Poor Fellow Soldier

Measure the Cost – 3-11-2023

March 11th, 2023

This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.

The command to “Write the narrative” may have come with excuses and reasons to question why God would choose me to write anything like what had already been revealed. I am now under the impression that the narrative God actually wanted me to write, is the one that is being written now, not already written over the previous three years.

Did I ever mention that I would not wish upon any other human being, worst enemy or best friend, and it is nothing like easy. Please don’t read this and find yourself yearning for my life or something like it. I’m serious. I have had people express those exact words. It’s spiritual jealousy and it is not without consequence to others. Ask God to show you what He wants for you. God doesn’t need another me. He wants an individual you sincerely seeking to serve with obedience. Before you continue on this journey with me, measure the cost. Ask Him to search you and reveal if you are ready. If you’re willing, He will grow you, but the consequence of your choice is profound. It will be required of you to truly give your life up to take up the Cross allow Jesus to become the Lord of your Life, for Jesus is Lord of my life. You can’t begin to imagine what He can do through you, but the warning of failing to measure the cost before starting something is repeated throughout the scriptures.

The importance of Believing and Belief in those whom God has entrusted us is crucial at the deepest levels. The enemy knows the consequence. Do we fully appreciate their intensity to destroy us through those consequences?

I cannot understate the importance of the wife of Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams and her response to him and the storyline looking something like smooth. It looked like nothing but a terrible idea from the start to those outside the narrative, but inside it, inside the marriage, it was rock solid. There will be others who are reading this blog who are going through the same thing as Ray Kinsella, and it will look or feel something like it does in that movie. It is also what is happening to me.

It’s been a really bumpy road for my wife and family through this. My wife’s responses each time were reasonable and sincere, and grew more and more concerned with each episode and progression in the narrative that God was writing with me, but it was painful to not be fully believed or understood. It only served to isolate me and try to divide us. I only now understand more than two years later. The narrative was about God dispatching a husband to go after his most valuable blessing of which God himself bestowed upon me, his wife. That narrative will come later, but for purposes of the current post, it’s critical to understand the importance of the unity of the marriage and the importance of what being one flesh is in the fullness of God’s blessing of marriage. It’s one flesh, of course, in the physical daily activities together and sexual sense and in the physical sense, but it’s mind-blowingly deeper because it’s something far more like one spiritual creature. This will have to wait until a later post.

The difference of what is happening to those who are both reading this and relating to much of it or pieces of it in a manner they can’t fully explain, is that those who are starting to have visions that are from God will also become targets of the demonic forces hellbent on keeping us all in chains and misery. Yes. It’s that serious. Yes, it should be that scary. If it is, yes you need to make a decision about your relationship with Christ, very soon, because if you don’t have a relationship with God and you haven’t received His grace through His Son, you shouldn’t be scared. You should be terrified, because you are unarmed in this battle that is happening with, or without you. Those forces very same forces will often be unleashed upon us knowingly through spiritual jealousy, which is real and extremely hurtful and then unknowingly through jealousy’s big burly friend, envy. For clarity, thievery is to vandalism as jealousy is to envy.

The problem with envy is that it creates plausible deniability. People will smile to your face and curse your family with their unbridled tongue after they walk out your door, or while driving their car. Consider the comparison of praying for people while expressing verbally the terms of jealousy for someone and their life and livelihood. The problem is that if a spirit of envy is near, and it will be for just about everyone, you have just sent the evil spirits off with a subtle command to ruin someone. Make no mistake, they will do damage, and you will have been the cause of it. Plausible Deniability. How could I have had anything to do with the destruction of their marriage? I never even met their family. One need not know someone to hurt them in the same manner that one need not know someone to pray that God deliver them. The faith of another is often the cause of our own deliverance, because God answers the prayers of the faithful who believe. The enemy answers the requests as well.

Envy revels in the destruction and doesn’t care who never gets to use it later. Envy does this in spiritual realm, and its damage cannot be understated. It brings a whole host of other terrible sins and spiritual forces of darkness in the side and back doors with it. It can be distractions like destruction of the family, relationships, craft, ministry, etc. of the target of the envy. Do not underestimate this.

The only response that God expects is that a woman is to “fear” her husband. The same word in the Greek here is the one used as “fear” God. It isn’t fear, it is hold in veneration in the same manner that we are to hold God. This means believing in your spouse, as God would expect us to believe in him. All of this is entirely dependent upon the husband not being engaged in overt sin, but even then.

These visions will be completely out of the previously expected character of a husband previously engaged in the fullness of jackassery. It also cannot be understated what is possible when a wife holds her husband with something like the same esteem as she ought to hold God and a husband so loves his wife as Christ so loves the church. The absurd power of the potential of where two or more gather in my name, in every home where his happens is unleashed upon a neighborhood, school, town, wherever they gather. Prayer walks of a husband and wife through their neighborhood can change an entire neighborhood and the ones hell bent on keeping it in the chains that are ruining it will not have any idea who is responsible. Prayers can move mountains. Where two or more gather in my name, I AM brings the one who made the mountains.

I have seen more than a few times when a husband comes home from an encounter weekend with a truly changed heart and the wife and family are blindsided by it all. How could this have happened over a single weekend. When God calls us to follow Him, expect the unexpected.

“I heard from the heavens.” as it is so named, the words are not audible in the ears, but they are most assuredly heard in my brain and heart. When they started coming with the intensity, they have been over the last two years, I had long since learned how to check the spirit for this sort of thing. I know they originate from the heavens, but the heavens that surround us in all manners are very much filled with other spirits and messengers who seek to do harm. They have angelic level intelligence, have been seeking to steal the grace of Christ from us for 2000 years, and they have had the entirety of human existence to hone their craft while we have had our short little lives.

It was at the very beginning of my giving my life to Christ ten years ago when what started happening to me required a method to “authenticate the messenger.” By authenticating the messenger, the message can be authenticated and deemed worthy of consideration. Interesting, I suspect this is also identical to the process the Vatican uses to validate the miraculous and mysterious. It is intentional, it is deliberate, and it is required for the reasons I stated. The demonic will seek to use the same tactics to distract us away from the Church through the magical means usurping of the miraculous.

Through three different pastor teachers, whom I trusted, over a period of a couple weeks, they all confirmed each other to me without ever having met or seen each other’s teachings. Compare what you are being told within the scriptures. First, can this sort of thing happen as demonstrated by occurrence with and through others in the past as recorded in scripture? Second, can the confirmation of what is happening be found in more than one place, preferably three, in the Bible in differing books? This is important because the easiest tool for the enemy to utilize is the removal of context from the passage. Context is critical. Removal of the criticality of context is demonic. Lastly, which path does this message drive you? Does it drive you to a desire for a deeper relationship God and the fullness of Christ, or does it drive you to a deeper relationship with an author or teacher? Desiring more knowledge from the same teacher about a subject of the topic and content that can be supported Biblically is a very subtle and deceptive tactic of a demon of heresy and a spirit of divination. That’s not a deeper understanding of the fullness of Christ, it’s a deeper desire for the fullness of Christ as depicted by the author. It is critical to learn to do this given the plethora of false teachers out there and the ease to acquire their teachings. It’s actually easier than acquiring a deck of demonic cards, and it can be done in the privacy of your own home on a kindle or ipad. It’s identical to porn only more dangerous. This counters the danger of false teachers, and they are exceedingly dangerous. Failure to heed this last, but most important guidance results in someone being lured away from Christ, most often through the use of a sprinkling of scripture quotes in between the multitude of teachings of the author.

Everything that has happened to me, without exception, can be and has been validated through scriptures, usually within days through the words of pastor teachers or priests, or my own Bible reading and study. The locations of the confirmations in the context of the scriptures is actually sometimes horrifying for me, for they are often confirmed in the books of the prophets, revelations, etc where God is warning His people of coming course corrections if they don’t change their ways. The experiences of numerous Catholic Saints match what I have experienced. Saint John of Vianney claimed he saw guardian angels. I started seeing mine from the beginning of this journey, but only ever while sleeping or laying down in prayer. Back in January 2020, I was on my face in prayer at a ministry encounter where I asked God to send us an Archangel because I knew my little guardian angel was not sufficient to deal with what I was seeing in prayer. Instantly, Saint Michael the Archangel appeared in my vision standing next to me. I curiously asked, “Michael?” He smirk/smiled to confirm, spun his huge bastard sword in his left hand and moved in such a manner as to hurl it down the isle at a participant of the encounter and the sword hit a giant ball of black boulder something knocking it violently off his shoulder and out the back door of the nave of this venue. Then a spiritual pack of rats began swarming upon the person from both sides of the isle up his arms eating his flesh. What struck me was first, how familiar I was with Michael. I had never seen images of him before. How did I simply know it was him? I was struck at how close he was to me such that he could show up near instantly in answering my request. I was also struck because I asked him to stop the rats from gnawing this mans flesh off and he said, that’s not my problem, there are others that can take care of that. I spent the next few weeks wondering what had happened. I couldn’t deny the result. I had no interpretation other than knowing the spiritual pack of rats gnawing his flesh off were not from the attendees of this event, but from others. I had no idea of how much truth was revealed in that 15 seconds on my face. That night, my existence shifted. I had been shown the glory of God in a manner I could not even begin to describe, in a manner that was so peaceful, for the deliverance of others, through a pure and simple request in prayer, and God answered instantly. I had no idea how to discuss what happened with protestant pastors. I understand only now what God was doing. It wasn’t the right time for others, but I was all in, and over the next five months, my life and what God was doing through me, exploded exponentially. It reached a point of scaring my wife and others around me because they didn’t have a frame of reference to work with. They were also all from a protestant upbringing. I knew what I was seeing and requesting intercession was true. I also had what I had seen independently confirmed by others over and over. All of this occurred without exception. It was also after that day, that I became aware of the guardian angels of others and they willingly answered my requests on behalf of others. The size of what I could only describe as a growing “angel army” grew at each ministry event over the next five months from Michael and my own. The second even added another twelve. I watched them fall on their faces weeping at watching a video by Judas Smith called Jesus Loves Barabas. It’s like they weren’t expecting to see this video or something while they were sitting at the front of the naïve on the stage watching everything. When I was on my face watching this take place, I broke out in weeping tears. This was the first time this has ever happened to me, but watching the pain of the angel as they listen to the part of the video where Jesus walks off to the cross shook me to the core. That was also when I really was able to come to terms with what was happening to me as pure truth, because I didn’t have time to imagine this or create this. I didn’t know what would happen during a video I hadn’t planned and I certainly had no idea how the crucifixion of Christ crushed the angels in heaven. Boy did it. It still happens. Every time that video comes on and there are angels in the room who have never heard it, they do the same thing. Last year, I asked God for bunch of them to come from other places to help secure the location from evil so that the attendees could be freed and to protect us and the site from the demonic. Station the sentries. The moment they arrived, I was standing outside the small building and felt them arrive. Oh, there they are! I was filled with joy for about 5 seconds until I heard the video start playing and I nearly collapsed in guilty pain for having invited them knowing what was about to happen to all of them. It did. They all fell on their faces weeping. Anyway, the third event added another 40, the fourth event added another 100. The fifth event covered two states. I’ll share those events another time. So yes, angels are real. Yes, what is happening through me is truth. And what happened to me lead me to where I am now in this journey that lead me to the Home of my ancestors. My 29^th Great Grandmother was a patroness of Mont-Saint-Michel in France in the 900s. I’ve come to learn that I have at least a dozen Saints as directed ancestors and the magnificence of beauty of what He has revealed to me of His Church grows each and every day. I have also come to terms with people and their unbelief. Sincerely, they’ll have to take up that conversation with God for themselves. Their unbelief is not my problem. We can choose what we believe, but it does not change what is true.

For the purpose of disclosure, the only intention I have is to share the fullness of Christ and the unimaginable beauty of His Church through what has already been revealed to me, for reasons I cannot understand how or why I am worthy of any of this. If the reader is doing anything other than developing a craving for the fullness of Christ through me in their own heart, than do exactly what I have done. Why are you reading this? Could what happen to me be demonstrated in the scriptures or traditions of the Church through what God already showed possible through the testimony of the Saints of the Church? I would argue the trustworthiness of a Saint is sufficient by itself to serve as confirmation, but that’s because of where I am in my walk with the Church. Does what you are reading here grow a craving in your heart for the fullness of Christ and His Church? If you fail to authenticate the messenger here, then do as you should, and walk away.

Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.

Logging out,

Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ

Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace
The Epiphany of the Field of Dreams – 3-11-2023

March 11th, 2023

This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones, who both happen to be on my list of my favorite actors. Darth Vader and Wyatt Earp in the same movie? That’s some strange sort of crossover. The first time I watched this movie, it made so much sense to me, and it was on more than a few levels. I could not properly articulate the scale of this until the last year or so. The old town doctor wandering the streets late at night on a walk to clear his head boggles my mind, because that’s exactly what I do all the time now, weather pending. Granted, the movie would never call them what they actually are, but now I understand the familiarity I felt with that character, on a variety of levels.

I have walked the streets of my town so many times at some really strange hours of the night. The local sheriff’s dispatch I’m sure can attest to my strange calls when I happen upon the sorts of things that require calling the non-emergency dispatch. They’re also prayer walks where I ask for angelic protections over the homes and the guardian angels of the people inside to come alongside them. I also process through a lot of other things and find myself walking to the point where I have emptied my own brain to allow for clarity of the prayers to come out unhindered, and some of they never fail to disappoint in their scope and scale, Holy Spirit guide my prayers sort of thing.

The epiphanies are often profound revelations of connections and interworking of various narratives going on in my life during that time. There’s also the narrative of a young man, who started on a path in life that didn’t quite work out like he had intended, but when he got out of his own selfish and ambitious ways, he took the path of spending his entire life as a small-town physician.

It’s difficult to fully appreciate the importance of this specific narrative for me. A town/region can be changed for the better if they are without a physician and surgeon when they arrive in town. This reality has been stolen in modern context of terrible healthcare industrial complex. A general/family medicine trained physician and a surgeon working together in a town is something to behold and is only discernable by those who are entrusted with the discernment to know. Maybe that’s why it is treated with so much disregard by those making the decision that have consequence of us in the hospitals we inevitably will find ourselves in as patients. The corporate and government bureaucrats are oblivious to the treasure and responsibility which they have been entrusted, and they destroy it like an idiot with matches, burning down the House of God (great book from the 70s about life in residency training at a huge hospital in Boston) in the relentless pursuit of more power and influence in the new House Without God, where an atheist can be a Chaplain. I yearn for the return to the days where sacred things mattered and were venerated. The intensity of this narrative gathered my attention in a way I did not understand.

Then there’s the of narrative, “The young man who is called for a higher purpose but has to learn this the hard way through the failure of their own selfish ways.” It plays out visibly when the young man chooses to step out of the life he left behind and into the life he lived. It was one of those what if memory moments that some carry with them forever trapped, in the middle of the journey we are traveling each and every day.

Recall, Ray Kinsella is living his quiet farm life with a woman that sees her husband’s strength and loves him completely along with their young daughter. The farm life has a rhythm that is tied to the pulsation and motion of the earth. The only thing a farmer and their family can do is learn to live peacefully within the seasons and cycles of the earth for there is nothing they can do to change them. They understand stewardship of the lands and home to a depth most do not know to exist. Projects started in the spring to address obstacles encountered the previous winter that go unfinished when winter sets in can result in more death and destruction. It’s also a life filled with quiet and uninterrupted time that exists in abundance. Whether that be sitting alone on the tractor for days in a row at each of the points of the growing season, or simply walking through the fields and lands of the farm when the work of the planting is starting to show the fruits of one’s labor, the opportunity for conversations with God abound. Make no mistake, farmers understand the importance of that relationship where prayer is how they persevere through the storms that try to destroy everything they’ve worked to build.

Ray Kinsella is wandering through his fields of corn living out the stewardship of which I spoke. He hears the whisper in his head, “If you build it, he will come” while walking through his corn field. What the? His response is reasonable. He brushes it off after what seems like a failure to have it validated by someone else after calling out to his wife a short distance away if she heard anything. A bit confused by the question, she responds, “No…” Ok, no one else heard this. How could he? Soon thereafter, he hears it again. He knew he wasn’t nuts the first time, and the second time he knew it was only being said to him, but he knew he still wasn’t nuts. It’s the clarity and simplicity of the words that allowed him to know it was coming from a trustworthy source. It doesn’t scare him. It only leads him to seek a deeper understanding of what he just experienced. “If you build it, he will come,” so he shares with his wife what happened. Instead of freaking out and throwing up walls for him, she enters the discussion and ensuing narrative with him as his wife and closest and most trusted person in his life. What does it mean? He starts to work with what seems like a clue or something.

Over the course of the movie, the sequence of clues the movie portrays develop into actions with consequence and proof of the truth of what he was being told. It sends him on something like a pilgrimage through his past, through the history of the game of baseball that he loves so dearly. A love that was bestowed upon him by an imperfect father doing the best he could with what he had. The sad reality is that the narrative of our father in our lives is not one of the time they lived, but is timeless. Did we squander the blessing of our relationship with our children and did we allow our parents squandering us to harden our hearts preventing a relationships with them? No one ever says I am glad I didn’t really know my mother or father and mean it. It’s usually a defensive response from the hardened heart speaking.

Jack Kinsella, Ray’s father shows his son baseball because the father loves the game and wants to share something he adores with his son. Ray’s father passed away when he was relatively young in life, leaving him a legacy of what he adored through a love of baseball, but also a legacy of hurt feelings of a son that creates regret that is unresolvable in the worldly sense as his father is dead. As Ray makes this pilgrimage, which started with the whisper in the field of corn, he starts to share his father with his daughter, a grandfather she never met. Ray also shares the love his father so bumpily shared with his son with his daughter in a way he likely never had prior to this narrative God was writing through Ray. What seems like a movie that is not about God, actually is about God seeking to heal the hardened heart of a single individual by allowing him to get to know his earthly father. What this looks like in the Church is God seeking to heal our hardened hearts by helping us to get to know our heavenly father.

It’s a mysterious thing in our minds how we reconcile it, but as Saint Justin the Martyr had divinely revealed to him in the first century that history, and I would add time as we perceive it, has a secular and sacred nature with Christ in the middle of it. I read that recently, and it applied words and a concept to what I already knew to be reality. The book of Job depicts this when a conversation occurs in the Throne Room of God and then physical consequences of said conversation play out on earth. If was my wife who uttered the truth, there is not a single thing that occurs in the physical realm that has not already occurred in the spiritual realm.

That’s what a pilgrimage is. That’s what penance is. That’s what purgatory is for those who run away from the truth and grace of God during their physical life. It’s penance after death. We all understand for mysterious reasons that a pilgrimage is a journey of some sort, where we will process through whatever it is that sent us on the pilgrimage, and it will result in some sort of revelation or healing. Penance is what we all have to do when we broke something that belongs to someone else, because of our own actions, be them intentional or unintentional. The truth of this exists no matter where we are. The courts of restitution where we pay to make things right, or time taken from us in payment of our actions. It is noteworthy that the time that is taken from us is not given to the person for home the time was taken from us.

The over-the-top long-winded story above is intended to help the reader understand themselves and for the reader to evaluate the credibility of the messenger, me. The glory belongs to God alone for all of it. I am nothing like qualified for the calling He has and be it in accordance with His will and not mine. His will and His will alone do I seek in sharing any of what is shared.

This method, best portrayed in Field of Dreams, of hearing from God is one of the methods through which God works through me. I’ll label it, “I heard from the heavens.” This is the first time I have bothered to describe and label the method. Prior to this, I had no need to name it. The words come through to me as something like one-liners. Field of Dreams portrays it visually in the clearest depiction I have encountered. They come very clearly into my head, most often through or in the middle of conversations with others where what He wants me to hear is verbalized and it’ll stop me mid-sentence to process what just happened.

The most recent one, “Go back to where it all started,” happened in a setting where that guidance was given to a patient and her husband as my first patient of the morning while having a pre-med student shadow on what I would later learn to be the last time I will see him for the foreseeable future. My time with him closed with both of us realizing the power of the statement we both understood while it was being revealed. Others include, “Let the side battles play out,” “Brace yourself,” ”It’s all connected” and the one that created such a wall of awful that God sent me an Aaron (my publisher Gary) “Write the narrative.”

The last one shifted a few times to “Remember that narrative, I told you to write?” and then to “Would you please right the frigging narrative already!” That was last July. Gary dumped a book on my lap that we published in December.

I didn’t even get to talk about what happened at the Stations of the Cross. The first reading by the students brought me to tears. “Go back to where it all started.” The song choice with each of the stations was divine. The song with the first station melted me. I can’t even remember what song was played. I don’t have it in me to type all this out right now as I believe the multiple epiphanies that came through it will be the worthier narratives. I’ll share one.

The largest failure of my life was not receiving the spiritual headship of my family, and then raising my sons in the Church. That narrative is for another day. What I heard while at the stations of the cross was, “Go back to where it all started” again only this time it includes my wife and I taking our sons, now both adults, to the stations of the cross next week. I just now realize, it is how God begins to manifest my (and likely a multitude of others prayers) prayers of restoring my family’s inheritance and the blessing upon them, that which is the fullness of the Catholic Church that is so massive through my family’s spiritual ancestry as to make it something like that’s my church. The spiritual ancestry is the topic of a multitude of future posts and an uncountable series of, “I heard from he heavens.” Allow me to elaborate. I know, you’re used to that now.

Last October, for reasons I don’t fully understand, God put it on my heart to begin to claim the blessing for my children and to start to intentionally pray barriers of protection for them, to begin to pray actively for the woman that God is preparing for them both. I had started this prayer process for my eldest son 7 years ago when he went off to Michigan State University. My second son just turned 18 and I have learned from my past failures. I came across a new album put out by Kari Jobe called the Blessing. The song, the blessing just called to me to worship and go to prayer. “Go back to where it all started” comes to my mind now as I am literally having another epiphany of “It’s all connected.” It’s been a strange day. My life shifted the night of the live release of the Nativity episode of the series The Chosen where at the end, Mary Magdalene is smuggled by Luke to Mother Mary to record the Nativity that Mary had not shared up to that point The show closes with a candle lighting scene where Mary is in her bed, eyes closed, praying the prayer of Numbers 6:24-26. I was shocked because I didn’t know the song the Blessing was nothing more than reading scripture while worshipping. I have come to know when this happens, the power cannot be fully described. I eventually met the guy who did the lighting in that scene of The Chosen over a period of three days at an encounter in Dallas, that was part of the First Dallas Pilgrimage narrative.

I was awakened that night at about midnight with very clear words, “Go learn about your grandfather.” Ok then, there’s no point in even trying to go back to sleep. I got up, turned on the Ancestry and went to work. 3 hours later, on this very late night of December 3, I now understand how the prayers of my father working through his long life running from God on earth manifested. My father passed away April 11, 2020 while I was working in Nyack New York in the middle of the COVID bubble in a hospital that was wrecked by COVID. That narrative is found in my book Alive Again. I’m quite sure there will be plenty more to come from that 32 days. I barely scratched the surface of it thus far. Anyway, my father’s birthday is December 5^th.

My father introduced me to my grandfather in a manner that is my version of how Jack Kinsella prompted his son to introduce him to his grandfather, and thereby helped heal a hardened heart of a son, so that he could establish a complete and full relationship with his earthly father, and in so doing pave the way for the reconnecting of the son’s relationship and now I realize as well, the grandson’s relationship with their Heavenly Father. Wow… I gotta let that settle in for a minute.

That night, God, through my grandfather, introduced me to one of my great-grandfathers Sir Walter D’Autun in 1170, who is the first “Dalton” and patriarch of every Dalton from Ireland. and the Irish Legend (Pure Irish History and Truth) of his wife, a princes of France. I went to sleep three hours after my “I heard from the heavens” wake-up call 95% certain I was directly descended from Louis VI, King of France. My existence shifted that night. I now know this lineage to be 100% truth, and a topic for some other time, again. This one is likely content for it’s own book, because it was also the beginning of what I had tentatively called, “The epiphany spiritual ancestry.”

The culmination of the last 15 months is the narrative of the deliverance of my father’s prodigal grandchildren by “take them back to where it all should have started” and “A global reset” Ugg.

I have to keep this one short. My beautiful bride and I are both children of prodigal Catholic son fathers and mothers of protestant background. Neither of us ever entered the divine order of the Catholic Church through the sacraments. My eldest brother was baptized late, but my parents did not raise us in the Church. For me, not being raised in any church, I was the equivalent of being spiritually abandoned, left to “figure it out on my own.” This narrative is more assuredly not appropriate for this particular narrative, except what is necessary here.

Let us return to Field of Dreams and the messages that Ray receives.

As I said, they’re something like one-liners. As I share them going forward in the context of events, they serve to connect what is happening at the time with what I heard in the past or what was recently told to me.

The most recent one, “Go back to where it all started” has led to some doozy revelations. Another one is “It’s all connected” and “Don’t bother trying to understand your wife, learn about your Church, and I’ll take care of guiding your wife. Understand and your heavenly bride so that you can understand your perfect blessing of your earthly bride.” That one was a couple days ago, and I’m still working through the WHOA….

It was last week, while traveling to mass that I began to seriously ponder how this works. What does an answered prayer look like? Recall from a previous post of the mother’s answered prayer for a lost son manifesting through me. I’ll discuss how this sequence worked momentarily. Finding this at the bottom of the now 13 pages of single spaced-full page reading, recall what I said above.

“If you build it, he will come.”

I think it is much more intense than we can begin to fathom, but will soon understand for God is revealing himself to His chosen people again, so that they may turn their eyes back toward Him from the idols they have erected in His place that have enslaved us all.

I can find no other explanation to the manner in which I heard from the Heavens can be explained or attributed as anything other than divinely inspired and originating from the kingdom of Heaven. I request someone to come up with a better explanation to help test the authenticity of the messenger and thereby testing the message’s authenticity. Am I a trustworthy messenger and is what God is revealing through me trustworthy?

“Go back to where it all started”

Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace

Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.

Logging out,

Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ
Authenticate the Messenger and the Epiphany of Silicon Valley Bank – 3-11-2023

March 11th, 2023

This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.

How do I “validate the messenger?” I suspect I will have to get more intentional about the necessity of this as time progresses. I think I would ask that none of the readers of this blog use my real identity, if it is known, in sharing this blog with others (another epiphany that took place while writing the six articles). Please do not reveal the identities of people included here for their privacy and mine. I have tried to protect it as best as I can. It is not to be considered secret. It is to be considered worthy of discretion.

Let them develop a sense of who I am by their own path of discovery. I’m sure it won’t be a huge mystery, but the strange of the spiritual realm is that demons only have the knowledge of the heavens available to them up to the point of their following satan out the door. After that, they can only know what they have learned in their own travels.

Don’t underestimate their angelic level intellect and the 2000 year desire to destroy everything God did for us, through Christ being crucified on the cross, the arrival of the Holy Spirit as our helper, and the building of the tradition and history of the Church Christ himself started through Peter. They have a lot more experience than we can fathom, but demons also behave like a bunch of middle school bullies on the playground at lunch. Their tactics have not changed in the same 2000 years.

Let us make the middle school playground a parable so that we can visualize from a place of common understanding as we all traveled that nightmare in our own discombobulated way. One method to prevent the middle school bullies from taking over the playground is to not share with the middle school bullies who the real physical threat is should they try to make their intentions known when the teachers on lunch duty have their back turned. They’ll pick a fight with the new kid on the playground because the new kid in town must be taught who is in charge.

If they learn through reckless and unbridled tongues sending out words without discretion, the ever-listening ears of the minions of people being used by the bully’s informers and lackies will hear that the new kid in town is nothing like someone to be messed with. The bully will change the tactics from pure strength and to social and use of the bureaucracy of the school administration. The opportunity to remove the bullies from the playground will be lost or will result in them setting a trap for the new kid that results in the new kid being removed from the playground and the resumption of the previous hierarchy of power. If you’re reading this blog and following it, you’re the new kid on the playground. Talk less. Listen more. One learns by listening, reading, and watching, not by talking. Questions help, but annoying questions are always annoying, and they can reveal a great deal about the one asking the question. The most glaring truth is that they didn’t do their homework, because had they done what was assigned, they would have already had their question answered.

Yes, I am also a new kid on the playground, even though I have been attacked by swarms of people my entire life, one time attacked by a single cowardly individual with a swarm of kids, because of the lackey informers inside the building, during lunch on the playground when the teacher on duty was clearly distracted. I’ve also been attacked by swarms of people over e-mails and in phone calls recently because of COVID, only the recent stuff is the cult leader sending the swarms out in hopes of destroying me. If you think it can’t happen to you after you start believing what is likely true, you’re already being deceived. The forces of darkness will be dispatched quickly, and with overwhelming force should you decide you’d like to join the battle. The battle my wife and I endured in our time going through the Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults from Sept 2022 through April 2023 was like nothing we have ever experienced, and the previous two years were already doozies. It included an endless stream of beauty of God revealing his Church to us but sprinkled with some of the most brutal spiritual battles at each of the stages I have ever seen, and I have seen plenty to compare.

All those attacks in the past, and those who were there will recall are but a mere pittance compared to the last year of our lives. Loose lips sink ships. Operational Security is critical to mission success. Idiots with matches are just as dangerous as arsonists. Repeat offender idiots with matches are actually really well trained arsonists, and we don’t learn of their true identity until they have set many fires and left a path of destruction in their wake that only becomes visible to the masses after the work of the trained investigators. Please don’t be an idiot with matches.

So how do I validate the messenger? I find that the same stream of words provided appear multiple times in the day I first heard it and the days following. The words also apply concretely and perfectly to the first situation that the words were revealed and then proceed to apply in an identical fashion to a multitude of situations. The “Go back to where it all started” has turned into a layer cake I have yet to have a frame of reference that can equally compare. I felt called to ask my wife to go with me to a game store in the mall where I came across the supply of lava lamps I have never seen in this store and to attend a presentation of the Stations of the Cross put on by the youth of our church during the season of lent. This is the first time we have attended this, and for mysterious reasons had been prevented from attending the previous two Fridays. She begrudgingly agreed, because she had finally been able to settle in on a Friday for the weekend, which was going to be one with rain and snow intermittently. The enemy attacks her through the physical often, especially in seeking to prevent something glorious from happening. The symptoms resolve every single time after the glory starts revealing itself. She becomes aware of it most of the time, but sometimes it takes longer for her to break through the barrier the enemy has built around her.

It was strange watching her reaction to the lava lamp. She accidentally broke my lava lamp I had bought in Frankfurt Germany in 1996 after she joined me in Germany in December 1997 after we were married in November. It was important to me. I was disappointed by it, but nothing like angry. It had a European electrical plug, so it would have been rendered useless here anyway. She had no idea how to even fathom my response. She waited for me to get blazingly angry at her or something and when I didn’t have the response, she had come to expect for reasons I am not fully aware, it perplexed her. It was a silly lamp to me. Nothing more, but for some reason, that event lingered around my head. I know it lingered around in hers much deeper. It was also the first in a 25-year journey of her accidentally breaking things of mine. It would seem like carelessness, but now I understand that to be the same forces of darkness trying to destroy our marriage, by starting a fight, but also by keeping her in a perpetual state of fear of my disappointment of the news of something I value being broken by her actions. This is actually another epiphany right now as I process and type this.

We purchased the $40 lava lamp quite quickly in the store and left. We chose this lamp together. I had actually said, I want to replace the one that was broken. She nodded in a strange agreement that doesn’t happen often in this manner. It also fit perfectly into the whole epiphany, “Go back to where it all started” as I only just now process the tactics of the enemy that have existed in my home to try and destroy my wife by her clumsiness, which can reach epic proportions, in that it keeps her in a perpetual state of fear of disappointment caused for me.

I can literally feel our entire interaction shifting right now as she is surfing her Instagram and brings up a bank failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the ensuing conversation while staring at the lava lamp bubbling in the corner. This is the largest bank failure in the United States with 175 billion dollars. Much of their money was not insured by the FDIC but was backed by overseas deposits. They raised a ton of cash during COVID going from 60 billion prior to COVID to nearly 209 billion in total assets two years later. It is being compared to Washington Mutual in 2008, that was limited to individuals, SVB is not about individuals, but about businesses, with nearly all of their deposits exceeding the FDIC limit of $250,000.

WTH just happened?… This. Is. How. The fall starts… the house of cards is about to collapse… Wanna read this and delay your relationship with God? We are in a time of consequential choices like never before. Foreign deposits… China… the CCP just started the next phase of the build-up of their war: the financial collapse of the tech capital of the Silicon Valley. The tactics of the CCP against the United States are discernable through a lens of envy of a country by those in the highest positions of the government. Their spiritual identity is also critically important. Ask yourself what the spiritual identity is of a head of a country when the people put on dragon costumes and dance and parade through the streets. It’s described as veneration of a dragon when the people put on a costume to perform for the pleasure of the ruler. Do the math.

Expect the headlines in the coming days to have plenty of evidence of the CCP boasting in the amazing economic recovery of China’s tech sector as they begin to deploy their Global Psychological Operation infrastructure with the goal of stealing the belief tha the Silicon Valley in the United States is the tech capital of the world to that of the world having their beliefs changed to think the China is really the true capital of tech for the world. Piracy of hearts and minds of the planet. There’s another epiphany related to this particular choice of words that happened while my wife and I were on one of the most beautiful weekend excursions we have ever had, that included one of the worst fights we have ever had, that occurred the night before our Rite of Acceptance into the Catholic Church, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Yup. It’s that fragging big. Suffice to say these epiphany of streams of thought that I try to describe as “I heard from the heavens” are nothing like small. I have learned to get really quiet and let God reveal what He wants when they happen. This is one of likely dozens or more that have happened the last two years.

Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.

Logging out,

Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ

Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace

PS – File in your brain, April 13, 2024. The day our lives were changed forever, as stated on Star Trek Picard I’m watching while going back through and editing the material.
I was chased out of a Cathedral basement by a nun, who lead me to the front door.

March 5th, 2023

I was chased out of the basement of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento by a nun who personally walked me to the front door. Yes. I was chased into a church by a nun.

I had been trying to get physically inside that church since Thanksgiving weekend last November when we were passing through. The night I failed to get in through the side door of that Cathedral was the night of the worst fight of our marriage. I’m talking, mysteriously bad. We also were to attend the Rite of Acceptance at St Rose the next morning. That’s when one who seeks to become a Catholic leaves the gathering information phase of courting and spiritually becomes something like betrothed to their new bride and are added to the pending adoption list of the Church. More on this another day, but it is nothing to be trifled with. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, where I had traveled to the Oakland Cathedral for a mass that was for the anointing of the sick. I was put on by the Knights of Malta, co-attended by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, and it was like nothing I can even describe. I’ll share later. Anyway, I had actually met the janitor out front, but the church was closed at 6pm on a Friday night. He had to get home to his new baby. I have had guardian angels of churches let me in the side door more than a dozen times up to this point This time, I was told no. It was odd that the navigation also kept navigating me down an alleyway that I refused to follow, because who goes to a Cathedral by being navigated down smelly alleys. Mysteriously, God had placed a Catholic Police Officer right out front. I actually stopped and talked to him briefly. We talked for a few minutes, and then I went on my way, totally perplexed. I walked down the pedestrian block to the capitol building and could feel myself being repelled back away from the capitol building that looked and felt like a warzone. More on this whole pilgrimage later.

The next day, on returning home from the mass in Oakland, I stopped again. Of course, I didn’t let the navigation tell me to go down that alley. The church was closed. Again. WTH? Ok, now I was frustrated. I walked around the building looking for a side door or something, praying. I ended up down in the alley.. and two elderly people walked up a ramp from a door leading into the basement of the Cathedral… Umm….is that door open and does it go into the church? Yep. Are you kidding me, God? The basement? That’s a new level of mystery and is way better than a side door. Anyway, I popped through the door into a meeting area with a half dozen people sitting around a table. I glanced in their direction, and then turned and walked through the door the other way. My life travels in the army mostly have taught me that if you simply look like you are supposed to be there, and walk fast, no one will stop you. It was true this time as well. I hoped for a restroom, found them locked, and ran into a deadend of a hallway. I turn back, and there’s the nun. Can I help you? You can imagine this from her side. I have also learned to wear my crucifix on the outside for a dozen reasons. This is one of them. It says I am safe, but likely lost wandering in a basement of a Cathedral, caught red handed in my shenaniganry by a nun no-less. My father would be proud. Anyway, I told her I have been trying to get physically into this church for months. She said the Church will open to being preparing for mass at 3, which was probably 20 minutes from now. She guided me straight to the front door of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. There was a man who had the same body structure standing there waiting too. he was a pretty rotund guy and might as well have been the doppelganger of the one from last night. I spoke to him as though he was. After a couple minutes, we clarified that he wasn’t, and the door was unlocked by the true maintenance man, or as I have come to KNOW, the one guided personally by the Guardian of the Church. Because of course it’s him.
What I now just realized happened through that glorious day, that took place a few hours after the most profound spiritual event I had ever witnessed in Oakland, that occurred in the middle of an epiphany/vision, “heard from the heavens” that I need not enter through the basement or side door ever again. The front door will always be opened for you when you require. I just now realize this. It also resulted in two separate and lengthy blog posts today
When the two of us were let in the Cathedral, I proceeded from the narthex (entry vestibule, but bigger) into the Nave. In my travels before finding the Catholic Church, I would have referred to this as the auditorium and indeed it would be appropriate to use this word to describe many evangelical/protestant churches. Here, I intentionally use the term Nave because that is what it is called. I stepped in and all word, thought, and even breath left me. It was replaced with the breath of life that fills the church on the next inhalation. It was the most beautiful building I have ever seen in my life.

I’ve been in the United States Capitol Building. I’ve been to the National Archives in the room where the Foundation Documents of the United States reside. Those places simply command silence, sometimes with shooshing or security guards screaming or nagging. The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, in the city of Sacramento, the capital city of the biggest blessing God bestowed upon the US in the form of California, which contains the California missions with Churches that are indescribable, did not command silence. This Church made silence.

This Cathedral didn’t contain a mere three founding documents, it contained images, painted on the ceiling of three writers of gospels of Christ, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Don’t ask me why the fourth one where John should have resided was/is blank.

This Church didn’t contain an empty dome with leaders of this country and pillars of Roman stone. This dome has the Holy Spirit at the apex, covering over the savior of mankind suspended in time, crucified on a cross, pouring out His blood, over the alter of His Sacrifice, for a priest to transubstantiate the hosts into the body and blood of Christ for all who are willing to let the one who created everything fix our broken self, lives, and family, every single day, for the remainder of the physical existence of this Cathedral
Why? Because our Heavenly Father loves us just that much. And to think, this all took place because a nun, who gave up everything for a lifetime, which we recklessly take for granted in the form of our children and families to serve others, recognized a seeking heart who sort of snuck into the basement of her church and obediently lead me almost by hand, with so much kindness to the front door of this Cathedral, on that day.

The night before, I met a homeless guy outside the Archdiocese Church in San Francisco about midnight. He was raised Catholic. He hadn’t talked to his mother in 3 months. He had been homeless for six months. He said he was waiting to go into the church until things were better, maybe a bit cleaner. I gave him the $7 I had in my pocket after talking to him for a bit on the steps leading into the “basement” of one of the most beautiful Churches I have ever seen. He lived in a tent across the street.

Talk about a prodigal son story, he did not even make it across the street from his Home in his attempt to run away from Home before he plopped down and set up his own packed tent and belongings stinking of pig feces.
One of the things that was put clearly on my heart to share with him, after I found out he was Catholic, was that someone must be praying their ass off for you. Your mom is probably on her face weeping tears for you right now. Go Home. Walk in the door tomorrow and simply ask them to help you get Home.

What people often fail to understand is that the homelessness that surrounds Catholic Churches across the planet and likely fills towns is actually the physical manifestation of the prodigal children of the Church. Reno has lots of lost children. It’s easy to judge the Church in her opulence and beauty thinking that man spent money on that without recognizing that God spent the money for us, each and every one of us. This gets really easy to do looking from the outside of the Church, especially at the level of the Vatican, and then attempt to point fingers and slander the Church. What those pointing their fingers and judging should really ask themselves is if they’re actually looking at a mirror in the homeless person sleeping on the curb across the street from their Church.

All the prodigal children need to do is turn around and walk across the street in the front door of the Church, and She will receive them as the story shows, with open arms and a return celebration. Wow.

Having an epiphany now. Sacramento, California and the state of California as a whole are a mess. The governor is a fool, walking in the wilderness in ways we can’t even articulate. The speaker of the House had her husband’s skull nearly caved in as consequence of likely his, hers, and their marriage prodigal child story. It had gotten so bad in her loss of even listening anymore for the Church to talk to her that the Church formally stopped talking to her demonstrated by being formally excommunicated by the Archbishop of San Francisco after ten years of ignoring repeated requests for communication by the priesthood up to and including the Archbishop of San Francisco and efforts to get her to come back Home to the Church.

My heart broke for her when her husband was nearly beaten to death. The manner in which people responded to what occurred is proof of what lay outside the Church. I was terribly similar to the visual portrayal of Aslan being marched off by the White Witch to be sacrificed on the alter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was purely demonic. For good reason, I am lead to believe that being excommunicated shook her to the core, reason of which may be revealed another time. And of course, the demonic came back again when she flew to the Vatican a couple days later.
The problem is, the young homeless guy sitting on the steps of the basement side door was closer to coming home than Nancy Pelosi in the physical sense. They sat on the equivalent of opposite ends of the spectrum of all things in the world we can describe, yet when both had finally started to become aware of how much they smelled like pig feces of sin and self, they both wanted the same thing. They both wanted to come Home. One took an airplane across the ocean to take her case to the Vatican itself.

Any bets on which “homeless person” sleeping on a bench across the street from the Vatican was saving Nancy Pelosi’s place in line at the front door? The other prodigal child had the prayers of his mother finally answered when they broke through his stench when God dispatched me, from a different state to meet him exactly where he was in a manner where I would not be surprised if he never tells anyone what happened while sincerely wondering if an angel had manifested to him, because of a pilgrimage that included four diocese cathedrals in 12 hours leading to me attending a mass, that my sponsor into the Catholic Church, Michael, who had a kind little old man in his 90s mysteriously appear out of nowhere in the tomb of Saint Peter at the Vatican on September 30, 2022, in the basement of Saint Peter’s Basilica, at the end of the Tour of Keys, which he had finally decided to go on during his sixth time visiting the Vatican that started at 4 AM with two hours of unrestricted near private access of 10 people, where the little really old man appears seemingly out of nowhere and starts a conversation, after Michael was in prayer for an unknown period of time, by putting his elderly hand on his shoulder asking him, “What troubles you child,” where previously he was totally alone with the entrance in his field of view while being surrounded by the tombs of numerous Popes, where the same kind elderly man with the red cap and red buttons, responds to his revealing that his Catechumin (me) is having visions and he wants to get me something from the gift store of the Vatican, who then says that he knows exactly what to give me, and then leads him through the passage the Pope walks to go to mass to the gift shop where he asks the Nun to get him a Benedictus medal, for which my sponsor asked him how much and of course said, please nothing, and blessed the medal, who then shared a couple things for him to share with me regarding warnings that his visions are to be taken as true and there will be those he needs to be cautious of that will seek to take advantage of these visions, where then Michael went about his way to find his family in the Vatican and took the medal to be blessed by the Pope, of whom the little old guy in a red cap with red buttons, whose identity was forgotten by Michael until the Wednesday after his return, something near the sixth or seventh week into RCIA, when Michael shared the identity of the kind little old man in the red cap and red buttons to be Cardinal Segio Seebastiani, current head priest of the Society of Hospitallers, whose sponsor Michael invited me to attend, because Michael is aware of some of the other mysterious events/visions/epiphanies that have and are transpiring for and through me, to attend the anointing of the sick mass with the Society of Hospitallers, also known as the Knights of Malta, who were putting on the mass the next day, that invited members of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, of which Michael is a member while himself never having met a Knight of Malta prior to this event, to find this 27 year old prodigal son sitting hopelessly on the steps perfectly positioned while I was talking on my phone to a dear friend in Texas witnessing the whole thing take place of which there was a lot more, who also heard the exchange between us while on the phone waiting for me, whose wife was brought to tears and prayer in Texas at 2AM their time, to bring this prodigal son home soon, safely. As I just typed all that out of nowhere, I would probably fall over dead if this young man is not home safely right now starting the process of cleaning up the mess that he made when he ran away from Home.

And people wonder how much God loves each and every one of us. Just that much. We think we are not worthy of having an army, or a rescue party sent out for us after we made some stupid choices hiking, or we wandered off in the wilderness. The thing is, the reason I have seen the exact same level of resources available for each and every one of us sick and in danger in a hospital bed at the push of a button or the detection of a fatal rhythm from some hidden room in the heart of the hospital where some stranger is sitting watch overnight to be there to sound the alarm when something goes wrong. I have been entrusted to be the one who leads those response teams in the middle of the night as a physician in my professional life.

I hadn’t really planned to share this fact at this time, but as I am apparently processing a multitude of other events connected to this, it seemed appropriate. I think it best to limit that narrative to a specific portion though. It’s not the proper time to share the fullness of the story yet. I think the pertinent fact to be shared is that I learned about the Crusader Order, the Society of Hospitallers, in my last class of my Master’s of Public Health studies from Benedictine University after realizing the content of my final course in healthcare administration was utter nonsense two chapters in. I went reference diving and found a book called Mending Bodies and Saving Souls – A History of Hospitals. In reading that back in 2009-2012 or so as the density of it was brutal, I discovered a profound, deep and heart felt connection to them. I didn’t know why, but fascination does not properly describe it. I had a patient show up about 9 months ago in the clinic to be treated for COVID and the woman who had brought her opened the door for me into the Church that blew my mind. She asked me if I was Malta. Umm… you mean the Society of Hospitallers? Yes. No, but talk about a professional dream of mine. “I can get you in touch with them.” What just happened in my life? I had no idea what was to come. Apparently, God needed someone to bring home a prodigal son knocking on a basement door as part of his pilgrimage that included starting a conversation with a fellow physician who is a physician in the Society of Hospitallers and my time with him is what I had always believed the relationship between physicians is supposed to feel like. Pure. Unadulterated. Safe. It was the first time I have ever experienced it. The very same one who was chased out of the basement of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament by a nun who guided me to the front door.

The few stories I shared above are but a tiny piece of my pilgrimage to Oakland. The mysterious is my daily existence for the last two years in this sort of magnitude…. And of course, in my playlist of a life, God turns up the volume on the worship song by Kari Jobe called, “The Blessing” which is where this whole journey Home started in about October of 2021 when I started worshipping to this song and praying to reclaim the blessing and praying the blessing over my children and family…Praise God and his mysterious and infinite glory, goodness, and faithfulness. May I bring Home safely the multitudes of prodigal children, and be my will align with His will.

Please understand, there factually was not enough time for me to physically write this story myself, because the story of the Nun was but one chapter from a pilgrimage/epiphany among a book of chapters from a library collection of narratives. I was told to write the narrative probably in April or May of 2022.

Welcome to my existence of Christ through me. It’s nothing like easy for me or others, especially my wife. but the glory of God that he bestows upon and through me is something I cannot fathom that he would choose me for anything like this, or anything like what seems to be coming.

A mother asked for a miracle for her lost son. God answered her prayers

I am nothing like worthy.
I hear from the heavens

March 5th, 2023

A week ago, I was watching Maverick with my family for the who knows what number time. The ending scene comes on. Now, I have seen the ending of the movie prior to this each time we watched. Of course, I have seen the character playing Penny standing at the side of the Porsche after Maverick notices her daughter and turns to see that she came looking for him. Recall the previous scene where he went chasing where he had reconnected with the one that got away only to find she had left. He does a predictable, well shit. Alrighty then, back to the hanger, alone in the desert, decorated with the various memories and tombs of his beautiful private, self- constructed alter/prison to his past and the biggest failure of his life, as he sees it. It seems like a cliche of a love story, but this scene is nothing of a cliche. Allow me to explain. Might as well get comfortable, I’m not a man of few words, and my sentences are sometimes more like a stream of a thought than a sentence structure we learned in high school. I’m ok with that.

I have always been one to enjoy Tom Cruise movies. I’m nothing like a “fan”, but for some reason, there isn’t a movie that he has been involved in that I have not enjoyed at a much deeper level than I was aware. One of the first movies where I really connected with the character that Tom Cruise himself is and portrays on stage was the movie, Cocktail. It’s Brilliant. I was also freshly out of the army around the time I found this movie.

In Maverick, Tom Cruise, portraying the character Peter “Maverick” Mitchell had spent the last 30 years carrying the burden of the death of Goose with him in a manner which he had no business doing. Through is burden, he deceptively with good intention hindered the potential of Rooster, son of Goose at the request of Rooster’s mother, without explanation to Rooster why he was enduring such activity. Maverick refused to ever step into a position of leadership, despite being the sort of warrior every single one of us would want by our side in battle, and would most assuredly have followed into battle. Iceman was the sort of warrior none of us would want by our side, yet Iceman had risen to the rank of Admiral and was the Commander of Naval Forces in the Pacific.

One previous person who held the same rank was Admiral Chester Nimitz during WWII. Admiral Nimitz is also the namesake of the class of Aircraft Carrier that is the foundation of the entirety of the might of the United States across the planet. Ten nuclear powered aircraft carriers have come from the class.

If I further ponder the depth of complexity of narratives hidden within the movie, one of the primary narratives is a beautiful story of how a fallen, cold hearted, arrogant, ass of a man so bold as to have a callsign of “Iceman” can be redeemed. That redemption happens immediately in the movie Top Gun of course, but let us consider what that looks like for each and every one of us. I’m sure it was bumpy for “Iceman” coming out of the mess he had made through his sinful arrogance, and pursuit of self. I’m sure it required untold reconciliation of relationships that had hindered him prior to the movie. We are often unaware of the path of destruction we leave in our wake, because we are too busy looking ahead of us or around us, but we don’t often look behind us. Some people spend their entire lives looking at the wake. To the best of my understanding, Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise have remained friends since Top Gun. Even the texts between the two in that movie scream of a multitude of complex conversations about the complexity of life they both have to live. TC-“You should have told me.” VK-“Would you have come?” None of us accept the invitations to our redemption. Add Val Kilmer actually having throat cancer during the filming period of the movie, and man oh man did God send out a rescue party for Tom Cruise. He sent Batman for crying out loud. In jest a bit, but this is exactly how God works through others for our deliverance from our sins and our past to get us to the cross. Friends will reach out and say are you ok? We go to some sort of retreat with some degree of childish temper tantrum where all of our distractions that have kept us not realizing how bad we stink are peeled away. I have my own dose of terrible that delivered me to the cross, and it came through my wife’s suffering. She’s my very own Penny, beaten and bloodied by her past as well, but God kept chasing me for the 17 years required for me to stop running. Since my own deliverance, I have seen some doozies of others as well through a ministry that was responsible for God opening a door of my own path, and have endured some gnarly attacks from people in response God working through me. The victories are worth every scar I have from those battles, because the grace of God broke through to meet them where they were as their own prodigal child story.

Here’s the thing with the two characters It is also the story of how much we can limit ourselves by living in the tombs and monuments of the sins of our past, not because of the choices of anyone else, but because of our own decision to allow the ruinous self-pity take hold of our lives. Make no mistake though, the evil that pollutes our world will do everything in their divine intelligence level skillset to keep us right there in the middle of the tombs. They can look like beautiful private hangers of pristine cleanliness full of high value toys.

Unfortunately, it is really difficult to realize what we’re doing to ourselves and others. In the movies, God sends a woman to redeem a fallen man, or a man to redeem a fallen woman. In the case of Maverick, God sends Penny, the character that is portrayed by Jennifer Connelly. At 52, she looks great, almost like she’s able to take him back to the younger Tom Cruise, back to a time before life got so screwed up and complicated. Her real life biography is one that matches identically the sort of woman required to be sent to bring a man like Tom Cruise home safely. Stay conceptually with me..

The more I process the scene while writing this, the more I see this as the perfect portrayal of how the Catholic Church chases us all. Yes, it is the Catholic Church chasing us. She certainly can chase us into protestant churches in the long journey Home, but the true Home of the fullness of Christ described in Ephesians 3:19 is only found in the Church, as it has always been referred. This movie portrays with a pretty good degree of conceptual accuracy the position that Mary, mother of Christ holds in the complexity of a redemption story.

Anyone who thinks that a man is capable of redeeming themselves without the work of a woman need only look at what happens when a bachelor is delivered from their disgusting single life apartment living without a woman to love them, and the woman being courted sees the apartment for the first time. She immediately starts to want to clean up the mess of his home. The same is true in the spiritual realm. That’s a never ending source of comedy material in redemption of idiot man movies.

Interestingly, it was revealed to me last Tuesday, that it was Mary whom the first Apostle, starting with Peter, had to go to Mary to reconcile with Christ while Christ lay dead in the tomb. They had to go crawling back to His Mother to regroup for it was Mary who sent out the various rescue parties to gather the scattered Apostles. It was Mary who first watched HER ONL Y SON!!! endure what He did, who then had to endure the betrayal of all the apostles except John when they all scattered. It isn’t that Mary is the reason for our salvation, it is that the complexity of our daily walk in this earth is nothing like simple for us to find our salvation in Christ. The physical crucifixion, the Wedding at Cana, the endless miracles that Jesus perfumed were the physical manifestation of what had already occurred in the spiritual realm. Only here, consider that Jesus was down in Hades doing whatever it is that he had to do there, while Mary was the one who STARTED the process of putting the Apostles back together, through her tears, hugs, love, and most importantly her grace extended to them for their betrayal of her son, so that when they saw Christ after his resurrection, they could stand in front of him knowing they had also fallen short for her, but that had been dealt with. She has always been considered the adopted mother of the Apostles and mother of the Church through her son, but also through her adopted motherhood in the decades following the Passion of Christ.

Back to Maverick. Do we think the character of Maverick isn’t Tom Cruise standing there doing the same thing? We all can look at the narrative of his life and his burdens should be blazingly obvious. Just remember you’re looking at a mirror. Be careful thinking you’re less of a sinful stinky human being that he is. It’s hard to understand the burdens of those in positions of influence like he is. He is a never-ending target of the enemy seeking to use him and all that is him to prevent him from finding the fullness of Christ. The enemy really likes to use fans for the same purposes.

Anyone want to tell the doubting Thomas Cruise that he should stop accepting movie invites to be another impossible mission. Penny would probably argue there’s nothing impossible about “Maverick” He only need to invite Penny into his pristine private hanger and see what she can do to clean up the Bachelor pad. He only need walk in the front door of the Church. The lights were left on. The Church will take care of the details, for each of us too.

But why do I go down these seemingly strange side story tangents? It was an epiphany that started today in mass that lead to revelation of the title of the post. I thought I was going to write a post to start helping others to understand how this all happens for me, but God had other plans. Did I mention it isn’t so easy sometimes to stop accidentally intending to make something about us? He apparently wanted me to start with the redemption story that came through the song and scene at the end of the movie. I also wrote the story of the magnitude of God’s love for each and every one of us. That’s for posting later, but the editing that occurred in the split of the two articles ended with unpredictably with the final cut and paste resulting in ” I am nothing like worthy.” being front and center.

In God’s faithfulness and relentless pursuit of each and every one of us that, on this playthrough of Maverick, that God broke through one of the obstacles I had been recently wrestling with, through the music of Lady Gaga. I have found her music to be clearly guided by God and the heavens since the day I learned she was raised Catholic. I was stunned. That doesn’t line up with my world view of her. Strange. I was nothing like Catholic when I learned this. I was certainly on the journey home. It was while she was singing on a stage with 4-5 presidents seated before her at I cannot even recall what event, or why I was watching for that matter. She had said we all need a little more Jesus, and my entire frame of reference of her shifted dimensions. What? Well shit yes. And a Catholic uttered these words. I didn’t know they said these things. More on that another time. I didn’t understand when that happened, why that happened for me. I learned why that day at the end of the movie when Hold My Hand started playing. I nearly fell apart in tears in a way I did not see coming.

Hold My Hand, by Lady Gaga is a song that portrays what it looks like to stop running from our heavenly father as prodigal children. Take my hand, He tells us. The song closes with, I heard from the Heavens.

I too hear from the Heavens. Often. It is indescribable. I am not worthy of such a blessing.
How people like putin, and countries ruled by people like him operate, and ruin that which is most important to us.

February 26th, 2023

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/26/7391035/

This was written in response to the article posted above on Reddit. May God and the multitudes of His angel army stop the evil intentions of Russia upon their lands, without waver.

I had never really visualized what is now happening in this manner up to this point. Numerous countries whom the Russians sold their weapons of war in exchange for a strange and shaky allegiance are now sending those weapons to the Ukraine with a “Return to Sender” notice for which the very weapons the Russians used to destabilize the world with global arms races are now being used against them.

It’s almost as though each and every piece of machinery that these counties send back results in the methodical removal of the stench of evil of the Putin Regime that was given safe harbor by these countries. Consider the implication of removal of these weapons of war. No more need for phone calls for parts. No more need for communications for infrastructure for maintenance, the physical space required to house them is now made available for something else, maybe even said country asking it’s own engineers within to design and build their own defensive capabilities.

Putin operates by controlling people and countries with the “gifts” he lavishes upon them. Look at how he behaves with his oligarchs when they have their lavishes seized. It’s almost as though once the oligarchs have had the chains of Putin pried from their white-knuckled grasp, they wake up and realize they don’t need him, don’t really like him anyway, and they are set free. Then he pays someone to push them out a hospital window. Talk about the nuisance child down the street ruining all the children and families on the street with his petulant temper tantrums and efforts to manipulate the neighborhood, Wow.

The entire child power structure of the neighborhood will have been under a fog of Vlad the Putin. Picture the scene with me here. Conceivably, one may simply use the town from Disney’s Wanda-Vision., which I now want to watch again. Wild this epiphany is happening on this day for me. My apology for, I digress.

Parents won’t even realize what has been going on or why their children will every so often, bring home brand new shiny toys. Picture the innocent mother cleaning her child’s room and finds a new toy knowing the child didn’t have a birthday party, or money to purchase it. “What’s this?” “Where’d they get this? Did he steal this? We can’t afford something like this.” When the parent inquires with their child into the new toys showing up, the explanation seems innocent enough. “Vlad gave it to me.” “He told me it was simply for being his friend”, or worse, “He gave it to me in exchange for me agreeing to be his “best” friend.” The mom looks at the explanation with a very deep sense of WTH is going on, being visibly shaken by what she just learned, but strangely silent in response. Everything in her soul and mamabear protection mechanism instincts for her child and family tells her this Vlad kid is bad and dangerous and will be a problem, but she stays silent for unexplainable reasons. The child departs, “I’m going go play with Vlad mommy, be back tonight.” The mother now wants to know, “who is this Vlad kid?” The mother begins to make some inquiries with other mothers in the neighborhood and learns that Vlad loves to give the gifts. “Where does he live and how does he have the money to buy all these gifts as a child?” she asks. The other mothers are found to be as befuddled as she was upon the first inquiry. They also had the same concerns, and remained silent in an identical manner as she herself did.

Upon further inquiry, the mother is unable to find where this Vlad kid lives or who his parents are. She raises her concerns with her husband one evening after dinner, likely after her son leaves the table to run to play with Vlad with another new toy in hand. Her husband is visibly physically exhausted, and for some reason plays down her concerns about Vlad. It starts a bit of an argument, and in seeking to not cause pain for her husband and family, she says to her husband, “Never mind, forget I brought it up. It’s nothing. How was your day? Besides, it isn’t like this Vlad kid gave her son a gun. How dangerous could he really be?”

It’s true. Vlad didn’t give her son a gun. He gave him warfighting helicopters.

If this were to be found in our own homes, each of us individually and societally, we would walk into our child’s bedroom with a trash bag and start tearing their room apart to throw out everything that evil child Vlad ever gave to our family, When our child comes home from playing with Vlad, mom and dad would meet him at the door. “We need to talk, son” says the father. We would lead him into the bedroom, where he finds the mess that Vlad made was revealed in the mess of the child’s room. Strange how neat and tidy the room looked when the child walked out of the house to go play with Vlad. Clearly, everything was perfectly fine to all who observed. Only, it wasn’t. It was a festering virus in a family home. Keep in mind, a gift given to anyone in a home, and is brought into a home, results factually in a gift received by all in family home, especially if the father approves.

We would share the events of the previous evening with our neighbors, because loving our neighbors looks like warning them of danger among us. The defense that will be provided would be something like allegations of slander. Some have recieved some pretty awesome gifts, for Vlad had even started bringing gifts for the adults the longer he was allowed to be in someone’s home. We would no longer allow our child to play with Vlad with our permission. It would be expected that our child may now be tempted by Vlad to lie to keep playing with Vlad without our knowledge. We would start sharing the further stories of our struggle with Vlad with the mothers, and maybe even the fathers of the town as well as the husband/father now starts to have his eyes opened as to what is occurring and he starts to fight for his family instead of being brought to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion every day from his work or job. (FYI, Vlad’s dad is the most powerful man in the town/village, but no one seems to understand the tactics.) The father had been rendered compromised or maimed and had stopped defending his home and fighting for his family a good number of years ago, because his job provided them such a nice home, car, and life. The other parents would do the same for their family.

One day, the fog would lift and Vlad would stop showing up, now having moved to another neighborhood for him to start all over again.
Saint Alfred the Great

February 26th, 2023

I heard God very clearly say, “Go back to where it all started” early Friday. The theme continued throughout the day. It kept returning all weekend and included a 3 hour visit with my mother, who shared the story of how she and my father started dating when they were 15. Early this morning, while typing up a response on Reddit about the evil that is Vlad the Putin and Croatia sending russian made helicopters to the Ukraine. I posted that link here as well. Anyway, this morning’s epiphany meandered to the starting of this word press site. It also involved me going back to a quest line in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla called Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ.

This very long, primary quest narrative in this game results in the main character meeting this person who has been guiding the main character with hints and clues to the destruction of the Assassins or the precursors to them. It is also learned the the Poor Fellow Soldier for Christ is indeed Alfred the Great, the founding member of the Catholic Knightly Order, The Knights Templar. The members of this Crusader Order can be identified by their being buried with their legs crossed. The extent of the additional details that made this morning’s epiphany seem like a very reasonable next step in the order of things.

In this journey, it also came to my attention that Saint Alfred the Great is also my 33rd Great Grandfather. More will come from this as time progresses. There is so much to be found about Saint Alfred. Below is the first paragraph from Catholic.org. He was born 1200 years ago. Anyway, enjoy the reading.

I followed the path back to where it all started today, and it lead me to the Rite of Sending at the Catholic Church where my wife and my journey home to the Church started about a year ago. It has been a day of immeasurable beauty.

Saint Alfred the Great, Poor Fellow Soldiers for Christ and the Temple of Soloman, King of Wessex, scholar, and renowned Christian monarch. Alfred was born in 849, the fifth son of the Wessex king. During a journey to Rome in 853, he was accepted as a godson by Pope Leo IV . He was a great scholar, translating classics for his people, and early on seemed destined for a career in the Church. Instead, he became king and was forced to spend most of his reign in conflict with the Danes who were then threatening England. His work as a patron of the arts, literature, and especially the Church made him a beloved figure in England.