Listen, and I will tell you a mystery...

 

"Listen, and I will tell you a mystery."

1 Cor 15:51

“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him.  We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now.  We think it took place in the Apostles' days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

God's presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over.  The world seems to go on as usual. There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.

And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is there, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh. 

God beholds you.  He calls you by your name.   He sees you and understands you as He made you.  He knows what is in you, all your peculiar feelings and thoughts, your dispositions and likings, your strengths and your weaknesses.  He views you in your day of rejoicing and in your day of sorrow.  He sympathizes in your hopes and your temptations.   He interests Himself in all your anxieties and remembrances, all the risings and fallings of your spirit.

He encompasses you round and bears you in His arms.  He notes your very countenance, whether smiling or in tears.  He looks tenderly upon you.  He hears your voice, the beating of your heart, and your very breathing.  You do not love yourself better than He loves you.  You cannot shrink from pain more than He dislikes your bearing it; and if He puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, if you would be wise, for a greater good afterwards.

There is an inward world, which none see but those who belong to it.  There is an inward world into which they enter who come to Christ, though to men in general they seem as before. If they drank of Christ's cup it is not with them as in time past.  They came for a blessing, and they have found a work.

To their surprise, as time goes on, they find that their lot is changed.  They find that in one shape or another adversity happens to them.  If they refuse to afflict themselves, God afflicts them.

Why did you taste of His heavenly feast, but that it might work in you—why did you kneel beneath His hand, but that He might leave on you the print of His wounds?

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission— I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.  He has not created me for naught.   I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore I will trust Him.  Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.

He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me— still He knows what He is about.

Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it.   There is nothing of heaven in the face of society; in the news of the day there is nothing of heaven; in the faces of the many, or of the great, or of the rich, or of the busy, there is nothing of heaven; in the words of the eloquent, or the deeds of the powerful, or the counsels of the wise, or the resolves of the lordly, or the pomps of the wealthy, there is nothing of heaven. 

And yet the Ever-blessed Spirit of God is here; the Presence of the Eternal Son, ten times more glorious, more powerful than when He trod the earth in our flesh, is with us. Let us ever bear in mind this divine truth,—the more secret God's hand is, the more powerful—the more silent, the more awful.

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 surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.  Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

John Henry Newman

 

"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. 

This great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, compassion, historical necessity or even social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Word, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.

God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.  God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs His wonders where one would least expect them.

Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action. We pray for the big things, and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small, and yet really not so small, blessings. 

In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God.   Thereafter, any attack, even on the least of men, is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all.  

Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind." 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

 

"The dawn will come.   Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows.  Let no man pull you down so low as to hate him.” 

Martin Luther King

 

It is now as it was then.  You have been and are being called by name, to love and serve the Lord.

Lazarus, come forth.

Do not let yourself to fall away. 

Do not lose heart, before the images and shadows of the world, and be left behind.

Do not face your eternity, with the most heart-breaking loss and regret that can be.

Lord, I trust in you.

Need little - Want Less - Love more

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Even If Someone Comes Back From the Dead

 

"Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous.  More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.  The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.  Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warrior-like virtue, love of country, and faith in an idea.  The aims of life are the best defense against death."

Primo Levi

“Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory, or one of unthinkable horror.”

C. S. Lewis

"The ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves— the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them.  The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities."

Theodor Adorno

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."

Voltaire

"And Jesus said, 'The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.  Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.  The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all who cause others to sin and all who do evil.'"

Matthew 13:36-40

"We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him."

J. H. Newman

"A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.”

Czeslaw Milosz, Discreet Charm of Nihilism

The Jobs Report data this morning was a bit subdued, showing less employment than expected including downward revisions of past numbers.

Most of the adults had already left for their extended holiday weekend, so the market trade was light.

And apparently the word was out, to take the markets lower.

The Dollar soared on hawkish interest rate expections and gold and silver did a whipsaw retreat.

Wash-rinse-repeat.

US markets will be closed on Monday for Labor Day.  

And so nominally ends the summer time of vacation.  

Knowing the right thing to do is mostly obvious.   And so we spend an enormous amount of time and energy convincing ourselves that we do not see it.   Our love grows cold because we smother it.

"And Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not change and repent, even if someone were to come back from the dead.’” Luke 16:31

This is the insidious perversity of sin.   It is the foolishness that springs from pride, the impulse to reject life, and throw our own life away— for a quick thrill and a laugh and a lie.

It is no accident that the mob of January 6th embraced lawlessness with a carnival atmosphere.  And afterwards were stunned when confronted with the consequences of their foolishness.   

Many thought they were just worked up and fooling about, but in the end they were playing for blood—  for deceivers, wicked and unworthy.   It seems to be a recurring theme throughout history, of every twisted justification for a quick personal gain or even mass lawlessness and destruction. 

“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction."   Simone Weil

Some of our finest people are doing it.  In certain circles it has become fashionable, a sign of sophistication, to lie and to cheat, and to mislead others into darkness.  

But people never seem to see the consequences of evil in their own case, until judgement comes, and they are done.

The read words like those above, nod in assent, and then forget and turn away again, in the unthinking service of dark powers.   They are enslaved, but do not see it, they become comfortable in it, and seek to spread it to those who trust and believe in them.

See you Tuesday.

Remember me in your prayers, as I remember you.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Götterdämmerung - Variations on a National Madness

 

"On April 11th 1945, as the Red Army fast-approached Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic gave what might have been its last concert before the end of the war. Albert Speer, who had intervened to save members of the Orchestra from their senseless drafting into the Volksturm, organized a final concert, entitled Konzert für Minister Speer in the Berlin Beethoven Hall, still curiously standing amidst the city’s rubble.

According to most sources as well as popular myth, Speer engineered a move for the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic to the relative peace of Bayreuth, but they chose to remain with their Berliner audiences until the end of the war.  The Orchestra’s final concerts were given in candlelight, under bombing and with Hitler Jugend children offering the exiting members of the audience cyanide capsules for private use, adding to the tragic and conclusive atmosphere of the whole affair.

The people of Berlin, suffering greatly as they were in those last months of the war, might have found the lush Wagnerian orchestral landscape extremely poignant in the face of defeat and the accompanying humiliation, pillaging and rape which they feared it would bring.

The Orchestra went on to give two more concerts, in which the main works were – fittingly – the Deutsches Requiem by J. Brahms and Tod und Verklärung by J. Strauss.  It becomes quite clear from the choice of repertoire that the Orchestra was now playing a funeral march for the entire nation.  This neurosis of being unable to see an alternative future in which the German nation might exist outside of final victory, is best reflected at the infanticide that took place in the bunker by Magda Goebbels.

According to Traudl Junge the Goebbels’ children sang for Hitler, who was very pleased to hear their song. This innocent choir of young voices was soon murdered by its very mother, in the bunker, just before the mother herself committed suicide.  There is no academic phrasing suitable enough to describe the incomprehensibility of how mankind can achieve this nonsense, especially at this high level of leadership."

Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music and the National Self

"Upon her recent passing at the age of 76, I took the opportunity to reread Bubby's memoirs. In four different instances, my grandmother had stood—amid the smoke of the crematoriums, the barking dogs, the trampling boots and swinging clubs—on the infamous selection line at the head of which Mengele and his minions stood, pointing left and right, sentencing some to back-breaking labor, and sending others to the gas chambers.

Indeed, the miracles and the mysteries of the events of those days abound along with the horrors and the tragedies.  In contrast to the vile actions of the 'Angel of Death' were the noble and heroic actions of many 'Angels of Life' who stood ready to risk their own lives for the sake of saving that of a stranger.  It is thanks in no small part to 'angels' like these, who stepped out from behind their own misery and grief to come to the aid of others, that generations now live on to tell the story.  How clearly we see the infinite ripple effects of single acts of kindness and compassion, even if accomplished in a split second."

Yossi Refson, Angels of Light

"The real conflict is the inner conflict.  Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.  And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

Maximilian Kolbe


The German people had their music.   We have a confabulation of clickbait websites and talk radio. 

These cacophonies suffocate common sense and conscience, and drive national madness to a fiery abyss.  The will to victory and power becomes an overpowering will to die.

"And they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can stand against it?”     Rev. 13:4

They never believe it is even possible, until the Beast has fallen upon them, holding their throats in its merciless jaws.

"If there are damned souls in hell, it is because men blind themselves."   E. A. Bucchianeri

Stocks were mixed and sluggish today, going out flat or well off the highs.

The VIX continued to fall.  It is getting near the lower bound of recent support.

The Dollar rallied.

Gold and silver both lost ground.  The silver futures holders finally got their gut check.

Non-Farm Payrolls report tomorrow might move the markets depending on how off forecast it is, to the high or low.

This will be the last payrolls report until the FOMC meets again in September to manage their benchmark interest rate mischief.

Otherwise the adults have already started leaving for the upcoming three day Labor Day weekend.

Statistically September is one of the worst months for US equities.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Repentance, Forgiveness, Thankfulness

 

"The corruption that has become widely tolerated throughout the various upper strata of our society is shocking in its boldness.  And even more shocking is its general acceptability, and too often downright fashionability, among our elite in business and government, and their courtiers and partisans in the various professions.   And it provides a corrosive example and temptation to the public. 

The breaking of oaths is a serious transgression, and there will be an accounting for it, if not in this world then the next.  And sadly it is the partisanship, and the willing gullibility of simple souls given over to the wiles of a skillful persuasion to anger, and willfulness, and hatred, that permits the unscrupulous to prosper."

Jesse, Repentance and Forgiveness the Wellspring of Joy, 22 December 2017

“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

Adam Smith

“Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, or even a duty. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction."

Simone Weil

"Then it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not."

C. S. Lewis, 1944

 

Non-Farm Payrolls report this coming Friday may be a market mover.

It is not so much the report itself, but the implications it has to the actions of the Fed which have been distorting markets, back and forth, for the past 30 years.

Gold is often correlated to the US Dollar.  Especially if you are looking at the price of gold in Dollars, also known as the gold-dollar currency cross.

Some of the correlation is just the relationship of gold and the Dollar to other things, most likely the real interest rates of Treasuries.  But there certainly other factors.   I did some in depth work on this using multivariate regression analysis in the past.

I have tremendous sympathy for the ordinary person, especially the aged, who may not have the resources and support to navigate a truly fragmented and too often greedy, predatory healthcare system.

Have a pleasant evening.