Share this:

Winsome Sears for the Win!

Why Winsome

Or

Elect Winsome Sears for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

I hadn’t seen Winsome face to face since she was running for Congress.  When I heard she’s running for Lt. Governor of Virginia I knew instantly that I support her.  I don’t care who her opponents are.  There’s no one in politics who will serve The People of Virginia better than Winsome Sears.  None.

My confidence in her after all these years is precisely because I see the sum of my 30 years in Virginia Republican politics is many politicians and so few public servants.  Winsome Sears breaks the mold.  Her uniqueness isn’t being the first legal immigrant and the only black Republican woman ever elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates.  Her standout capability is her courage, conviction, and commitment.  

Winsome has lived life.  She’s grateful, as most immigrants are, to have lived the American dream.  She gives credit to America for every opportunity from service as a Marine to building a small business to being elected to represent Virginians to being appointed to serve the Nation.  Her modesty masks what she achieved.  Her grace covers over what she’s endured.

I remember the awful, truly hateful, vicious lies, slander, and epithets the Democrats heaped on her – because she was running as a Republican.  That’s “too uppity” for the Democrats.  No one running across Virginia in this race has ever stood up to the abuse she faced.  No one currently in Virginia politics has shown the courage she demonstrated.

Winsome can take the rocks, arrows, bullets and bombs that you know are coming at any Republican who dares run in Virginia.  Especially, if the candidate isn’t an Establishment career politician.  Winsome is running from the same conviction that lead her to ministry in a men’s prison ministry and women’s homeless shelter.  Her convictions are tried, tested, and true.

When elected, Winsome’s experience as a Delegate makes her ready on day one to make things happen in the General Assembly for all of Virginia.  She’ll make the difference that politicians promise, but only fighters deliver on the issues that matter. 

Winsome will get Virginia back to normal.  That means back to our basic freedoms and business.  She’ll reopen our economy.  Furthermore, she’ll clean up our elections by improving ballot box integrity.  Winsome won’t back down on challenges to our rights – especially the Right to Life for babies in the womb and the Second Amendment right to bear arms.  She’ll work for school choice, funding families to choose the best education for children instead of spending your tax dollars funding failing schools.

Politicians run from school choice.  They fear the teachers’ lobby and all their loot. But, Winsome seeks to serve all Virginians from every walk of life – at every stage and condition of life.  Her commitment to all Virginians is personal.

Since the Democrats took over the General Assembly in 2019, they’ve passed over a thousand bills that do more than harm Virginia.  Their bills and the Governor’s edicts make the damage to families, jobs, schools, and freedom malicious enough to be called evil.  They are destroying the Commonwealth of Virginia with the cancerous rot of Cultural Marxism. 

Winsome Sears is the bravest and finest fighter for family, faith, and freedom running for office in Virginia.  Please help elect her as our next Lt. Governor.

James Atticus Bowden

Chairman, 91 HD Legislative Committee

Former: Chairman, 1 CD, RPV,

Member, SCC, RPV, and

Chairman, Poquoson City Committee, RPV

Share this:

Sanctuary at Seven

When I visited Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond in September 2018, I thought I should keep such a journal about my home, Sanctuary, as a take-off from his two years “On Walden Pond.”  The seventh anniversary of my life at Sanctuary was February 14th, 2021.  It’s the Hebrew number of completion – 7 years.  I posted a long piece last year about what Sanctuary means to me – as well as on a number of other occasions.  They all sing Sanctuary’s song. 

Here are some eclectic pieces from my Sanctuary journal:   

“The first night at Sanctuary for me, the widower Bowden, was Valentine’s Day 2014, the first in my adult life without Nellie Katherine Kyle Bowden.  The house hard by The Chesapeake Bay was cold and drafty.  Beyond the wide wall of my bedroom windows the waters of The Bay were black.  It was foreboding.

Over time, the nights of black water and twinkling navigation beacons turned the strange into the familiar.  They transformed further into a fond friendliness.  This house became a family home as “Papa’s house.”  Sanctuary sheltered me as the Lord God sustained me, healed me, strengthened me, and filled me with purposes fueled by gratitude.  

Sanctuary is set feet from the Chesapeake Bay.  The water lapping on my rock rip rap flows unbroken to the eye to the Northeast and heart of The Bay.  

Sanctuary’s third of an acre has two old wood seawalls defining its left and right.  Its dock juts out bravely beside sea grass struggling to survive.  The heavy rip rap and wooden seawall measure the limits of tides, but merely suggest the same to a storm. Three times in seven years sea water has rushed under and around Sanctuary.  The waves break in the yard with any Nor’Easter pulling its weight.  It’s awesome and intimidating.       

Sanctuary begins each day better than a symphony tuning up.  It opens with instruments of light, temperature, sounds, smells, sights of creatures alive and ever-changing clouds – all in harmony from the first note.

I’m particularly partial to sunsets at Sanctuary.  The clarity of light skimming the earth’s circumference brings everything into its finest focus.  Such clarity.

Nothing compares to storms marching across The Bay.  Great storm clouds building upon each other with contending light and dark at different levels.

Sanctuary is shifting from a gift to me to a gift for others.  Yet, personally, Sanctuary is a state of being.  It’s the transformed state of consciousness to live with a constant awareness of ever present beauty.  Beauty which is a mere opening of the eyes.  It’s a slight shift of the head away.  Beauty which is so close that I feel its presence as a physical touch to my body.  It moves me to give thanks to God continually.  It’s the altered state of being, feeling, so alive.  Really alive.  Completely alive. Youthful and vigorous.  At once, peaceful and joyful.  I live here in a different state of being.

There are two seasons at Sanctuary.  Kayak season is from the first week in March to early December.  Fireplace season is from the first week in October to the first week in May.

In my kayak I can see about 2.1 miles to the horizon of the water.  When the distant line looks like it is dancing, the waves are really up.

I like living in synch with the tides.  Using the tide, not a clock, to mete out the day.  Much better way to measure time.

The morning after my longest dolphin encounter there was a thick morning fog.  Had my fog encounter where you can’t see the shore anywhere.  It’s eerie, moody, spooky, and magical.  Seeing things so differently is disorienting and challenging.  Exciting to explore through the fog.  To keep stroking without any land to guide by.  No beacon.  No direction.  Could be cliché about how life felt at times.

A paddle of many minutes up to a couple of hours isn’t finished until the last stroke is taken.  Flash of the obvious.  The last stroke is as important as the first.  The first is as vital as the last.

Slow and steady.  Slow and sure.  Even and relentless.  Suddenly, you’re there.  There are times when stroke after stroke seems like you aren’t moving whatsoever.  The faraway marker, the far beacon, for this leg seems just as far away.  How surprising it becomes when you can tell the beacon has grown significantly larger because you are significantly closer.  There are times when the easy stroke is sorely painful and when powerful strokes feel absolutely, effortless.  There are times out of breath.  Times when breathing in is like drinking the air.  Times of cold and heat.  When sudden winds come unseen to challenge, truly threaten safety.  When the beauty of the moment, in the very commonplace for here, is overwhelming.

Every day is a beauty to behold, breathe – to be – at Sanctuary.”

Many more observations – about water, wind, sky and season commentary, paddling pensees, navigating marshes, light, sound, and smell.   They may not rise to Thoreau’s level of literature.   They simply speak for me “On Sanctuary.”

Old Man and The Bay

Share this:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1675510/7921726-american-civilization.mp3?blob_id=35417278&download=true

Share this:

Conspiracy theory crazy is really Krazy.  Krazy with a K is special. 

Gloom on the Doomsayers

Or

How Clever Hype Hides Woesome Hysteria

 

Recently, my classmate and brother Thomas Waller shared “THE CORONOVIRUS PLANNEDEMIC IS THE RED CARPET TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER DISGUISED AS THE GREAT RESET!”   Yes, it was all caps. Someone is using this piece to create alarm and fear among Christians.  If the year were  1487, this piece would be all about “The Hammer of Witches (Malleus Maleficarum) Is For the Common Good Because Lucifer Knows He Has Little Time Left!”  The message is the same.

“Church leaders approve that the Bible and reason lead rational people to believe X, therefore go and do Y.”  Unfortunately, X is poppycock and Y is balderdash.

Let’s look at today’s cherry picking reality as it creates science fiction and political farce.

• Targets of Opportunity. Calling a pandemic “a plannedemic” is making something from nothing.  It’s what the Left does with every mass shooting.  Take an element of truth – the virus may have been engineered in a lab – and make up more.  Like, it was planned all along.  There’s evidence about the virus being created.  There’s no evidence, yet, that it was planned.  Conspiracy theorists targets of opportunity to weave their spider web of truths, half-truths, and lies.
• The Names of Things. Demons have to have names to be known.  Since the French Revolution those demons have been called the Nobility, Bourgeoisie, Robber Barons, Capitalists, Rothschild Family, Bankers, Arms Manufacturers as Merchants of Death, International Jews, Kulaks, Counter-Revolutionaries, Four Olds, etc.     
  • New World Order. NWO is a scholarly term in the study of International Relations.  The bi-polar world ended when the Soviet Empire collapsed.  Projecting a New World Order is the normal course of events.  But it became the scary term for the 1990s and beyond.  It came with all the reports of black helicopters and chem trails.
  • Great Reset. This is a real term used by people who want to change the world to their liking.  The Muslim Brotherhood wants to do the same – to their liking.  The record on global ideologies since 1789 is map of shipwrecks on nationalism, theological tribalism, economics, and failed leaders.  It’s a good idea to learn the ideas of the Great Reset to defeat them – if they show up where you can beat them.
• Just No.  No, it isn’t “without a shadow of doubt that the Coronavirus pandemic is the Trojan Horse setting the stage for the coming New World Order, One World Religion, and the Rise of the Antichrist.”  No, Covid-19 wasn’t released deliberately for the Great Reset.
• Usual Boogie Men.
  • Davos and World Economic Forum. The annual gathering of the WEF is called Davos.  Yes, the attendees want to do what they publish.  But, they aren’t the absolute masters of the universe to make it happen.  See the UK’s Brexit from the EU.  Note the freedom of Eastern European countries.
  • George Soros. He is accused of funding everything wrong and evil. Who knows what he actually funds?  A real free press would find out.  If the accusations are true, he lost millions of dollars in losing elections in 2020.
• Cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism evolved from the Communism of old.  It’s embedded in concepts of Social Justice and Critical Race Theory.  It should be opposed, on its own, everywhere the cancer appears.  Go see if your public schools teach students to be “global citizens” and see how they celebrate Earth Day.
• Globalism and Stakeholder Capitalism. The economic arguments for the European Union are used for a global economy.  There are legitimate advantages and disadvantages.  Gains and losses.  Stakeholder Capitalism is a deceptive name for a centrally-directed, statist economy.  It includes social justice redistribution of wealth based on group rights.
• Biblical Scares. Is a digital ID actually the Mark of the Beast?  Linking the Bible to specific events isn’t good theology.  The Bible speaks to the nature of God and man.  You can see those natures in events.  But, it’s bogus to tie a specific event today to the Bible that is history from Genesis 12 through Revelations 4 (except for the book of Job).  Prophecy is for prophets.
• Bad Science. A vaccine containing RNA won’t control biological processes, except for the immune response to a specific pathogen.  And, DARPA-funded light sensor technology won’t deploy a vaccine to literally change our DNA.
• Just Nuts. This discredits the entire 56 page article: “The NOW controllers want to download some kind of Microsoft office system and software into your body and brain, and hook you up to the JEDI and/or Amazon CIA cloud, so they can have direct access to your brain.”  It’s just crazy.
• Bad Policy. Universal Basic Income is very bad policy.  Creating public health credentials is very bad policy.  All bad policies can be argued against on their faults alone.
• The reference to a 2001 Wargame “Dark Winter” is amusing.  I worked in Army Futures Wargames on and off for over 20 years.  Every imaginable attack has been imagined and played out.  When my Red Team talked about using hijacked civilian airliners to attack the US in 1997, that didn’t become the Oplan for Osama Bin Laden.  Likewise, the comments about Cyberattack are very old news.  Over a decade old.
• Real Problems. Meanwhile, there are real problems created by governments. The Green Deal destroys Western economies.  The $30T deficit will destroy the U.S. sooner or later through inflation or bankruptcy.  Shutting down cities and states kills small businesses which are 60% of our economy.  Illegal immigration will break the federal and state welfare systems – including Medicaid.   No conspiracy theories needed.
• End Times Freakout. Good Christians have pointed to the End Times happening since the generation that saw Jesus rise from the grave.  It was especially strong when the Black Death ravaged Europe.  Likewise, before the 1900s it fueled missionary movements to speed up the coming of the End Times. Peppering a paper with Bible verses doesn’t make absurd allegations true.

The Wuhan Virus is three times more deadly than seasonal virus.  The Left uses crises for their political agenda.  Hyping their cynical causes to hysteria doesn’t help defeat them.  Combining conspiracy theories and hawking them as wrapped in the Bible doesn’t make them real.  Nonsense wasn’t true when it was written in Malleus Maleficarum.  Such nonsense isn’t true now

Share this:

Orwell saw Socialist, Communist, and NAZI totalitarianism up close.

Dezinformatsiya and Gross Luge

Communist Disinformation, Disinformatsiya, and the National Socialist Big Lie, Gross Luge, are evil twins.  Just as the Soviet Union and Nazi Reich were twin Totalitarianisms. George Orwell described both sets of twins in his classic works – “1984” and “Animal Farm.”  Americans should awaken and see the same evil is working here now.

Today, the Left describes any claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election as “The Big Lie.”  At face value, that is flat funny.  After your laughter subsides, see the sinister slither out from what the Left is saying.

The Left is busy redefining “Insurrection” and “The Rule of Law.”

This Left – the Democrat-politicians-and-media (one word) and their every toady in government – including the military, education, arts and entertainment, and religion – ascribe to a specific narrative on every disputed issue.  The Narrative brooks no dispute, no dissent, and demands any that do be silenced – and worse.

Witness how the Left – Commies in my shorthand – will use the violence and breaching of the Capitol to brand the Trump presidency.  Those images of mayhem are their icon for all four years of making America great again.  This is a “burning of the Reichstag” moment for the Left.

It supersedes the previous domestic violence that could be blamed on “The Right” – Charlottesville in 2017.  Before that it was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994.  Through the years, many acts of individual and police violence were painted with the broad brush of racism, but they’ve had limited half-lives as iconic symbols.

The Left makes the labels stick.  Like, in 2006 when George Allen, running for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, mocked the opposition research guy filming him as “macaca.”  Allen was branded with a racial slur.  Every article and video afterwards labeled him as “George Allen who called an immigrant macaca.”    His name never came up separately from “macaca.’

The Left hasn’t had a single bad label stick on President Trump for the sane half of America.  They hate that.

Frankly, the American Left has used disinformation and the big lie in a big way since the Vietnam War.

So, here’s the heads up for Virginia and America.

The Narrative isn’t about hypocrisy.  It’s not about media bias.  It’s not dirty politics as usual.  It’s part of the Great U.S. Culture War.

The Narrative is Disinformation and the Big Lie.

Read Orwell

Look at how our Leftists are creating an enemies list for jobs, a blackball list for media and arts, de-platforming opponents, blacklisting finance and legal services, censoring individual speech on social media and social credit scores.

The alarming news is the Commies are moving fast to break up the coalition of 74m Americans that voted in the stolen election.  They will work hard to crush dissent.  The Left are Human Secular Totalitarians and their Useful Fools.  Totalitarians do what totalitarians do.

They are coming after your freedom.

Remember this, most Soviets and most Germans figured out they were being feed disinformation and big lies.  Totalitarians’ lies failed to mask the truth.

Luckily for us, half of America already knows the Narrative is Dezinformatsiya and Gross Luge.

The 2020 election shows our 74m is actually a governing majority if we overcome vote harvesting and fraud in swing states.   We have two years to clean up the elections.

Until then, just laugh at the lies.  Mock the Narrative.

Quotes from George Orwell concerning the truth in society, or the lack of it and men to speak it.

 

Share this:

One martyr leads to the liberation of France.

Take Heart

“En-cour-age” comes from the French word for heart.  It means “inspire with courage, spirit, and confidence.”  That means “take heart.”

Have you ever lived through a hurricane? Where the eye actually comes over you?  When your house got rocked?

What’s it like the very day after?

It’s awesome how peaceful and beautiful nature abounds around you. The trees are down, damage done, and there’s no power for days, but the beauty of the day and night can’t be lost on the living. It’s great to be alive on that day!

After Jan 21, there’ll be other storms. That happens in nature and the affairs of humankind. Sometimes awful times come – with war and economic devastation wrought by the hands of humans. Such times may come to America – again, as it has in the past.

Yet, no matter how dire your concerns about the incoming administration – take heart. The coalition of 74m voters is a governing majority across America. It is a transformative coalition as powerful as the one FDR forged in 1932. His Democrat coalition held power until 1994. 62 years is a good run. The Coalition of Conservatives, Libertarians, and pragmatic non-ideological wage earners and small business owners is awesome.

The main effort in the political fight, “Schwerpunkt” for Army types, for the next two years is cleaning up elections in the states. Recruiting candidates to replace Career Pols and Establishment Republicans is next. The ongoing supporting fires – artillery is never held in reserve – are litigation against every government and business overreach against our Constitutional freedoms.

Moreover, this fight is more than politics. Politics is the struggle for power in government.  Government, including the Military, is just one of seven major institutions that shape America.  It’s a necessary hill to take, but only the first objective.

Seriously, take heart.  Smile.  You are part of a great majority dedicated to freedom and opportunity – under the Rule of Law.

After the hurricane passes, you clean up your property.  Get with your neighbors, work hard, and clean up your community.

Now, do it after this January hurricane passes.

Patriotic American women will do a lot more than save stamps in this Great U.S, Culture War.

 

Share this:

The best monument at West Point – among its many monuments and statues.

The Point About West Point

The latest cheating scandal at West Point is national news.  The United States Military Academy response and remedy creates more controversy.  Both scandal and controversy aren’t surprising, but they get to the point about what is important about West Point.  The Army motto is “This We’ll Defend.” Look at the U.S. Army as a brick wall protecting our United States of America.  The cement which binds the bricks together is the trust and confidence in the Commissioned Officers.

The binding strength of the trust and confidence that binds the Soldiers, Non-commissioned Officers, Warrant Officers and Civilians as the Army’s bricks is the professionalism and integrity of the Officer Corps.  Officers swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution. Period. Not to the President, superior officers, or any other person or allegiance.

There can be no compromises on integrity.  Integrity means unfailing, uncompromising, inalterable allegiance to Duty, Honor, Country.

The heart of Duty, Honor, Country for the Army and the Nation is West Point.

“Duty, honor, country” in service as Army officers is the whole point of West Point.

Honor is learned by the code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do.” West Pointers are expected to live by that code for the rest of their lives. Most do. It’s vital to the Army as four-star General, combat legend and non-USMA graduate, Melvin Zais told the USMA Class of 1972 before their graduation – West Pointers are the small drop of ink that colors all the water of the Officer Corps.

The only remedy for being “found” on honor was expulsion prior to the Bormann Report after the cheating scandal in the Class of 1977. USMA started giving second chances. A key finding was “the Academy must recognize that it is not treating a disease that can be cured simply by isolating those who have been infected. The Academy must now acknowledge the causes of the breakdown and devote its full energies to rebuilding an improved and strengthened institution.”

The diagnosis and treatment for the cheating scandal of 2020 should be the same. Especially given the rot the recent young graduates’ exposed in their “Policy Proposal: An Anti-Racist West Point.” (See – https://jatticus.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/reviewing-policy-proposal-an-anti-racist-west-point/ .)

Unfortunately, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s mission “to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army,” is seen from antagonistic perspectives.

There is no consensus among active duty Army officers or USMA graduates on how to design, plan, execute, and evaluate West Point’s mission. The same divides of the Great U.S. Culture War split the seam where no seam should be found in “Duty, Honor, Country.”

For example, if there’s no agreement on the virtue or vice of celebrating homosexual and “transgender” cadets, there won’t be a common view on what is rehabilitation vs tolerance for honor violations.

Perhaps a detailed, hard look at how well USMA currently accomplishes its mission could reveal some common ground. What is the today’s track record of West Pointers with 5, 20, and 30 years of service? How can it be compared with those of 40, 50, and 60 years ago?

Are West Pointers still distinct, like that drop of ink, among Army officers?

If so, then “drive on.”

If not, then why is there a West Point?

Or, if not, then how must West Point once again “devote its full energies to rebuilding an improved and strengthened institution?” 

The point about West Point.

Share this:

From the 1990-92 “Futures” study looking at 2005-2015. Still holding true in 2020.

Class War or Culture War?

The 74 million real votes for President Trump are the potential for a new governing majority – if cheating, state-by-state, can be corrected. The people who work for wages or own small businesses are the new margin of victory in key Northern and Midwestern states. They’re same people who helped Barry Soetero get his blowout of 69 million votes in 2008. They aren’t social Conservatives. They will vote for the candidate who fights for their economic interests. And, their personal freedom. It could be a massive voting shift of the middle class – from hourly wage-earners to prosperous small business owners – to vote consistently for a party that earns their votes. For candidates who fight truly for their lives and families.

It looks like a Class struggle between the middle class workers and the people above and below them economically. The upper class of globalism and government profiteers are aligned with the underclass dependent on government handouts.

But, it’s not really Class Warfare. Evolving economic realities, as well as the policies of the Left and those of Conservatives, create different winners and losers. Economic outcomes force people to choose one side or the other in the Great U.S. Culture War.

Look back to James Fallows’ piece from 1975, “What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?” He made the point that the college kids with privilege got out of the draft and the “working class” went to Vietnam. My Baby Boomer generation was split in two by the war. I believe the years have only papered over the divide.

I believe our division was ideological – based on worldview – which comes from culture. The U.S. Culture War was a slowly simmering feud of opposing worldviews for decades. America was a consensus culture until the Supreme Court banned school prayer in 1962. The end of our Judeo-Christian, free market, individual rights-based consensus culture was made self-evident. The Vietnam War just blew it wide open.

Then, most who were on the Left kept going Left after 1968 and never looked back. Now, they are Human Secularist Totalitarians. I prefer the tiny url: “Commies.” Conservatives conserved their ideas – as their name indicates – while becoming more “Liberty-minded.”

Forward to 1990. In the “Army 21” Study, the Library of Congress’s economists predicted a squeeze on middle class Americans in the transition from the Industrial Era to the Information Era. More Americans would move up in wealth and many more would move down. Income inequality would increase. Middle management and administration would be gutted. Globalization would export manufacturing to the cheapest labor. Meanwhile, the ranks of the wealthy would increase significantly.

Consequently, the key to the future would be the political perception of economic changes.

And, so it is.

Thirty years later, hard-working people in swing states share a political perception that globalization exports good jobs overseas, imports illegal aliens, regulates energy to expensive scarcity and industry jobs out of existence, increases their taxes and drives down their income. In the Wuhan Virus pandemic scare, bad became worse when state and local governments made dictatorial edicts in the name of “science” that robbed small business and non-government wage earners.

Enter “Make America Great Again.” Wage earners and small business owner-workers get it. They see President Trump as the only one on the national stage fighting for them and their families. They love America. They cherish their individual freedom.

It’s from their sense of individuality, not class, that they vote. They’ll vote against the people whose policies rob them and their children of economic opportunity. They’ll vote against the elites and underclass who see everything in terms of race, class, and gender(s) – and always find the ‘Deplorables’ at fault precisely because of their race, class, and gender. They’ll vote for men and women who will drain the D.C. swamp of pungent privilege, corruption, and abuse of power. They’ll vote for courageous candidates who’ll clean up voter fraud and corruption in their state governments.

The political perception of economic change brings wage earners and working business owners to the right side of the Great U.S. Culture War. They could be the new allies of the Social, Fiscal, Defense, and Constitutional Conservatives in a great Republican Party coalition.

Now, will brave and bold Americans run as Republicans in swing states and fight their fight? Or will Republican candidates run to serve the Republican Establishment – and watch the Republic die?

Share this:

The leadership of the Falkirk Center is impressive indeed.

“Our Muhlenberg Moment: Calling Virginia Patriots and Pastors”

Conference held by the Falkirk Center of Liberty University

December 7-9, 2020

I was in the “Muhlenberg Moment” at Liberty University’s Falkirk Center conference. Attended as a patriot guy, not a pastor. It was a great gathering of Virginia’s Conservative Clans and receptive Christian ministers. It was the best and most effective meeting since Pat McSweeney assembled 50 activists from across Virginia in 2007 to oppose the onerous HB 3202 (No taxation without representation). Like the tribes of Israel, some represented large interests – the national Conservative organizations – and others, like me, carried the banner of Mom and Pop activist organizations.

The focus was education for Virginia voters in the impending 2021 elections. Virginia and New Jersey will be the only shows on the national stage. The output was improvements in communications across our Commonwealth. The outcome will be the product of the serious networking done there.

The ministers shared the challenges and successes of educating their flocks about Christian citizenship. The name of the conference is a sharply pointed reference to John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg.  He led the men of his congregation to serve in our American Revolution. Look him up, it’s a powerful story about men of Christian faith fighting for freedom.

Travis Witt was at the helm to put this ark of conservatives and ministers together, get it out on a sea trial, and bring it back safely to port. He did an outstanding job. Including his dramatic presentation of Muhlenberg himself. That alone was worth being there.

Liberty University Vice-President Scott Lamb and his Falkirk director, Ryan Helfenbein, are impressive and inspirational for their vision, focus, and wisdom.  I don’t impress easily.

The pen will be my bayonet.

My Muhlenberg Moment

Three weeks (which is 3 times 7 for Hebrew numerologists and readers of https://jatticus.wordpress.com/2020/11/29/november-29th-the-day-after-thanksgiving-at-7-years-of-completion/ and https://jatticus.wordpress.com/2020/11/18/on-becoming-caleb-at-70/ ) after I change my usual prayer to be like Caleb in health – to be like Caleb and have one more mission.  Yes, one more hill for old infantryman to take.  Voila! I know which mountain and city to attack personally. I got my mission. Good news is that I’m not going up alone.

The Virginia First Foundation will direct our energy to win one mountain of seven that shape our culture in Virginia called “Education.”  We’ll work to replace that which can’t be re-conquered.  “We”, as the Virginia First Foundation, will work friendly with a lot of other folks already in the fight in their zone of action. Of course, we will provide supporting fires for assaults on the other six mountains of culture.   And, shoot the 10 meter targets that appear to us.

The military metaphors abound in this adventure.

Jesus said “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against his church (Matthew 16:18). That means the church, the body of believers, is on the offense. Even as far as attacking hell.

Education, for the most part, is in the hands of the Cultural Marxists or, as I prefer – Human Secularist Totalitarians. There are wonderful Christians and Jews in Education, but they aren’t leading it in its current spiral of dumbing down Virginians. Or, filling them with hatreds of the Identity politics.

We’re in it to win it.

Caleb had the Hill Country and Hebron to take at age 85. At age 70, I’m setting my sights on making education in Virginia – in every aspect – the best in the Nation. That includes improving the Biblical literacy of Virginians.

I’m ready to be as Caleb as I can.

The leadership of the Falkirk Center is impressive indeed.

Share this:

In Hebrew numerology the number seven means completeness

November 29^th, The Day After Thanksgiving, at 7 Years of Completion

In Biblical Hebrew, the number “7” signifies completion. The universe was created in seven days and other sevens, as well as multiples of seven, are found about 860 times throughout the Bible. Seven seems significant.

Seven years ago, when November 29^th was the day after Thanksgiving my wife had a massive stroke. On December 9^th, she died from another one. Now, we who knew and loved Nellie Katherine Kyle Bowden have completed seven years of living and grieving.

One year ago, on November 29^th, I had a second heart ablation to correct atrial fibrillation. I told my family and the doctors that I wanted to re-purpose the date from sadness to hope. That could seem selfish of me, but my intent isn’t to forget her – rather it’s to add new meaning to old memory.

Because I believe the number seven in the Bible has a special connotation to the meaning of “completion.”

Seven years is more than a linear measure of time from start to finish. It’s more than meaning something is done.

Seven years is a measure and weight of the full volume of time. It’s about the full meaning of what was done.

It’s about the fulfillment more than the finishing.

The purpose of the seven years is completeness.

Completion is the wholeness, the fulfillment, of the seven years.

Like the seven years Jacob served to win Rachel. Like the seventy years the Jews were in the Babylonian captivity. It’s what happened during the time more than just the passage of the time.

So, what is my completion after seven years of loss?

The greatest gain in gratitude, contentment, peace, and joy of my life. Truly. All completed at age 70 which is the Biblical completion of life. And all came directly from the awful grieving.

My book, A Grief Felt, published in this seventh year tells my tale of grieving to gratitude with God. The book serves others in their grieving. Its completion is a huge part of the purpose of my seven years.

Of course, my grieving will continue after this seventh anniversary.

But, grieving is just one part of life. In the past seven years, my patriarchy had three miscarriages, two births, one marriage, one separation, and one current pregnancy, as well as moves, job gains and losses. Six grandchildren grew wonderfully through these years. Life, as it is, large and complicated as it is, unfolded for another seven years.

What my grieving completed during this particular seven years was the purpose of this septenary of my loss.

I can only speak for myself. Again, grieving begat gratitude, contentment, peace, and joy.  Precisely because of this completion, I changed my prayer for health like Caleb in the Bible to be given a last fighting mission like Caleb.

Will I read and write as my fighting the good fight as the purpose for seven years or multiples of seven years to come? Or, is being Papa to seven living blessings – in March 2021 – the greater purpose? Serve some other purpose?

Aren’t there many purposes possible? Aren’t there many purposes in every moment we live? Yes, certainly so.

However, the greatest purpose of our complete being is to love God with our whole heart, mind, strength, and soul. Our next purpose is to love others as we love ourselves.

To this purpose is the whole completeness of my conscientious life.  I starting loving God with my all my heart as a little boy. I’m broken and failed as all men are, yet I know who I have always loved first.

Seven years since that terrible “day after Thanksgiving”, God is good. All the time. No matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.

Seven is significant in the Bible.