The Greatest Salesman in the World

--Seen in Tallahassee this week

--We just want you to be all you can be
--You want me to join the army?
--Let's try this again
--Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

There is an immeasurable distance
between late and too late
--The Greatest Salesman in the World,
Og Mandino

Other nations when victorious
on the battlefield dictate peace terms.
But when Israel is victorious
it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews
to be the only real Christians in this world
--Israel's Peculiar Position, Eric Hoffer

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?
And one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your Father
--Matthew 10-29
_____________________

Homily: Confession as enablement.

Ranger recently found the book "The Prayer Warrior's Way" by Cindy Trimm in a North Florida restaurant. She also wrote The Art of War for Spiritual Warfare, co-opting both Sun-Tzu and Cameron with no evident credentials. (Her bio claims she is a "Doctor" and a former "Senator", but neither the academic nor the civic reference are found on her website.)

But it caused him to wonder whether he, too, could become a prayer warrior. He feels as misunderstood as Jesus, at times, and as they are both SOG, he decided to go into it. Taking a particular Ranger's perspective, he asked:

What if Jesus died not to atone for my (our) sins, but rather so that I (we) might continue to sin? Why else the various actions toward forgiveness, like confession and penance? Why get forgiven when the reality is, we will sin again? The confessional booth is a revolving door, and it is a form of repetitive atonement forestalling ... what? It is a fix, a nicotine patch -- your mileage may vary.

Is God a fool, or the Greatest Salesman in the World? What is this ephemeral snake oil of the sacraments that cures no one from his indwelling slant towards ignominy, from his ever-present, puerile Reptilian Brain? We pay for it, gnash our teeth and rent our garments, but to no avail: The sunrise brings another day of moral failings.

--Like Burma Shave signs,
on the way to Ranger's house

Why die to relieve us of the burden of sin when that dismissal is a sham, and the reality is that your empire is built on the necessity of man's moral lapses? Whatever the intention, sin is big business.

Why do we deify one single (unverified) Jew who forsook his religion and tooka spear for us, and then we proceed to pogromize and slaughter untold millions in abject degradation -- in the spirit of Christianity -- since that day? Is this good faith? Is it we who created Jesus to enable our millennial inequities?

--The end of the Burma Shave trail

Why is Jesus more sacred than his his murdered brethren? One could become even more catholic and extend that to every State murder of any vilified individual or group. If He died for a purpose, then why have millions been murdered hence as a result of racial hatred, if we are all brothers?

Simply put, why value and worship a Jewish God born of Jewish traditions, and then vilify Jews for the next 2,000 years?

Utterly flummoxed as to the answers, Ranger is content to ask humbly, "If there is a heaven, will God one day reunite him in eternity with all of the mismatched socks in his drawers?"

--Jim and Lisa