A Homily – Mark 6:30-34 ©

The Gospel According to Mark – 2018.07.22

                        

Leadership and Humility

The gospel for today is a call to humility.

For those who seek to teach the faith, we must be humble, and steadfast both.

There will be many who hear the word, and show no interest in it.

There will be other times when those who hear will hunger for it, crowds will gather, lives will be disrupted, the social order may go haywire.

Those moments are to be handled with great care. Be patient, lead them with humility. Listen to them, they will tell you what they need, they will inform you of what you need as well.

A good teacher learns more from their students in a single hour of instruction, than their students learn from them.

If you should find yourself in the position of a pastor or priest, of a teacher of the faith, then be humble, be responsive, listen and learn.

They Were Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. Then he said to them, ‘You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while’; for there were so many coming and going that the apostles had no time even to eat. So they went off in a boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But people saw them going, and many could guess where; and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length

16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Seven, Travel

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 203, Sunday

July 22nd, 2018

Chapter Seven: Travel

Kathy began to experience a degree of freedom she had never enjoyed before. She knew that it was entirely conditional, at all times her handlers wanted Kathy close to them, under strict observation.

The apparatus they built around her was an amazing thing to behold.

The National Security interests utilized a revolving network of spies to keep an eye on her. Every agent was linked by satellite, it gave them the ability to track her comings and goings in real time and from a distance which they felt was sufficiently safe from her prying mind.

Those agents whose mission it was to keep their eyes on her, they had no idea who she was.

They were junior agents who came and went so quickly from their assignment, that following Kathy was generally viewed as a basic training exercise. Nevertheless, every observation they made was pushed up into the cloud and correlated with the vast data base that her handlers were building to track everything she said and did.

Kathy felt her autonomy increasing.

Every little bit of space they gave her, she took.

The assignments she was given came less and less frequently. She could see the patterns in their behaviors toward her.

She knew that she was both indispensable, and matter of grave concern for the people at the top of the security apparatus.

In time, she even had some freedom to travel. When she did, she went to the places that her ancestors directed her to. 

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Guilty - Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

07.21.2018

Guilty

This week in the national soap opera… 

Listen…I am not a lawyer, and this is not a courtroom.

I am just a guy with an opinion.

I am not a news anchor, I do not work for a media outlet, I simply try to put a little thought every week into summarizing my point of view.

In this forum, T-Rump does not have a right to the presumption of innocence, he is obviously guilty as hell.

In this forum what is obvious does not have to be subordinated to some abstract standard of journalistic ethics. Let me tell you, those standards have long since ceased to serve their purpose. Standards of that type have become meaningless in light of the fact that one side of our political spectrum refuses to adhere to any standard of truth, reasonable standards of evidence and proofs, evidence, or scientific inquiry.

We have to just tell it like it is, and here I the thing that is on my mind. I hear the talking heads ask these question all the time, they ask it as if they were simple.

What do you think Russia has on the T-Rump?

Do you think he has been compromised?

What do you think it is?

Here is the answer: Donald Trump conspired with the Russians, with Vladimir Putin, to influence the 2016 election.

Donald Trump is guilty of treason. That is what the Russians have over him, and probably a great deal more embarrassing non-sense, but none of that embarrassing non-sense really matters to T-Rump, he is singularly incapable of embarrassment.

If it were just a matter of them having dirt on him for financial mis-dealings, or tapes of him with prostitutes, T-Rump would not care, neither would his supporters. If that were all there was, he would get himself out from under their thumb, he would let it fly and let come what may.

T-Rump is guilty of treason, he conspired with a foreign power to win the presidency in 2016. Not his sons, not his daughter, not Jared Kushner or other people close to him, though they are all guilty too, of that I am sure. T-Rump himself was involved at the highest level, and that is the dirt that they have on him.

Donald T-Rump is guilty of treason. He has been compromised, before and after, and since the election, he is doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin.

That is what it is.

Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Six, Recluse

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 202, Saturday

July 21st, 2018

Chapter Six: Recluse

Out of an innate drive for self-preservation, Kathy developed the ability to ward off psychic intrusions.

She built mental walls to ensure her privacy, to keep the thoughts and feelings of other people from seeping into her cognitive flow.

As her mastery over her powers grew she also had to be careful not to project her wishes and desires onto other people. No one knew it, not one of her handlers, but she had the ability to control the thoughts of other people, to audit their memories, to make suggestions that they would be powerless to refuse.

She wanted privacy, and she had no desire to influence people. The boundaries she established for herself were crucial to preserving her sense of identity.

Those defenses required constant mindfulness, a diligence that stole her energy. And so, in order to rest, she preferred to be alone.

Being alone was not enough, she also had to be distracted, her senses needed to be stimulated all the time, or else she would slip into the nous-sphere, the cynergenic field, or find herself caught up in the labyrinth of her memories.

Kathy desired little more than to be present, to be helpful, to advance the causes she cared about; diplomacy, justice, care for the environment, and the safeguarding of the human race.

She was increasingly focused on the long range plans to establish a permanent human presence in space, on the moon, and outward toward the outer planets.

She dreamed of a life out among the stars, in those dreams she encountered a thread the pulled at her consciousness like the threads of her ancestral memories.

She heard a calling.

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Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Five, Academic

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 201, Friday

July 20th, 2018

Chapter Five: Academic

After years of working with Kathy, her handlers came to an appreciation of how dangerous it could be to interact with her directly regarding the nations secrets.

She could penetrate the minds of anyone who came in contact with her.

For Kathy, this happened without effort in regard to those who near to her, either close to her emotionally, or proximate to her in space. The content of their thoughts might pass through her as if she were sifting fine particles from the air.

Her handlers determined to engage her at a distance. The efforts they took in this regard had a positive impact on Kathy’s life. Everything about her circumstances was completely contrived, this much she knew.

The efforts her handlers took allowed her to live a semblance of a normal life.

There were some in the security establishment who argued that she should be killed, that she was too dangerous, and that it was too costly to keep her in the world.

There were powers at the top of the hierarchy who would not hear these recommendations, they argued two things; first, that she was the most prodigious problem solver and analyst the world had ever seen; and second, that they needed to study every aspect of her abilities so that they could document the full range of human potential

Kathy was placed in a small-private college, did research, and wrote. Her handlers thought that distance, and noise were the keys to protecting their secrets, believeing that the more people they placed between Kathy and themselves the more likely it would be that they could shield their intentions and motivations from her

They were wrong, there were few limits to Kathy’s abilities.

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Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Four, Diet

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 200, Thursday

July 19th, 2018

Chapter Four: Diet

Eating was a necessity, there were many days when she wished she could dispense with it altogether.

The rituals of cooking, the textures of food, brought her to places she did not want to dwell in. Not that the memories were unpleasant, that was not necessarily so, but she could not avoid the nexus of memories those activities brought her to.

What bothered Kathy was the lack of control.

Flavors and odors haunted her, they hovered around and clung to her like ghosts.

Taste and smell could transported her instantly to past times, and past ages, placing her in a kind fuge, unbidden, that should not escape from.

Kathy found solace in the bland, comfort in modern processed foods, foods that were completely new and entirely foreign to human experience.

She did not want to mix anything in a bowl, stir something in a pot, engage in knife work, or butchery.

Even the smell of baking bread, so pleasing and comforting to almost every person in the world, even that was troublesome for Kathy.

Eating was a necessity.

Kathy consumed most of her calories like an astronaut, sucking it out of packages that did not require any processing.

The most pleasing thing to her was coffee.

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Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Three, Dance

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 199, Wednesday

July 18th, 2018

Chapter Three: Dance

When Kathy danced she moved without thinking.

Dancing was auto-hypnotic. She lost herself in the drums and rhythms.

She abandoned time in movement, in the moments flowing from the present time to past ages.

She relived the steps of her ancestors, felt their feelings, their fears and their hopes for the future.

Dance was a place of transcendence.

When she was dancing she was not fully engaged with the present world, the psychic noise and the din of chaos slipped away and the cares of the world disappeared.

Kathy experienced this same phenomenon in many ways, but what made dancing different for Kathy was that while dancing she did not succumb to the temptation to retreat into no-time.

She hovered in between the world of the present moment, and the world of her ancestors, simultaneously connected to both.

With her body in motion, she could fully not disengage from the world around her, and at the same instant she was connected to both the world of her memories and the collective consciousness that joined her to the entirety of humanity.

Dancing was freedom.

Dancing was the ultimate expression of who she was, of her uniqueness as a human being.

Kathy danced for the joy of it.

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Being

We celebrate the world

Dream of new order, new visions, a twist in the fabric of

Certainty

We pause and consider

Our futility and ignorance, this combine of chemistry

Consciousness

We celebrate a form

The organic machine, our hope for tomorrow, love and

Continuum 

Emergence 3.0 - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-seven, Isolated; Chapter Two, Music

Emergence 3.0

A Novel – In One Page Per Day

Day 198, Tuesday

July 17th, 2018

Chapter Two: Music

Of all the “normal” things that people occupied themselves with, the ordinary pleasantries, the little things that filled up their days and nights, music was the most difficult thing for Kathy to endure.

There were new generations of performers emerging all the time.

Every year brought new waves of artists writing songs, and making hits. Vocal styles changed, tonal styles changed, the content of lyrics and the popularity of certain instruments changed, but only within a narrow range.

The rhythm and the beats, the timing of the drums changed very little over time.

If Kathy was careless, a melody could cause her to slip, without knowing, into another lifetime. She would fall into her memories, slipping away from the present in ways that were dangerous to her

A beating drum told a hundred thousand stories; they told of the hunt and the harvest, of conflict and the march to war, of year toiling in servitude pushing through the field and pulling at the oar.

Kathy loved music, she would use it for all of those purposes, but her susceptibility to it made it dangerous to her.

It was an area of weakness.

Her handlers knew this.

They had observed the effects of music and other sensory stimulants on her, enough for them to see the patterns.

They knew enough about Kathy’s relationship to certain stimuli that they could use it to manipulate her.

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