RIGHTEOUSNESS MILLING AROUND

People who define “milling around” as “loitering” do not understand the process of milling, as it was once done. Back in the “modern” world of our great-grandfathers, power, usually supplied by a water wheel of some sort, turned a great granite disk atop a stationary great granite disk. The top disk had slots cut into it towards the axle, something like the spokes of a wheel. The grain or corn to be milled started down these slots, but seldom made it to the center without being overridden and crushed between the two stones, becoming flour or meal which exited at the center. (Or perhaps it went the other way, from center outwards, in some cases.) In either case, as the grain or corn was trickled in to this grinding process there were initially no high tech scoops that efficiently pushed it into the slots; rather it agitated and bounced about at the entrance to the slots until dumb luck popped it into the slot. In other words, before it was milled it “milled around.”

My point is that “milling around” was part of the process. If grains or kernels stood still they would never enter the slot and be ground. There was no “loitering” involved in “milling around” (or “milling about”). In fact the agitation of grains of wheat or kernels of corn at the entrance of slots was necessary, if those wonderfully simple mills were to work.

As I have been feeling agitated, yet seem to be far from becoming any sort of refined “flour”, I therefore I think “milling around” is a good description of my current state. I am not loitering. I am part of a process above my pay-grade, in God’s hands. I am troubled, agitated, outraged, but lack the power to influence those who trouble, agitate, and outrage me.

I am not alone. The so-called “swamp” in Washington DC has resorted to corruption, calling it “ways and means”, which just isn’t right. Everyone knows it. They themselves know it, which makes them increasingly take steps to oppress the backlash they know is brewing, because they know they deserve it. They hope to delay the backlash until after they have lived their glutted lives, and then, like the French King once stated, “After Us, the deluge.”

However the American Revolution was not like France’s. It definitely had an ugly side, but nothing like France’s. Loyalists did hang the young schoolteacher Nathan Hale, but then acted astonished when they themselves were not hung, but sent packing to Canada, after they lost the war. And as these poor refugees fled north they received food and shelter from the very patriots they had despised. This is different from what the French revolution would have given them: The guillotine.

Despite all the wars and bloodshed, compared to other lands there is something very nice about America. It seems almost too kind. And, whatever it is, it is currently “milling around.”

I don’t find milling around a comfortable place to be. To be so agitated is all wrong. The righteous are overruled by bribed judges, over and over, as if filthy lucre mattered more than God. But what can we do? We “mill around.”

If I were given the time and resources to debate, I could explain why what is wrong is wrong, but such debate is exactly what “they” want to prevent. Therefore I, and countless others, wind up shadow-banned, marginalized, cancelled, unheeded, and part of a population “milling around.”

This is part of a repetitive process which occurs and reoccurs and re-reoccurs in history until we get sick of it. Good gets established as the “Law”, (or Constitution, or Bill of Rights), but then some slime-bags come along and think only suckers follow such sissy, Sunday-school rules, and they briefly prosper by cheating. I say “briefly” because, in the long run, history teaches us that “cheaters never prosper.” However, for a while they think they are smarter than everyone else.

The concept of there being a “Law” we follow to our benefit (and break to our detriment) is very ancient, and predates Moses and the Torah. Through the mists of time, scrutinizing clay tablets, we can catch glimpses of a “God of Righteousness” with a name something like “Zedek”, and this animates the mysterious appearance of Melchizedek, a “high priest of God”, in the wanderings of Abraham, long before Moses wrote the “Law” down.

The “Law” was written or dictated (or perhaps recalled after-the-fact; there is much debate about this,) by Moses as the Torah, which is basically the first five books of the Bible. It is not merely the foundation of Judaism, but also Christianity and Islam. Islam? Yes, for, although I am no scholar of the Koran, in 5:44 It states,

Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis
and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of
God, and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but
fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price [i.e., worldly
gain]. And whoever does not judge by what God has revealed – then it is
those who are the disbelievers

 

My personal reading of the above suggests that followers of Islam (and indeed everybody) had best be wary of hating Jews, lest in the process they hate those who are following the Torah, which would make the haters themselves, and not the Jews, the “disbelievers.”

Sadly Mohammedans, and Christians, and Jews, have all at times failed to “Judge by what God has revealed.” That is how religions founded on love are corrupted to hatred and horrible wars. The hypocrisy gives religion a bad name. The behavior of Catholics and Protestants towards each other, and Sunni and Shiite Moslem towards each other, has been barbaric. And that is between followers of the same dogma, who you would think could get along. If you can’t even get along in your own cult, how can you love your enemies? Consequently we see the mayhem of crusades. It is enough to turn anyone towards Atheism. However the fact of the matter is that this disgusting behavior is not proof religion is bad, but proof some don’t practice what they preach.

The sad fact (that we mortals are able to be seduced away from obedience to the “Law”) is ancient. One delightful thing about Judaism is that they don’t hide their failures, in their histories.

One thing that has always fascinated me is the political situation which is apparent in the time when Jews had no overlords, described in “Judges.” They were apparently what we now would call “Libertarian”. They needed no police, for they knew what the “Law” was, and obeyed it, until they got seduced and didn’t. Then all hell broke loose and they became terribly upset, and milled about, whereupon a “Judge” appeared to rescue them and get them back on track, in terms of obeying the “Law.”

Though this was occurring 3000 years ago, it seems suspiciously similar to our situation today, as we mill around. I am wondering if we are wishing for a modern day “judge”. Perhaps Donald Trump?

But the ancient scriptures also describe a time the Jews didn’t just want a “judge”, able to discern between good and evil, but rather wanted to abdicate their personal freedom and accept a “king”. I delight in how the prophet Samuel warned the Jews how costly such an abdication of freedom would be.

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; 12 and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. 15 He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. 16 He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle^b and donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.

America’s founding fathers wanted presidents to be short term “judges” and not long term “kings.” The first furthers freedom, and the second ends it.

In any case, I have no such power, as we currently mill about.

In some ways I’m glad I have no power, for the burden of telling people the difference between judges and kings would be great, especially because as soon as you have power you face an onslaught of seductions. What sort of fool might I make of myself? Suppose some publisher (who actually gagged at my poetry) told me he wept reading it, or some nubile maiden (who actually found my decrepit body so loathsome she wanted to vomit) told me I was irresistibly attractive? There’s no fool like an old fool, and I confess I’m susceptible to flattery, and therefore it is a good thing I never get any. Instead, I’m just milling about, with all sorts of other people who never get flattered.

Of course, there is something dangerous, even explosive, in the “milling around”. To continue my millstone analogy, people don’t think of flour as being like gunpowder, but when flour dust in the air was ignited by a spark in the old mills, there could be amazing explosions.

Perhaps we saw such an “explosion” in my little town, in broad daylight, at the “big” intersection of Main Street with the “Turnpike”. I pass through that intersection on my way to work, but not on my way home, (because I take a one-way road going home). Therefore I saw nothing unusual when I headed out to feed the goat at the Childcare at 2:00 PM, but later, at 6:55 PM, as I headed out after supper to a Bible Study, the intersection bore a remarkable graffiti.

(I took the above pictures a week after the event. The “burn outs” were even blacker when fresh.)

Usually such “burn outs” are the result of rebellious teenagers going wild at two AM, when no one can see them and report them. What I found striking was the above vehicle did its screaming pirouettes in broad daylight. Also there are some rumors the rebel wasn’t a teenager.

At this point there tends to be discussion about the danger involved, and the foolishness of risk, but there can be little doubt the graffiti which the burn-outs left in the center of a small town expresses a certain contempt towards authority. Then the discussion moves on to which authority is the contempt directed at: The “Law”? Or the busybody ordinances of bureaucrats who themselves are contemptuous of the “Law”?

I can’t say. Maybe a little of both. But I will say that I sense a pent up tension in the air, as people “mill about.” Nor do I feel it is only experienced by a particular political party in the United States. It seems to be world wide. People are simply fed up with a leadership which is increasingly contemptuous of the the “Law”, and increasingly disdainful of ordinary people who simply want to be left alone, and to live ordinary lives, where two sexes have babies in a wholesome and natural way, and support, nourish and raise their children to be good citizens. The simple and ordinary, which the “Law” teaches us is noble and beautiful, is increasingly under attack as being “racist” and “sexist” and “exploitation”, while that which is deviant and criminal is mollycoddled and praised and released without bail after committing horrific crimes.

We are pitted against each other, rather than brought into the brotherhood of unity, when in fact we are all in the same boat. Americans are at odds with the leadership of Iran and China, but the people of Iran and even China are also “milling around.”

Do you think the hard working people of China are not well aware of their government’s shortcomings? They are perhaps more aware than anyone else on earth. They laugh at us for ever trusting those we are starting to distrust, for they have experienced a century of cruelty. They have developed their own way of whispering what the government wants unspoken, and they are well aware of awful deeds, such as organ harvesting from hapless Uighur imprisoned without cause. They are “milling around” too, you know, and their leaders are very worried about it.

And so are the ordinary people of Iran. They too know about the Uighur, and they are incredulous that their leadership, which is so high and mighty about upholding Islam’s “Law”, is friendly with China and says not a word about China oppressing people simply for being Islamic.

In fact the whole world knows about the Uighur, but the leaders do nothing. Inaction is just one more unlawful thing they do among all the rest of the unlawful things they do, laughing up their sleeves at people who try to obey the “Law.” However the “milling around” seems to be getting louder and louder.

For the moment the “Law” seems powerless, but in fact it has a power greater than any leader’s. The “Law” is based upon Truth, and Truth remains true even when dictators disallow It being spoken. Dictators can scream and rage all they want, but Truth silently keeps smiling at them, for Truth cannot be anything other than what it is. It is invulnerable, and there is no kryptonite that can harm such a Superman. Most amazingly of all, Truth is Love, which is unfathomable to greedy, lustful and hateful dictators, and Love has a power so far above the heads of those who sneer at the “Law” that they are like worms under rocks.

This is what I personally feel is building in the “milling around” which I notice more and more.

The founding fathers of the United States were well aware of how people in leadership, (even they themselves), could be seduced and corrupted by greed, lust and hate, and they tried their best to create a government which would prevent such moral failures from gaining control. One device was free and fair elections. Free elections allow the “milling around” of the public to manifest in a manner that avoids bloodshed. However our last election was not free and fair, because the scofflaws in the “Swamp” don’t care about what the Founding Fathers cared about. I can’t imagine the upcoming election will be any different. However in a way it will be different. The “milling about” is far greater.

Many are nervous about bloodshed, and I confess I worry about that myself. But I also have a strange hope that the United States is different. We are a kindly nation, founded on the “Law”, and there may be something in our make-up that skips the bloodshed, and allows Truth to manifest in a way we can’t even imagine.

This strange hope was supported by the fact that on three recent occasions my intellect was reduced to despair. The current nonsense where students chant “Destroy the Jews” an “Death to America” is typical. Intellect is useless when you are dealing with appalling ignorance. One is reduced to moaning.

What good is moaning and groaning? Well, it seems fairly useless, but I chanced on something that struck me as rather wonderful in the sixth Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

“….the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

My current woes are not worth recounting, but take my word for it: On three occasions my intellect felt as smart as the wrong side of a rock. I had no answers, and if I was younger I might have expressed myself by screeching tires on a road, and leaving burn-out graffiti of black rubber. Instead I expressed myself by writing three sonnets. In each case I began without any idea what the poem would be about, and in each case they began basically as a groan. Yet in each case I amazed myself. The groan flowed out easily, without correction, and when I was done I felt amazingly revived.

For what it’s worth, here they are:

After outrunning the wolves, the lone stag
Stands on the hill, quietly contemplating 
Where to go next. Shall he climb yonder crag
And watch the sunset, or graze lush grass, sating
All hunger? Even beasts must make decisions.

I, too, must decide, but stand in a place
With no paths, or perhaps my vision's
Too weak to see them. Or maybe I face
Many paths like the spokes of an old wheel,
And I stand at the axle. Where to go?
What to do? I wish I could hear God's will
But my own logic's the poor guidance I know.
I run from wolves like the stag on the hill,
And then? I'm no shepherd. I'm a lost lamb.
I am a not-ness in need of "I Am."

It's spring, but the yellow flowers seem sad.
Sun's bright, but the north wind's crooner chills
With his piercing song. The world has gone mad
And the flowers all seem like a funeral's.
Where has gone hope? Forsythia splashes
Its yellow clowning, bobbing in the breeze,
But I'm not amused. Something glum dashes
The uplift, and If I wrote symphonies
They'd sing of sadness. Someone is missing
And the flowers remind me they're gone.
My lips are cold. They want to be kissing
As daffodils gleam their gold in the dawn.
This ache in my heart makes it quite clear
Love has not gone though love is not here. 

I am hungry for that first drumming roll 
Of thunder in the spring, informing all
We are under new management; the toll
We paid is abolished; Winter's downfall
Is accomplished; the wall that divided
Is smashed like Berlin's. Yet today's rain
Brought no lightning; it just provided
The spring with more chill. I tire of the pain
And look to the clouds for the longed-for shift.
All the world seems awaiting. Where's the thunder?
Wheres the glance of warmth that strangely uplifts
Without words? All the world seems to wonder
In a night so chilled the frogs cease their peeping.
Though men go to bed, no one is sleeping.