and elites.
To me it displayed how our poorly examined thoughts and attitudes, and our failure to educate can allow seemingly good people to accept and promote unjust and evil policies. Policies leading to actions far worse than anything they ever would have imagined. But it ends with expressions of support and commitment to our fellow man, similar to the inspirational stories above.
And finally how accepting the concept of, "being created in the image of God," has shaped our morality into a "Sanity," of grace, accountability and individual challenge, and quells the chaotic confusions that comes with self absorption.
Destruction... Both snakes died! One from asphyxiation and the other from venom.
Insane! Right? But consider how we have followed the example of these snakes.
Aren't we equally insane to have placed our faith in a policy of, "Mutually Assured Destruction?"
If you have read the first few chapters of the bible you know how a serpent tempted Eve with a promise that she could, "become like God" if she chose a path of independent disobedience. But he didn't say where this path would lead?
This same serpent creature was called Satan when he tempted Jesus and is called, "The Destroyer," in the book of Revelation because of the terrible destruction he brings.
But my current focus is more on the destructive trends of this century.
Our first escalation, "toward global destruction," was during World War I. It was waged between, (1914-1918). As our first war in the industrial era, it displayed our great increase in destructive ability.
So much so that, WWI was labeled,
"The War to End All Wars."
But instead of bringing peace. This failed solution set the stage for the escalation and limited nuclear destruction of World War II waged between (1938-1945).
And since 1945, our war-making technology and war-making industry has literally exploded!
Today, our thermonuclear weapons are thousands of times stronger than the WWII models. Their fallout so great, they could affect entire continental regions for decades.
This would have been unimaginable in the past!
And today's hypersonic delivery systems, along with drone and space based weaponry systems leave most modern populations virtually defenseless!
So our policy to prevent, the carnage of nuclear warfare, has actually escalated our human destructive potential.
Rather than diminishing loss, we have assured a more complete and devastating loss than ever could have been imagined.
Our attempts at peacekeeping through, "Mutually Assured Destruction, (M.A.D.)" are both inadequate and misdirected. More like the deadly Fentanyl flooding our streets.
M.A.D. is not wise medicine. It demonstrates our false wisdom and fallen nature. But by our nature, we are stuck.
By placing our hope in M.A.D. we have moved much closer to total destruction than ever before! And to date, we have not found a way to change course.
Will thermonuclear destruction occur during this generation? Will it be the summation of our existence?
Depends on who's plan we follow!
If you didn't attend school in the 60's, you probably didn't do the, under the desk drills, and may not be emotionally aware of this startling reality. Topics like this are difficult.
As modern people, we pride ourselves in our sense of control through our knowledge and scientific discovery and many feats of modern engineering.
Rarely do we admit that our innate human preference is to rely on our power to do harm. But history shows that human consistently impose the will of the strongest, no matter what the cost!
It comes so naturally, that, unless we look carefully we may not even notice our common pattern of spiraling toward intentional chaos.
Similar chaos can happen in our personal lives as well. Even among people with deeply held religious beliefs. Even pastors and leaders can struggle with destructive thoughts, some even ponder suicide.
In the series of videos below, Pastor Brunson shares how his faith crashed. How it was replaced with a more functional form of faith.
His crisis occurred during his persecution, and imprisonment under Turkish law, in a Turkish jail.
Hear his full testimony in the (8) 15 minute videos below.
As you can see, our shallow thinking and failure to examine our beliefs can leave our faith weak and inconsistent.
These inconsistencies can also extend across other areas of our lives and even into the fabric of our culture resulting in terrible consequences for us and those who rely on us.
Consider how so many, "Christians," are committed politically to maintaining the current murderous peril. Not only in the extremes of international conflict and warfare like M.A.D.
But also when it comes to, "helping," those trying to immigrate across our southern border through cartel controlled cities and regions.
Regions so dangerous, the local police don't even attempt to enter.
Instead of investing to provide safe transportation and structured opportunities here in America,we feign, "welcoming kindness," and look the other way.
We close our eyes to the scarce peasant resources that are diverted to enrich and strengthen the criminals cartels. Cartels that terrorize and corrupt their civil justice system, and undermine the civil governments in their countries of origin.
We close our eyes to the perilous risks of the journey, focusing only the hinderances created by our, "border policy," and politely ignore the rapes, drug and sexual enslavement and even public executions done by the coyote cartel workers to intimidate and control those being illegally transported?
Did you know that approximately 30% of the millions of women smuggled across our southern border were raped? And thousands had their children taken to be trafficked, often to pay for the debt incurred by their transport?
But we the people, close our eyes to this lawless smuggling, enslavement, terror and murder to accuse each other and argue about our feelings over what city they will be accommodated in after they arrive.
We ignore, the changes this has brought to America as she has changed to become the largest consumer of fentanyl and trafficked children in the world! An accomplishment achieved by border policies that enrich and empower the Cartels.
Could this also be why we now accept the grooming of our children through sexually explicit nightclub behaviors at our local, Library Story Hours?
I recently viewed the film. "Sound of Freedom," that highlighted many aspects of this tragedy in Central America.
'The Miracles Are Insane': Tim Ballard Tells Real-Life Stories That Inspired 'Sound of Freedom'
And speaking of enslavement. Did you know that...
1619 was a drop in the bucket compared with today. Today there are more enslaved laborers on planet earth, than at any time in history.
The largest groups are repressed religious minorities, then victims of sexual prejudice and then those vulnerable due to age, with the young often being taken for organ harvesting.
A quick look on line presented this article ...
Report on Uyghur Forced Labor
The latest report titled “Uyghurs For Sale”, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, reveals a vast network of companies complicit in the mass detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic people. ASPI stated that it had found “27 factories in 9 Chinese provinces that are using Uyghur labor transferred from Xinjiang since 2017. Those factories claim to be part of the supply chain of 83 well-known global brands.”
Here are some brands connected to factories using forced labor.
How can we be guiltless when much of their forced labor was created to earn a return on our Western investments and provide Western consumers with cheap pleasures and luxury, (and even organs for transplant?)
Recently, the Black Lives Matter Movement made it fashionable to have large protests against, "systemic," inequity in the major cities of most Western nations.
These protests frequently evolved into destructive riots, terrorizing and destroying the very communities they were claiming to help.
During these riots our leaders conveniently ignored the pandemic risks and threat of disease transmission even as worker in surrounding factories and hospitals were being terminated from employment for failing to vaccinate.
We also ignored the lawless destruction. The social intimidation and the new rampant normalization of theft. We ignored the destruction of our communities with their long established businesses and the escalation of poverty and joblessness that followed.
We ignored the increased vulnerability of our youth to addiction and subsequent sexual enslavement, including those of the newly arrived immigrants as we facilitated an unrestricted increase in drug supply, for local distribution into our neighborhoods.
We stripped drug enforcement from the police, including the goal of temporarily, "freeing," addicts from the slavery of, "use," that occurs during incarceration.
Incarceration and lack of supply are historically the two greatest factors in motivating a move toward recovery from addiction. They create the motivation, key to the success of the Drug Court Model.
Since the BLM changes, our Drug Courts have virtually ceased, even as drug supply chains and use have expanded and flourished in our communities resulting in unprecedented numbers of overdose deaths.
How could we do all of these things? How could we come to this place!
All of these circumstances display our utter hypocrisy and insanity! Much like our casual acceptance of "Mutually Assured Destruction."
We have become very casual about these destructive changes as daily we step over the trash, dirty needles, syringes and semi-conscious users under the tarps littering our sidewalks.
So with all of these recent changes, what is capturing our concern now? What has displaced these once important priorities?
Today, the crisis of Global Warming is presented more frequently and with much greater concern than global nuclear destruction or local attention to family, and neighborhood safety or even political stability.
Today, Climate Catastrophes and the need for Carbon Credits and Green Technology are presented as our saviors and the keys to future human survival!
But do these efforts bring real and lasting improvements. Is their usefulness genuine? Or are they merely tools, useful for gaining political power and control and manipulating populations for profit and power through government edict?
It appears that open society and even our ideas of democracy may be in dire jeopardy.
But this should be no surprise.
According to the bible,
Self deception has corrupted the very, "nature," of mankind.
And today humankind is redefining itself.
Today, Western civilization has rejected her traditional role of, "bearing God's image," and, "faithfully managing His resources."
Today, we have evolved to become, "Planet Protectors," by virtue of our "Evolutionary Hierarchy." We have assigned ourselves with the task of delivering planet Earth from the affects of our own human presence.
But isn't that a bit illogical? It sounds suicidal? Much like the snakes in the picture?
And wasn't devotion to our, "Evolutionary Hierarchy," the rationalization used to justify Hitler's horrendous racial atrocities in WWII? And didn't it inspire activist Margret Sanger's work to reduce the populations of the races she called, "human weeds?"
With today's technology and our A.I. ability to manipulate information systems, we truly dance on the edge of a much higher precipice than any generation before us!
And Today, our World Order is being re-organized.
Culturally through the progressive-woke cultural and climate change philosophies in our institutions.
Financially through the rise of China and the formation of a new global currency being embraced by the growing number of BRICS nations that constitute most of the world's population.
And militarily through these same nations along with Artificial Intelligence and other forms of technological advancement.
Did you know that, America recently sent American Reserves to the conflict in Ukraine? We have physically entered the War. Will this lead to a new Viet Nam like escalation, or a full fledged Armageddon?
How will it end? Perhaps the day described in the verses below is soon approaching.
Isaiah 34:4 All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; All their host shall fall down As the leaf falls from the vine, And as fruit falling from a fig tree.
Revelation 6:14 Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place.
But there is hope. Read on below.
As people, we should reject the self-destruction of, "serpent wisdom."
And We should reject his call to, "become as Gods."
We were created for much more. To seek Our Heavenly Father's wisdom and bear His image.
Paul the Apostle stated... if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!—-Galatians 5:15 NKJV
Destruction is not God's purpose. That's the serpents plan.
Instead of becoming self-actualized "Gods." Our Heavenly Father calls us to a new life as sons and daughters. New lives that can never be destroyed. New lives with new purposes and new goals.
But In this plan... He is God and we are not.
Who's plan are you going to follow?
And what does it mean to be saved from our sins?
Click the link below for answers to these questions.
