religion
All posts tagged religion
the Plague Diaries-Chapter One https://www.lordrifa.com/plague-diaries
It’s been a year since the Plague began for us. More than just a virus of the body, it’s been a cancer to the world.. a cancer to our way of life. We have found ways to deter, to fight even to defeat the virus. But lost the war of our own souls in the process. Fueled by fear, demigods and the death of a way of life. Our world has been brought to the brink of war.
Fear of losing our individuality by wearing masks.
Fear of a non-white majority nation brings back Jim Crow.
Fear of Asians as the harbingers of the virus.
Fear has won the day!
Yes you may argue that I’m full of shit, but I stand now in an openly divided country ready and willing to go to civil war. How did we get here?
The Virus was the match and Vitriol was the fuel.
It will be a war about wealth and race. A war about class and accessibility. It will be the bloodiest thing we’ve seen yet.
But it all started in the most harmless of ways. Just a small flu that we could beat by just wishing it away………
Selah,
the rev
Well it’s that time again (I’m speaking of course of my birthday. I’ll be 4,785 years this time around) and it always makes me reflect on my life and the world around me. I wonder how much has actually changed through these long millennia and how much hasn’t. What have we learned? Considering the fact that we’ve been through hell and back yet again this past year, have we learned nothing from our journey’s? Have we learned nothing from our failures and successes?
Anything………Bueller????
Nope is the only real answer I can come upon with. Zip, zilch and a big fat nada.
Now I know for a fact some of you may be saying “Fuck you Rev, we’ve changed the White House. We’ve changed the congress, we’re beating back Covid, we’re celebrating social justice.” And you may be right in all of these things, but only in the slightest of ways. So slight that hummingbirds would miss it.
Let’s review this past year only:
In 2020 an autocratic dictator shows his true skin and almost wins. This was not a mandate, but a photo finish and we are here by pure luck it would seem. White nationalists parade around as patriots with all but the hoods and almost get away with a small insurrection, but live on with the hope of a larger one. Even if you prosecute each and everyone, two more will prop up in their place like Samael the hound of hell. The Plague shows how fierce it really is and that it is on the brink of winning. (Someone needs to tell it, it’s killing the wrong people…). Maskless GOP Zombies still walk around lamenting their lost king, the ending of Camelot and the losing of the sword. Whispering and praying of his miraculous return , like some god given savior. Half of congress has already forgot the past and the other half is doomed to repeat it. Institutional racism and violence are still alive and well in all areas of law enforemcement and the number one target of the police is still people of color.
Yea we’ve learned shit.
We can’t help it though. We were born to follow the shiny things in the world. We follow whatever is in front of us that makes us feel…..not like us.
Anything but us. Because us…. is such a disappointment!
We are not as smart as we think we are.
We are not as talented as we think we are.
We are not as pretty nor rich as we hoped we’d be.
We have no savior-faire.
We don’t care about science-not really. We much prefer magic and faith.
We eschew education and don’t really want our children to be smarter than us-just away from us so we can bask in the glow of the black light. Wear the velvet that can only be seen under perfect conditions. We are the pirates on the ship hanging on the Wall in the den. Not the dumbasses who trudge everyday through their lives. Frail humans who can be brought down by a virus so small it’s impossible to understand. So we gallantly stride around denying its effect over us and it’s existence.
I have seen this on my go arounds so many times, I can no longer blame us as a species. It is in our genes, it is how we are built. My only question on this auspicious birth month of mine is why? Why are we created to understand nothing and yet feel everything?Every slightest torment, every slightest failure and fatigue. All of them bound into a single moment of ultimate torture that invades our entire being like the possession of a dybbuk.
Not because of Jesus. Not because of Yaweh, nor Buddha or Allah or any of those pretenders.
Nope……
(Shhhhh-here is the secret but don’t tell)
It is because we feel, that we must choose, and until we feel the true nature of Justice and the unrequited love of the heavens- we will not change.
It is the torment of light and the hope of the dark.
Selah,
the rev
There are too many things to unpack these days. There should be nuance in everything instead of deadly broad strokes. The world was created in nuance…let’s follow that road.
ACAB- All cops are bad or all cops are xX^&*X&^. Whatever you fill in is wrong. Why because it’s just not true…..But it’s most definitely true at the same time. You see the issue is so severely nuanced that a sound bite like that does not hold the weight it carries and just further divides us as a people.
Try this instead..
All cops are bad..WHEN…They protect other cops who have histories of violence and malfeasance against citizens, especially citizens of color-since they are the brunt of the offenses. Bad or illegal behavior is not rewarded anywhere else but in military like institutions-(and corporate America, but that’s another blog).
I know a lot of great cops who would give their lives for you. It’s a fact.
Still….
All cops are bad WHO participate in coverups and do not let third party investigators do their jobs. An organization does not have the capacity to investigate itself honestly. But time and again we see internal police probes that just clear officers UNLESS there is some sort of outrage.
All cops are bad..WHEN they believe Qualified Immunity applies to them in all situations simply because they are the police. This leads to an institutional culture that believes itself above the law instead of being part of the due process of the law that serves the citizenry of it’s country.
This last one I just heard from someone whom I would have never pegged as a neoconservative.
“I saw cops kneeling in support of BLM therefore all cops are good..”
Taking a knee is only a statement. Yes it’s great when cops join in and support the rights of others. That’s a very powerful image…. but Derek Chauvin took a knee and look where that landed us.
We need to look beyond the obvious, beyond the first page of a book to find the real story.
Are ALL COPS BAD?
YES and NO
Should we defund the Police?
Yes and no.-Next time…….
Selah
the rev
Blood Anarchy is my new solo release
It is a story of pain in a myriad of forms, mental, physical, emotional. You get the drift. It’s not a happy album, but one who’s story most likely echos in most of our hearts and minds.
We live in a time of pain. Sometimes we don’t know or can’t express it. Sometimes we express it in dangerous ways, to ourselves or to others.
Pain-just like birth and death-is a singular event. Even though many can “Share” the experience, each person feels it alone and ultimately deals with it alone.
This album is for you, the ones in pain, for it is my story, my journey through and in pain. Never ending, all encompassing, merciless.
Everything is blood, and blood is everything.
Everything is pain and pain is everything.
Available wherever toys are sold…….
Selah, the rev
Cover art by William Salit Design
I love this time of year, here in my city. For about two weeks in the middle of winter, the weather changes and becomes calm, sunny, warm and lovely. Usually it’s the same time as the cherry blossoms bloom and the lost majik of my city once again asserts itself.
All of her denizens become happy, and generous of spirit, as if they had beef freed from the yoke of slavery. Slavery to the cold, the wet, to the indoors and each other.
It is also the month I have chosen for my birthday.
Since at the time of my first birth, calendars weren’t yet invented. People tracked time the old fashioned way, with the rising of the moon, the raising of crops or the passing of sons in war.
But about a thousand years ago I decided to celebrating the birthday of my current incarnation as my true birthday.
But I digress…
I love my city, but she’s having troubles. The gulf between rich and poor is no more apparent than here. Mocking all of us with a horrible reflection of our leaders ideas of our future.
I have never really believed in politics or ism’s
That was always my brothers job. I was content to stand by and watch, to be the commentary on life. But now that he passed, his mantle of activism has bled into my soul and won’t go away. As much as I try it seems to assert itself when I least expect it.
Indeed. I get lost at times when I write. Deciding to move with the flow as opposed to the thought.
My city, my beautiful morally bankrupt city, is still the only place I call home. The only place that calls my name as I walk her streets at night, climb her hill during the day.
Whispering to me in the slightest of ways.
There’s hope.
As long as there is winter-spring, I’ll believe her.
Selah
The Rev
My original title for this sermon was “With us or Agin’ us”. (You need to put in a low life white trash accent on it to really get the vibe). But I need to put a forward on this one so you understand the context of it amid the last few days.
War cannot be won by violence. The battles maybe, but the underlying issues never, ever go away. They just fester and putrefy. War can only be won by changing our belief-our hearts and minds- that there is a difference between the warring parties. That “we are better than you”, is not real. I know that’s hard when you are given the choices by those in power of “With us or Agin’ us”, all of the time. It’s a mantra that is-at least in our country- pushed by the white rich ruling class, and is parroted down by those who crave to be them one day.
“Maybe if I sound like them, act like them, I could be them!”
But no, that’s not how it works. So this sermon is for all the Stupid white people who think that it’s possible to be a Parrot and an Eagle at the same time.
I read a Facebook post from some white couple calmly saying that if you don’t speak English, you shouldn’t live here. That if you are a Muslim and you want Sharia law here, you should go back to where you came from. That this country is a Christian country like it or not. Love it or leave it. That we tolerate the rest of you infidels living side by side with us, is about all we can take.
So my first thoughts after reading this were these…..I am totally sick of idiot white people! There I’ve said it. You guys are a bunch of…..let me put it this way. If parrots and lemmings were able to breed, you’d be their offspring!
“Lemmingrots” would be a good name.
“With us or agin’ us”. Fuck that. Are there only two choices in life for Americans now? So Il Duce has bombed a Iranian leader in Iraq and this is good? His poll numbers go up, his donations are pouring in and he is now the savior again. You’re all proud of him???
(Please use white trash voice here). “What impeachment? Impeachement, imsmeschment”!
“That was all a ruse by some unpatriotic Americans-probably some ferners like that AOC bitch over there and that radical towhead Talib”.
Well I only really have this to say about that…..Fuck you guys with your sanctimonious standing tall with Christ at your back. Saying this has ALWAYS been a christian nation and if we don’t like it, we should go back to where we came from. Christ would hate you mother fuckers for saying that. He’d be like….
“Just pimp slap these people until they start listening to me”.
So you feel more American and have more pride when our military is involved. The might of arms makes you feel your truth…..? Penis envy much???We bomb a leader of another nation and that’s OK. “He was going to bomb us, He already attacked us. He’s planning more things!”
Most likely all true but why….
I asked y’all a question…WHY the fuck would he do that?
Why the fuck should anyone in the region want to hate us so bad? Maybe the better question is Why the fuck are we in the region to begin with? I know the answer……Do you? Can you guess? It rhymes with Moil, Soil, Foil and toil…That’s right Money!
We are there to protect oil interests, not people. We give not one shit about anyone over there least of all our allies. Just look at the kurds. Beasties one day, disposable the next. We don’t intervene when the Saudis or the Turks commit mass murder. We basically do squat when Syria gasses their population. But fuck with our money and we are gonna come and get you! All under the guise of patriotism.
“With us or agin’ us”…..
The battle cry of the Braindead!
Selah
The rev
The Reverend LordRifa 