Friday, August 28, 2015

Shamed Out of Our Speechways



Few would think of asking the Australian, the Scot, the Canadian, or any other English speaker in the world to give up his unique way of speaking the ġe-þeod (language).  The Southern tongue seems to be the exception to the rule:  It may safely be ridiculed as simple, rude, and unsophisticated.  Many Southrons have sadly tried to run away from this part of their heritage in order to please those whom they will never be able to:  Yankee Americans and others who wish to wipe out all cultural differences for the sake of establishing a uniform culture of greed and materialism the world over.

It is time we rejected that sort of thinking and lovingly embraced what is our own, cultivating it in order to bring out its full beauty.

This little reel posted by The Abbeville Institute is a good place to start, followed by the books mentioned at the web page below, together with all the wonderful literature and songs that Dixie has already created (ballads, poems, novels, short stories, histories, and so on).


Tuesday, August 25, 2015

‘Return to the Constitution!’ - Part 2nd


For any who really are interested in helping New England, the South, or any other theod (nation) under the sway of heterodox Western Godlore (theology) and governlore (politics), here is something to consider at the very outset.  From a crucial essay by Mr Daniel Spaulding:

It’s a common refrain among self-described conservatives and libertarians in America that both the modern bureaucratic managerial state and mass culture have veered wildly out of control, headed in an ever increasing totalitarian direction, and must some how be reined in. Their prescription is almost always a return to the Constitution, along with the supposed values of the Founding Fathers, and some form of classical liberalism; as one constitutionalist slogan declares, the answer to 1984 is 1776. What is often absent from sloganeering is any meaningful analysis of how society developed from the original republic to the current oligarchic, Leviathan surveillance state.

Certainly assorted bogeyman figures and political movements are blamed in passing (just think back to Glenn Beck’s schizophrenic chalk board scribblings), but very few mainline conservatives and libertarians would dare entertain the notion that classical liberalism, which the American Constitution is an expression of, may itself be the mother of all the problems they now bemoan. Or to put it another way, either the Constitution is inherently too weak to stop its increasing irrelevance and the expansion of the Leviathan state, or totalitarianism is the natural, if not entirely foreseeable, progression of the original constitutional order.

One American, the Orthodox monk Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934-1982), was willing to entertain such notions, and boldly exposed classical liberalism as the first stage of unfolding revolutionary nihilism in his careful and prophetic study of the nihilistic dialectic. Through Rose’s clear-eyed vision, liberalism has always been a faulty compromise between traditional authority and what he called the Revolution, that is the drive to uproot and overthrow traditional authority:

The Liberal view of government, as one might suspect, is an attempt at compromise between these two irreconcilable ideas. In the nineteenth century this compromise took the form of “constitutional monarchies,” an attempt-again-to wed an old form to a new content; today the chief representatives of the Liberal idea are the “republics” and “democracies” of Western Europe and America, most of which preserve a rather precarious balance between the forces of authority and Revolution, while professing to believe in both.

Yet such a mixture is unnatural and ultimately one element must give way to the other. As Rose noted, the Revolution “cannot be stopped halfway, it is a force that, once awakened, will not rest until its ends in a totalitarian Kingdom of this world.” That is to say, returned an earlier mentioned slogan, 1984 was conceived in the womb of 1776.  . . .

 . . .

So to return to the “spirit of 1776” is not the return of some lost golden age of constitutional justice, but rather a mad attempt to play out the entire fiasco all over again. The answer to the later stages of the nihilistic dialectic, careening in our age toward total destruction, is not solved by a return to one of the early stages, the nihilism of liberalism.

Source:  ‘Classical Nihilism’, http://souloftheeast.org/2015/08/14/classical-liberalism-nihilism/ , posted 14 Aug. 2015, accessed 17 Aug. 2015

Friday, August 21, 2015

Antichrist



We must remind ourselves as often as needsome that all the strange and evil things we see happening today - the spoiling of the creation with genetically engineered worts (plants) and animals, UFOs, wars, large upheavals and mixings of peoples and their cultures, etc. - are not taking place simply to enrich a handful of banksters or as an excuse to enlarge the powers of the police state (though these are certainly goals the Elite want to achieve through them).

Rather, they are all for one purpose in the end:  to usher in the Antichrist as the ruler of the world.  So let us always be on our guard and not become heedless through love of some politician or movie or technology.

Blessed Fr Seraphim Rose (+1982) gives a good short answer about Antichrist in this little recording, after which we ought to go on to deeper studies that we be not led astray by the Enemy.




Tuesday, August 18, 2015

‘Liturgical Day’



His individualized ringtone sounds,
And Momentary Man wakens from his slumber.
Since he likes to sleep and hates his job,
He is already running late.
As he revels in the taste
Of his latest pre-packaged
Breakfast food, he praises himself
For this great find of his,
While closing the blinds
So what little of the sun and sky and birds
That are peeping into his kitchen
Will not distract him
From the gruesome glee
Of the TV news infotainers
Or the inspirational vanity
Of the latest Facebook posts.
This done, he showers and brushes his teeth
So he will be hygienically clean for the office.

Now at work, he stands before his desk,
And utters the customary curse
Before assuming the prescribed seated position.
Steadily typing, with a few breaks
To give fuel to the machine-body,
The day passes, bathed in fluorescent light,
Garish purple-green.

Evening has come. 
With paycheck in hand, he hurries to Holy Bank
Where lives Mammon, his incarnate god.
There he waits in line with fear and trembling
To receive his portion of the blessed sacraments,
The precious body and blood of the deity,
From the priestess behind the window pane:
The paper and ink of the money stored and handled
With such great care.  He partakes, then leaves,
Bright and happy.  He has seen the true light.

He enters the bar as the sun sets
To wash away the bad memories that remain
With alcohol, and loud talk and laughter
With his girlfriend and the other patron-parishioners.
Together they fill the night with their shouts and songs,
And at dismissal, a little kiss with his latest girl
Fulfills the mystery of lonely togetherness.
The streetlights that block out the starlight
Guide him through the dead desert parking lot.
All settled in, his motorized wheel-cage carries him back
To his apartment where he will await
With loathing the day ahead.

Half a world away, in a quiet Serbian village,
The church bells are ringing, calling all the people,
High-born and low-born, young and old, rich and poor,
To Evening Prayer, to the worship of God,
The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost,
To entrust themselves and one another
And all their lives unto Christ their God.


By Walt Garlington

Friday, August 14, 2015

Corporate Full-Spectrum Dominance

Đis is what it looks like.  From Natural News:

‘REVEALED: Cancer industry profits 'locked in' by nagalase molecule injected into humans via vaccines... spurs tumor growth... explains aggressive vaccine push’


Biotech corporations push numerous shots on men, women, and children (even going so far as to bribe California’s State government to make some mandatory).  Compounds in the shots cause tumors to form.  The same biotech corporations then come to the rescue with very costly and harmful ‘cures’.

Be wary of our ‘corporate neighbors’ (Wendell Berry) and the gifts they come a-bearing.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Looking to the East for Inspiration - Part 2nd



The head bishop of the þeod (nation) of Georgia, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, has been saying and doing many things that leaders in the South, churchly or lay, ought to be saying and doing.  Here are a few ensamples for us to take note of.

Modern people do not want to work the soil and thus they abandon it – as a result foreigners begin to take over our land, said His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia during his Sunday sermon at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, reports Geomigrant. The Patriarch was referring to the current trend in Georgia of agricultural land being sold to foreigners such as Turks and Chinese.

“Each period is notable for its own characteristics that could not be seen in the previous period. Today’s situation is different from earlier ones as well. Georgian people always liked to possess their own land, to toil, to cultivate it.

“Nowadays Georgian people tend to avoid working with earth, instead preferring to look for an income that does not involve manual labor. We read in the Psalms of David: Shew me Thy ways, o Lord; teach me Thy paths (Ps. 25:4). So we are asking God to show us the true path. And He replies: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). But, instead of following the words of the Almighty, our young people are going abroad in order to work as servants there, while aliens are coming to our motherland and occupying our lands. Therefore, we are addressing ourselves to everybody and calling upon you all: do think seriously about yourselves, about your children, and about our future,” the Catholicos-Patriarch said.


***

Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia has stated that such natural riches as land, water, and mineral resource deposits must not be sold or rented for a long-term lease to foreigners, reports Interfax-Religion.

“What is the main value that must be cherished by us? These are Georgian land, water, springs, rivers, deposits that must not be sold or alienated,” said Ilia II in his speech at the Sunday service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi.

According to the head of the Georgian Church, these values, “by which the Georgian nation exists, may be completely lost because other people, other countries have more means, more money to purchase all this”.

“That is why all of us should think it through thoroughly. We should think not only of ourselves, but also of the future, of posterity. There are, for example, cases of not selling, but leasing of the forest for 50, 90, 100 years. If the forest is destroyed, so will be the nation,” said His Holiness.

He has noted that 100 years are not needed for obliteration of the forest. “One week will be enough for it and this is very dangerous. So our authorities should pay a special attention on this,” stressed the patriarch.

“May God enlighten our minds so that we should realize what is necessary for us, what the true values are,” he added.

The other day the constitutional court of Georgia abolished the moratorium, declared a year ago by the parliament, which prohibited foreign citizens from obtaining parcels of land for agricultural purposes until December 31, 2014.

Foreigners’ interest in obtaining agricultural lands in Georgia has intensified since 2012. In connection with this, protests began in a number of regions of the country because agricultural lands and pastures had been sold or rented for a long-term lease to foreigners, mainly farmers from India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, and China. After that it was decided to suspend the transfer.


***

His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia has declared May 17 a Day of family strength and honor for parents. He announced this at Holy Trinity Cathedral during the Sunday sermon on May 11, reports Gruzia Online.

The head of the Georgian Orthodox Church gave his blessing to serve paracleses in all churches on that day, and for all priests to go out and sprinkle houses, streets and people.

The premiere of the first Georgian film about homosexuals in the main cinema of the country, "Rustaveli" in the centre of Tbilisi, is scheduled for May 17 to mark the so-called "international day of war on homophobia".

Last year on this day in Tbilisi there was an attempt to arrange a gay pride parade, but in response to this 10,000 protesters went out to the city streets.

All these events are happening against the background of an anti-discrimination law passed by the Parliament early in May. The Holy Church at once raised its voice against it. None of the faithful will accept such a law, stated Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia.

It was probably the first case when the Patriarch sharply and openly accused the authorities of imposing western values on the Georgian people that are alien to them, noted the Georgian press.


***

On the day following Georgia’s celebration the Day of Family Strength and Honor for Parents by prayer processions and sprinkling of streets and houses by holy water, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II addressed the people, as usual, at the Divine Liturgy.

A week before this the Patriarch declared May 17 the Day of family strength and honor for parents while a certain part of the society celebrates the same day as “the international day of war on homophobia”.

Shortly before, the so-called anti-discrimination law was passed in Georgia, and the Patriarch together with the whole Georgian Church have spoken out against it.

“Very often we ask the Lord to give, grant us something. And so often we forget to praise and glorify the Lord. And if we look at our past, present and future, then we will see that the Lord has always been, is now and will ever be with us. The Lord is holding Georgia by hand as children are held by hand, and is leading us across deserts,” said Ilia II in his Sunday speech.

“We thank the Lord because He does not abandon us. Georgia has gone through many trials and there will definitely be another trial. As long as a person lives on the earth, there will always be trials. But we should remember that the Lord will never leave Georgia without His protection, for Georgia is a portion of the Mother of God [on earth]. The Holy Theotokos is our Protectress before the Lord,” said Catholicos-Patriarch Illya II of All Georgia, who described May 17, when people went out to the streets to pray together and to demonstrate the whole world that they were one Church, as a special, historic day.

“It was a historic day yesterday; the Lord gave us His great grace. Georgia was blessed together with our compatriots, living not only in Georgia, but also abroad, in other countries. We thank the Lord for this great mercy,” said the patriarch who also blessed people to pray for repose of the deceased tsars, venerable men and patriarchs.

“You will be given lists of the dead to be prayed for, with names of our tsars and tsarinas, our holy fathers and catholicoses-patriarchs. These self-sacrificing people will help us. The end times are near, that is why their help is necessary.

I will ask the Lord to give strength to people. May He bless His people by peace”.

“This Sunday is the Sunday of Exaltation of the Holy Virgin. When we say that the Holy Theotokos has mercy upon Georgia and protects it, we also must remember that our responsibility is great. And if we are given much we will have to answer for much,” added Patriarch Ilia II.


***

At the Holy Trinity Cathedral Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia addressed his flock with a Sunday sermon, singling out the journalists and “the establishment”, asking them to stop spreading death propaganda, reports PIA.

“Nearly every day there are reports that one man killed another man, a son put his parents to death, parents murdered their children, and many similar incidents. And all this is shown as something necessary. I would like to address myself to our press, our television, to our respected journalists and our government: When we give coverage to such negative events, we traumatize our people.

“We give an example that this grave sin may be committed as well. So, perhaps we can find a way to report all these killings as rarely as possible,” said Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia.

“When we inform our youth, our children about killing, we give them an example that it is permissible. That is why we must cherish our people. When our people see these murders, look almost every day at wars and killings, this plunges them into a terrible stress. And that is why we must not do it.

“But, as you know, there is good in the world. Many good deeds are done everywhere, including in our country.

“Let us tell people about the good, console our people, encourage them to do good. Doing good things gives us strength and hope for the future. I hope we will finally come to understand who we are. Our nation is chosen by God. If this were not true, the Lord would not have granted us so many blessings!”


***

Head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, said in his Sunday sermon that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the United States was a “big mistake.”

He raised the issue when speaking about freedom in his sermon in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi.

“Freedom has a huge power; freedom is a test in which a person sees spiritually the path,” Patriarch Ilia II said. “Often freedom is misused by people and this is disastrous for spirit. Neither ten commandments, nor laws and customs would have been required if people were given complete freedom.”

“There are cases when people and countries legalize illegality. You know from the media and the press that the United States of America has decided to allow same-sex marriage in all the states – this is a big mistake and even the American spiritual figures say it; and we too reiterate that this is a big mistake,” he said.

“A Georgian should distinguish between good and evil; between acceptable and unacceptable; we ask God for opening our minds and hearts to let them see good and evil,” he added.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Two Paths: August 6th for America and for the Church



Man was created for union with God.  Thæt is, he was created to become a god, a divine being, a ‘partaker of the divine nature’ (II Peter 1:4).  By eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in disobedience to God’s command, man stepped upon the path of devil-inspired, unattainable self-divinization and condemned himself to death by sundering himself from God.  The path of deification by God’s Grace, of co-operation between God and man in the work of theosis (i.e., salvation), was not withal closed forever, and has been re-opened by the work Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost in the world.

August 6th shows very clearly and brightly that much of American society is not Christian even in the vague, Western sense of the word, let alone Orthodox Christian.  For what did many Americans celebrate and cheer and brag about on that day but the wicked and unnecessary destruction of Hiroshima, Japan, with an atomic bomb? 

What better illustration of man’s continuing work at satanic self-divinization than the atomic bomb: the result of his longing to surpass his fallen state, to become all-powerful, to become God, through scientific and technological means.  We should expect nothing less than that the demons themselves will come and join the American Empire and its friends in their celebration of their great achievement.

Thus is overshadowed and ignored the true weightiness, the holiness, of August the 6th that Americans ought to celebrate: the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ upon Mt Thabor.  In that great event, the glory of the mystery of the Incarnation, the uniting of the Divine and human natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ, was made manifest.  The nature of man has been healed and glorified in that union; the New Adam surpassing the fallen, sinful Adam is come.  We do not attain a share in that new life, do not become new creations, by science and technology, by high-mindedness (pride), by our efforts alone, but by lowering ourselves and crucifying ourselves, by taking the Grace of God freely offered to us into ourselves, thereby uniting us with God.

Again ƿe (we) say with all our heart, Run away with all haste, Southerners, from the evil of the American Empire.  Pray for the salvation of those within it captivated by the ideology of humanistic rights and freedom and by the idols of money and things, but otherwise keep yourselves as far from it as possible. 

And when the 6th of August comes round again, do not delight in man’s power to fordo (destroy) the creation, but in God’s desire to fill all He has made with the Light of His Glory.

From the Matins service for the Feast of the Transfiguration:

'O Good One who sanctified the entire world with Your light, You were transfigured on a high mountain; and to Your Disciples You showed Your power, that You deliver the world from transgression. Therefore we cry out to You: O compassionate Lord, save our souls!'

'O Logos, light unaltered * of light, unbegotten Father, * we have beheld light, the Father, * and light the all-holy Spirit * today in Your light appearing * upon Mount Tabor, * guiding with light all creation.'


From St Gregory Palamas’s ‘The Declaration of the Holy Mountain in Defense of Those Who Devoutly Practice a Life of Stillness’ (from sections 4, Prologue, 6, and 2 respectively, The Philokalia, Vol.4, http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Philokalia.pdf):

‘If anyone maintains that the light which shone about the disciples on Mount Tabor was an apparition and a symbol of the kind that now is and now is not, but has no real being and is an effect that not only does not surpass comprehension, but is inferior to it, he clearly contends against the doctrines of the saints. For the saints both in hymns and in their writings call this light ineffable, uncreated, eternal, timeless, unapproachable, boundless, infinite, limitless, invisible to angels and men, archetypal and unchanging beauty, the glory of God, the glory of Christ, the glory of the Spirit, the ray of Divinity and so forth. The flesh of Christ, it is said, is glorified at the moment of its assumption and the glory of the Godhead becomes the body's glory. But this glory was invisible in His visible body to those unable to perceive that upon which even angels cannot gaze. Thus Christ was transfigured, not by the addition of something He was not, nor by a transformation into something He was not, but by the manifestation to His disciples of what He really was. He opened their eyes so that instead of being blind they could see. While He Himself remained the same, they could now see Him as other than He had appeared to them formerly. For He is 'the true light' (John 1:9), the beauty of divine glory, and He shone forth like the sun - though this image is imperfect, since what is uncreated cannot be imaged in creation without some diminution.’

‘In the same manner, even at this present time we are not ignorant of the doctrines of the Christian confession, both those which are openly proclaimed and those which are mystically and prophetically revealed by the Spirit to such as are accounted worthy. These are persons who have been initiated by actual experience, who have renounced possessions, human glory and the ugly pleasures of the body for the sake of the evangelical life; and not only this, but they have also: strengthened their renunciation by submitting themselves to those who have attained spiritual maturity in Christ. Through the practice of the life of stillness they devote their attention undistractedly to themselves and to God, and by transcending themselves through sincere prayer and by establishing themselves in God through their mystical and supra-intellectual union with Him they have been initiated into what surpasses the intellect. Others again have learnt about these things through their reverence, faith and love for such persons.’

‘For if in the age to come the body is to share with the soul in ineffable blessings, then it is evident that in this world as well it will also share according to its capacity in the grace mystically and ineffably bestowed by God upon the purified intellect, and it will experience the divine in conformity with its nature. For once the soul's passible aspect is transformed and sanctified - but not reduced to a deathlike condition - through it the dispositions and activities of the body are also sanctified, since body and soul share a conjoint existence. As St Diadochos states, in the case of those who have abandoned the delights of this age in the hope of enjoying the blessings of eternity, the intellect, because of its freedom from worldly cares, is able to act with its full vigor and becomes capable of perceiving the ineffable goodness of God. Then according to the measure of its own progress it communicates its joy to the body too, and this joy which then fills both soul and body is a true recalling of incorruptible life.’

‘The grace of deification is, therefore, above nature, virtue and knowledge and, according to St Maximos, all such things infinitely fall short of it. For all the virtue we can attain and such imitation of God as lies in our power does no more than fit us for union with the Deity, but it is through grace that this ineffable union is actually accomplished. Through grace God in His entirety penetrates the saints in their entirety, and the saints in their entirety penetrate God entirely, exchanging the whole of Him for themselves, and acquiring Him alone as the reward of their ascent towards Him; for He embraces them as the soul embraces the body, enabling them to be in Him as His own members.’

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Looking to the East for Inspiration



Þe South needs good, strong leadership right now to protect what remains of the inheritance of our forebears, but what we have instead are mere politicians who seek only to please those who helped them buy their way into office - AT&T, Bank of America, and so on:




How different in the little Republic of Georgia!  There, the ‘intelligentsia’ sent a letter of rebuke entitled ‘Respect Our Traditions!’ to the European Union for its trying to introduce antiChristian practices into Georgian life.  May the Lord grant us such good shepherds here in Dixie and drive away the thieves who have come only to steal, kill, and fordo (destroy).

‘Respect Our Traditions!’ opens thusly:

Batono Thomas!

We have read your report on human rights in Georgia and want to answer to the part in which you speak of our national and religious minorities, and, for some reason in the same context, you speak of the rights to propaganda of sexual depravity.

First of all­: our society has such great respect and tolerance towards representatives of our national and religious minorities, and so entirely considers them equal, that it would never even occur to us to equate them with sodomites and promoters of other forms of sexual depravity. This innovative ideological trick is totally unacceptable to us, regardless of how hard they try to push it in the West. We are sure that equating practices of sexual perversion with the representatives of religious and ethnic minorities of any country, including, in recent years, the United States and Western Europe, is an artificial, deliberately imposed ideology that has nothing to do with the age-old rules of life that are common to human society.  . . .

The rest may be read here: