On the Road To Damascus: Faith and Sanctity In Corrupt and Cynical Times

Michelangelo, Paul On the Road to Damascus

“To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard.  But a little faith will see you through.

What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time?  When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word.

What is the last word, then?   Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids — all the places where the gravy soaks in, and grace shines through.   Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people...

What keeps my faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humour. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake."

Garrison Keillor

In Hoc Anno Domini
By Vermont C. Royster
December 24, 1949

When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression -- for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's.

And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

But it came to pass for a while in divers places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid.  He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets.  Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter's star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

"Caesar was swimming in blood.    Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.  But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one—  happiness and love."

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: In the Time of Nero

Weekend Reading - The Leaven of the Pharisees

"Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is a pious, hollow hypocrisy."

Luke 12:1


“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees— hypocrites!   For you are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. You outwardly appear righteous, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Matthew 23:27-28


"Why do you dwell on the splinter in your brother's eye, while failing to see the plank in your own?"

Luke 6:41

Ironically enough and as I have previously noted, I find myself more concerned these days not with those among my acquaintances that are unbelievers, although I do remember them all in my prayers. Each must find their own way in God's good time.

Rather, my concern is with my believing friends who, in their zeal for righteousness, fall prey into the trap of judging all others, and harshly.   Indeed, the destructiveness of their judgement extends not only to those whom they perceive to be in the most rigorous sense sinful, but to all others who differ from them, in almost any way, even to the most trivial details of rituals and observances.

And they justify the harsh distortion of their judgement not as a sin against the Spirit, but as a superior zeal for reform, purer than all others.    And finally it extends as a general anger to their own fellows, their own brothers and sisters, and to the very body of Christ on earth.

This is the leaven of the Pharisees. And the only safeguard against it is love. Not a love of the rituals and 'the Sabbath,' but of those imperfect creatures like themselves for whom the Sabbath was given.

The first sin is pride, and there is no form of it that is more toxic and destructive than a spiritual pride, contemptuous of the Spirit and all of its workings on the earth, which is love.   For pride comes to despise love as a weakness, and turns on it, and hardens the heart and the mind against it.

If you have less love and less forgiveness in your heart, and more harsh words and judgments, with a pessimistic and dour outlook even to the abundant graces and mercies of God and his messengers, I tell you truly that you may be in more peril than you can imagine.    You have been blinded to your own danger through the distraction of condemning others.

Look to your own sinfulness first, and beg God to show you all of your sins now, so fully and completely that you fall down in repentance, and have no time for judging others as you see them.

Judgement of others is a way of deflecting and avoiding a recognition of our own sinful nature.  It can be intoxicating to set oneself up as the Lord, and to pass out judgement without mercy and understanding.   But it is the way of darkness and death.

You were not put on this earth to judge others.  And so as you judge, so shall you be judged

"Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general Apostasy from it. Whether this very Apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, as he has already been delayed so long, we cannot know; but at any rate this Apostasy, and all its tokens and instruments, are of the Evil One, and savour of death.

Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison!

Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform.

This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind.

He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods.

Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

J.H.Newman, The Times of AntiChrist, 1890

Night of the Little Knives - Reince Priebus Out, Former General John Kelly In

Trump Chief Of Staff Priebus Is Out — In Biggest White House Staff Shake-Up Yet
July 28, 20175:01 PM ET

He rose from relative state-party obscurity and reached an unlikely pinnacle as the man responsible for the agenda of the president of the United States.

Now, Reince Priebus is out of that job as White House chief of staff in the most significant shakeup of the rocky Trump presidency.

Trump announced on Twitter that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been named as Priebus' replacement.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Blue Skies

"Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who have observed his law;
Seek justice, seek humility;
And perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s justice.

This was the triumphal city, high and mighty,
Saying to herself, ‘I am the one, and none dare stand beside me.’
How desolate now has she become, a place fit only for wild beasts.
Those who pass by her scoff, and shake their heads at her ruin."

Zephaniah 2:3-15


“I'm not crazy about reality, but it's still the only place to get a decent meal.”

Groucho Marx

I have a feeling that we are going to be seeing some real fireworks in the precious metals before the end of the year.

But feelings really do not count in markets.  But it is there, tempting my trading discipline. I know that you have never experienced that. lol.

Stocks bobbled a bit today. I also think we will be seeing a slide in stocks. But let's see how the earnings come out, and what the Fed does about their bloated balance sheet.

While I am not so sure yet about where gold and silver and stocks are going, here are three things that I am pretty sure about.

1.  There is no sustainable recovery. Basic items like housing and healthcare are fast outstripping the growth in real wages.  This is sustainable?  There is, and for too long has been, a well-funded class war underway, and the middle class is losing.

2.  Trump is a terrible president, and way over his head in the job.  I do not refer so much to the social graces, of which he has none or at least sees no need to use them, but in terms of organizing and managing and leading a very large enterprise.   From pitting underlings against each other to shooting from the hip and trying to get lucky he has some of the very management and strategy weaknesses that brought a certain German leader in the last century to his eventual downfall. Hopefully the span of his control over fanatical followers will not achieve the same critical mass.

3. The Democrats need to purge their ranks of the Clinton crowd who are hanging on to stubbornly to positions of power. It is just killing them, and failing to provide a fruitful and leverageable counterweight to the corporate Republicans who are pretty much beyond all hope. What the Democratic power brokers did to the Sanders grass roots movement and Occupy Wall Street is the real deplorable abuse of power and position that precludes any second or third chance for them. They are a disgraceful elite.

These three items will bear a heavy influence on what transpires between now and the midterm elections on a number of fronts and dimensions: social, economic, political.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Nocturne

"A horse walks into a bar, the bartender says, 'Why the long face?'"

And so we had both an FOMC and a precious metals option expiration on the Comex today.

Let's see if we get any post-FOMC, post-expiration shenanigans for the rest of the week.    Once gold breaks out it could be tough to stop, although I am not liking the small advances it has been making on such steady dollar weakness.

Stocks are continuing to edge higher, although with a big less verve than previously.

Pundits are now saying that a crash is probably at least two months away, so now is a good time to buy more stocks.

You cannot make this stuff up.

I think the theory is that when the Fed starts unwinding their balance sheet in September, that the air of liquidity, which is one of key components of these bubbles, is going to start coming out of the markets much faster than it went in.

And the result may be terrific—  not with a bang, but a whimper.


"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

George Gordon Lord Byron

Have a pleasant evening.