Ask No One's Leave and Have Peace

 "The world is not enough" is more than a catchy name for a Bond flick.

If you've had eyes and ears for the last several months, you're tired (not as tired as me, but let's go on).

The great marketing scheme of national politics has ensnared us all, to the extent that, wherever you go in the U.S., you can find some poor soul clinging to comfort and the status quo in the form of a bacteria-infested rag covering his face. It's tiring. It's exhausting. It's tireSOME.

They need us to watch the spectacle, the "great stereopticon", and we, perceiving that need, should go completely dark, and thus come into the light.

There is no one on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. that you can influence so much as you can your neighbor by simply sharing a few minutes of face-to-face conversation with him. If you are reading this blog post, I hope that you do so, and so have more of an effect on the world than I am having now. Free yourself to accept the real complexity of your human connections. 

The way to live free. How do we find it? I think if we look to the reality inches away from our faces for just a few minutes, we'll see that our individual actions, completed in the small communities of our families and neighborhoods, are not being monitored by oligarchs 1,000 miles away.

Simply do the things that you will, so long as they are right and just. Worldliness, the world, the great pageantry of politics and media and consumerism - these only have the influence that you grant them in the form of fear.

And fear comes from dependency in the form of supermarket patronage, stock ownership, smart phone usage, news addiction - fear is the feeling of impending loss. So do not allow a make-believe economy held up by the revolving door of industry and government, that circular bureaucracy, to own you and thus subject you to fear. Do not be a subject.

Rather, be a king. Let your home be your castle. Let your land be your kingdom (hint: buy land).

Plant a garden - not some pathetic Pinterest-perfect "rustic farmhouse" equivalent of a garden, but one that can supply your family with unending produce. Trust the earth and God's incredible gift of the almighty "seed". Plant fruit and nut trees. Buy sheep and rabbits and raise them for meat. Get chickens or ducks for eggs (or geese!).

Dig a well. Install a manual pump as well as an electric one. 

Be full of hope and thus prepare to live a life that is free by no man's leave. You need no man's leave to be free. That is the definition of freedom!

When they lose your dependency upon them, they lose their control upon you. All you have to do is avert your eyes and turn them to Creation, that book that tells us of God and how to live. The world is not enough. The earth and family and faith are more than we can ever fathom the Mystery of.

Be the lion in your circles and give courage to others. 

"The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace."