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Angry Prayers, a Blessing or a Curse?

Angry Prayers – A Peaceful Protest

Violence and disregard for the law are never acceptable ways to handle a problem except where because of tyranny, power of government exists to satisfy the few at the cost of abuse and injustice toward the many.

Where the government protects means of redress, we should use it.  Where we have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assembly peacefully, where we have the right to bring issues to our government and where those rights are not revoked by corruption, greed, or demands for money or unreasonable processes and wait times, we should comply with the law for the greater good of society.

But according to our nation’s founding document, there are times when war and rebellion are not only the right of the people but a moral obligation for the greater universal good.  That does not mean we can gratify our lust for getting our way justifying it on pretending it is for the greater good.  It means we must seek a peaceful and legitimate, legal, moral, ethical solution within the law, that as long as the law is ethical, no person is above the law.  But as long as the law is unethical, all may be above the law whether a segment of society approves or appreciates that fact or not.  Nevertheless, if there is a peaceful, legal solution, we should always prefer that first.  And nobody should be rewarded for being unethical and unruly.

Prayer

When people express concerns and others don’t want to be bothered or feel compelled morally to consider those concerns, one popular way to dismiss, belittle, or patronize the person who has a legitimate concern is to tell him to take it to the Lord in prayer.

People who say this don’t really want others to pray.  They want to stop being bothered by their concerns.  Usually they have absolutely no confidence God will actually answer or even hear their prayers.  They may not even believe God exists.  In fact they may boast about how moral a person can be without believing in God, but when they’re called to that concern, they suggest throwing those concerns back onto a God they don’t believe exists.  In other words, they don’t care and yet they lack the audacity to say so.

Causes for peaceful protest constantly abound.  When people do not feel accountable to a God they really believe in, they have no fear of God.  Their consciences are seared or non-existent.  But they benefit from people’s trust.  They dance their dances and sing their own praises in countless ways but since they do not sincerely care about God or others, their morality is a facade and their ethics are for maintaining it.  But when they pursue changes to the laws, they seek whatever gives them a personal advantage.  If they sacrifice at all, it is for a greater gain or to protect against a greater loss or fear.

Angry Prayers

Our prayers follow after our motives.  Are we willing that others should suffer so we may experience gain or protection from loss?  Then our prayers will reflect that if they are sincere.  Do we seek the greater good of God, of the universe, of the world, of mankind, or do we seek the principles of God, integrity, courage, love, justice, righteousness, and good will?  Then our prayers will reflect that.

When we gather, if we gather in a public place to pray, should our prayers be meaningless?  Should they waste people’s time or bore them in an effort to promote our reputation for holiness in a hypocritical and misdirected and ineffective manner?

Should we be controversial or should we comply with the expectations of the religious community stopping short of anything that might upset someone?  Should we be politically correct?  Or should we be sincere?

Should we pray for blessings upon our enemies, or should we pray for a curse when others are likely to be angry and offended?  Are the offensive prayers the ones that do the most good?  Or are the milk-toast prayers the most Christian or Jewish or lovable and kind?

Deuteronomy 28 seems to lay out both a blessing and a curse and bid people to choose which they would like to receive.  If we stand by God’s law, we will be blessed.  If we turn against God’s laws, we will be cursed in our coming and going.

As we stand in a downtown square before a courthouse or a legislature building or around a university praying for our nation, should we bless the abortionist or pray that abortion supporters would be cursed or blessed in a way equal to the way they bless the unborn?

As we stand together in a public place for prayer, should we pray for God to bless the attorney or judge who rules against the Christian who cannot bake a cake for a homosexual wedding?  Should we bless or curse those in divorce and child support court who deprive the faithful and their children of their right to live together in love enjoying the shared family assets without robbery and molestation or punishment for being the victims of such robbery?  Should we pray for God to bless or curse the person who slashes the credit rating of those who have suffered injustice or robbery or illness or unexpected death in the family?  Should we bless or curse those attorneys and judges who call the person a fool who cannot afford to pay for an attorney, those who prostitute justice?

Does patriotism mean supporting the status quo or defending the rights, property and safety of fellow citizens–the greater good of society and the principles what justify our worship and love for God?  Should we accept a government that is less than godly under the pretense that one cannot support religious freedom while standing for the moral principles espoused by most all religions and honest philosophies?

Today’s Issues of Unethical Government

If we gather, what should we pray for?  And what prayers would shake things up and possibly bring about a change of mind in society and a conviction and drive for the greater good?

Pray to bless those who protect the beauty of marriage and family, who protect the rights of the faithful and their children to remain together in love without robbery or molestation from the state.

Pray to curse those who rob the faithful, who drag them into court, who pander to the unfaithful and their lovers or to the abusive cowards who bring danger and cruelty to their family.  Pray that God would curse with infinite wrath those who threaten the faithful and their children with intense loss and injustice.  Pray God would bless the attorney and judge who endeavors to protect them from this injustice out of love, and curse the attorney who prospers from the threat of injustice or by telling the faithful that justice is just around the corner with another $2000 retainer.  And another.  And another.

Pray that God’s infinite wrath would be upon those who would rob the people to pay for injustice, for abortion.

Pray that God’s infinite wrath would be upon those who falsely charge others for personal advantage such as accusing them of sexual misconduct to keep a good person out of office or to gain the upper hand in a divorce case.  Pray that God’s infinite wrath would remain upon every liar so that we would also be accountable to that standard.  We should not pray that others would be held to a higher standard than we’re willing to be held to.  But we should not lower our standards for others to shelter ourselves from the same moral obligations.  Both must be judged cowardly, hypocritical, and immoral.

Pray God’s infinite wrath would be upon all who cheat whether in office politics, or in auto accidents where the wrong person is found at fault or the damages are reported more costly than they were.

If we would have God’s heart, we will have to pray according to His will and to do that we will have to pray in agreement with His will and His morality.

When we pray for grace, it should not be a prayer for injustice or weakness or fake love which is cowardly and insincere.  Our prayers should be for grace to do right, to be honorable, to stand firm with integrity.  And if we would love and pray that the righteous and just would be loved and honored, then we must pray that the dishonest and unjust would be rewarded less, that there would be a distancing between the two, that the unrighteous would suffer, that nobody would engage in injustice without seeking their own destruction.

We should pray that God would tear down the monuments to injustice, to robbery, to hypocrisy, to unethical government, to cruelty, to the denial of legitimate rights and to defense of injustices.

If we would have our children and children’s children live in a just and honorable society, we must pray to support a just society now and fight injustice wherever it exists.  And this will require that we fight against every lie that is told in defense of this robbery of injustice.

Today we prostitute justice in our courts.  Sometimes I think our courts would be better called whorehouses of injustice than houses of justice.  Why?  Because some lies are tolerated while truths are unjustly punished as though they were lies.  The most stupid of lies are proffered as undeniable truths.  And great intelligence is ascribed to those who tell the most asinine lies with the most straight faces and socratic facades.

When we hear such things we should take it as though we owe no explanations or conversation to the liar.  The liar should earn his or her right to be respected through giving up lies and turning to integrity for a way of life.

When people play the whore on their marriages, they are adulterers.  They are not without fault.  It is a liar who says “no-fault”.  There is fault.

When people rob the faithful to reward the unfaithful, when a man can go on the prowl for a married woman or a woman can go on the prowl for a married man hoping to obtain some illicit pleasure and finds our government willing to rob the faithful parent to reward them with custody of the children and child support payments, then our government is damnable.  It is not just in error.  It is unethical.  Satanic.  Unjust.  Irresponsible.  Incompetent.  Unethical.  And as reprehensible as the worst of it’s criminals in prison.  In fact, it eliminates its moral right to judge anyone else.  Unless it would that sanctions apply to punish the evil and reward the ethical, it is nothing but a cowardly and asinine government from the pit of hell.

Now before you let the hair on the back of your neck stand on end and declare me unpatriotic, take a long look at what I have said and tell me if you find a single lie in any of it.  Then you will see that it is not me who is bringing these charges against our own nation but those who promote injustice in our nation.

I have not stood against the principles to which we pledged our allegiance.  I have not stood against the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence.  I have not taken a stand against the Constitution of the United States.  I have not put down those who sacrificed their lives for our liberty and for this nation.

What I have done is to defend them as we have all sworn to do.  The problem is that too many have sworn but lied.  They swore their allegiance to the most honorable of standards and then turned on those standards and violated them.

As a result, we the people have played the whore on our marriages and demanded reward.  And we have robbed the faithful to obtained it.  We have killed our children in the womb.  And we should feel damned with the infinite wrath of God if God is in fact honorable at all.

We see fires in California and hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons elsewhere,  We don’t need some looney terrorist or religious fanatic to blow up our subways or fly planes into our buildings.  We don’t need a school shooting or some other terrorist case from the next nutcase.  We need to ask if we want God to be with us through difficulties or not and whether we want to be protected from disasters or not, and we need to pray that God would reward us the way we reward Him, the way we respect Him.

If we would be patronized by God, we should patronize God.  If we would pray insincere prayers, we should ask for insincere answers.  If we would be treated unethically, we should behave unethically.

So, how should we pray at home on our own?  And how should we pray in the public square?

If we would be rewarded like pimps, whores, liars, child murderers, and abusers, and swindlers, then that is how we should behave.  But we should be so committed to ethics that we should pray God would damn us with His infinite wrath if we will not come clean and let His grace cleanse us from within our hearts and minds and bring to  correction our attitudes and prayers.  We should demand ethics and we should live by them.

If not, then what right do we have to ask for God’s blessing on anything we are, anything we have, and anything we do?

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Girl pouting, thinking

If there is a controversy as bitter as divorce, it might be child support.

To a woman with children abandoned by an abusive or adulterous man, child support is

  • justice,
  • a promise of a lifeline vigorously protected by the state.
  • A necessity of life.

 

To a man who leaves behind a trail of abandoned women and children, child support is

  • a fair and just sentence
  • a cause for whining over every judgment no matter how unreasonably small and insufficient
  • an honest consequence for decisions freely made
  • an expectation to provide for one’s children.

 

To a man with children, abandoned by an adulterous woman, child support is different.  It is

  • an atrocious, crippling injustice
  • acid on an open wound
  • a trophy that courts award men for stealing
    • other men’s wives,
    • children,
    • home,
    • and property
  • a robbery done by
    • a contemptible court
    • a damnable government
    • a body of money grubbing attorneys and mediators
    • irresponsible, ignorant, incompetent, and reprehensible legislators
    • and citizens who won’t step up and protest to change the law.

 

To the unfaithful, their partners,
their lawyers, mediators and judges, child support is

  • a luxury vacation
  • expensive bags, jewelry, clothing
  • membership in the best sports club
  • a fancy car
  • a reward for playing the whore on the marriage

To the same,

  • children are little more than a vehicle to obtain the above.
  • faithful spouses are pieces of meat to be abused and consumed.
  • principles are to be used opportunistically–not lived by.
  • wedding vows are nothing but tools to get something through deception.
  • wedding vows are implements of rape on a grander scale.
  • it is Ok to rob children of their foundation of family love and security for a roll in the hay.

Calling it “child support” does not make it right any more than calling rape or child molesting “love” makes it right.

Some say “Forget justice.  Children need food, clothing, shelter, education.”

Great.  If you are sincere and are not just braying stupidity, then

  • Let both adulterers pay child support.
    • Two incomes are better than one.
    • It’s the right thing to do.
    • It’s the intelligent thing to do.
    • It’s the solution with far greater Constitutional integrity.
    • It’s the common sense, obvious thing to do.
    • Everyone with intelligence greater than that of a common bone can see this.
    • It’s just a matter of finding a judge or legislator with enough integrity to admit the obvious.
  • Stop throwing the children into the whorehouse of adultery.
    • Children don’t belong in a whorehouse of adultery.
    • Children don’t belong in a house of abuse.
    • Step parents are not automatically abusers.
    • But unfaithful spouses and partners are often more likely to abuse.
    • Faithful parents set an example of sincerity, love, faithfulness.
    • How do you know?  Because I’m probably smarter than a doorknob.  How about you?
  • Stop robbing the faithful of their homes
    • and their children
    • and property
    • so the children can enjoy them too.

If this sounds unchristian or bordering on contempt of court understand this well:

I would much rather stand before God with too much contempt for this rancid divorce, family, child support court system than to stand before God with insufficient contempt for it.

Lord, judge America and America’s people righteously.

  • Curse with justice and infinite wrath those who rob and injure the faithful.
  • Curse with justice and infinite wrath those who rob and injure the children.
  • Curse with justice and infinite wrath those who bring injustice with arrogance.
  • Bless those with infinite love those who fight
    • for love
    • for integrity
    • for justice
    • for abandonment of current injustices in our system.
  • Lord, vigorously drive your people to fight for the right of every faithful parent to live
    • in love
    • in the shared family home
    • enjoying the shared family assets
    • without molestation
      • or robbery
      • or abuse
      • from the state!

 

Do you have the spine, the integrity, or the sincerity of your commitment to God, to principle, to honor, to the love of children or the love of family or the love of country to fight for what you know to be right?

Or will you wait for someone else to do it for you?

 

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The title itself is disturbing.  Why?  When people speak of this, all sorts of things happen.

Eyebrows are raised.  People become concerned.  Those in law enforcement and in the military and anti-terrorism organizations may question whether there are reasons for concern simply because someone spoke or wrote these words down.

Others quarrel over gun control laws. People become angry and exchange insults.  Things settle down.  Then another incident shows up in the news.  Is it a terrorist act?  Is it the unresolved anger of a victim of bullying?  Is it a disgruntled fired employee?  Or a person who felt cheated and robbed and abused in everything related to divorce?  Or did a person feel abused and cheated out of justice in the courtroom?  Did an abuser fear being reported or incarcerated?

Whether we support or oppose gun control, if the fear of guns could be removed, there would still be the threat of poisons, knives, hatchets, axes, bombs, vehicles, fire, arrows, spears, and who knows what?  It seems if we want to bring down violence of this sort, we have to be pro-active.  We have to examine the triggers.  But more than that, we have to examine what builds up the pressure in some people to the point where they are in danger of exploding.  Once we have a list of triggers and pressure builders, then we can look into how best to reduce or eliminate those.

Building a List of Triggers

I do not have military or law enforcement experience, and I would not presume to have as much insight into this problem or how best to resolve it as those who have studied it from every angle for years.  Some study it from the perspective of a psychologist, a police officer, a swat team member, the FBI, real experts in the field.

But I do know what it is like to be angered, to feel that dread, the loss that can at least drive a person to rant.   Many people have.  Personally, I believe the concerns or triggers experienced by any person can lend insight.  Not all terrorists are triggered by the same thing, and the fact that something would not trigger one person does not mean it would not trigger someone else.  For that reason, it is better to collect a list of triggers first and then prioritize them later.

I would like to start a list of triggers here and if you would like to help add to this list, feel free to add a comment to the end of this article.  When collecting a list of anything whether they are items for a project plan or entities for a database design, when the list starts to become substantial, the items will tend to fall into natural groupings.  Grouping those items together can call to memory other potential items or in this case triggers,.  The groupings may help to identify which agencies to work with.  Or they might identify potential projects, or they may help to identify which people or agencies to work with or what non-profits to form.  Or it can identify products or services for a business to make available as long as it does not take unfair advantage of desperate people or promise something that cannot be delivered.

Starting the List

I have experienced some trigger which have upset me tremendously.  While violence has never been my modus operandus, I have experienced pain, depression, despair, anger, and periods of intense ranting and raging against those who I felt were responsible for causing injustices either against me or against others.  So I will start with those that come to mind for me.  I will also take note of things that seemed to upset others I knew or things I suspect may have triggered terrible tragedies I have seen in the news or perhaps we have all seen in the news.  Again, please feel free to add to the list and later on see if there are any efforts you may want to become involved with, or lead.

List of Potential Triggers

  • Cyber bullying
  • School bullying from fellow students over time
  • School bullying from teachers–grade bullying, public shaming.
  • Pain from false accusations.
  • Also pain from true accusations, being held responsible or judged while others are not judged.
  • Rejection from a love interest.
  • Break up.
  • Things that trigger fear of getting in trouble, shame.
  • Fear of abuse.
  • Feelings of injustice.
  • Divorce and losses associated–children, home, property, income, loss of marriage.
  • Drug addiction leading to robbery.
  • Unfair government sanctions.  Punishments for being poor.  Deprivation of faithful parents in a divorce.  Revoking drivers’ license unjustly.  Child support that is not child support.
  • Removal of children from the home.
  • Being fired.
  • Frustration finding work due to discrimination–race, gender, age, things that bring hopelessness anger.
  • Being denied a leg-up promised–unemployment for a short time, sale of storage items, repossession of a vehicle.
  • Denial of perceived rights.
  • Constant rejection, mockery, taunting and abuse
  • Obsession and rejection from a love interest.
  • Bunny burner–rejection after date or sexual encounter
  • Adultery.
  • A child abuse or a molestation.
  • Rage over criminals who got away with their crime.
  • Rage over rejection for employment or for joining a club.
  • Ostracizing of any sort.
  • Death of a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling, a friend, a loved one.
  • Robbery as an act of desperation but resulting in a shoot-out or hostage situation.

Something came to mind as I tried to start this list, and that is that it could be enlightening to create a list of targets.   For instance, some acts of violence have had specific targets–a race, a religion, an organization, a gender, or sexual preference, membership in a particular gang.

One thing that should come to mind is that if someone is thinking about going toward any of these forms of violence, the payoff is not good.  It is not the right or best way to handle a problem.  Whatever someone’s fantasies or fears maybe, such actions can only make things worse while failing to solve the problem.

If a person hopes to go out in a flame of glory and carry a message to those who remain living, the message will likely be misunderstood or missed altogether.  There will likely be those who don’t want the message to be received.  There will likely be people who want to punish the person causing the violence by refusing to accept their message or even fighting against it.

The best thing a person can do in the face of rejection is to respect the rights of others to reject.  The best thing is to refuse to validate their rejection or their mockery.  Allow it to be a part of them and not you.  This is their problem, their foolishness, their blindness, their lack of wisdom, their lack of integrity.  Externalize it as long as you can do so honestly.  And if it reveals something you can and should improve, then by all means count it a great success that you received knowledge that will empower you to improve.  And if someone else gets the benefit out of your improvements, so be it.  That’s a good thing.

The important thing is to gain insight, to improve your perspective, to learn how to feel that pain of rejection and control yourself–make a choice how you will respond, evaluate possible responses, and choose which one is best rather than just firing back in anger.  If it is hard, allow yourself to celebrate when you win.  Celebrate your little victories.  Don’t wait until the big victory comes.

What I just said in the previous question should brighten a light-bulb in your mind.  It may be a huge key to bringing down violence on a large scale.

Self-control and development of healthy perspectives are skills to be developed just like math, English, History, or any other thing taught in school.  But this has a direct value and improvement to life.  In that sense, it is more like study habits that help some students get higher grades, but more important.

 

Change of Perspective

If we want to see a change in behavior, there has to be a change of heart and perspective.  And angry people don’t change their minds simply by being told to snap out of it.  In fact, it may help to make another list of things that people do that don’t work.

  • Telling people they’re wrong–this angers them more.
  • Patronizing.  This fans their anger into a raging fire.
  • Dismissive attitudes.  This sets up an adversarial attitude.
  • Betrayal of any kind.  This destroys trust and eliminates opportunities for helping.
  • Upbraiding, scolding, criticizing, threatening, bullying, mocking.  This lights the fuse directly.
  • Lecturing.  This may include Socratic questions if the person feels belittled or played.
  • Pat solutions.  Trying to “fix” the problem with off-the-shelf solutions everyone already knows.
  • Reasoning why their perspective is inferior, unwise, unenlightened, foolish.

Personally, what I believe works must involve de-escalation, and you cannot de-escalate by commanding them to calm down or snap out of it.  It cannot happen with a threat of having them arrested.  It takes empathy.

Empathy is not telling them you know what they’re talking about.  It is not saying “I know, I know, I know”.  That only makes them feel you don’t know and you are only trying to get them to stop talking so you can preach at them.

Empathy requires active listening.  Asking, “Do I understand correctly that you are concerned about X?”  or “Do I understand correctly that you’re telling me X?”  Don’t tell them you understand, but show them, and make sure you do understand where they are coming from.  Just the fact somebody listened can go miles in taking away a person’s hopelessness and desperation and feeling they have to engage in violence to get someone to listen.

When things de-escalate, discuss the possibility of finding a good solution together.  Instead of focusing on what you cannot do or telling them, “We can’t do that” every time they suggest something, try suggesting what you can to together.  What you can do matters.  What you cannot do has no value, and focusing on those things can only increase a sense of desperation and hopelessness.

Applying These Ideas

Looking at the list of triggers, what faulty perspectives bring people to violence as a problematic solution?  How might one listen actively and propose a positive plan of action for solving each problem on both a small scale and a large scale?

It is awesome when you can help stop violence before it happens.  But how much more awesome would it be to help people on a large scale?  What if the root issues that have thousands or millions of people upset could be resolved so that our nation stops being speckled with examples of violence on a small scale in nearly every large city?

How can we make our world a better place?

 

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Would you like to be jailed for nothing?  Would you like to have your children taken away from you?  Would you like to have your freedom and your rights violated and to be dragged into court and pumped for protection money by someone operating in a manner not unlike that of a Mafia thug?

Political Science Professor Dr. Stephen Baskerville plugs his book, “Taken Into Custody”.  I say that facetiously, but the matter Dr. Baskerville addresses is one of the most serious and yet one of the most irresponsibly neglected issues of this day.Continue reading

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Hey, saving marriages and bringing about justice in divorce court can be heavy and dreary, and we all need to have a little fun sometimes.  It’s good for our health and a great way to learn and have a chance to laugh at ourselves a little.

By Chonda Pierce and Ken Davis.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_TqDYY-dMw&p=549D2610088D8320&playnext=1&index=15