The Master's Ladder - Notes on the Three Paths

The Three Paths of Theology/Spirituality

David Richard Berkowitz, the serial killer who terrorized New York City in the 1970s received his theology/spirituality from his dog, Sam. He called himself, "the son of Sam."  At least he was honest. 

To understand Jesus' words, the words of the Apostles, the New and Old Testaments, in fact to understand the Gospels one must always distinguish between the "secular/rational" theology of the West, which is base in philosophy and science, and the reality of "sacred" theology, which is not opposed to either philosophy or science, but is not defined by either. In the West most “theologians” are schooled in secular/rational theology, something invented in the scholastic era of the Roman Catholic Church, and do not understand, or it seems have simply forgotten that Jesus and the Apostles and the early Church Father, knew nothing of this, so they did not see through the prism of rational and secular theology. What they were trying to share was an organic experience or the healing presence of God, not a theory. 

It is not to say that some of the secular/rational concepts don't have instructive value; they do, but they can never be substituted for experience. The “concepts” are not the experience and reality of the thing. The outline or in artists terms the "cartoon" is not the object itself, even the most sophisticated portrait is not the person. Many come to the Church and rather than truly finding and experiencing Christ’s incarnational presence, settle for a mere description, a mere formula, a mere cartoon of the Church. These are “first and second path people” who cling to “received tradition” as if that is an end of itself, or retreat to emotionalism and/or rationalism, the two sides of the same coin of “soulish” behavior, unregenerated, unrenewed, disconnected from Ancient and Real Christianity. Until the Third Path is warmly experienced a realistic view of Christianity is not possible, because one substitutes instead some formula, some cartoon, some institutionalize or clericalized stricture (Stricture not Structure) capable of pointing to, but incapable of capturing the experience of Christ’s incarnation. Those holding only the “cartoon” THINK they know what it represents; yet they only have a hollow concept and no experience of its reality. Ultimately the Church is “life in the Holy Spirit” or scripture and tradition are both liars, as is the witness of myriad saints. (The Church is also and more primarily, collective and mutual communion in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ - a subject for another time.) 


I don't want to suggest that God's Holy Spirit is limited by anything I say. There is a wonderful story in Greek orthodoxy about an Arab/Muslim whose son was very sick. After famed Muslim physicians had given up hope for the boy, a neighbor told the boy's father about the priests in Constantinople who continually healed people by baptizing them. He set out with his wife to take the boy to the Orthodox priests, but on the way, the boy came very close to death. Stopping at a pool of water, the father took the boy and washed him in the pool saying, “Allah, I baptize my son, in the name and as the priests do in Constantinople.” They camped assuming the boy would die that night but he revived and became completely healthy. Seeing the wonder, they decided to continue to Constantinople and learn about this miraculous power that had saved their son. The Christians took them in, and enjoyed the story of their son's baptism and healing. They taught them the Christian faith and when it came time to receive them into the church, the priest Baptized first the father then the mother, but when they attempted to baptize the son, no matter how they tried they could not submerge him in the water. After three priests tried to submerge him into the water without success, the elder turned to the people and said, “No priest can truly baptize, who God himself has already baptized.”

The Orthodox Church knows, her history, Tradition and the healing life she possesses, where the Apostolic Church rests in objective continuity from the very Cross of Christ. She does not know the work of the Holy Spirit outside her purview. 

“Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is not the fullness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits; and (according to the words of Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5. 12) does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day. The Church on earth judges for herself only, according to the grace of the Spirit, and the freedom granted her through Christ, inviting also the rest of mankind to the unity and adoption of God in Christ; but upon those who do not hear her appeal she pronounces no sentence, knowing the command of her Saviour and Head, "not to judge another man's servant" (Rom. 14. 4).”

The Holy Spirit is not limited by the visible confines of Orthodox Christian eccleciology. But rather she stands as a bulwark, against the sea of theological/spiritual errors that would destroy her healing reality. She was originally called, “The Way” and that is what this book is, one man's understanding and experience of “The Way.” 

Towards Understanding the Orthodox Way, by Archpriest Symeon Elias

Based on observations by Met. Anthony (Khrapovitsky).

Every human is a defacto "theologian" whether one intends to speculate on theological principles or not. One cannot function without it. Whether one's foundational beliefs are well thought out or a mish-mash lazily gathered from the culture, it is still a theological foundation. Whether one believes that some accidental force caused the Universe of THINGS, or Sam, the dog, is giving you instructions and guiding your life and behavior, you are theologizing. Understanding that it is impossible to escape the necessity of theologizing, that it is the burden of the theist, deist, atheist, agnostic, and idiot; the Taoist, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, and Jew, this book will shed light on "how" we theologize, and the reason for it. This "theologizing" is no small matter because it forms the basis for our actions, all of them, because it forms the ideas, mythologies, superstitions, errors, delusions, illusion, and reality upon which we think and make decisions. It is the frame work of our good actions and even our rebellions. The nature of our foundational "theology" influences every aspect of our living, even if we think we are making it up as we go.

Towards Understanding the Orthodox Way (The Way)There are three ways, two of them erroneous and one Orthodox:

Outline of the First Path:
To strangle every thought and expression of theology/spirituality under the pretense of "standing fast in received tradition." It seems easy to fight theological errors by refusing to theologize at all. By dying in the "letter" and never experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit. The prophets of Israel had spoken under the anointing of the Holy Spirit; the great Psalmists, Moses, David and others had spoken eternal worship into being, this also by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees kept the letter of the law of Moses, they had spent their entire lives in service to the "ritual" and “exactness” of Hebrew religion and the study of the Scriptures and yet Jesus mocked them saying, "Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life . . " This is the dead letter of Tradition, where customs are kept just because they are handed down, not because they are healing and experienced anew in each generation. 

This first path includes thoughtlessly and/or fearfully following the culture of our parents, and/or our parents religious and family traditions, where fear of failure rules, or simple fear of the unknown causes us to cling to the known, without objective analysis of it. It may seem to be no theology at all, but it still requires us to act or not to act according to some foundation of mythology and/or emotion. It is this first path that causes the answer, "I don't know. It's just the way it is done." or "That's just the way it is" or "That's the way it's supposed to be." To someone on the first path, such pronouncements seem self-evident, since it is the sum total of their experience and knowledge. This is the theology born of the Sickness of Religion. It is a fearful path where the reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit is not known, and fear (sin) blocks the view of the Light so one lives in fear (sin) and clings to what is "known," fearing to question anything, fearing and abhorring free and/or original thought. Creativity is killed, the human spirit is dying, and one awaits in blessed hope of "release" at death, maybe accompanied with hope in a

mythological vision of heaven.

Outline of the Second Path:
To release the restraints of the human spirit, to allow reason, or (Psyche) soul to predominate and distort the true image and have theology degenerate along the reductionist, rationalist, deconstructionist path - or along the romantic, dreamy and passionate one, the path of the soul unchecked and un-transfigured, "psychic" and not "pneumatic."
These two, the rational and the romantic, represent two sides of the same coin of Western Captivity - Rational Theology and Romantic Spirituality. Rational Theology has lead to the various absurdities like the Jesus Seminar, deconstructionist rational theology, scientific hermanutics, the total demythologization of the Scriptures and Tradition; and its polar opposite, Romantic Spirituality ultimately leading to Charismaticism, Spiritualism, Sophianism, even Satanism, (or some such rational or passionate spirituality) one's own unconquered passions being in control of the soul's searching and expression.

Outline of the Third Path:
This path is Royal, (Royal, of the Reign of the King) and avoids the errors of the other two. It does not fear reason, or prayers, or Mysteries, as rationalism does, or humanity as monophysitism and humanism does, nor does it drink the vine of passions and emotions that can sometimes pass as "religious piety," becoming a sort of pacifier or narcotic. This path consists of actually living the Tradition, applying it to oneself in the Synergistic living of Life in the Holy Spirit. It is that reality when the Spirit becomes alive to us and in us and we cannot see again as we once saw, we cannot hear again as we once heard, etc. It is an organic, biological, spiritual healing, creating a change of perception, where the spiritual eye has opened and ALL experience takes on a new and "alive" dimension. In this is true devotion, true creativity, true art, true liberty, true family life, true worship, etc., etc., etc..

Those who faithfully pass down The Faith, once and for all given unto the saints, carefully keeping Tradition for the sake of the next generation and for those seeking the faith, do so, not because Tradition is handed down, but because they themselves have found healing/LIFE in it. People who are alive to the Third Path, are viewed in ignorance by the people of the second path, because both the Rationalizers and the Romanticizers see third path people as heel-dragging fearful people of the first path. Their eyes being blind to the third possibility; third-Path keeping of Tradition is viewed as first path slavish religion, to them in their rational and spiritual pride the keeping of Tradition is just fear and ignorance.


People who are alive to the Third Path, are viewed in fear (sin) by the people of the first path. The people of the first path cannot distinguish between the Rationalizers and Romanticizers and the people of the Third Path. For them they are all "dangerously out there" and not "in the fold." From their perspective we all look the same. So the person of the Royal Path, The Way, is viewed with suspicion by the liberal theologian, the rational scientist, the rational philosopher, the radical fundamentalist religionist, the radical traditionalists of both the West and East, the fearful Protestant Denominationalist, the hell fire (romantic) Pentecostal, the spiritualist and spiritual scientists, the secular psychologist, and new age experimenters. Saint Symeon the New Theologian said of people alive on the Royal Path, “how can others understand when they have not drunk this cup.”

The person on the Royal Path has not entered some dreamy state of “spirituality,” some foggy place of meditation, some disconnect holiness, rather they become, in a way impossible to put into words, in communion with "reality" i.e. Truth - not a concept but a person - God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. The power of this perception of reality, frees one to minister to, by comfort and challenge all not on the royal path and our fellow travelers on the royal path as well - because such people are alive to the creative spirit of God and exercise Wisdom beyond their own capabilities. And because the person on The Way does not fear reason, or prayers, or Mysteries, as rationalism does, or humanity, as monophysitism and humanism do, nor does he/she drink the vine of passions and emotions that can sometimes pass as "religious experience and piety"; then by the power of the Holy Spirit their ministry (the ministry of the Holy Spirit) is intelligent beyond rationalism, using reason as a tool. It is human, using our True Humanity, a symphony of human expression and emotions, free of the distortions and errors of humanism which destroys our true uniqueness. It is a deeper psychology, than secular psychology/psychiatry, knowing the true anatomy and structure of the human-person. It is an intelligent physics, knowing the reality of God's creative energy. It is a true rational and spiritual "science" being tied to the physical/spiritual truth. It is powerful philosophy, yet not restricted by non-real categories, etc. You can be creative with this list; it is very long. It is creative, and alive and motivated to one purpose and one purpose only, that is what is LIFE engendering, i.e., Healing, both its own Whole Person - true humanity - and also sharing Healing with our fellow beings and our "lively place" this place, this earth, this environment, this culture, this society, this nation, this world as well.

Faced with the great and seemingly intractable problems of sociology, psychology, ecology i.e. crime, social ills, mental illness, poverty, violence and environmental armageddon - the Orthodox Hierophant says, "The prayer of the heart is our ecology" and it is true; "The prayer of the heart is our sociology" and it is true; "The prayer of the heart is our psychology" and it is true. It is in the "revelation of the Sons of God" (those who have established in their hearts continual prayer) where the intractable problem finds solution and healing. The revelation of the Sons of God is not an isolated "event" in the future, it is also our Hope and Help, Here and Now; its completion is in the future, a future we cannot even imagine. " . . . none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

Our Lord instructed us not to hide our light under a bushel; not to fear to be viewed with suspicion, as all aliens are so viewed. He said in essence, they've hated me, they will hate you as well. But still, he wanted us to share our Holy Spirit Powered Creativity in our work and play and especially in EVERY relationship we have and with every one we meet. I'm not talking about rational evangelical over bearing prattling, parading as witness; I'm talking about living and working in harmony with the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. In that living, actions become Life engendering and it may be that silence will be great healing wisdom, or not to hate will be love, or failing to act may be right, or acting may be right, or speaking softly or with force, not pressing an issue, or doggedly refusing to let an issue go, in cooperation with the synergistic working of the Holy Spirit of all life, you will know, what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. This knowledge will arrive, nano-second by nano-second.

This particular description of the Three Paths comes from a friend of a friend so to speak, from a Russian Orthodox Priest talking about the Russian Orthodox Church's (19th century) battle with "Sophianism." Sophianism being reflected in the West in various and sundry "spiritual/gnostic/theosophical" veins. But the truth taught in this image of the three paths has ancient roots in the Fathers. It was certainly very clearly understood and stated plainly by St Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas.

The sickness of religion knows nothing of the reality of the life of the Holy Spirit - the Third Path. "If a man is not born of water and the Spirit, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." But what does this mean? St Symeon said, "In the first baptism, water symbolizes the tears and the oil of christmation prefigures the inner anointing of the Spirit. But the second baptism is no longer a mere type of the truth; it is the truth itself." "When the Holy Spirit of Truth is come He will lead you into ALL THINGS." Archbishop Basil Krivocheine says of this statement of St Symeon, "Let us note that while speaking of the first baptism, Symeon included the oil of christmation. It is therefore not a question of this sacrament of anointing when Symeon speaks of a second baptism. The difference between the two is rather that which exists between a figure and truth." St Symeon speaks of this again saying, "We receive the remission of our sins at our divine baptism and we are freed from the ancient curse and sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit. But this is not yet that perfect grace of which Scripture speaks: 'I shall dwell in them and walk therein.' This applies only to those who are strong in faith and show it in their works; for if we fall back into evil and shameful deeds after our baptism, we completely throw away this very sanctification. It is in proportion to our repentance, confession and tears that we receive the remission of our former sins; and as a consequence of this we also receive sanctification and grace from on high." Saint Symeon was not shy in saying that there were those who walked away from the waters of Baptism as if nothing had happened.

St Symeon speaks of even the highest expression of Orthodox “mystical experience, seeing the Divine Light” as second to the living presence of the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of Living. (The Synergistic Experience of the Life of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit as our everyday state.) He said, "If you have seen Christ but He has not yet granted you to drink of this beverage, fall down before Him and lament . . . and since you see Christ, lift up your eyes to Him unceasingly and always keep Him as the one spectator of your dejection and affliction." The beverage is the 'life of the Holy Spirit itself' dwelling in us and with us, and as he describes above, to produce faith with works.

The "religious" position of the first path, precludes any possibility of such open and creative and intelligent communion with God, it is retreated into the realm of the "known,” frozen in time, complete like a block of ice to be examine rationally but never something with which we may become infused. It is locked in fear of error, and fear of the unknown.

The rationalism of the second path is not capable of reaching this experience because the rational mind is in control and all it can produce is a rather cold mind science, a counterfeit spirituality that is the playground of the human soul with demonic illusion and delusion. It is capable of reducing God to our understanding or destroying him altogether, at least to the satisfaction of our own ego.  If it creates religion it creates the worship of the "higher-self"  never stepping outside its ego boundary.  Those who create the God of their understanding pray to themselves. Such ego inventions being the psych-ism of all the varieties of mind science "spiritualities."

The romanticism of the second path is not capable of reaching this "experience" because the passions are in control and all it can produce is emotional upheaval that may pass for and be accepted as spiritual experience. Both of these paths (as religious experience) carry the hallmark of the destruction of the person by (1) sublimating emotional health to cold "logic" - the Course In Miracles cult does this rather expertly on the rational principle that "there is nothing to forgive, it is all illusion" “no experience has any meaning” so we need not feel or act - (2) or cause the person to withdraw to smaller and smaller circles where they can "control the environment" and maintain a "centered emotional sweetness." This is the hallmark of so much earth rejecting eastern meditation.

The story of the Third or Royal Path, seems foolishness to some, because its experience quickly out paces our ability to speak it in rational and conceptual language. Yet it can be and IS experienced. St Symeon said it this way, "How could those who never had the slightest experience of its effects - reform, renewal, transformation, re-creation and new birth - succeed in understanding such mysteries? How can those who have not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit understand the metamorphosis of the ones who were baptized in Him? How will those who have not been born from above see the glory of the ones who, in the words of the Lord were born 'from above,' of those who are born of God and have become the children of God? Those who did not desire this state but lost it through their negligence, for they certainly received the power to acquire it - tell me, what knowledge will enable them to understand or in any way imagine what the others have become?" One very telling admission by St Symeon is his statement about his youthful "falling away" after he had seen the Divine Light.

"I forgot everything I told you and fell into total darkness, not even remembering anything I related to you, either large or small, not even the slightest thought. What is more, I fell into greater evils than before, and I found myself in the same condition as one who had never heard or understood the sacred words of Christ. Even the saint, who at one time had been kind to me and had given me that little rule and the book mentioned earlier, became to be an ordinary man, for I no longer thought of anything I had seen thanks to him." Of course St Symeon later found The Way and, lived, worked, experienced, liturgized, and prayed with far more diligence.

Carrying the weight of the first and second path with us as we reach to the Third, is the rule and not the exception. Our healing is a healing of the sickness of religion, the sickness with which we became entangled in one form or another, simply because we were born, and began to conceptualize trying to understand our experience, good and bad, were influenced by the things, ideas and people that were our world. Opening to the third possibility is the work of The Way. It doesn't matter if the sickness is a religion of philosophy or agnosticism or atheism or pentecostalism or new ageism or catholicism or orthodoxism etc., or any combination. I could certainly dissect my own life, my experiences, triumphs, failures, the wisdom and/or insanity of my own mindset, and explain it via the picture of the Three Paths, because I am intimately familiar with each of the first two paths, and both aspects of the Second. But I won't bore you.

The third path is first and foremost Orthodoxia, so it is right practice and right belief. Sadly many reaching to this Orthodoxia (the prayer of the heart) find only Orthodoxy - in its legal explications and physically kept Traditions. In that case one might as well become a nominal Roman Catholic or Anglican. Yet, this is not bad; it is a wonderful place to start. The discipline of the Tradition outwardly found in these things is not sickness but can be if it is practiced in hypocrisy i.e. acted out for merit. But if it is a true expression of the heart, it is not religion at all. It is the opposite of religion.

When one grasps by experience that Tradition is not religion but LIFE, then such ecumenical notions as uniting "sacramentally" or by some other abstract principle is seen to be, not only of little use but foolish and dangerous. Unity only in the acts of sacramental ritual (religion) has no value, it is unity in error. It is real and has value only when it is unity in Christ by the Holy Spirit, in the healing flow of Tradition; then it is uniting in the liturgy of living, the sacramental living, reflected in The Way. (the third path) As much as our foes hate to hear it, Truth the Person, when he walked among us said, "I AM the The Truth, The Life and The Way, no one comes to the Father except by Me." Keeping Tradition, not in first path fear, but third path Love, is the experience of the Truth and Life of The Way.

 

 This writing is dedicated to Archbiship Alexander (Bykowetz) - Of Blessed Memory

© Archpriest Symeon Elias 1996.

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Note 1 - This is a reference to the state of man, in the image of God. George Cronk a noted Orthodox Teacher says, "'To believe that man is made in God's image is to believe that man is created for communion and union with God, and that if he rejects this communion he ceases to be properly man.'

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Note 2 - Psychic - of the Soul, of one's own imaginative powers, the fantasy producing aspect of our make up.

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Note 3- Pneumatic - Pneuma - spirit - of the Spirit, this is a reference to the "noetic faculty" of man, his natural connection to God.

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Note 4 - The Jesus Seminar - a group of secular theologians, textual experts etc, who met in the late 20th century to try by rational means to discover what quotations in the Gospel texts of Scripture and the gospel of Thomas, could rightly be judged as actual quotations of the man Jesus. The absurdity of it, was also the most telling aspect of it. What they produced was a "Jesus" according to their own image. By applying their own prejudices as to who Jesus was, and therefore what he could have said, via quasi-scientific means, they simply produced a Jesus in their own image. The categories in which they placed his quotes were as telling, (a) he most likely said this (b) he may or may not have said this, but it sounds like something he would say, (c) he probably didn't say this (d) he could not have said this. The presupposition that created the categories implies that they "already knew him" and "new him quite intimately" as to be able to judge his thoughts! This was a group of the most renown biblical scholars of our day. The exercise demonstrates in a clear way the foolishness of both "rationalizing" and "fantasizing" methods of "theologizing." The tedious rational/deconstructionist exercise, costing much time and money was based on a fanciful notion, that is, the fantasy that by some magical means they already knew how our Lord, thought, and so then understood, again by fanciful means, what he would say. This singular exercise taking many years perfectly demonstrates the poverty of secular-western theologizing.

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Note 5 - Sophianism - an umbrella term under which resides myriad forms of sickness of religion based upon imagined "spirituality." All the cults reaching to the "higher self" - ultimately gnostic or humanistic or a combination of both. Medieval Europe and the Renaissance produced hundreds of secret "sophian - wisdom" societies. 19th and 20th centuries brought the "theosophy" movements, the Rosicrucians, the Liberal Catholic Church, and a host of others.

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Note 6 - Why would rationalism fear Mysteries or prayers? Rationalism has made of the human reasoning ability, the human mind, a god, in fact, the God. Prayers addressed to a deity are an act then of superstition, the fear that prayer might be answered challenges the carnal mind's godhood. Mysteries - notice the capital M - implies the power of the Deity in ways beyond the human mind's capability to define or even to comprehend. The Mysteries of the Church, later called "sacraments" in the West, are Grace-imbued moments and actions, which cannot be defined nor fully comprehended. Such Mysteries challenge the carnal mind and threatens it. Any action perceived by the carnal mind outside of its control threatens its "godhood", thus any such actions are fearful. Faced with the reality of the power of God, even in a very small way, a minor healing or unexplained protection, the carnal mind will immediately recoil from the truth of it, and work itself to death creating "logical explanations" why what happened, didn't really, or place faith in some inadequate idea, which reason itself would object, were it truly reason speaking and not fear. In many instances the creative explanations are so fanciful it would take "faith" to believe in them. (Evolution as a plausible explanation for BEING and COGNITION – a good example.) But, the carnal mind takes solace because it has "tamed" the event, by "naming it" and it doesn't matter whether the "naming" has any relationship to the truth of the event or not. An excellent example is the phrase, "spontaneous remission" applied to miracles of healing. If science had any real belief in the name "spontaneous remission" they would be proposing all sorts of expensive studies and experiments to try to find the key to it. No such research exists, so we see that it is just a name that comforts the carnal mind and to the carnal mind's satisfaction dismisses the obvious.

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7 - Why would monophysitism or humanism fear humanity?

a. monophysitism - a belief that Jesus Christ was of a single nature. This belief had two expressions. One he was a man only, or two he was God only, just appearing as a man. The monophysitist could not bear the thought that a human could be both God and flesh and blood. Its bases is ultimately "gnostic" - that is the belief that matter is worthless, or worse creation itself an attack on God. With this gnostic foundation God was idealized to the point of not being able to truly touch, contact, co-mingle with humanity. So then, humanity was something of the creation, aberrant, lacking any goodness etc, part of the attack on the natural order, or maybe even an expression of attack on God. So for the monophysitist humanity is an inferior and ill thing.

b. humanism is simply a modern form of monophysitism without realizing it. It views humanity as the highest form of evolved creature yet an aberration, a poorly evolved creature who is attacking "the natural order of things." One sees the distrust of humanity in all its "humanistic" concerns - the politically correct movement which attacks and wants to stifle human speech and thought, the environmental movement which see humanity as the great rapist, even a virus on the planet and so on. Humanistic endeavors always and ultimately deny the uniqueness and value of the individual human. Humanistic philosophies strangle the very humanity they claim to value. Humanistic actions quickly turn murderous, i.e., population control, abortion, euthanasia. Humanism fears the human and wishes it were something else. Humanism, a philosophy without God, making of the fanciful "higher self" its God, is ultimately killing. It fear humanity because it cannot comprehend the human in communion with God. ref - note 1. Communism was the classic humanistic philosophy, where all was done for the "good of the whole of humanity." In this any individual human, and thus millions of humans could be sacrificed for its humanistic purpose.

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8 - Why would a rationalist fear reason? re-read note 6. Note 6 is reasonable. It denotes the difference between a concrete collection of "rational facts" a list upon which being is seen and judged vs the "reasonable" acceptance of "things as they are." A famous pre-christian pagan recorded having been visited by "the Shepherd of Mankind" in a vision which he experienced while engaging in sincere prayer. The Shepherd said, "I've heard your prayers and I'm here to tell you whatever you want to know." The Pagan answered, "I want to know God, and things as they are." This is great wisdom. The perception of things as they are -true reasoning - is impossible without God. True reason points towards God. But when God is denied and one is left with only his own "higher-self" the same reasoning processes becomes mere rationalism, which is the exercise of trying to know things as they are, without the foundation of all that exists.

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9- in this instance "religious piety" meaning the appearance of religious knowledge or spiritual power. Quite a bit of "charismatic" religious experience falls into this category.

These are the people to whom the Righteous Judge will say, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.”

The Master's Ladder, Step Eight

The Master's Ladder, Step by Step 

Step Eight 

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  KJV

Actually the King James bible records the wrong tense here.  The oldest, most trusted and reliable of Greek texts agree that it says, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The Orthodox Study Bible using the New King James version does not correct this point. But the official Greek Bible of the Greek Orthodox Church follows the accurate rendering, “who have been persecuted.”  I think it is an important difference.  Being persecuted for righteousness sake and having withstood the persecution faithfully, having overcome the flesh, fear, wounded pride, anger, in fact all the passions, having emerged victorious over Satan, is different than being persecuted and failing in persecution.  How can one fail in persecution without abandoning the truth you know to be the truth. Faithfulness brings the Kingdom of God to the heart, with more power yet. Failure brings need for repentance and restoration. 

Persecuted for righteousness sake.
The persecution is undefined, it can be anything. We must understand there are no Marquess of Queensberry Rules in our battle with evil, and this goes for the interior as well as the exterior battle. Even the savage boxing ring has more civility that the battle to which we have dedicated to engage. Diabolical cunning or the boring persistence, dogged resistance to the good, is the rule not the exception.  

We went to great lengths to describe righteousness, in a previous step. We found it easiest defined in the negative, which oddly paints the positive definition in clearest relief.  We took the picture from the Prophet Isaiah59:14ff And judgment is turned away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off; for truth stumbleth in the street, and uprightness cannot enter. And truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And Jehovah saw it, and it was evil in his sight that there was no judgment."

The absence of righteousness, is also the absence of judgment, which is also the absence of justice, which is also the absence of ethical society and ethical governance, AS WELL AS, the absence of ethical behavior on the personal level; which is also the suppression of truth, which turns THE LIE into the common consciousness of the culture, and TRUTH the enemy of the culture; and he who dares to say anything true, who dares make a righteous judgment or acts in a righteous action, has departed from the common culture and is branded a suspect and dangerous to the common good and becomes prey, an object of persecution.We have described here both what righteousness is and why it is likely to draw to itself "persecution." 
Saint Anthony the Great:
“There is coming a time, when men will go mad. They will take hold of you and say, 'You are mad! You are not like us!”

Righteousness is first and foremost clearing the heart of all clutter, (purification) so that the vision of the heart-mind becomes operational and clear, so that perception of truth is possible; so then that judgment and the action upon that judgment is based upon what is absolutely true and absolutely real - The Holy Spirit of God.  Remember that the Kingdom of God, is first a contemplation of “realities.”   So Saint John Chrysostom says, “'On account of righteousness' that means, on account of virtue, for the protection given to others, and for piety.” 
“'On account of righteousness' that means, on account of virtue”;
obtaining virtue, a state of virtue, then he gives it a physical meaning.
“for the protection given to others”; 
and that has so many, many possible meanings in the life of the saint and the struggling sinner, and the life in but not of the world; then he finishes by saying, 
“and for piety.”    
Piety is first and foremost, “faithfulness.
He captured the meaning of that past tense,  “who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake . . .”  Holding virtue, able to see, able to make a judgment based upon the Spirit of truth, choosing to act, this is good but not complete, since then one must be faithful in the action and see it through. Piety is that faithfulness.  “For it is always His (Jesus') custom to speak of righteousness as the entire philosophy of the soul, that is the true philosophy of the spiritual life of virtue, discipline and doctrine.”  We will get back to this idea of “virtue, discipline and doctrine.” Piety . . . faithfulness takes all three. 

Why would it be that those who are "poor in spirit" (step one) and those who are "persecuted for righteousness sake" (step eight) would both be promised "the kingdom of heaven"? This would imply on the face of it that the effect of step one and step eight are the same. It leaves one thinking that the circle of steps are for nothing because we end up where we started. However the two things are very different yet the two things are the same. Step one shows the beginning of the work of the rule of God in the heart, the reanimating of the Heart-Mind. (NOUS)  Step one is a private affair, except for public confession of faith, which has to happen some time in those very early steps.  It can be taken solely with a single Spiritual Father or Mother, as one is lead to the opening passages of spiritual life.  

Modern clericalism has reduced this beginning step(s) to catechism classes taught usually by a priest in a more or less formal setting destroying in most cases the intimacy and reality of the early idea of the "soul-friend" (anamchara). In the Celtic Orthodox Tradition the anamchara was a spiritually developed Christian, like a personal counselor, a real spiritual friend, that one person to whom you may be totally honest and have total confidence and trust. It was often a monk or a nun, rarely a priest, and some time other "sanctified" lay-people, a working person with great virtue.  Sadly formal catechism classes rarely fit this description. 

Step eight far from personal, it is an action “into the world”.  And it is a circle and one does end up in the same place, with the Kingdom of God resting in the mind-heart.  But it being a circle it is a spiral because it is a long, long way from step one to step eight. 

But then again this linear picture is artificial and mechanical, and as we have stated before, according to our reception, circumstance and wisdom, these steps overlap, and can be partially formed, partially completed, where we are spread out across the steps not clearly defined in our progress by just one step.  I saw for instance, inmates, and in a few instances Satanists and gang members whose conversion had to be of such power, lacking real privacy and open to immediate persecution, they had to be instantly ready and capable as a baby Christian, to stand and be faithful in the abuse that was to swiftly follow their conversion.  In the most desperate cases I would take months, exorcising and catechizing before I would baptize them, so they could, as it were, struggle in advance, defend their intention before assuming the yoke of defending their reality, so that they were grounded in some semblance of virtue, discipline and doctrine able to give a defense for their own action of conversion, to their own heart, even if they were not articulate in defending themselves to others. I knew that voice of wisdom would come, IF their experience was real to them.  I grilled them in these steps. Outlined in much detail the path of healing/salvation with every bit of wisdom the Holy Spirit saw fitting. Along with the other lessons, they had to understand the next lesson clearly: 

Matt 5:11-12: 


Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.  - We commonly mistake this last section of this sentence to mean "so persecuted they the prophets" (period) as if the "that were before YOU" is a needless time marker as if the hearers do not know what era they live and what was the era of the prophets.

Jesus knew that the persecution of those who followed him would happen swiftly, just as I knew that these inmates would swiftly suffer for their faith. They had to understand, that the persecution that would quickly come, dangerous, certainly, even possibly deadly, that it could not be endure without realizing its absolute necessity, that it is as much a part of The Way as is catechism, baptism, chrismation and their first communion. With THAT comes the certain challenges of Satan. No one escapes testing and bitter trial, no one.  If you have escaped, you need to ask yourself a serious one word question; WHY? 


Why would Christians, people of The Way, people whose single crime is to know God in his reality, as he can be known by mortal creatures, who strive to dedicate to, and work for, the good . . . why should these people be singled out to be persecuted as the Prophets were persecuted?  The simple answer is because they would speak and ACT, from the well-spring of the same prophetic spirit.

What did it mean in times past to be a prophet? Except to perceive reality, (truth) having ones judgment restored, having that "open line" between the heart and the Holy Spirit, then able by “virtue”, through “discipline,” ACTING in piety, that is faithfulness.  This is what a prophet does. Why would Jesus make possible to us, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the same spirit present in the prophets of old, who have spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit from the beginning, IF not to create powerful prophetic witnesses, imbued with Gifts of the Holy Spirit?  Powerful people who could in Virtue act, prophetically, in discipline/doctrine and faithfulness.    

What one becomes by the work of these steps empowered by God's Grace, is a prophet, in that one becomes able to perceive, speak and act upon TRUTH. Many of the Holy Fathers, speaking of this spirit of prophecy, that is, being able to perceive and speak TRUTH, said by many words, that it didn't matter, if what one could say concerning the profound healing of The Way was a lot or but a little, since it is TRUE. Why?  Because in both instances one must ACT upon the prophetic reality, eloquence or mean speech is of little difference when the action of virtue, discipline/doctrine and faithfulness are required.  

One of the people in my young life, whose influence was profound on me, was a friend with an I.Q., of 97.  His uncomplicated grasp of virtue was humbling to me. Often times he would say, “Butch, you know that's not right” and it would have the force of an old testament saint speaking. His innate judgment seemed to me flawless, and it was impossible to con him, because he had no passion, pride or greed in which to sink the hook.  

One becomes a prophet when one becomes capable of "hearing and ACTING Truth." This is very different than simply "hearing the truth, conceptualizing it, intellectualizing it and reciting it."  Which sadly is the stunted condition of so many "bible only Christians" who are so sincere and have studied so hard.  So many are so serious and without the guidance of the Church are worse off and more blind than the Ethiopian Eunuch sitting on his chariot reading, wondering, contemplating what the words must mean.  No rather the modern Bible Only Religionist, lacks the humility of the Eunuch variously ascribing meaning to scriptures according to first and second path spirituality/theology; His interpretation is based upon an innovative tradition of man, according to the rational theological lines of his denomination, and/or what he rationally constructs, or emotionally constructs, without guidance, on his own. Often times the great Bible Quest creates a resultant spirituality of bitterness; it is a prideful fast to as Isaiah said, "for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness"  Would that he would say as the Ethiopian, "how can I understand when I have no one to interpret its meaning." Its meaning is not "hearing the truth, conceptualizing it, and intellectualizing it and reciting it as a weapon." Its meaning is ORGANIC HEALING.  

Rom 10:15" . . . How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, of those preaching the gospel of good things!" 
"How dare you talk about The Gospel of Peace and the Gospel of Good Things!   Don't you know that the New Testament is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified!" I actually had a Bible Only Christian say this to me, yet these are Saint Paul's words. So you may label this series The Gospel of deep psycho/spiritual healing; without which you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?"  So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 

1Th_2:13  For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. 

What meaning is Faith devoid of Truth? That is the definition of delusion, fantasy, superstition and error.

Faith is the exercise of Truth, so that it may have effectual work IN us, "so that we may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God." Even this "good, acceptable and perfect" has application in this picture of the steps, the degrees of coming to know God's will in increasing understanding, knowledge and wisdom AS WE "Effectualize" "Internalize" HEAL and GROW. 

Truth/Faith comes by hearing; We are hearing the truth as we are dealing with all the sickness of
religion in ourselves on the level of each step, or we could not grow. Internalizing the truth, meeting the challenges truth causes in our person, in our psyche, we are beating back our own resistance to repentance, health and healing.  This internalization, this effecualization, is organic, biological before it is spiritual, and although we use concepts and intellect as tools, our goal and sphere of healing is organic of the whole person.  A reality beyond words creating peace beyond understanding.

 When one reaches Step Eight one begins to"speak the truth" in word and action, which is prophecy, which has the power to challenge everyone around, without a single challenge intended, really. Your very presence comes to be recognized as a challenge to the LIE.  In the previous steps we talked about "works of mercy."  These works become more powerful and cannot be hidden from the world.

Upon this step one has gained enlightenment, able to know the will of God.  The pride of this world (Satan), the ignorant arrogance of religious sickness, the pride of philosophies without wisdom, and scientific "advance" without wisdom., etc., etc., hates any source of the spoken "will of God." No matter how softly one speaks the truth, no matter how sugar-coated and timidly one speaks the truth, truth offends, grieves, insults and angers those who choose to hide in darkness. It also creates life in those who begin to hear, even if the initial encounter is painful.  

In practical experience of speaking the truth in love, a "spiritual father" or "mentor" leading people to Orthodoxia -(truth) will have the same person in the course of time praise him in ignorance, ascribing to him what he has not said, and liking it, since it is filtered through his own religious sickness.  Later the same person may scoff and disparage him as a heretic for the very same truth, when it begin to pierce the heart and expose the sickness, i.e shed light on the psycho-pathos and challenge it to change and healing.  

In resistance the same person may write huge tomes of explanation, knowing that certainly the problem has to be in the “mentor's” misunderstanding of their theological or philosophical stance, since theirs is so systematically and carefully formed to the satisfaction of their own ego. They will spend hours, days, grasping at straws like a drowning man.  Only to, when it is time, approach with great tears of repentance allowing the Holy Spirit his work, where there has been no coercion, no hypnosis of altar calls and other methods of manipulation.  Rather the person has come "rationally" conquering their own resistance, via the exercise of their free will, eyes wide open, (not eyes wide shut) seeing greater than dead tradition of men, greater than rational theology that had reduced God to their understanding and greater than the fantasy producing emotions mistaken as the movement of the Holy Spirit. Superstitions, fantasies and errors fleeing like ghost in the night. I've seen such people turn so solid, so eloquent, that I have to fight envy, seeing their grace, their gifts, under inspiration of TRUTH. 

Yet I have witnessed some turn snake eyed and venomous, spewing hatred and lies, in demonic demonstration, burn all the bridges between themselves and truth.  But even these are not necessarily lost. Some return and receive wonders of healing and enlightenment. 

To speak prophetically has nothing to do with reading the future and making predictions, although, it will often seem so.  It is simply the animated, Mind-Heart (the NOUS) awake to the Holy Spirit.  Many believe that we as Christians are supposed to"shave the truth" and not speak the whole truth less we offend someone.  We certainly do not blare from the roof top what is incomprehensible even to the sincere seeker, at first. We use wisdom in our actions, yet Jesus' works and words of truth comforted and taught those able to hear and the very same works and words of truth offended and troubled those unwilling or unable to hear, to the point they wanted to kill him.  Truth no matter how softly spoken, no matter what wise words are employed, cuts to the marrow and always holds the danger of creating violent reaction. 

I'm sure there were those pragmatists, and others dedicated to other philosophies, unable to hear Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, these steps, with any comprehension, and simply dismissed his words as poetic fantasy of an "idealist" with no application in the real world. 

Our president (Barack Obama) made it clear that this was his view of Jesus, he said dismissing Christianity specifically, in an odd speech packed with distortions,  and opprobrious dismissal of Christianity in general and These Steps in particular:

“More over, given the diversity of America's population the dangers of sectarianism are greater than ever. Whatever we once were we are no longer a Christian nation, at least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation and a nation of non-believers.  And even if we did have only Christians in our midst; if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would it be James Dobson's? or Al Sharpton's?  Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests that slavery is okay, and that eating shellfish is an abomination, or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith, or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount, a passage that is so radical that it is doubtful that our own defense department would survive its application.”  A third of the audience booed, two thirds of the audience applauded. “Before we get carried away, let us read our Bibles now, some folks haven't been reading their Bibles.  Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translates their concerns into universal rather than religion specific values.  What I mean by that is that it requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason.  Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example. But if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I can't simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will.  I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to the people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.  Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.   As many Evangelicals do, but in a pluralistic society we have no choice.”

The Fundamentalist Christian would find this offensive but would have little understand of the errors in his statement. They would tend to agree that the Sermon on the Mount is not a practical and pragmatic means of Governance.  On the Liberal end of the Protestant spectrum, they would also agree, since they reject most of the Sermon on the Mount, deconstruct it and form it to their prejudices (passions).  An Orthodox Christian would immediately recognize that the faith he is addressing is not their faith and has never been their faith. They would recognize that Obama's non-comprehension of the Sermon on the Mouth, shared to a degree by both fundamentalist and liberal protestants who "idealize it" does not reflect TRUTH. And that in the process of his speaking he has contradicted himself in a most dramatic fashion.

He said, "What I mean by that is that it requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason."  As if that is not the reality of the Christian faith. There is nothing unreasonable about the Christian faith. The fact that it exceeds the capabilities of reason, does not mean that it assaults what may be objectively known, held and understood in Natural Law. There is NOTHING in Christian belief and practice that assaults "things as they are" i.e. Natural Law, which in  reality is God's Law of Nature. He gave the abortion debate as an example, and as anyone who has genuinely applied natural law to the question knows, there is no debate, merely the resistance of those clinging to lie.  So here is the crux of it, and the deception in his words, which are probably unknown to him, since he is obviously an ignorant man on the subject.  This culture does not debate anything upon "reason" but debates between emotional fantasies. Rarely is the debate clearly between Reality and Delusion, Truth and Lie, What may be known vs what is violently rejected.  The abortion debate is exactly the latter, what is objectively and scientifically known vs the violent rejection of the same for the fantasy of a right a woman does not have. The right of unjust homicide. 

The president's little speech reflects the culture as we have previously described. Obama's blindness and glib rejection of the practical Steps of Jesus' teaching. The Sermon on the Mount, the TRUTH present in his words is capable of emptying the mental institutions, capable of destroying the demonic "crafts" of psychology and psychiatry, able to empty the prisons . . . I exaggerate only slightly.  But do you see, that based on the REALITY of these steps, nothing about them is threatening to national defense.  In fact, Government Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy and  Defense Policy based totally in reality, as these steps outline, would create the most just society the world has ever known, and the most powerful and just nation on the world stage, because it would be populated by powerful people no evil could compromise, no propaganda could fool, no conspirators could manipulate, no greedy banksters could control. It is clear that Obama has read the Sermon on the Mount with the same dismissal as  fundamentalists and liberal theologians . . . that being the claim that Jesus' words were some idyllic poetry, a wonderful comforting vision with little or no practical application.  In the debate about whether Obama is Christian or Muslim, regardless, his comprehension of basic Christian healing/salvation is zero. Why would Obama be fearful of Christian intent? Because he knows in his gut that it challenges his darkness.     

Those who heard Jesus and understood, in part, were challenged to the truth some willing to hear more, others unwilling to hear. Some eager to rid themselves of this troublesome person, willing to conspire in criminal conspiracy to kill him. That same spirit continues in the world and seeks the mortal life of all who speak from a foundation of the Truth of Jesus' Divine/Human Nature, who clearly teach and demonstrate in works the healing power the Apostolic Revelation, which is Healing/Salvation.

It is time to speak truth to power, firstly to the powers of Apostasy in the Church, next to the power of Death in the Culture. - And endure the consequences. We need to set this culture on FIRE.  We need to take the Sword to every precious and greedily held LIE. 

I listened to Mother Angelica the famed nun who created the Eternal Word Television Network, (EWTN)  a favorite stranger, for whom I have huge respect,  putting the wisdom of these steps into the language as presented by Saint John, the language of love, which everyone mistakes for "emotions" i.e. sweet feelings.  She explained that it was God sharing his love with us, that love permeating us, informs us, radiating out to our neighbors. She said that there is nothing we can do to create our own "spirituality." All we can do is cooperate with the Spirit of Love. She even talked about love "pushing out ones hatred and bad feelings."  

Nothing she said is false, actually. Yet in that passive picturing it is misleading.  Misleading in the way it would be if someone asked you how to make a car go and you answered "just let the attendant fill it with gasoline. Gasoline warms the engine, gasoline enlivens the engine, gasoline animates the engine, which animates the whole car, the whole car moves about and has an effect in the world because the attendant shared his gasoline with us." Nothing I've said is false, but it is hardly the wisdom of effective automobile movement in the world. It is rather a truncation of that.  The picturing of passivity vis a vis God's love is just as truncated.  The difficulty of Saint John's writings, is that his audience was never intended for those who had not already "ascended into the valley of weeping" ascended at least the first few of these steps.  He wrote for believers already active in the healing life.  These steps are given for sinners anticipating a climb. 

Next the Three Paths of Spirituality/Theology, then we will tackle the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount. 

The Master's Ladder, Step Seven

The Master's Ladder Step by Step 

Step Seven

Mat 5:9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 

I wrote this first with many references from the Holy Fathers, about reconciling the inner man with the outer man.  Reconciling the heart and mind, etc.  How true peace is an inner struggle and happens only when a man becomes reconciled with God.  How, when a man has become so reconciled he naturally tries to effect this reconciliation with others. There is always allusions to greater and grander negotiation and peace making, dialog and understanding. 

All the time the images of fake peace haunting my thoughts. This is the huge tradition of the Fathers with many references, and it is NOT wrong, it is easily referenced so I don't what to merely repeat what is common knowledge.  This is one of those subject that has exhaustive writing, Christian as Peacemaker.  In all of these references, in the English translations the word, “peacemaker” and "peacemakers" is continually employed, as it if has some holy and spiritual significance.  I want to take a slightly different approach. 

How could Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “I came not to bring peace but a sword.”  Is one statement more important than the other? Some would have you believe that "peacemaking" is an outer function and taking up the sword has merely an interior function, sort of like the Muslim apologists try to convince you that Jihad is an "interior spiritual struggle."  Jesus also said, “he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”  I suggest that peacemaking and taking up the sword have both an interior and exterior reality.  Let us look further.  

We have an example of peaceful “Christian Society” in an admonishment by Saint Paul to the “people of the way” the Thessalonians, instructing them to “be at peace,” and it directly ties to these steps. 

1Th 5:12ff  And we request of you, brothers, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and instruct you, and to regard them beyond all measure in love, because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.  Now we exhort you, brothers, admonish the disorderly, encourage the discouraged, be supportive of the weak, be patient toward all. See that no one pays back evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue that which is good, both for one another and for all. Rejoice always! Pray without ceasing! 

Let me further deconstruct the common interpretation of this proposition, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”   Do you know that “peacemaker” is an English word, created for use in the King James Bible with no antecedent in English literature and no etymology springing from another language.  A totally invented word. I think there are some languages, some Northern European languages where they squeeze this verse into “Blessed are the pacifists”  - words having equal meaning in their language. I know this is the way the Coptics use this verse, as if all force is violence.

Dutch, vredestichters, means peace keepers, those who by reason and force, keep the peace.
If we translated the verse literally it would be, Blessed are the (ειρηνοποιός from the root word ειρηνευτής - pacifier) pacificatory, i.e. those who have been pacified. What does pacification mean.  Any army officer can tell you, creating a state of non-hostilities in country. In this case the country is our own selves, our own hearts, our own psyches. The pacification of the interior is the absence of psycho-pathos. The suffering soul ceases to suffer. So it would be correct to translate the words as "blessed are the peaceable." Or better those who keep the peace.  Who are the peaceable but those who are “at peace.”  How does one become “at peace”?  By the spiritual discipline outlined in these steps. In this instance what is described as “peaceable”  has as much in common with social and political pacifism, as being meek has in common with being weak.  

The word peace traces its meaning from the Anglo-French pes, and the Old French pais, meaning "peace, reconciliation, silence, agreement."  This going back to the 11th century.  We see in those definitions words that fits the lessons of these steps. 
Reconciliation, where the heart-mind becomes totally reconciled with God.
Silence, where the chaos of the mind is silenced, so that communication with God can be and ultimately is restored, without the roar of Luciferian static. 

This word “pes”  “pais” came to us from the Latin pax, meaning "compact or agreement or treaty of non-hostilities” a legal term. Pax Romana - Roman Peace, proves that violence of Empire can be mistaken for a time for peace. Even the great church father, a foundation of Orthodoxy who fought the brave fight against heresy like few others in our history, observed this sort of nominal peace saying, "Through the Roman's instrumentality, the world is at peace, and we walk on the highways without fear and sail where we will. _ Irenaeus AD 180. 

This holds little in common with the concept of peace we wish to highlight here.  Pacts of Peace, or peace generated at the point of a gun or edge of a sword, are always agreements of slavery.  Even if totally equitable, which means both sides compromised to evil, or the damage caused by evil, it represents at the VERY best, remission of a disease that is hell bent on destruction. I'm not speaking of anarchy here. There ARE lesser and greater degrees of just governance.  Yet, we place this proposition, “Blessed are the peacemakers” into the paradigm of making peace agreements with evil, so that in our time we read, Blessed are those who make agreements of peace.

I propose and I know that what is true, can never make peace with what is lie.

I propose and I know that what is pure can never make peace with what is corrupted.

I propose and I know that what is life-engendering can never make peace with Satan that ole destroyer, whose very symbol in Paleo-Hebrew is the symbol of sharp toothed jaws chewing up a human being, meaning, he who destroys mankind. There is no peace to make with this evil. 

Those whose spiritual reality has become LIFE-engendering, whose very presence has become LIFE-engendering, the psalmist described this way – (note - remember the Kingdom of God is within, the “house of God” is our hearts, if we so make it):

Psa 84:4  Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah.  Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.  Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.  They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. 

When you have established “praying without ceasing” “rejoicing always” that is, the prayer of the heart, where the heart-mind has awakened and is in continual communion with God, where communication via the power of the Holy Spirit is continual . . . I'm not talking about endless verbalization, although to quiet the mind of its chaos, the Hesychast discipline of the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) is a powerful tool repeated thousands of times a day, which has the power to overcome the fantasy laden and fantasy producing brain, to train it to silence while the heart prays . . . the Jesus Prayer is a tool not the goal; “communion empowered by the Holy Spirit” is the goal.  

And by communion, I'm describing something more like the digital “ping” of a fiber-optic line.  When communications is cleared, there is an open direct line between the heart and the All Mighty, the heart every few seconds pings the Lord and the Lord says, “Here I am.”  The Lord pings the Heart, and the Heart-mind says “Here I am.”  A standing open communications line, so that when information has to pass, it is faster than the speed of light, faster than our natural thought process, feeding us the synergistic wisdom of the Holy Spirit, timely and to the point, functioning above our own rationalizing, an intuitive knowledge that is at every instance, a weapon of healing/salvation.  

The process is so natural, those next to you cannot perceive anything different about you, except that they sense there is at your core a rock they cannot move, using their normal hypnotic means.  They cannot fool you. They cannot influence you.  The most tempting plot they (evil) can arrange cannot find a place in your heart, your heart having become enlivened by something more than mortality. There best psychological weapons pass through to no effect and no damage. 

Lao Tsu said, speaking of those who had taken hold of real life, “I have heard it said that one who excels in safe-guarding his own life does not meet the rhinoceros or tiger when traveling on land nor is he touched by weapons when charging into an army.  There is nowhere for the rhinoceros to pitch its horn; there is nowhere for the tiger to place its claws; there is nowhere for the weapon to lodge its blade. Why is this so?  Because for him there is no realm of death.”

There is no Satanic defense against a Heart that is broken by prayer, against a spirit that is contrite before Holy Wisdom.  “Break your heart open with prayer . . . so that the power of the devil may be completely broken away from your heart by perfection . . Just as a man fears to take hold of a fiery and sparking iron, so the devil fears the breaking of a heart.  For the breaking of the heart breaks his cunning completely.  However, In the relaxed and unbroken heart, as soon as it is confronted with the devil's fantasy, the heart accepts it at once and is deeply impressed by the idea of the fantasy.  Where there is contrition of heart all satanic evil is put to flight and every demonic action is set ablaze.  Break your heart with prayer so that sin may be broken away from your heart . . ” Anonymous Hesychast monk: Neptiki theoria, p 171-174 (in Greek). 

We know, as the master's of hypnosis/propaganda know, that the subconscious mind records everything it sees and hears, without filter, without discrimination. This “recording” becomes part of the person, feeding fantasy and fear. A broken heart on a very, very, deep level takes control of that process, where even the subconscious mind becomes discriminatory, guards itself, aware of the hypnotic assaults. Aware that his enemies of are those of his own household.   

I used the King James version of the psalm above about the strength of one who has come to peace. (Walking through the valley of Baca)  In the Septuagint, the oldest extant version of that Psalm it has a pretty significant departure, (actually it is the King James that departs from it) but it paints a clear picture as to how someone comes to possess this LIFE-engendering power of peace.  Remember God's house is our hearts. It says, “Psa 84:4ff  Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will praise thee evermore. Pause.  Blessed is the man whose help is of thee, O Lord; in his heart he has purposed to go up into the valley of weeping, to the place which he has appointed, for there the law-giver will grant blessings. They shall go from strength to strength: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion . . .  Behold, O God our defender, and look upon the face of thine anointed.”

UP into the valley of weeping.  (greek) “ascends” the valley of weeping not descends into.  This is HOLY dejection, the hospital of Holy Healing, not the pit of despair.  Intelligent therapy, not mindless clawing at wounds. This is “purposed” by the actor, not experienced by mere happenstance. It is a rational meeting with the law-giver, not a sentimental spiritual or nebulous experience or feeling. Blessedness is bestowed there, creating a warrior perfectly at peace within himself. So that, that warrior can turn back to the lawgiver and say, “Behold, O God our defender, look (in me) upon the face of thine anointed.”  Who is the anointed one?  Christ himself.  If that soul can turn to the Almighty, and in warlike fashion and say, Behold my defender, the face of YOUR anointed.  What possible power does Satan have against him?  Is it any wonder that demons go screaming away? Is it any wonder that Satan then has to resort to less subtle and more corporal means of war? 

Blessed are the peaceable, does not mean those who make treaty with evil, but those who have come to peace with God, who can with knowledge observe the plans and actions of Satan and blunt them, dodge them, halt them, expose them.

Peace, true peace comes from reconciliation, from restoring what was broken.  It cannot come to exist where rebellions remains.  
Reconciliation and Rebellion cannot make peace.  
There is no treaty ever written that could make that possible. 
Such treaties codify evil, create illusion while evil insidiously continues its destruction.  
Islam uses false peace as a weapon of conquest through civilization Jihad. 

The Luciferians of the New World Order use treaties of peace for conquest, economic rape, occupation and even genocide.
Look at the absurdity of the warmongering Obama, who with his alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood has created both Muslim and Christian genocide, and he holds a Nobel Peace Prize. Could that prize ever again have any meaning, except to the deluded?  It cannot have meaning to even the Northern European Protestant mindset that reduced this proposition to “Blessed are the pacifists.”  

In fact, Jesus explained this graphically using the text from Micah which says not to place trust your closest companion or government. That your enemies will be of your own household and what he describes is WAR and not false peace.  Those who teach that the “reconciliation” this proposition suggests is reconciliation with evil, to simply create the absence of conflict, at all cost, at the sacrifice of the innocent, which is the pacifists' delusion, they are false teachers. 

(I will spare you the picture, but go to Google Images, and punch in dead children and name the country in conflict - WAKE UP! You cannot make peace by the sacrifice of children to Moloch.)

There is no theological grounds in Christianity for the abandonment of the innocent into the hands of evil for their destruction for the purpose of avoiding conflict. If there were then Jesus' words, “what you do to the least of these, you do also to me” would have no meaning.  Abandoning the innocent, is abandoning Jesus Christ. No he says rather, be at peace and stand and fight, and don't worry there is no place for Satan to lodge his horn.  

IF, it is true, as we described in the previous steps, that one may become prey merely by dropping out of the evil of the Culture, we should see witness to this now. And we do. We see this happening in our culture, where those who merely separate themselves from the evil culture, create no harm or threat, become prey (Waco, Ruby Ridge, the attacks on the survivalist movement – off the grid and you are an immediate suspect.) How much more an enemy is one who overcomes the delusions of the culture, reconciles with the All Mighty and remains in the culture, exposing the cultural lies, blunting them, destroying the hypnotic spell, sabotaging the schemes, causing them to stumble by their own snares. 

These peaceable ones are dangerous. Their hearts literally has the power to open up “the way” for others. “in whose heart are the ways for them.”  Actually, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, --they, in whose heart are the highways.”  Do you want to talk about REAL evangelism. These ones, whose psyches have been filled with life become so filled with life that when they pour themselves our it creates opportunities for healing, stated as wells and pools for the thirsty and highways for those who have lost their way. THESE are the peaceable ones and they are dangerous. 

What is the reality of the false peacemakers?  Jer 6:14ff  And they have healed the breach of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace.  Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, neither know they what it is to blush.”

Fake peace is reconciliation with evil. If you doubt what I'm saying listen to the Sufi Mystic Rumi teach it. 
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there."

Many caught in eastern religions who have come to the knowledge of “centering” of gathering the scattered self, of making the outside like the inside, and those bound by the pseudo-sciences of psychology and psychiatry, suffer the same, by reconciling with evil.  “I'm Gay and I'm PROUD.”  The young woman who says, “I've slept with hundreds of guys. So what?  Who are you to judge?”  This kind of psychological reconciliation is just learning to sin boldly. To accept the fake peace, to pretend destruction of the psyche is healthy, to be unashamed they have committed abomination, having numbed their conscience, now unable blush.  In the next sentence God actually gives them some very sound psychological advice; “Thus saith Jehovah: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the ancient paths, which is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”


So the ancient good way, wherein we may walk and find rest for our suffering soul, our psycho-pathos, is what we are teaching, and not some colors of Eastern Religion, or false peace of modern psychology/psychiatry – hypnosis and drugs.  We are not speaking about making peace with what is false, what is evil, but coming to reconcile our deepest self with TRUTH and CONQUERING IT.

Addictions and other fetishes find empowerment in the paradigm of false peace.  Come to a meeting name your addiction and claim it.  Admit there is no cure.  Reconcile to be locked into struggle for the rest of our life, without relief from the craving, accept that there is no conquest of demonic evil.  Make uncomfortable peace with your demon, struggle valiantly, relapse on a regular basis, months apart or years a part, but gosh take another meeting.  

You see, this is only where did we start.  Father John Romanides of Blessed Memory, who was well known for teaching the psycho-therapeutic discipline of the Holy Fathers, described where we start as, "One is dealing with a neurobiological sickness which produces fantasies in the human imagination and distorts one's vision of reality . . . “  We started a psycho-pathos, a suffering soul, having lost the accurate perception of “the good,” blind to the presence of God, having experienced myriad assorted misuses of Material Being, having our mindset  formed within a sea of distortions, purposeful distortions common in the culture, which together distorted our powers of observation and reason.  

Walking “The Way” away from the neurobiological sickness, our psycho-pathos, first, we began to realizes our own poverty.  We reached to God and begin our walk on The Way.  Again, “The Way” is the earliest name used of physical/spiritual Christian therapeutic life.  It was understood that "The Way" was a physical/spiritual Christian therapeutic LIFE, a liturgy of living (work) and not religion, not a theory, but a physical/spiritual process of healing. The Way is the process of allowing the "reign" of God to come into our hearts, so that when we enter our heart-mind we enter HIS House, a place where HE abides. Where is TENTS among us.  

The person "coming into the Kingdom of God" begins to see with spiritual eyes for the first time and the view is frightening and grief engendering. The view creates both tears of remorse towards the waste of one's own life, but grief looking at the waste of others also, and anger and frustration looking at the sad state of things as they appear to be. And to this spiritual vision comes the comfort of degrees of God's Wisdom. God's Wisdom is an uncreated energy of God, it is "Ha Hagia Sopia," the Holy Wisdom, the Holy Spirit.   So participation in the "kingdom-reign of God" is participation in His uncreated energies, which is the substance of NEW LIFE, a substance actually created for us by Jesus Christ, upon the Cross. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” It is the Divine/Human substance of Jesus himself, into which we are being imbued here and now, with incorruption and immortality. 

Jesus was speaking on the personal level and on the societal level, on the physical level and on the spiritual level when he said:

“Mat 10:32ff  Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
Correction – this actually says in the Greek, Whosoever shall confess IN me, before men.”  Do you see the confirmation of what I am teaching you?  Confession of Jesus Christ, saying “Lord, Lord” has no meaning.  Many, when pressed including Satan and his demon will make confession "of" Jesus. 

Mat_7:21  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 
Mat_7:22  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 
Luk_6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 

Well, I've always believed in Jesus Christ!
So has Satan.
Well, I've always believed in the Bible!
So has Satan. 
Well, I've always confess that Jesus Christ is my, Lord.
So has Satan.

You can confess the name of Jesus Christ, constantly until the end of days and it will accomplish you nothing, for even the demons call him Lord, Lord, and believe. No one can TRULY Confess IN the LORD, except by the Holy Spirit. That power has to become established in you.
Until you Confess Jesus Christ IN HIM, your confession is prideful hubris, it is a hypocritical claim to something you DO NO possess. 

And there is only one way to become possessed of him. That is do the work to make your heart his true abode. And in that you cannot stand with pride, holding closely your passions, harboring a heart filled with garbage and that confession have any meaning whatsoever. 

“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.”

Again, so we can affirm that we are theologizing and not theorizing, I want to related this story about the power of REAL peacemaking, an actual event I recorded a few years ago.  

A Season of Peace 
(Written February 1977)
The story of an unexplainable reign of peace in Georgia's most violent state prisons, the state's official disciplinary prison, where the most violent are housed. 

It is a place the public rarely sees. It is nestled in a valley in the Georgia Mountains. It is out of sight and out of mind for most Georgians. It is a place you have to mean to find, to go there. There is not a home or business in sight of it. A narrow two lane road leads off the highway winding through low hills, then at the crest of one of the hills the prison looms into view, sprawling across and covering the entire valley floor. It is a daunting sight: 12 ft fences and razor wire, a perimeter road a mile and a half around and 80 foot tall guard towers and cell-blocks housing one-thousand-four-hundred men. Dogs in cages bay in the distance and at times the air is punctuated with the sound of the firing range some hundreds of yards away. Here is the place where the state prison system sends its disciplinary problems. It houses some of the worst of the worst. 

I was asked by a friend of a friend to visit a man at the prison. The chief chaplain had been solicitous of help and asked if there was a possibility that I could come maybe once a month and say Mass. That afternoon I really didn't know what to expect. Several inmates gathered for Mass. The service began and all went well. During the sermon in a way that was hard for me to understand, I found myself declaring a reign of peace, 
saying: 

"Few of you realize the power of inviting Christ into an institution in the special way we do in the Mass. Whether you believe in the real presence in the Bread and Wine or not, I will tell you 'it has power.' This isn't a revival service this is the physical presence of the Almighty. It is not the magical changing of the element into flesh and blood as the Roman doctrine proclaims. That is a three dollar definition of a billion dollar mystery. But it is real none-the-less and we in Orthodoxy call it "The Mystery of the Eucharist." I can't explain it, but I know it is true. And that TRUTH has power to effect these surroundings. The power of Christ's real presence in the Divine Eucharist is not limited to this room and to you men, but has the power to effect this entire institution. Do you want to see change in this violent place?" 
A few nodded their approval. 
"Then be faithful to this service and invite others to participate. But whether others participate or not the presence of this service will be felt throughout this institution." 

As soon as these words were spoken I shrank from them, and questioned my sanity. I took a hard look at the men in the room, strangers all. But from reputation and information in orientation, I knew that they were serious men. I mentally kicked myself angry that my "ego" had gotten the best of me and that I had made "claims" that I should not have made. My animal mind told me what a fool I would appear.  In those moments I understood failure. I had failed and I knew it. There was nothing I could do to bring peace to that prison. The thought of it was ridiculous. Then in the presence of "The Presence" as in fact the All Mighty's presence filled that chapel, I felt an assurance that removed all doubt. It had huge humor to me.  I knew that peace was going to blanket that place, that it was unreasonable, irrational and still it had more reality to me than stone, than my own nose, than my own broken heart. 

That peace in that dangerous place and the knowledge of that peace in a place of violence and pain was a feeling of strength I had never felt before. Somehow there was the certain knowledge that even in this place God was in charge. My imagination rushed to the idea of what it would take to bring calm to a maximum security prison filled with robbers, rapists, murderers and thieves. Violence was a way of life here, all many of these men knew; all some of them had ever experienced from birth. What could possibly bring a season of peace? And why would the Lord choose to show such a sign in this prison, now? Repeatedly in the months ahead I found myself making statements about peace and the power of the Presence of Christ in the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist. 

A SUDDEN DROP IN THE LEVEL OF VIOLENCE: 

Prison professionals know the sick feeling of quiet before the storm. Experience has taught them that when a place filled with violent men suddenly becomes quiet there can only be one reason, "They are plotting and planning something." There grew an uneasy calm that lasted months. The officers and staff were nervous. They stepped up eavesdropping, listening in on the activities of the inmates. Many boring hours were spent listen to the gambling and horse play that are standard realities of the prison life. Finally after months of listening they had something. Seven inmates were meeting regularly in the exercise yard of one of the cell blocks and were talking about seeking revenge on the Warden for some of his strict policies.  However, in fact, it had been six months of non-violence, and no real rebellion brewing. 

A DAY OF VIOLENCE: 

It was a warm day. At dawn the collective Tactical squads of several prisons "invaded" the prison. They goose-stepped onto the parade ground and clicked their heels. They were clad only in black and wore Kevlar masks. On the signal they sprang into action carrying out a violent and grueling "shake-down." 

Every inmate in the institution was stripped naked and forced to lay belly down on the concrete with his legs crossed and his hands crossed behind him. For propriety sake and good taste I will not go into the details of the severity of this "raid and shake-down" but I will say that I have seen shock. And even days and weeks after the shakedown there were inmates and staff still showing the symptoms of shock. It was not until this point that I became aware that the previous months had been so peaceful. (note: I personally saw bloody beatings, that day. They hauled the most injured away via bus, and had to call out the camp fire department to hose off the tarmac where the buses were running blood. - I did not include these details and more, because I wrote this for the camp's inmates and guards, wardens, and staff.) 

What a reward for a period of peace! It was absurd on the face of it. Yet who was I to second guess. The men who run Georgia's prisons are trained and capable. Many have years of experience and have seen all there is to see in the prison setting. I was "out of my element" inside a maximum security prison. I didn't know the prisoner's "lingo" or the rule by which inmates and officers lived. But on the face of it, it seemed like the worse kind of counter-productive act. It "appeared" that the message that was sent was, "behave, and do as you are 
supposed to do and we will reward you with a violent shakedown." 

EXPECTING REPRISALS: 

I assumed that after the shakedown, especially since it was an unjust assault where even cooperative inmates were beaten there would be reprisals. I assumed that the violence level would increase. But it didn't. Months passed and nine months into the reign of peace, the institution broke the all time state record for the most peaceful institution in the state. And now, as of this writing in 13 months into this reign of peace, each day that rolls by creates a new record. The contrast is shown clearly in the statistics for the month of December last year and  this past December which is an emotionally difficult month and tends to be a volatile time. In December last the Disciplinary Reports (D.R.s) numbered 137. That is 4.42 reports a day.  This December the Disciplinary Reports numbered 8. That is (point -25) .25 reports a day, A NINETY-FIVE PERCENT DECREASE IN VIOLENCE. 
THE PEACE THAT PASSES ALL RATIONAL UNDERSTANDING: 

By any rational model this strange event cannot be explained. One cynical captain told me that it was just "screwing with statistics to impress the people in Atlanta." He said that many of the reports that would have been filed were being settled without filing them. He estimated that a "realistic figure" for the D.R.s in December 1996 "should have been around 35." I smiled realizing that he could not face the truth of it. And even if his cynicism were true, that would still be a decrease of about 75 percent.  75% or 95% I will not quibble. But I know one thing. God has created a reign of peace in a violent place as only God can. And in that time of peace we have seen many wonders of healing.  "Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Praise him ye creatures here below Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen." 

We have never allowed ourselves to imagine the reality of God's peace, the "irrational" reality of that Peace. We have never thrown ourselves on His Peace, and with warrior like resolve “let it be.”  But the story above is repeated in families and neighborhoods, and communities, and cities, many times more than we know.  We have bought Satan's brainwashing scheme thinking we cannot conquer evil here, now.  Without God's faithful peaceful ones present in the violence culture, being the leaven in the dough, this planet would be a singular living hell and would not long exist. 

All one has to do to view the miracle of God's Peace, is to look at the last fifty years and the presence of the power of the human race to exterminate itself many times over. Yet, walking to the brink of nuclear war three time with tens of thousands of possible errors that could have created holocaust, the uneasy peace remains. Whatever peace we have, is the peace we possess. Whatever peace or holocaust that is to come is also from the very same base of reality.  Who WE are. 

Thank God that many who may have no idea of the Steps of the Master, have intuitively found them, and intrinsically functioned in the synergistic life of the Holy Spirit of Life and Peace and become peacemakers. 

His peace is real and springs from relationship with him in a mystery we can experience but cannot explain. That real Peace, Peace which is beyond "understanding" is available in the Singular Orthodox Spirituality Christ creates in the Church and the Synergistic working of the Holy Spirit of ALL LIFE, everywhere in actions beyond our comprehension. Many who do not have the slightest idea what that "Singular Orthodox Spirituality" is have found it, in various compromised and corrupted forms, but none the less have found it. In ignorance they may think that the various "sicknesses of religion" they have accepted are the source, but even in that compromise to the sickness of religion, the Holy Spirit is not absence and is working around the "obstacles" one clings to, and He is leading, teaching and drawing. There is a "short cut to peace" which is not a short cut at all but is instead the "Work of Our Lives" which will bring His Peace. It is the Orthodox Faith of the New Testament-Apostolic Church, the ancient Christian Faith still present, still alive, still real. 
(End of February 1997 Article.) 

I have to admit, that these eighteen years later there was consistent truth in what I wrote then and what I'm writing now.  It would take a book to tell of the healing effect of those years that reign of peace is still producing, directly traceable to that event.  We have to stop playing Satan's game on Satan's turf, we have to play God's game on Satan's, and BE the Church Militant, starting with the turf of our own hearts. Ridding it of it Satanic baggage, preparing it for warfare that is to come.

Excuse the well known saying, but how very apropos:
IF NOT US, WHO THEN?
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?