Palm Sunday Prepper

"I've always been a prepper, because I've always been prepared, but some of these guys are too narrow. Their plan lacks perspective... I turn up at their fort with a canon and I start pounding that compound with hot shot. What then? Yeah, maybe they run out, perhaps they sally forth. I want that, I want them in my kill box." (From An Operator in Texas)

Don't get me wrong, I think it's right to be prepared but some ways make more sense than others, which is how the conversation flowed after Palm Sunday Mass #2.

"So how's the 'community'?"

"You know, there's a lot of people out there prepping for the least likely of all scenarios."

"Like the Hillary campaign getting honest?"

"Yeah, or an asteroid hitting the earth, whatever."

"Or some TAC guy turns up and starts shelling you with a trebuchet."

"Right. They're all concentrating on these never-gonna-happen outcomes."

Until, of course, that they do. But seriously, what's wrong with getting back to basics? Learning, for example, how to hunt, clean and cook your own food? Knowing, if you don't already, how to shoot, or being able to live because you sensibly know how to grow food and had the foresight to ensure that you'd have water if the grid goes down? 

And on. The point being, go off and learn all the AR 15 drills you can, and more power to you; become an ace shot, why not? Stockpile ammo, even, but more importantly, learn basic self-sufficiency. 

There just might come a point when that'll stand you in good stead, and it's a virtue in itself. 

Except, of course, when it comes to God. Then it's just wicked pride.

Prep On,

LSP

Episcopal Church Pilgrimage to Ferguson's Holy Ground

The Episcopal Church is organizing a youth pilgrimage to Ferguson, which the Bishop of Missouri, Wayne Smith, describes as "holy ground."

The Saint

“A tourist merely passes through a place; a pilgrim comes to a place in a posture of vulnerability and then allows the place and its people in. No one intended it, but through the ravages of racism, past and current, St. Louis has become a place for pilgrims. There is holy ground here," stated Smith, referring to Ferguson, "And no one can stand on it and encounter its people without being changed.”

Lives Being Changed, by The Saint

Without being changed? Like the way a shopkeeper's life was changed when Michael Brown assaulted him before rushing a cop, punching him and then trying to grab his gun? Or the way people's lives were changed when their shops were looted by off-the-hook thugs?

The Saint's Friends Getting Some Change

There's nothing holy about Ferguson at all, it's an urban ghetto hell-hole, and trying to invent a phony race martyr out of a person like Michael Brown isn't going to fix anything. Except maybe salve your guilty, upper middle class, white privileged conscience. 

White Privilege

Bishop Wayne Smith, you and your fake pilgrimage to the fake shrine of the fake saint is risible at best. You are a mountebank and a fraud, like Al Sharpton and Lesley McSpadden.

The Frauds

Tickets to pilgrimage cost $500. Pilgrims get to visit the shrine of Michael Brown and take part in community organization and racism awareness workshops.

Pathetic.

LSP

#Blacklivesmatter

Presented without comment.

LSP

Liberation Theology

There's a lot of worship at the St. Michael's Conference, and there's a lot of teaching, too, with three classes on various subjects after Mass and breakfast. One of the courses is the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I taught the kids that she's the new Eve.

In the garden of Eden, Eve is seduced by an evil angel in the form of  serpent, and eats the forbidden fruit. Her faithless disobedience and pride leads to death. Mary reverses this; her humility and faithful obedience to God's will, as announced by the angel Gabriel, leads to the conception of Christ in her womb and the entry of life into the world.

I reminded the class that an angel, calling itself Gabriel, also appeared to Mohammed. The message of that spirit led, almost immediately, to death. 

One of these angelic messages is liberating and the others aren't. You decide which one is which.  

LSP

No Indictment

Presented without comment.

LSP