Putting on Our Game Faces

“Stay frosty and alert.” -- Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn) “Aliens”

I believe that life imitates art. Jesus and his boys get depicted through art, which includes painting music, sculpture, and film, as sweet little tinkerpots, versus earth shaking troublemakers who rocked this planet on behalf of a holy God. The church morphed into timid and tepid salvation egoists, who are a neutered fraction of what Christ intended them to be. [These] postmodern “saints” punch-drunk on an emasculated version of Christ and Christianity moved from being barrel-chested freedom fighters for Jesus and his kingdom, to being forlorn and feckless followers…. -- Doug Giles “Biblical Badasses: A Raw Look at Christianity and Art"

To say that We the People are feeling a bit antsy these days is to grossly understate things. When I say “We the People” I am referring to that roughly 70% of the population who have somehow managed to immunize themselves against the detrimental effects of the pervasive soul-sapping leftist propaganda spewed at us in a never-ending stream of Hollywood hype and media malarkey.

Related: Putting on Our Game Faces PART I Putting on Our Game Faces PART II We the People are definitely feeling way more than a little bit antsy.  Metaphorically speaking locked, loaded, and infuriated is more like it – and it will not take much to set off the powder keg.  For the moment, most of us appear to be willing to wait until the elections in November are over before snapping off our safeties.  But make no mistake, what follows the elections won't be pretty; it'll be downright ugly…and brutal, bloody, cruel, and chaotic.  In short, it will be war, civil war.  How large and expansive, or contained and tamped down it will remains to be seen. If the Democrats claim victory in November, We the People will know it is only as the result of historically massive voter fraud – and act accordingly.  But if President Trump wins, the Left will ensure that the waters surrounding the elections are so muddied with hysterics and lies that any Trump victory will be foully tainted – a taint that will be aided and abetted by 24/7 non-stop media pearl clutching and faux outrage. In short, win or lose, the bottom falls out and safeties snap into the off position.  It will, of course, be best if Trump wins reelection – the carnage would be toned down and minimized.  But the left has been slowly marching its way through the various cultural institutions for over a century, and they know how totally exposed and vulnerable they are at present.  They will not go down without a fight. So, We the People need to be prepared, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  We should get ready to put our game faces on at a moment's notice – and always be frosty and alert. Physically we get ready by getting our bodies and environment into the best shape we can.  Stock up on survivalist gear and foods – and make sure to have plenty of ammo for your guns…and if you don't have any guns by now, WTF?

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Our mental and emotional states need to be balanced.  We should be able to shift quickly and calmly from genial to badass at the drop of a hat.  A football player, for example, needs to sometimes be capable of brutal violence on the field.  They don't (at least shouldn't) walk around 24/7 wanting to put the hurt on someone.  They save that stuff for the field, where they don their "game face" – which is to say, where they undergo an attitude adjustment from genial and friendly to ready-to-go-to-work-and-kick-your-butt. Just so, We the People should practice switching from friendly and genial to kick-your-butt aggressiveness.  You never know when such an ability might come in handy, could, in fact, save your life.  Which brings us to spirituality. I know, I know – that last sentence no doubt lost me a good chunk of my readers.  A friend calls it "spiritual narcolepsy," where whenever the topic of spirituality crops up his eyes glaze over and he starts nodding off. It's okay, we all suffer from it to some degree. To those of you still with me, let me say that spirituality is of vital importance, both to us as individuals and America as a whole.  I will briefly explain some of why I believe this to be true below, in the meat of this article.  First of all, what is spirituality?  Well it is not religion, although the two are often conflated.  Religion is the vehicle whose precious cargo consists of its core principles of spiritual truth.  The more spiritual truth it carries the more valid the religion, and, of course, the opposite is also true. Religion empty of its spiritual raison d'etre is basically just vapid dogma – can, in fact, be harmful rather than helpful.  Religion is basically designed to be an interface between the material and spiritual realms.  Spirituality is any valid religion's essence, its reason for being.

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Religion is mainly concerned with our minds, with rules and regulations.  Spirituality is concerned primarily with the state of our soul, our psyche, our being…our state of consciousness.  It is much more concerned with what we are rather than what we do.  There can be much overlap, of course, but religion and spirituality can, and do, sometimes exist quite comfortably independent of each other. Spirituality is primarily focused on experience rather than book knowledge.  I read a book on Zen decades ago that summed this attitude up nicely.  To paraphrase the author: If a Zen teacher wanted you to understand sugar, they would not try to describe sugar to you with words.  A bit of sugar would be put on your tongue, and no words need be used.  It's the experience, not intellectual knowledge that is of paramount importance in the spiritual realm.  Ah so. To quote the philosopher/linguist/author Ludwig Wittgenstein (who knew a thing or two about words), "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."  An obvious problem pops up here that needs be addressed.  If the spiritual realm can be experienced, but is beyond words, beyond verbal description (ineffable) doesn't that leave room for a vast amount of misunderstanding, not to mention intentional chicanery?  Glad you asked.  Yes, it does indeed leave a vast amount of room (infinite room to be precise) for misunderstanding and intentional duplicity.  Which means that the spiritual journey can be an arduous journey indeed – replete with dead ends, false starts, pit falls, and traps for the naïve and/or unwary.  I definitely do not claim to be any sort of expert on the topic, but I have been engaged on a spiritual journey (often of the three-steps-forward-two-steps-back variety) since the 1960s and have, in spite of myself, acquired a bit of insight over the years.  I have found the teachings of the late Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012) to be of great value – especially as outlined in his Map Of Consciousness (MOC).  His MOC goes a long way toward explaining the dangerous disconnect that exists between the political left and right in this country (indeed globally), and therefore is well worth being acquainted with.  Although I have read every book that Dr. Hawkins published (some of them multiple times) I cannot claim to speak for the man, and apologize in advance for any and all errata I may commit.

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I have found the teachings of the late Dr. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012) to be of great value – especially as outlined in his Map Of Consciousness (MOC). His MOC goes a long way toward explaining the dangerous disconnect that exists between the political left and right in this country (indeed globally), and therefore is well worth being acquainted with. Although I have read every book that Dr. Hawkins published (some of them multiple times) I cannot claim to speak for the man, and apologize in advance for any and all errata I may commit. In a nutshell, Dr. Hawkins’s MOC consists of a graphic illustration/chart of the main levels of human consciousness – from the lowest up to the highest. Moving up the MOC from its bottom level of consciousness (Shame) we progressively rise through the levels of Guilt, Apathy, Grief, Fear, Desire, Anger, and Pride (the top of the bottom of the heap, so to speak). After Pride comes the vital level of Courage. The MOC level of consciousness is so important because it is the level where one begins to take personal responsibility for their reality, it is the entryway to the spiritual realm. People whose state of consciousness is below Courage play the “blame game” – everything is his, hers, or its fault – never theirs. People who exist mainly below the level of Courage have scant experience of true love, whereas those above the level of Courage exponentially experience increasing amounts of love (true love) eventually culminating in full enlightenment. Jesus was, of course, adamant about the importance of love: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” The importance of the word “as” in Jesus’s commandment cannot be overstated. Jesus is talking of divine love (agape as the Greeks called it). Here a few words about “love” are in order. “Love” is without doubt one of the most abused, misused, and misunderstood labels in the English language. We often associate the word “love” with romantic love – by which we most often mean a somewhat toxic mixture of lust, desire, want, and need. It is, to be sure, a very powerful mix indeed (it can, has, and will, lead to murder and/or suicide), but it is not truly what love is. Love is not an emotion, it is a state of being, a state of consciousness. Unfortunately, relatively few of us ever experience the level of unconditional love, let alone the ineffable experience of divine love. But those of us who have reached the level of Courage (personal responsibility) at least possess the ability to strive toward love – as opposed to those who are immersed in the “blame game” of the lower states of consciousness.
Tomorrow: Part II