Do me good and best, to get into the Book of Rev., and last-things thinking/ and FIRST things; to have on our minds and feed up - not get, ...fed up. The message of the Bible' God is more and better plus, real and a wake-up to merciful in/and (understandable) justice.

Bust through and fed up feelings and tangled up... in senseless blues. This is the message and nothing to shy from and God. As for a misread Bible and observation or presumed tradition over truth ideas? We do well to double and treble check?

MUST do the theology and what's reasonable to present it proclaims. But... am on the roll and surrounding (the Book of Revelation) thoughts. Seeing 'everybody happy' and are they/we? Should we be and as for Christians - what saith God and the landscape in UK 2023?

In Pt. 1. mentioned the trouser-hoisting looking misfit. In explaining he didn't take my foolish suggestion to get him a belt, yet took my attention with kindness and the swearing-back and reply came with a reassuring smile, he was happy I'd asked. Man isn't presenting as problematic to himself. Certain that few viewing him share the same opinion. Looks like he could do with help and comes across poor and needy?

What is it with appearances?

If as a wider community in our times; what's unseen by others and is where the mess and hurting bad manifests, —do we show it?

Post 2019 has to have increased distress —do we see it?

Takes a lot to do honesty in public, with a relative stranger or even with a close one?

We're right to have some pull-up and live for today, be grateful and find philosophy, or a belief that upholds -yet- the need to be true to our reality and condition is necessary for health and not grow the self-derived deceptions?

The nonsense in almost all that's said about so-called 'mental health' by the authoritarian lords of the manor can load-up the jitters, that don't help. Prescribed (State) media as a whole is a kind of 'drug problem'. Then there's chemical intoxicants, growing in demand and popularity.

Verses and a song lyric.

Jesus:

Happy the poor in spirit -- because theirs is the reign of the heavens./ Happy the mourning -- because they shall be comforted./ Happy the meek -- because they shall inherit the land./ Happy those hungering and thirsting for righteousness -- because they shall be filled./ Happy the kind -- because they shall find kindness./ Happy the clean in heart -- because they shall see God.

Bob Dylan:

The iron no match for the iron rod/ The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God/ For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears/ It is only he who can reduce me to tears/ Don't you cry and don't you die and don't you burn/ Like a thief in the night, he'll replace wrong with right/When he returns/ Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through/ He unleashed his power at an unknown hour that no one knew/ How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice/ How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness/ Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride/ Will I ever learn that there'll be no peace, that the war won't cease/ Until he returns/ Surrender your crown on this blood stained ground, take off your mask/ He sees your deeds, he knows your needs even before you ask/ How long can you falsify and deny what is real/ How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal/ Of every earthly plan that be known to man, he is unconcerned/ He's got plans of his own to set up his throne/ When he returns

Whip thro' writing is prone to confuse. How to say what and in a few lines, and minutes, not an hour?

Am told by keen but more evangelical-traditionals; the a sense of once we die judgement and unending punishment is the missing contemporary key. Explaining their view isn't the only one to consider and the Gospel, am told is a cop-out. Informed that what was held a century ago and before that is true and any divergence is accepting the typical compromise and modernity. My reply is about integrity to the Bible and reasons why that wasn't something given-room in these earlier times?

Could go on..., but don't in general as talking with most Christians and their views vs. mine/others, isn't what am into - but leave the Biblical and internal difficulties. To scare 'em into it/ because hell and who and what is supposed clear, but ...isn't.

Depends on looking again and facing dilemmas and questions difficult to answer. Insecurity, tends to reductionism and ignoring different views. Not saying it's all easy to deal with but the light from God there's a place for re-interpretation that requires context and openness to alternatives.

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All that is a given is poverty and need are pre-requisites for knowing God, and more so at that.

Dylan was soaked and wrapped in a sense of it when he wrote When He Returns. His tussle with 'last days thinking' of the day was mixed in and must have been a significant issue at his public cooling down and keeping Christian-quieter. His stated position at the time is provable in retrospect beyond geo-political fulfillment and supposed the signs and times c/o the book of Rev.

The lyric contains everything that could be misunderstood and should come back and note what I mean (in the next three posts). While he lays it out in a poetic punch that convicts in the Biblical undisputed, and power.

Little more to tap and ready (for me) to go:

Our sense of 'poverty/need' for God is all that most matters. In sincerity and heartfelt, goes with it.
The way to see, and more know God?

Not the, "yeah, I'm a Christian, have been since..." but the one needed in the unprecedent fakery and disconnect of the somewhat subtle cataclysm of 2020s. Needed today/now, urgent-wise, and with passion.

For some, that is: taught to keep-it-down, the hurt and particular-2023 confusion is beginning to come out from inside (us).

The 'trouser man' isn't a drinker, or so it would seem (no smell/and not in the open).

That's one thing that obscures all our need. Meds from the doc. for our minds or dope etc. from the dealers and illegal-side is another cover. Mobiles and a slithery snake and screen-time is a darn doer-in'r, (not an ...impression, but coming through with credible, emerging data, research, and best-can the scientific method and discern?).

Scamping for the line (and be under two hrs. inc. an edit-ish):

Poverty are riches, in a way that counters the world's view.

To a degree... of course, because there's physical ill-health, or lack of shelter and food, or how about company? Good, company, but..., /and/or, no spare time and not getting money except in forty and +(?) hour slave-driven misery?

Yes, the factors and happy-to-sad us aren't straight forward but God isn't into us being down and low but if we ain't-so and/or, in a certain way by choice in attitude and thought: God's not needed and our potential riches? A different kind, or the way we hold material ones ?

Grabbing the Bible, (there-be the way to it); the risen Christ to the church in Smyrna:

I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich.

-or-

I have known thy works, and tribulation, and poverty -- yet thou art rich.

Not sure got far and could go on and on. Priorities. Aside from a new Top Ten Controversy set of posts, will do one on Disciplines and Rituals.

As for 'two opposing' and able to contain and thinking, to consider possible resolution?

Same goes with can we deal with paradox and the poor -and/or- rich one is a cracker on that score.