Modern knights Part 3: Weapons each of us have to use.

Each person has two options in life: either to become lethargic and not care about the world or put on a helmet pick up a weapon and fight.  The simple reality is in the fact that these are the only two fundamental options to live.  All other courses through life are variations of these two.  If we choose to be lethargic then we cease to be human becoming tools and commodities to be used by others.  In this state we allow ourselves to be manipulated and molded into sheep.  Aristotle said long ago, "The sheep is said to be naturally dull and stupid. Of all quadrupeds it is the most foolish: it will saunter away to lonely places with no object in view; oftentimes in stormy weather it will stray from shelter; if it be overtaken by a snowstorm, it will stand still unless the shepherd sets it in motion; it will stay behind and perish unless the shepherd brings up the rams; it will then follow home" (History of Animals, 9.3).  Is this what we want to be, let alone are meant to be?  We are not meant to be sheep, to be fools who "saunter about with no object in view", we are meant to be people.  Living breathing people who walk in the world with our eyes open and our minds awake.  How do we cease to be sheep?  We cease to be sheep when we come before the Shepard.


The Shepard will ask us simply if we will fight with Him or against Him.  When we say yes to Him, He will hand us everything we need for the battle.  It is up to us to use them.  Each person has different talents, which should never be hidden.  Everyone has talents. Our talents are the weapons which we can fight.  The Shepard is the One who will teach us to use our talents.  When our eyes turn towards Him everything else melts away.  We become able to fight.  Not a fight with fists or guns, but a battle for the Truth.  When we look to the Shepard we look Truth in the eyes and He looks back into us.  He sees all we have been and everything we are now.  He will show us everything we can become when we turn to Him embracing Him and picking up our cross.  The battle is never won with guns or cruel words, it is won with sacrifice and redemption.  The Shepard won the war, the daily battles each of us are in the middle of fighting.  Do not fear we do not fight battles alone.  He will guide us and do all the heavy lifting, we need to come into His light.  When we look to the Shepard we find that we are not drifting sheep, but we are saints who can change the world one person at a time.

Every time we fall to our knees before the Master the world will change around us.  The King gives us everything we need to fight battles.  The choice to fight is up to us.  Dragons are real, every child knows it.  We have to learn that dragons can be defeated and even more so the enemy has been defeated.  The war is already won. It was won on the day the sun was darkened.  The battle for each individual soul is waged everyday.  We do not fight these battles with guns and weapons, but with choices.  The choice to love and walk in Truth, rather than in sloth and lies being feed to us.  The Truth will set you free is old truth, but it takes work to find Truth.  In seeking you will find Truth if you are really seeking.  You will find a sword that must not be hidden and left in the scabbard to rust. A sword must be carried and used, so to must the Truth. Truth must be spoken and lived.  One can speak anything, but how you live will show much more of who you are and the love you possess.  Live in the light of truth and love.

Dragons

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear."  - Tremendous Trifles (1909), XVII: "The Red Angel"

Children have a better understanding of the world than many adults.  Adults rationalize and form opinions that fit their own ideas, not the truth.  Adults will ignore truth for money, power, knowledge, sex or many other temptations put before us.  Adults will deny the truth, denial is easy. Living truth is hard. Each person is molded into a zombie by society through education, media, politics and other sources; these sources do are not necessarily focused on the truth.  Media and education have never been concerned with the truth, these are businesses.  Though education should not be a business, but a place for people to seek the truth and learn to think.  Politics is the business of control in order to make money for those in office and get them re-elected.  Fairy tales are an education that cuts through politics and lies to reveal the world.

Fairy tales teach the most important lesson in the world: that we are not alone in the fight and the enemy can be slain.  The enemy of us all has been defeated, it was done over two thousand years ago, because the battle is with beings who exist outside of time the battle still rages.  The war has been won.  Christ won the war. Fairy tales teach us how to fight the dragons.  Each person needs to learn how to fight the dragons and stand up to the darkness.  These stories teach us to find the light that was lite for us.  We tell fairy tales to remind each other that there is light.

Fairy tales remind us that the war is over, the dragon is defeated, but each day we must fight the battles.  The war is over, but the battle rages. The tales help us to see the weapons in the arsenal.  Each of us takes into battle: honor, hope, faith, truth and love.  Each of us must choose to pick up these weapons or leave them laying on the floor.  These are our armor and swords to defend us.  It is up to us to fight. The war might be over but the battles for each soul must be fought.  Preparation for battle is the reason we read children fairy tales.

The Waters

Over the centuries life has been compared to the sea.  The waters are all of life's events and we are ships navigating the waters.  The waters get rough and toss us to and fro.  In the rough times we must do the unthinkable.  There is only one thing to do.  In the hard times, when the storms toss us up against the shores the only thing we can do is step off the ship.

Each one of us must do as Peter did.  When Christ bids us to come to Him we must step off the ship and walk on the waves (see Matthew 14:22-32).  As long as we keep our eyes on Jesus we can walk on the waves without fear.  Being a fallen people as we are, we doubt and see the fierceness of the waves taking our eyes off Jesus.  When we take our eyes from the Lord we will sink as Peter did on the sea.  Peter instantly does what it takes years of sink for many of us to do.  Peter called out to Christ to save him.  It is not a salvation of just water, the come, believe then do whatever you want brand, when Christ saves Peter from drowning.  Saves him bodily.  Salvation is not only a spiritual act, it is a physical act as well.  Peter enters into the water and is drawn out by a hand that is nailed to the cross.  Salvation is not water, but is also blood.  It must be both.  Without the cross and resurrection, the real historical act, baptism is meaningless.  If there is no  cross and Easter Sunday in history, then everything that is believed by Christians is a fantasy.  It is merely moral principles.  We are saved by entering into the waters and participating in Christ's death and resurrection  each and everyday.  Each day water and blood is given forth for us.  We must choose to be washed in it each day.  At the end of our days when we come before judgement; we will be judged according to how we lived in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Faith will be expressed in our actions, just coming to Church on Sunday is meaningless if it is not reflected in everyday life.  If we do not live the faith each day then we have sunk into the sea not asking the Pierced One to reach down to pull us back up.  When we do ask Him everything changes, we will falter and stumble, He stumbled under the weight of the cross as He carried it.  We are asked to carry a cross too.  Not on a chain around our necks or as a tattoo on our body.  We are asked to carry the same cross Christ carried.  Are we up for the challenge?  Christ thought so.

Modern knights Part 2: Who is a knight?

If a knight is a servant warrior, than who today would be a knight?  Are they only the ones who serve in our armed forces?  The armed forces are important and deserve our support, but not all serve for love of their lord.  A country is not really a lord anyways, the country is not a mutable idea.  A knight serves principles that are a rock foundation of their lives.  Yes, there are many modern knights in the armed forces and many who are not.  Those who pick up swords and fight because principles and justice demand it are knights.

Every person is called to be Princes and Princesses, the King of kings calls us to come into His family to be His sons and daughters.  The primary knights have always been the nobles, the family of the king and queen along with those who have been taken into the royal family for their deeds.  Every one of us is invited to become a member of a royal family, not an Earthly and temporal royal family, but an eternal royal family.  Every human being is invited to become a child of the living God; brothers and sisters of Christ.

Entrance into this family though carries a price though, we choose sides.  In entering the family of God we choose sides in a war we only partially see.  We choose to pick up a sword and shield and fight.  Our enemies are not liberals, Jews, Muslims, Taoists, conservatives, China, Mexico, or any other group you can think of being at odds.  The enemies we are in a fight with are principalities and powers who have rebelled against God, putting themselves first.  The battle is not about having all the money, power, food, the fastest car or biggest house; this war is about whether or not eternal  souls will spend eternity in Heaven.  The price of entrance into God's family is being willing to fight for the salvation of all souls.  No politics or nuances to the battle.  The salvation of all souls is the battle we are in, every Prince and Princess in the Kingdom of God is called to be a knight in this battle.

Modern knights: Part 1 what is a knight?

This is meant to be the first in a series of posts about the need for knights in the modern age and men to be men. Along side of men being true men, women need to be true women.  Both are molded from young ages by everything around them.  The molding can be to strength, courage, faithfulness and hope; or it can mold us into a mindless gollum.  A gollum is a mythical creature formed out of mud and has no will of it's own.  Human beings are not gollums, we have been given the gifts of a will and reason to guide us.  All of us need to remember who we are and made to be.  We live in a world that wants us to forget and turn into mindless gollums to do bidding of those who have bent themselves into power for themselves and their benefit.

In a journey into knighthood we must first ask, "What is a knight?"  Simply put a knight is a person who fights for the a king or ruler with honor, virtue, fidelity and courage.  These four are the foundations of being a knight.  We will get into each of them later.  These virtues have been lost in the modern world or are so watered down that they do not even have meaning anymore.  Even more importantly we have forgotten for Whom we fight.  A knight knows the will of his lord.  The truest knights know the will of the Lord and live according to His will.  When we loose sight of the will of our Lord we will loose sight of ourselves.

A knight without a lord to serve was lost, not only lost in knighthood also in who he is.  Every knight is meant to serve a master.  Freedom comes in submission to the just will of the Master.  Free not to do whatever he chooses,, but free to conform himself to the will of his Lord.  This is true freedom.  When we go against what we are made to be then we make ourselves into slaves.  A knight is a servant by nature so for a knight freedom comes in serving the Lord.

Lenten fires.....

There are times when it seems to me like people think Lent is a time of darkness, sorrow and mourning. Lent is not a dark time, it is the beginning of the light growing again in the world. That is at least what nature teaches us in the northern hemisphere, southerners get that going towards Christmas. Both are teaching us one thing, out of the darkness we come into light and life our Resurrection.

In Lent is not a time of sorrow and darkness, it is a time of fire. In lent we rekindle the fire that burns in us from the Sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary, becoming more of a light to the world. We do not sacrifice so that we are praised or recognized in the world. We sacrifice so we are joined with Good Friday each and everyday. On Good Friday lived each day we die to ourselves becoming Christ to the world. We start to live in the world but not of the world. We begin to burn with love and truth because we are becoming more like He who is Love and Truth. The darkness around us starts to dissipate with the light of Christ. It is only through Good Friday that we will come to Easter. With our eyes on Jesus we will go through the cross and grave to the resurrection, the impossible becomes possible when we keep our eyes on Jesus.

Every Sunday we celebrate Easter, everyday of the week we live as pilgrim people travelling from Good Friday to Easter Sunday; this is the mystery of our lives. The mystery is not a sorrow but a joy. A joy that makes life worth living in the light of Christ's love that is shown to us on Good Friday. Out of darkness comes a great Light and we carry that Light into the world. Lent is not sorrow, but is hope and light. A time of fire to be kindled in us on our daily journey from Good Friday to Easter.

In the darkness

There is an old proverb, first recorded by Thomas Fuller, "The darkest hour is just before the dawn." The dawn is the beginning of a new day when everything is fresh and born anew. When we look east each morning and see the sunrising, we always know that we can begin again. There was a time when the whole world would look East to welcome each new day. Even in the darkest of days when the castles that have been built in the sand are on fire and the tide is coming in, people still looked East. Why look to the sunrise and the East though? The answer is a simple act of faith, but not faith in a man or a woman. We look to the sunrise because the One who created the whole of the universe wrote into our hearts hope in a new day. Hope not in a person, but just Hope. Hope in the darkness as freshly lite candle begins to glow brighter. Hope is not an abstract idea, as the sunrise reminds us. The sunrise is not abstract it is concrete and very real, hope is real as well. In the darkest hour the world has ever known Hope showed us a new light. In the hour humanity committed deicide, Hope stepped forward and took the strips for our sins. In the darkness Hope stood up and allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross. We are given a sunrise to remind us that after the darkness of the night, Hope has risen. People look east the Son has risen; Hope has risen.

To day is the very beginning of the sunrise. Christmas is the day when the Light came into the world to shine for all. Some choose not to see the Light, others only want to see parts of the Light so it is easy and not bright enough to change their lives. Others look straight into the Light and everything changes. Once we look fully into the Light nothing can ever be the same. Everything burns with a fire bright reflecting the Light. In the darkest night we become the lights reflecting the only real Light in the universe. Shine on the world around you.