"But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart;
they are revolted and gone. Neither say they in their
heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth
rain, both the former and the latter, in his season...
Your iniquities have turned away these things, and
your sins have withholden good things from you."
Jeremiah 5:23-25
What is next on the boycott agenda for the U.S.? First it was humility, then gratitude. Gratitude for, among many other things, living in a country with the greatest personal freedom and prosperity in the history of the world. With this pesky gratitude out of the way, legalistic Karens and unscrupulous race-hustlers convinced many to boycott basic amicability and mutual respect. Then came reason, law & order, and history. Now it's down to a different hyper-corporate megacompany every week or 2, or less.
It's like watching a dog chasing its own tail. "I caught it!" says the dog. Then comes another tail, and another one. Is it my tail I'm chasing? Or the tail of my enemy?
How long will my fellow Americanos punish companies that don't share their values before they consider the possibility that they're not the ones who are doing the boycotting, but rather that... God has boycotted them?
Has God boycotted the U.S.?
“If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart,
to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts,
I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse
your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already,
because ye do not lay it to heart.”
Malachi 2:2
Willful deafness is a sign of God's judgment. God gives prideful, stubborn people over to a spirit of deafness as a form of judgment. The deafness isn't physical, of course, but spiritual. When a civilization has chosen to ignore God, to disregard His prophets and take His blessings for granted, one of the first things to go is a sense of spiritual hearing; even basic discernment of the type that understands drag queen shows are not suitable for children, for example, flies out the window like a flock of frightened sparrows.
These sparrows are soon replaced, of course, with vultures of self-righteous, would-be virtue. Cuz if there's something the vultures of wannabe virtue are clearly incapable of, it's being even slightly wrong. Always right, all the time.
Rich-kid behaviour. Dangerous ground.
“For it is easier for a camel to go through
a needle's eye, than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of God.”
Luke 18:25
"We've made ourselves into serfs
by turning into kings."
Peacocks in the Mud
So, is it time to boycott Target? In the article Would Jesus Boycott Target?, written 7 years ago, Josh Daffern writes, "Whether in the synagogues or the temple itself, Jesus led the charge against a corrupt religious establishment. He could not be bothered to weigh in on Rome, but he had plenty to say about religious matters." And also, "Look at the gospels, and you’ll see absolutely no condemnation for the Roman occupation by Jesus. That was one of the things that drove the religious leaders mad with rage."
An interesting perspective, to be sure.
So, I'm sorry, my fellow Americanos. While I think your motives and heart are right, I think the boycott issue is a tangent disguised as an issue of vital importance. It's too late to boycott Target. God has already boycotted the U.S. As crazy as it is to people who haven't boycotted reason, mutual respect, and gratitude, the company (whatever it sells)... no longer exists to provide us with a product or service.
It exists as an act of judgment on the unrepentant pride of an entire nation. The demons don't care where you buy your toothpaste or socks, as long as they get to play with you. Is the cat affected in any way by the emotional reaction of the mouse?
In fact, the angrier the mouse gets, the louder the cat probably laughs.
From the same article by Josh Daffern, "I believe many today... would be frustrated with Jesus’ refusal to jump into the culture wars. I believe he would focus his attention on clearing house in the religious establishment that has lost so much influence in society at large and is actively losing the next generation. If that’s what Jesus would do, should we as Christians focus our ire on a non-biblically based business for implementing what we believe to be non-biblically based policies, or should we get our own religious house in order?"
Another interesting take.
Perhaps the U.S. is not a Christian nation after all.
Anyway, one more final thought for my brothers and sisters in Christ. Don't let the existence of a music video with meaningless psychedelic imagery, or Paris train footage from the 1920s, or tricked-out visuals of Bakhmut spread like a burning blanket under a song I wrote almost 15 years ago give you doubts about my heart. It amuses me to play with the video-editing software, and to think about a warhead tipped with lava lamps instead of explosives. It doesn't go much deeper than that.
At some level, not so deep beneath the surface (perhaps not beneath the surface at all), I feel like I'm wasting time making psychedelic music videos for songs that might be on-topic for the times, but which aren't particularly holy. I do it anyway, because I can. But that's all.
"I do the movies just for myself like an institutionalized
person who basket-weaves. Busy fingers are happy fingers.
I don't care about the films. I don't care if they're
flushed down the toilet after I die."
Woody Allen
I don't believe there's anything holy or righteous or even important about my work (I'm a car mechanic. Songs are my cars; tunes and words are my wrenches. It's a nice thing to do, but there aren't any Mercedes or Ferraris in Heaven. Yadig?). I don't drink or take drugs of any kind, except coffee. And I didn't come to Mexico to participate in a gringo culture war, standing onstage in an alcohol bunker providing the soundtrack for other people's bad decisions. In any language. In fact I believe God called me out of the U.S. God called me out of there, to get off the sinking ship. It's sad. I mourn the decline of the U.S. on a regular basis. It's a major loss. People have no idea what they're throwing away, or what they have already thrown away. They take for granted that it's always going to be there. It's a major loss. The culmination of the tragedy brewing in America will be a warning to other countries, I'm afraid. "Look what they threw away for a bunch of manufactured issues that look like luxury items today. What a bunch of spoiled, ungrateful babies," etc. It makes me sad.
Not even the Christians are aware to the degree they are engaged in idolatry. There's a deliverance ministry in Arizona that "delivers" people from "Rock & Roll," while sending its own Christian kids to play football at secular universities. I can't play a G chord without engaging in an act of worship, but some jock can throw a ball around in a secular setting without engaging in worship. That's hypocrisy. It means what I do has been idolized by the culture, and is considered an inherent act of worship. It's idolatry. If what I do is an inherent act of church, while what you do is so "normal" that you can do it in an unbelieving setting without consequence, you are IDOLIZING MY TRADE. That isn't righteous. It's idolatry. You are putting what I do on a pedestal above what you do, and telling me to repent of it. Repenting of playing music is like repenting of speaking English. Which I have done, at your insistence. You don't want to listen. Willful deafness, again.
Point taken.
God has returned the favor.
Like it, believe it, or not, this unthinking, unconscious idolatry is under judgment as well.
FYI.
Without Ketchup There Can Be No Righteousness
"I am not a Christian artist.
I am an artist who is a Christian."
Johnny Cash
Anyway, God knows I've been rejected by nearly every conceivable social unit in the English language, and have a fair amount of baggage and maybe even trauma from which to recover. God knows the disenfranchisement is such that I'm more comfortable as an obvious foreigner in a land full of people with whom I share exactly ZERO cultural or familial heritage, than I am as a non-obvious foreigner, surrounded by "my own people." I wrote the poem "A Foreign Country Called Home" 25 years ago. I'm tired, and burned-out. I fall asleep from sheer exhaustion on an almost daily basis, in the middle of the day. Early evening, usually. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for an hour or 2. Whether I slept well the night before, or am doing anything that would wear me down, or not.
So I make a music video from time to time, marvel over the fact that my circumstances are actually calm and stable, and enjoy the peace and quiet God has blessed me with, which is a novel and new concept to me. I forgive the people I need to forgive, and generally just try to rest.
But my heart isn't here. My heart is in Heaven. I don't think it will be long. I look forward to seeing you there soon.
If you aren't saved, do it now. "Seek and ye shall find" (Matt 7:7). Get on the lifeboat while you still can.
Thanks for listening.
