He Calls You By Name

This is a reprint from March 2, 2024

Tax collectors and notorious sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.  But the Pharisees and the experts in the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners, and even eats with them.'

And so he told them this story—

‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them.

‘Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

‘When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!  I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.”  So he got up and went to his father.


‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.

‘The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

‘But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.  For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.

‘Meanwhile, the elder son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. “Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”

‘The elder brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

‘“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now he is found.”’

“Addiction might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates society.  Our addiction make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.  These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs. 

As long as we live within the world's delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests leaving us to face an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled.  In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father's home.  The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in 'a distant country.'  It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

"All sin, indeed, when repented of, He will put away; but pride hardens the heart against repentance, and sensuality debases it to a brutal nature."

John Henry Newman

"Almighty God lets the sinner go his own way, for He has given to man free-will, and does not want a forced obedience, but an obedience springing from love.  In his forgetfulness of God, the sinner squanders his fortune, the natural and supernatural gifts which he has received, using his natural gifts, his health, his physical powers, and his reason, to offend God.  

The sinner, having forsaken the service of his God, falls under the dominance of Satan, and becomes the slave of his lowest passions, which are signified by the swine which the prodigal was forced to feed.  But the more he obeys his passions, the more dissatisfied he becomes.  No pleasure of the senses can give him happiness, and he feels an emptiness and spiritual hunger in his heart which he is powerless to satisfy.  He knows no rest; he only knows that he is miserable, and hateful to himself."

Friedrich Justus Knecht, On the Prodigal Son

"The sun rises with its scorching rays and withers the grass, flowers droop, and their beauty fades away. So too the rich will be brought low in the midst of their affairs. Blessed are they who stand fast when tempted, for after being tested and tried they will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."

James 1:11-12

"The Lord requires you to act justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

He calls you by name.   Turn away from the death of your empty desires, and come home.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Sign for a Faithless Generation

 

“The minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak

It is one of the essential roles of the movement’s leadership to detach their followers from reality. The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the single handed defiance of the world.”

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, 1951

“An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but the only sign it will be given is the sign of the prophet Jonah."

Matthew 12:39

"The more selfish you are, the more involved life becomes. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all.  It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas, 1953

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Samuel Johnson, Anecdotes of the Revd. Percival Stockdale, 1809

"Malignant narcissism — this toxic blend of narcissism and psychopathy. Malignant narcissists refuse to take responsibility for their actions, often manipulating others into feeling guilty for calling out their behavior. Prolonged exposure to such individuals can leave others emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and even financially drained. They are emotionally hollow, unable to connect with or understand others on a meaningful level. Their interactions are transactional, and their presence is often destructive.

These individuals fear that introspection will expose their fragile self-worth. Their outward arrogance serves as a protective layer over deep-seated insecurities. Rather than confronting their true selves, they construct grandiose self-images and project their fears onto others. This projection manifests in accusations and erratic behavior designed to maintain control and avoid feelings of insignificance. Attention — positive or negative — is their lifeline; they will go to great lengths to ensure they are noticed.

Ultimately, their behavior is the antithesis of true leadership, which is rooted in service to others. As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted: 'Where there is a great deal of pride or vanity, there also will be a great desire for vengeance.' Given their destructive nature, the best course of action is to avoid them entirely."

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Unmasking the malignant narcissist, February 2025

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.  Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self.  Love is my true character.  Love is my name.”

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, 1955


The PPI came in this morning on the higher side of inflationary. 

Stocks flopped into the weekend, although there were some half-hearted attempts to support them.

The Dollar chopped around as usual, and ended largely unchanged. 

Gold and silver rallied sharply, going out on their highs.

Silver is on its way to triple digits.  

Bitcoin continues to wobble within a relatively tight trading range.  

Playing that range has been a modest but steady source of income for my trading account.  

And the wiseguys are playing it as well, and this is probably the reason for it.

People are losing their moral compass, mesmerized by a torrent of lies and distractions.

There is a cult like minority that has pledged themselves to the darkness.  All they have are delusions and lies and temptations to which they willingly surrender.

The sign of Jonah.   Three days of darkness and terror.  And then comes the dawn.

All worldly things must pass.  The proud and powerful are passing, and will soon be a distant memory.

Nations fall, and their high ambitions are but a dissipating vanity.

"Let us feel what we really are — sinners attempting great things.  Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good.  Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.  The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that leads to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God."   John Henry Newman

Have a care for your soul, and for the flame of love in your heart.

Have a pleasant weekend.  

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Industrious Lunatics: One Vast Vision of Imbecility

 

"The calm words of the wise are worth more than the shouts of the rulers of fools.  Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one unrighteous man can destroy much that is good."

Ecclesiastes 9:17-18

"These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions.  When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth.  They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils.  

These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy countrysides, all dotted with industrious lunatics.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Mad Official, 1912

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.  Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.

The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

“Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794

"The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too.  He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being.  Discipline seems to him irrational.

We sit by and watch the barbarian.  We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid.  We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh.  But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles."

Hillaire Belloc, 1912


Stocks soared for the State of the Union, and then promptly flopped.

VIX ticked back up, but was well off its high.

The Dollar spiked again in the afternoon and then back down to nearly unchanged.

Bitcoin seems to be firmly locked into a rather narrow trading range.  I have been playing swings in it for a while now, and its a good earner, as the mob bosses would say.  Fitting, because crypto does seems like organized crime.

Gold and silver caught a bid.

While the domestic economic data is interesting and all that, it is the geo-political factors that will be weighing most heavily on the risk markets and the precious metals. 

Vance and Rubio have been hitting on the FUD factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in support of a war with Iran that is very reminiscent on the drumbeats for the war with Iraq in 2003. Which was also a bunch of hoo-haw.

He-who-must-not-be-named wants this war, and has been lobbying for it since the 1990s.

Trump doesn't want to do it, and his generals know it is a tactical headache, but here we are.

The volatility in this market must be unsettled for the average punter.  It reminds me of other late stage bubbles we have known and loved.

Keep your leverage low, your positions flexible, and always, always avoid taking 'the big hit.'   It can wipe out many years of trading profits almost overnight. 

Have a pleasant evening. 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Emptiness That Drives Their Madness

 

“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Stephen Miller, CNN Interview, 6 January 2026

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

Alvin Smith, George Washington Carver: Man of God, 1961

"Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness. Hell is a nothingness which has the pretension and the illusion of being. A mere chance can strip us of our possessions — except the power to say ‘I’. That is what we have to give to God — in other words, to sacrifice. There is no other free act which is given us to accomplish — only the surrender of the ‘I’"

Simone Weil, La pesanteur et la grâce, 1947

"In dark and pathological times, when the better part of the human spirit are on the wane and love grows cold, many lust after power.  Power becomes the standard of value, the coin of the realm, in a deeply fallen world.  And in such a world the only virtue is greed.

How much is enough?  The will to power is a pathological sickness that becomes insatiable and all consuming.  It anoints its own angels of death.  Do not be among those who will be taken during the dark times when the love of many grows cold.  Stand humbly and firmly to the end.  And you will have your greatness."

Jesse, Preserving Sanctity in Times of Darkness, 6 July 2017

"His instruments are poor and despised; the world hardly knows their names. They are busied about what the world thinks petty, and no one minds them. They are apparently set on no great works; nothing is seen to come of what they do: they seem to fail. 

But there is an unseen connection in the kingdom of God. Such is the rule of our warfare. We rise by falling; we inherit the earth through meekness; we gain comfort through mourning; we earn glory by penitence and prayer. Heaven and earth shall sooner fall than this rule be reversed; it is the law of Christ's kingdom, and nothing can reverse it but sin."

John Henry Newman 

 

Stocks rallied today in response to the big, beautiful State of the Union speech by Trumpolini last night.

What a surprise.

Gold and silver were rallying a bit but in the last hour were hit hard by program selling on higher volumes.

What a surprise.

Gold and silver owe no allegiance to anyone, any counterparty, and that is why those obsessed with a lust for power hate them. 

VIX fell.  What are the risks for the masters of the universe?

The dollar slipped after a mid-day push.  

The Dollar, once the bastion of imperial overreach, is becoming the weakest link. 

Bitcoin managed to rally quite nicely, but is still within a lackluster trading range.

The Trump boys are crypto-kids.  But they are only concerned with Bitcoin to the extent that it might reflect badly on their own crypto corner.

There are some very broken people, broken and sick at heart, who lust for power to have their revenge on innocence and the love they think they have been denied.  They need to fill their emptiness with things and people, and their obsessions often take a turn to the darkness. They have no goodness in them, consumed by daemonic madness.

We are certainly seeing this now with the Epstein revelations, and government's policies towards the weak and the disadvantaged that are marked by needless brutality, and too often malevolent cruelty.  This is not 'normal.'   This is not righteousness.  

This is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin.  

If people will turn a blind eye to wars of aggression, murder on the high seas, and open genocide, what limits could their 'inner morality' possibly place to contain their lawlessness?  They give themselves over to madness, to escape the pain of being broken creatures, lashing out in a cycle of self-inflicted pain.  

Do not be among those who will be taken by the darkness, when the love of many will grow cold.  Stand humbly and firmly to the end.  And you will find your salvation, and abundant life.

Have a pleasant evening.