Gnostic Pride & Haughty Spirit - Part 5 of 9

Originally published in the Porterville Recorder's 7/12/2023 issue. Part 5 of 9.

Jesus was the ultimate leader as well as the ultimate psychiatrist.  The humility to accept that there are things you cannot change and the courage to change the things you can coupled with the wisdom to know the difference can only come from humility. This is the essence of the serenity prayer that comes from a spiritual approach to life not a material humanist approach. 

The wise will discard the material approach that leads to bad outcomes and makes us poorer and more guilt ridden. The wise recognize we live in a spiritual world of both virtue and vice and the choices we make become our ethics and morality. As the good book says humble yourself and you will be exalted.  The opposite is also true.

Without the spiritual wholeness those with mental illness cannot overcome the challenges and make changes in their lives. We have to remember that as we feel strongly about sensitive issues we also have to have the humility to know that some things we cannot change.  The Lord’s Prayer helps us to focus not on our own will but his will. We cannot force things to be better but we can make things worse through government force when we keep people in their mental illness through perverse incentives

The desire to escape is very strong for everyone. We escape when we spend time with family and work on building each other up. We escape by watching movies and going on vacation. We escape by learning new things and making changes in our lives that have held us back.  We escape by going to church and submitting ourselves to a higher power.

We can try to escape through entertainment and other shallow pursuits but that escape is only temporary. Drugs and alcohol are stress blockers and only offer a temporary escape and when you return to reality is worse than when you left.  Escapism and Addiction are closely related enter the cell phone and virtual reality. These escapes are temporary and not fulfilling.

When folks are mentally troubled and have not matured or simply refuse to grow up is a failure to launch.  Those that have failed to launch demanding others accept that they are not responsible hurts everyone else.  As the old saying goes “misery loves company”.   Being a toys R us kid is not a life pursuit.  Everyone who has grown up can recall a time of struggle and the satisfaction of overcoming.  Maturity is a journey that lasts a lifetime.

Marxists embrace the idea that society is responsible to care for folks that refuse to be responsible?  THIS IS A BAD PREMISE. Society is responsible for those who cannot care for themselves not those who refuse to grow up and refuse to care for themselves by choice. The idea that everyone has to be taken care of or we destroy the country is nothing more than a hostage situation.

If folks have chosen the perceived easy path of drugs to escape they ignore the fact stress problems and emptiness cannot be cured with drugs.  Even the best pharmaceuticals fall in this category.  In fact most if not all of the drugs that are peddled as cures keep the person in an artificial state where they can’t address or attempt to solve their real problems. 

To further exacerbate this problem the drugs prescribed have serious side effects up to and including rage and violence. We have all seen some very evil and senseless acts from people on these pharmaceuticals. These drugs desensitize people from their immediate problems and put people at higher risk in most cases further endangering their own health. In fact many studies demonstrate very bad outcomes.  Yet we continue to ignore this despite the warnings from the drug makers themselves the profits are bigger than ever. 

The stress of life cannot be wished away or solved by chemical escape. The Escapism from pharmaceuticals ironically may be leading to worse outcomes and never solves the problem but masks it.  This is not much different than illicit drugs as the escape is only a stress blocker and the euphoria experienced ends with depression. The depression leads to escape again and again which is addiction and a vicious cycle. 

Once these stress blockers are removed the root cause is easier to find and may be much worse over time. The substances removed may come with additional depression, additional negative feelings. After all once you realize the time lost in the escape the person now has a bigger challenge to overcome than when they started and becomes less likely to face reality. In other words to overcome after they embraced the escape makes reality now worse than when they started and harder to overcome. 

The best solutions include no longer enabling the bad behaviors. We have to have compassion, honest compassion to work to help folks that can be helped. This takes humility and sacrifice. For those that cannot help themselves we have to provide a space for them to get the help they need. The solutions are seldom drugs and stress blockers but activities that produce natural serotonin and dopamine from real achievement and real progress. That is the path of a healthy free society.  Surgery is out of the question from my perspective.

The way we are called to overcome is not to think we are better than anyone else but to realize that we are all human beings and all born equal.  We are equal before the law. We are equal before each other in this world. When we think we are better or we can change others through force we destroy the foundation of freedom and sovereignty.  Wisdom requires humility.

There is another category that can be difficult for folks to reconcile. Our American social contract includes a safety net for people who are unable to change so that we share our benevolence. American’s are very generous and we exhibit grace to help those who cannot help themselves. 

If you force people to help others that’s not grace. Helping others was never meant to be a hammock and social security was not created as a retirement plan but a safety net. The worst approach to this is encouraging folks not to change through perverse incentives and lawlessness. In our pride we have embraced social justice which is not justice. Liberty is a choice.

The lie that words can hurt you or make you feel unsafe is at the center of this delusion or in this case the illusion of safety.  Even harsh words don’t cause broken bones or pancreatitis.  I’m sure a dose of truth that some find offensive does not cause myocarditis.  This is a false premise and an unsound conclusion.

Where does the false premise that words can hurt you lead to? This has nothing to do with real safety and only promotes fragility and a state of fear. The fear of saying the wrong or the right thing is self-censorship. When the “political correctness” does not allow us to discriminate between right or wrong, good or evil, success or failure we have reached a dark place. Not to mention that this goes against the 1^st amendment and free speech.  There is no such thing as hate speech. The only solution to bad speech is more speech. 

Compassion means to suffer with and we must be compassionate. Everyone working together for the good through unity and patriotism is compassionate. Humility leads to unity and honor. Singing the National Anthem reflecting the courage to overcome a great battle unifies us.  We pledge allegiance to our flag and that pledge unifies us.  Pride divides us destroys honor and does not seek righteousness.

The American creed is reflected in the pledge of allegiance. We all know from the pledge that we are a republic. A republic from which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.  When you hear charlatans repeating over and over we are a democracy you know it’s a grift. We don’t pledge allegiance to democracy.  Democracy in its base meaning is mob rule and that is not an American creed,   

The Latin Phrase is E PLURIBUS UNUM comes to mind. Out of many, one.  This became our nation’s motto officially in 1782.  This phrase was featured on the design of the first great seal of the United States in 1776.  There is no racism in the founding of this country despite the shrill Marxist wailing. .  The ideals of America as codified in its founding documents unify us as a people all striving for liberty as individuals. 

When the Pride agenda conflates sexuality and race it completely undermines Civil Rights by trying to establish group rights.  MLK and the founding of America is above race and we cannot allow the Pride movement to undermine civil rights or our founding. MLK echoed the Declaration that all men are created equal as individuals.  The Civil Rights was never about group rights and was focused on the content of character of individuals. 

To test the definition of a right (civil right) is very simple. To be a right it must lead to like advantage of every other as individuals.  To be a right it cannot infringe on the rights of others. This is the essence of Liberty.  If we create protected classes we bestow rights for people and groups that they are not entitled to. Equal justice under the law is about individuals not groups. 

In simple terms lawyers are enabling bullying by the protected class of every others not in that protected class. That is not equality nor a right. This is not constitutional because it violates the equal protection clause. Legal precedent is not law and bad precedent leads only to conflict.  It’s a simple test yet we continue to allow this unchecked. The legal profession is rife with Pride and Haughty Spirit. 

The Self Evident truths of the Declaration of Independence reflect Christendom.  The American Constitutional Foundation is closest of all to Christendom around the world. Quite simply if American’s lived up to its creed and founding we would be stronger than ever because we would all be closer to Christ and one accord. E PLURIBUS UNUM is about content of character of individuals who work together in a common cause as individuals and patriots who love their country as founded. An accord that rightly divides the truth and knows the difference between virtue and vice.