wars and rumors of wars.

hi kids, you miss me? i've been out and about. spent the weekend listening to marion woodman's sitting by the well lecture. it is fabulous. if you haven't heard it, and care to learn about such things, i highly recommend it.

feeling the pace and pulse of life quickening here in ny, and i'm hoping that is a good thing. so easy to get caught up in busy-ness that one loses all touch with presence. at least that is how i find it happens to me. one moment i'm connected, the next yelling at some jerk who just cut me off and running late for an appointment.

it is nice, for a while, not knowing anyone, not being needed anywhere in particular. you can move at your own pace and set your own agenda.

i'm surrounded by piles of laundry i need to fold, sort, put away, then iron (i hate ironing. something about wrinkled clothes, they are endless. i guess that is the problem once i submit to the iron, i'll never stop ironing. but living in an apartment one can't stand in their skivies by the dryer waiting for something to lose the wrinkles, so the iron is a necessary evil. plus the closets are very small making my clothes into origami before i can wear them).

i listened to a book on tape yesterday called the art of war. i do not know why things catch my fancy, but they do. i happened to pick up this title together with the art of happiness, go figure.

anyway, i transcribed a passage that i found utterly intriguing. (i find it interesting that my journal pages for this tape have these crazy columns which there are three to four on a page, like i was writing in some oriental way or something. i'll never be able to make heads or tales of the notes, they are like some madman wrote them, but it is an interesting change from all the other transcribed passages.):

so it is said that if you know others and know yourself you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles. if you do not know others but know yourself you will win one and lose one. If you do not know others and do not know yourself you will be imperiled in every single battle.

now that made my head spin. the passage continues:

When you know others then you are able to attack them. When you know yourself, then you are able to protect yourself. Attack is the time for defense. Defense is a strategy of attack. If you know this you will not be in danger in a hundred battles.

frightening, but eye-opening. consider the spiritual ramifications of this passage alone. not man v. man, but screwtapian, the heavenly powers v. man issues this raises. not that i'm saying we need to know the ways of the enemy (as in become an expert, but be aware of his tactics), i'm saying there may be more to this than meets the eye.

the passage continues:

If you only know yourself this means guarding your energy and waiting. This is why knowing defense and not offense means half victory and half defeat. When you know neither the arts of defense or attack you will lose in battle.

i'm sure there are tons of people who say they heard from God before 9-11. well, i did not know what was going to happen, but in august of the preceding year, the Lord started talking to me about guerilla warfare. how the enemy will use and uses mind games against us. i wrote some poems about it, that is what i do when i hear stuff, and mentioned it in passing to the small group i was leading at the time. but this passage in retrospect makes a great deal of sense to me.

we have an enemy who knows us. who watches our every move. who can probably tell what foolhardy thing we'll be about next.

the author advises warriors to make their plans in secret and disclose them to no one. to make their actions contrary to appearances. all this to win wars. bone chilling as this tape is to listen to, it is very enlightening from the point of, the gullibility of the one the warrior is looking to defeat.

lure them by their appetites,

he says at one point.

i heard once, probably john wimber say, esau was a man of appetite. we must learn to curb our appetites (psalms says, cut your throat if you are given to desiring the king's dainties), or we'll sell the birthright for a mess of pottage.

these are very serious words. i know i'm a bit wacky at times, but this tape really made me think about how much i do in the open. not that i'm going to become all sneaky, because i don't think God has called me to that (and i am not going to adopt the ways and means this tape endorses, because they are anti-biblical), but it makes me think. to consider what i am doing. do i know God is in this, am i firmly rooted to the Vine? am i plugged in to the Source? what are my appetites anyway?

it is worth some consideration, that is all i'm saying. if we've got an enemy who is constantly plotting our demise, we do well to heed don potter's words,

make your movements contrary to the way you've always done things in the past. don't do what you've always done because it is known that you are going to do that.

(though he said it far more eloquently).

that's all. kind of a bummer word, but timely, i hope.
peace.