Morning musings

4/3/25: The structures of life

As I’ve mentioned before, I find myself suffocated by writing in long-form. You’d think it would be the opposite; however, this canvas can’t help but present as formal. I have an article (a “piece”!) to share with you. It should be all nicely wrapped with clean corners and a bow like a gift for the lady I cared that much about. But I don’t like sharing thoughts in this manner. I’m not interested in convincing anyone that I’m a “good writer”. I’m fine if my pieces have typos and slang. If anything, I’d want to be known as a good communicator. That’s why I so enjoy the mic and projects like Unscripted (LINK THEOJORDAN.NET AUDIO PAGE). And that’s why I decided to start using this title to just let longer thoughts flow but worry more about function than form…

On the other side of this medium spectrum is X. We’ve never had a platform in history to communicate in the multi-media manner that place allows. I’m fascinated by it! The ability to link previous thoughts, throw in visuals and media, tag people and weave in old discourse, etc etc, forms its own new level of wordsmithing. And that term doesn’t really work anymore, as it’s no longer just about the words. You can speak in print, sure, but you can even scream by meme this days! I love the fast and furious pace of the presentation there and have a world-class chest of receipts to pull from now. Before I share the thoughts I came to share, check out these recent examples of dynamic X threads. I banged these out impromptu one post at a time (like I always do) over the past day or two. Various but ultimately interconnected topics. The convergence of this all now (the culture war stuff, the Too Online-IRL merger, my own content and life journey) is really powerful and telling. “The Same Thing” concept can flow both ways; we are now witnessing its unwinding across the same vast cultural territory it captured. And since I’m raising two kids, one just starting and one going into the grinder, doing so in our nation’s oldest town with its deepest roots, doing so as a passionate member of this First Parish and yet still from the posture of a nonbeliever, it has resulted in a complete sense of living out that which I speak. This is why the tromping around St. Augustine proved so impactful to me. The way a message can be delivered in a channel like this is incredible! It’s where I love to play. (Links to threads on each starting post)

What led to me opening this today was a simple experience. It was something I do every morning. I drove my kids to school down US-1 past St. Augustine airport and into Old Town. Past the fort and cute waterside stores. Past the cathedral and the Bridge and Lions. Around by the harbor and the National Guard barracks. And then I wrapped around a cobble stone street that still carries this aesthetic.

Because, as those of you who read my more personal writings know well, we’ve made great efforts into rooting our children down into this old place. And when I say old here, it doesn’t get any older in terms of our nation’s history. My children repeat the same walk from the schoolhouse to the church for weekly Mass that the colonists kids did half a millennia ago.

I turned into the school as usual, and greeted the wonderful figurehead and lion of a man, as I do almost daily. The smiles and love in that place are just incredible. We struck gold on that rooting mission! Anyways, I tell my little guy that I’ll see him tonight and give him pounds; tell me daughter to have a good day too. “We won’t see you at Mass?” he interjects. “Unfortunately not this time, good sir. I have a meeting I have to run to.” He says “We’ll miss you” and gives me one of those million-dollar smiles and a wave. I couldn’t feel my children were in any better hands as I pulled away. I’m not sure that’s a very common feeling across our 50 right now, if most parents are being honest. And it was that remark, the whole experience as one, that made me want to come share something here.

I won’t drift too much into this as it’s fleshed out so much in the other pieces above. But I’m really transfixed on this notion of “Inclusivity” and how it pertains to the church. More specifically, I’m fascinated by my own journey and where I find myself today, both physically and philosophically. I’ve grown to be such a part of this community that the leader will miss having me at worship. These are small private ceremonies where not many parents are fortunate enough to be able to attend. I’m in an exclusive sphere there. I wasn’t granted that spot; rather, I’ve been an active member of this network in St. Augustine for several years now. I was one of the lions on guard when some of our beloved treasure found itself under serious threat.

It wasn’t unusual that I was on that scene as quite horrifying events unfolded that day. It would have been unusual had I not been. I took that photo above. That’s the block I prowl damn near every day as I’m firing off random visuals and happy thoughts on X about history and and our country; the wonderful convergence here of faith, family, national pride, rich history and its rich soil. I did that just this week too… (Again, look how cool that medium presents!)

And yet, I don’t actually consider myself part of the faith. Part of the very bedrock of this community I’m so enamored with and now deeply rooted into. Why? Because my own theological underpinnings (or lack thereof) have not changed. Really haven’t changed much at all. What HAS changed is my understanding of the church as to being a cultural institution. It’s importance; no, the absolute necessity of this framework within our modern “liberal” society if we’re not going to have it all just plunge off-track in a modern-day Fall of Rome. And how utterly self-consumed and narcissistic the ideological camp known as The New Atheists became. “Reason over dogma”, my ass! Lol this logical attack against western fundamentals just cannot hold. I don’t give a damn how many Ivy degrees it gets or publications it produces. Scientologists can write about Scientology all they want, but I still don’t give one shit about the notion of “Thetans”.

And see, in my own blunt manner, I am fleshing out the lines that truly define our “culture war”. Both of my personal (paid) essays above really dive into this idea of “Inclusivity” as a state command and how that was nothing more than an ideological wedge to drive against traditional camps, customs and values. I’m able to tell this story poignantly because I have walked the same path. Further, I’ve felt the sting that gave rise to this dismantling attack. I am not Inclusived into Catholicism myself. In fact, I’m quite sternly rejected from it as I talked about here….

So what does “Inclusivity” even mean? Let’s apply it to me directly instead of all the amorphous slogans and boogeymen of the “Inclusivity” world as we know it. I am to stand up in Mass and denounce the teachings and beliefs of everyone in that room because I happen to hold different ones? I use pleas about my feelings being hurt and weaponize empathy because the ways I want to live don’t square with the Rules of His Order everyone in this room chose to be governed by? What?!? Absolutely not. How insanely narcissist would I have to be? And a total asshole on top. I’d expect to be tossed out of there if I ever did that. And yet, much of what they say in Mass (and all agree on as a group) are tenets that by their own parameters cast me aside. Our priest routinely includes in his homily that the faithful gathered have an obligation and a duty to try and grow the church. He lists ways they can do that and every time one of the primary is to help light the flame of God inside the friends/family/loved ones you already know “Who have not yet found…” this wonderful energy they all join and relish in so much. There is a lot of language involved that makes it abundantly clear I am wrong in my worldview. Beyond wrong, I will ultimately not be welcomed into the greater places of afterlife. Beyond just that, sometimes I am pretty sure the words are saying my destiny is to burn in hell. And sure, those are some tough words against my own personal ideology. I don’t want to burn in hell. I am married to a devout Catholic and raising my kids the same. But no one is making me join that room. No one is forcing me to be a part of the wonderful energy that has filled those halls for centuries. I am choosing to. So I can either do so under their parameters, or I can elect not to do so. This is not complex analysis. How dare I think the world operates by forcing everyone around me to adopt to MY personal demands, or beliefs, or characteristics, or fetishes. The level of self-absorption required to believe I can demand they all change their ways to accommodate mine is almost unfathomable. But I say almost because this is the demand of “Inclusivity”.

Bro, I’m literally told my destiny is a fiery hell. I hear this often inside those halls. I’d be lying if I told you I don’t think the priests sometimes look right at me when they say these things, always eye-contact when they speak about growing the church by helping friends and family who have not yet found God make that much needed connected and journey. It’s all extremely judgmental! This is precisely the energy that in my (ignorant) youth made me into what I now realize was just a very civilized militant atheist. I wanted to engage people on their dogmatic religious views and show them why they were so logically faulty. It’s even worse than a group of siloed academics all largely outside of most successful natural orders all congregating in places like Harvard and Columbia for a few decades and deciding they had figured out the needed remedies and structures for all of man, my teenage ass had made these decrees individually after walking the tremendous paths of wisdom known as K-12. ROFL! These passages below (beloved by most who so passionately hail and brand around the political term “Liberal”) are no more advanced of intellectual analysis than what I was having back then at 16.

Which is why Da Gawd just now openly falls on ideological swords like this…

The previous Health Secretary advocated for using drugs on children to prevent them from “going through the wrong puberty”.

But because Trump and RFK and Elon and anyone standing in his ideological way must be evil for the Progress mythology to remain intact, he thinks our new administration pulling away from this dogmatic pursuit is “America’s ignorant contempt for science”. Because he is now a prisoner of his own mind. A slave to his own arrogance. I’d be fine with saying that directly to this man. It’s just the facts. I’m tired of this New Atheist scripture getting a higher valuation than it ever deserved. The fact it usurped state-hand is despicable! Not a single person in that intellectual camp is able to grapple with what Pride and Progress became. And “became” is doing some mega stretching there… as they’ll realize the day they pull their intellectual heads out of their own ass, stop trying to convince the world their farts smell like roses, and actually grapple with our global state of affairs honestly.

Lol sure, Jan. Then explain WTF we see in these two videos and how this ever became institutional. Explain why devil nuns are celebrated as part of “Pride Night” at Dodger Stadium. Why our government is radicalizing youth against their own parents.

It’s so obvious to me now how we got here. As I wrote about in this Christmas piece below, our nation went through a multi-decade forced campaign of removing everything Christian related from the public square. It wasn’t just gospel in schools or even scripture in courthouses, but culturally it became The Hate and The Patriarchy to even enshrine these values… held by the majority of our people. WTAF! The word “Merry Christmas” even became wrong, said The Progress Guard. We must say “Happy Holidays” to accommodate everyone on the fringes when we speak about a holiday that was created by Christian people and is widely beloved across American culture. How did we get to the point where even Christmas was not allowed to be about Christ? Holy shit! Maybe I should say: shit on holy!

This was the “dismantling” attack of Equity and Repressive Tolerance. We will artificially set one set of beliefs as The Good (The New), and then artificially establish that The Old represents The Bad (and must be eliminated for The Good). Classic Alinsky engine of cultural revolution.

It should be so disgustingly obvious by this point why the D-Equity-I movement gobbled up so many who claim “atheist”. Because this was specifically designed to stand in diametric opposition to the fundamental principles of Christianity and therefore the fundamental pillars of American culture. Return to “sexual liberation” and disrupting the gender binary. That is the polar-opposite of a mother and father raising children and strengthening the home. Of course it is; this is revolution against our most core essences and societal foundations. That’s what this has always been.

NO, we will not be “Including” anyone who wants into the structures and frameworks we’ve built. We have very specific blocks we’ve used and manners we convey and requirements we levy. You cannot walk into the halls of a Catholic church and proclaim that a man can become a woman, abortion is great thing, polyamorous relationships are anything other than hedonism, and expect everyone inside to agree with you. You should expect to have security escort you outside, and hopefully someone like me treating you a bit rough once you get out there. I’d do the same if some asshole barged in dropping profanity and threatening violence. It’s simply an overt affront. Return to my stories of being an atheist who is to burn in hell if I don’t get on board ideologically. It’s no different. If I stood up and proclaimed that the books are false, I’d expect the good men inside that room to take me outside… and if I was rude enough, to put me harshly on my ass. This “culture war” has never been nearly as complex as we’ve made it. Check this video out…

I don’t feel like re-reading or proofing this. Monday Musings and all. Here is that full talk.