Breakfast All Day

     [I’ve been tempted to use that phrase in a great many contexts. This morning I woke up actually thinking it. So here it is. If what follows fails to make it “make sense,” sorry! No refunds! – FWP]

     There are some very smart people saying some very penetrating things… and not being listened to. I’d imagine we feel many of the same things, including frequent sieges of weariness from “shouting into the wind.” Yet we keep doing it. Some of us die with such sentiments in our minds and mouths, unable to reach the keyboard for a final sally.

     Would you like to know the secret to universal peace and amity? Not the secret to universal happiness; I’m still working on that one. But we’ve got the peace and amity bit down pat. Here’s how you can get it:

Mind Your Own Business,
And Keep Your Business To Yourself.

     That’s it. That’s all it takes. It’s been clear for millennia. So why haven’t we achieved universal peace and amity? I can answer that one, too.

     Because we’re shitheads. Meddling shitheads. Each and every one of us carries around a demon whose mission on Earth is to interfere in other people’s lives. Some of us manage to master that demon. Others? Their demon masters them. And there’s no tolerating them.

     No, I’m not the first to make these illusion-shattering observations. Thousands, maybe millions of other people have offered them to the world. But they weren’t listened to. Many of those to whom they spoke simply waved them off: “Naah, he’s just another shithead.” And they went on trying to run others’ lives, or offering power to people whom they thought would do it for them.

     A great man of times past, Frederic Bastiat, expressed the essence of it compactly and brilliantly:

     There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
     Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing." True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.

     No one listened to him, either.

* * *

     A hot flash for my Gentle Readers: it is possible to have what you want, but there are requirements:

• You could make it yourself, beholden to no one;
• Someone else could make it for you, for a price.

     Real deep intellectual insight, eh? Maybe I should have it printed on a T-shirt. But it really is that simple. The trouble starts when you decide that you can force other people to give you what you want.

     That doesn’t apply solely to material things. Most other wants, like peace and privacy, are available on the same terms. You can make them, or buy them. At least you could, if it weren’t for all the meddlers.

     Meddling isn’t just irritating; it’s also expensive. Professional meddlers pile costs atop what it “should” cost to get what you want. Sometimes they tell you “No, you can’t have that” quite flatly. Punching them in the nose carries a cost, too. (Shooting them is frowned upon. Especially by them.)

     The great challenge of the man who would be free today is to escape the meddlers.

* * *

     If it weren’t for SpaceX, Mankind would have no hope at all.

     For a very long time, spaceflight was entirely the province of governments. Elon Musk and SpaceX have shattered that cartel. Spaceflight is now available to anyone with the money.

     Yes, it costs a lot, but that’s in the nature of things. It’s hard. It’s dangerous. There are no McDonalds up there. And the training required is no joke. So for the moment, access to space is an extreme “luxury good.” But most luxury goods grow more accessible over time: easier, cheaper, and available from more sources. So if present trends should continue, our descendants will have easier, cheaper, and more available access to space.

     But “present trends continuing” is a bad bet. There are too many meddlers to count on it. And they don’t want you to escape their grip.

     Governments are poised to clamp down on space travel. They don’t have to do so yet. They’ll wait until billionaires start looking at the Moon as a vacation destination and start planning Lunar playgrounds for themselves and others. When spaceflight stands at the doorstep of true popularity, governments will pounce. They’ll start nattering about “safety” and “the rule of law” and “the need for regulation.” That low-gravity condo you’ve been dreaming about will be made impossible for you to afford… or acquire.

     You see, they’d be unable to meddle with you if you’re a light-second and a half away. Meddlers can’t stand the thought of that, and governments are the quintessential meddlers. So they’ll make it impossible for you to get out there.

     Either we do away with these monstrosities that we call “necessary evils” right BLEEP!ing now, or they’ll strangle the last hope for human freedom while it’s still in its crib.

* * *

     Many years ago, I worked a weird shift: from roughly 4:00 PM to Midnight. It was tough to get used to. It separated me from most of the rest of the world. Others who’ve had to do similar things will tell you about it. Ask a friendly bartender.

     But it gave me an appreciation for the nearby diner that would serve breakfast all day. Waffles, pancakes, French toast! Oatmeal with cream and brown sugar! Sausages, eggs over easy! Bacon, bacon, bacon!!

     I came to love that place and the Greek immigrant family that owned it. On the rare occasions when it had to close, I would pout. I’d go home and do my best: toast an English muffin, slather it with butter and jam, and chow down. But I’d miss the home fries and the pretty waitress.

     Time passed, and I went back to working a regular daytime shift. But I retained my affection for that diner… and for breakfast foods. It came as a shock when the diner closed permanently. I had to know the reasons, as I wasn’t the only regular patron who loved it.

     The reason? Someone on the town planning / zoning board had a friend who wanted to build an apartment complex where that diner stood. So he persuaded the board, the board got together with the health authorities, and together they made it ever more difficult for the diner to stay in business. The builder came along with an offer for the locale. The family bowed to the inevitable, took the money, and moved on.

     I think I want a waffle with butter and syrup. Or maybe a three-egg omelet with lots of cheese and diced ham. And home fries! Lots of home fries.

     Have you ever had a craving like that, Gentle Reader? Better satisfy it now, before the meddlers get to it. There are a lot of them, you know. And shooting them is still frowned upon.

Education And “The Conditioners”

     From time to time I’m struck by the extraordinary insight of the great Clive Staples Lewis:

     Where the old [education] initiated, the new merely 'conditions'. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds— making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda. [From The Abolition Of Man]

     And so it is. The origin of education as the Western world once practiced it is in the Socratic method:

1. Select a topic: a proposition in causation perhaps focused on an important event;
2. Question the causative forces that underlie it;
   1. Confront the proposition with clarifying questions;
   2. For each further proposition introduced:
      1. Question the causative forces that underlie it;
      2. For each further proposition introduced:
         1. Confront the proposition with clarifying questions;
         2. For each further proposition introduced:
            …

     Yes, the Socratic method is recursive – and with no guaranteed exit criterion. But that is part of its effectiveness: to instill in the student the inclination to look deeper. This is how a good teacher leads his student to form the habit of thought: the determination to seek reasons and explanations.

     In a classroom setting, the honest use of the Socratic method will often cause two (or more) students to differ on the reasons for something. A really good teacher will then strive to get the students to perpetuate the method, by questioning each other’s proposed explanations. If successful, this teaches the student three things of inestimable value:

• Differences of opinion are normal and tolerable;
• He will regularly confront such differences among his peers;
• Some propositions aren’t plumbable “all the way to the bottom.”

     Clearly, the Socratic method is a lot of work. It demands patience of both the teacher and the student. It also requires “guardrails:” prohibitions on personalities and indoctrination. Yet it is the foundation for acquiring facility with the one and only tool Man possesses that the lower orders do not: reason.

     Lewis saw the acquisition of both reason and a grasp of what he called “The Tao” – i.e., those properties of existence that cannot be established irrefutably through a reasoning process – as indispensable to the formation of character. Given what’s become of both education and human character over the century behind us, I’d say he was correct.

* * *

     What our “public” schools call “education,” outside of mathematics and the sciences, bears little relation to education by the Socratic method. It comes closer to indoctrination: This is the reason! Don’t you forget it! And no questions! The late Robert M. Pirsig provides a striking demonstration of this distinction in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

     But then, below the definition on the blackboard, [Phædrus] wrote, "But even though Quality cannot be defined, you know what Quality is!"
     and the storm started all over again.      "Oh, no, we don’t!"
     "Oh, yes, you do."
     "Oh, no, we don’t!"
     "Oh, yes, you do!" he said and he had some material ready to demonstrate it to them.
     He had selected two examples of student composition. The first was a rambling, disconnected thing with interesting ideas that never built into anything. The second was a magnificent piece by a student who was mystified himself about why it had come out so well.
     Phædrus read both, then asked for a show of hands on who thought the first was best. Two hands went up. He asked how many liked the second better. Twenty-eight hands went up.
     "Whatever it is," he said, "that caused the overwhelming majority to raise their hands for the second one is what I mean by Quality. So you know what it is."
     There was a long reflective silence after this, and he just let it last.
     This was just intellectually outrageous, and he knew it. He wasn’t teaching anymore, he was indoctrinating. He had erected an imaginary entity, defined it as incapable of definition, told the students over their own protests that they knew what it was, and demonstrated this by a technique that was as confusing logically as the term itself. He was able to get away with this because logical refutation required more talent than any of the students had.

     When an “educator” does such a thing, he’s rejecting the probing, questioning approach of the Socratic method and “laying down the law.” This obviously has nothing to do with developing a habit of thought or scrutiny.

     Of course, Pirsig / Phædrus had reasons for doing what he did to that class. He was attempting to show that his conception of Quality, if it has a place in existence, must be part of Lewis’s Tao — and that his students were overwhelmingly able to perceive it as such.

     Indoctrination is never appropriate under the guise of intellectual inquiry. Indeed, it’s the diametric opposite of inquiry as we understand it. Perhaps the tensions that drove Pirsig to his mental breakdown arose from his determination to assert undefinable Quality to an intellectual audience. But I digress.

* * *

     It’s possible that schooling as practiced today is incompatible with inquiry, and therefore with the Socratic method. One instructor / many students / an established syllabus and a schedule to keep: What are we to expect from such a situation when – or perhaps if — one of the Great Questions arises in the course of events? It seems that either the Question must be tabled indefinitely, or the instructor must give “the official answer” and march on.

     That’s no way to foster a habit of thought, Rather, it suggests that Authorities have already decided once and for all Why Things Are As They Are. Further inquiry would be at best pointless, at worst subversive.

     I could go on, but I think my Gentle Readers can do so for themselves.

     If you haven’t yet, get your kids out of the “public” schools.

The Era Of Universal Distrust

     Regard this, from CBS News:

BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 14, 2026

     Various persons on X are proclaiming it “proof” that Jonathan Ross was within his rights and his rules of engagement when he shot Renee Good. Others are saying “why believe it? It’s from the government.” Of course, those two groups align nearly perfectly with their prejudgments of the tragic event.

     But just after the event, a video was available that could be interpreted as Officer Ross shooting Mrs. Good without cause. One community of opinion claimed that to be irrefutable, while another argued that the perspective from which the video was shot made the matter unclear. Once again, there was near-perfect alignment of those judgments with their prejudgments of the justice of the act.

     And both communities have arguments of a sort for their stances.

* * *

     Time was, hard evidence was broadly trusted. “People lie; evidence doesn’t” was the watchword. That time has given way to advances in manipulative technology. No picture or video one hasn’t shot for oneself is guaranteed to be accurate. Arguments for disbelieving other sorts of evidence are plentiful. Belief in allegations and affirmations now derives from political or emotional premises.

     Even once-trusted “chain of evidence” procedures are no long assumed to be reliable. After all, the people maintaining those chains are employees of the State! Why wouldn’t they falsify records or give false testimony to protect their paychecks?

     We’re in a lot of danger, Gentle Reader. Our previous “high-trust society” is very near to a “zero-trust society” today. But without at least a modicum of trust in the benevolence and veracity of others, a society can’t function at all. Willingness to accept another person’s statements on his word alone is demanded of us several times every day.

     Yes, I’ve written about this before. The problem hasn’t gone away. No, I don’t have a solution. I do have quite a lot of fear.

* * *

     This is just a quickie, an “early-morning thought.” I couldn’t shake it, so I decided to write it out. Have you had thoughts along these lines? What conclusions did you reach, if any?

     If a “large” high-trust society has become impossible for us, what’s next? A lot of “small” societies of trust, based on community and personal acquaintance? Or a condition of perpetual suspicion?

     How much longer before the supermarket down the road becomes untrustworthy because the manager “isn’t one of us” -- ? Or before the contractor recommended to you for waterproofing your basement makes you uneasy because of his skin tone… or his name? What happens when whole occupations are regarded with suspicion because of a fraud rampant among them at some earlier time?

     Oh, right. We’re already there, aren’t we? Apologies, Gentle Reader. My memory isn’t what it was. But I’m still working to enlighten and edify you. Trust me on that.

There is no need in human life so great as that men should trust one another and should trust their government, should believe in promises, and should keep promises in order that future promises may be believed in and in order that confident cooperation may be possible. Good faith -- personal, national, and international -- is the first prerequisite of decent living, of the steady going on of industry, of governmental financial strength, and of international peace. -- Benjamin M. Anderson, Economics and the Public Welfare: A Financial and Economic History of the United States, 1914 -- 1946

Tyranny 101

     So! You have your eye on a career in Statehood, do you? You hope for a satrapy of your own? One you can enjoy lifelong, untroubled by the currents that roil the larger world, serene in the knowledge that “your” people love you and would never dream of rebelling against you? Well, my young friend: here at the Academy for Dominator Development, we’ve assembled a comprehensive program for the likes of you.

     Yes, our program is effective. It provides a complete education for the dictator-to-be. But it’s not an easy course of study. You’ll find yourself marveling in horror at the fates of the tyrants of yore. You’ll be expected to analyze the wherefores. Many a failed tyrant has spent his last moments wishing someone had counseled him against his follies. Ironically, in many cases someone did… and was summarily executed for his cheek.

     Let’s open the catalogue and have a look.

     The syllabus for the required introductory course, Stability of Regime, might suggest something other than a progressive programme. Rather than what you’d think would be the subject of a freshman-level course, it focuses on the elementary sins that have brought down mighty States. Also, it gives its overarching lessons in short, pithy phrases. You’ll look at the headings and scratch your dandruff. You’ll think “How did he / they not know that? It’s so elementary!” Yet those missteps have brought down failed States throughout history.

     How about this one: Don’t meddle with religion. You know that already, don’t you? Look at how many States have embroiled themselves fatally in wars with their neighbors over doctrinal differences, some of those differences finer than a red hair! Because its monarchs refused to let godly subjects alone, Europe didn’t know a moment’s peace for a thousand years. Royal families that had enjoyed centuries of hegemony were laid low over it.

     Then there’s this one: Don’t play favorites! Power requires the consent of those you rule. Once a ruler starts handing out privileges, exceptions from evenhanded justice, because the king owes this one money or fancies that one’s daughter, the jig is up. Your people will no longer think of themselves as “your people.” They’ll assign that status to those you let get away with their crimes… and out will come the torches and pitchforks.

     But this next one eludes all but the most insightful students. You might think it silly. After all, hordes of tyrants throughout history have done it. But where are those once mighty lords today, youngster? Do any still wield power? How about their descendants: what condition are they in?

     So Don’t fuck with the money!

     Money is to a nation what blood is to the body. It must be kept clean. It must flow freely. And above all, it must never be diluted! Yet the Sirens’ song of money manipulation is as indisputable as its fate is inevitable. When a monarch lays his ravenous hands on the coinage, he loses his reason… and often his head.

     If you tax with a light hand – never more than a tenth of the national product – it may pinch when you have a grand scheme to fund, but it won’t evoke unrest. The commoners are never more sensitive to their king than when the tax collector is on their doorstep. Besides, the history of grand schemes is anything but grand. That alone should be a stark warning to you.

     Yet there may come a day when you or some halfwit advisor concocts a scheme too beautiful to dismiss. It would solve a pressing problem! It would placate the restive and unruly! It would make your people love you all the more! But where are the funds for it to come from?

     And a demon in a gilt robe will whisper to you in the sweetest of tones, Why not debase the coinage?

     The seductive power of that suggestion is why Stability of Regime is an entrance-level course. You must understand the fury currency inflation would unleash. It dwarfs all else in statecraft. You must see it, in all its gory grandeur, and never feel it in reality. Else your reign will be doomed by your own cupidity and vanity.

     You may say to yourself, “I can get away with it.” You can’t. You may say to yourself, “Just this once.” That, too, is a lie.

     In all of recorded history, only one tyrant has resisted that lure: Napoleon Bonaparte. “I will pay cash, or nothing!” he proclaimed. He knew the importance of sound money, for the Revolutionary regime had demonstrated it by violating it. Had the rest of Europe not banded together to depose him, his descendants might rule France today.

     Stability of Regime is a one-semester course. It’s the prerequisite to all the Academy’s other courses of study. The textbooks are kept continuously available at the Academy bookstore. Yes, they’re hefty tomes for what seem simple lessons, but it takes a lot of pages to properly chronicle the errors of rulers past and present. Classes are held in the lecture hall at 8:00 AM. Bring pen and paper.

     Register at the desk to your right. Use black ink only. Tuition is due before classes begin on Monday. Cash only. No checks or credit cards. We will test your coin.

Day Off

     I need some downtime. This old age stuff is wearing. Back tomorrow, I hope. Meanwhile, pray for Scott Adams: that he depart peacefully from this life, and that his soul find its way into God's arms.

This Greenland Thing

     Greenland in the news! Contention over Greenland! NATO roiled by tensions over Greenland! War threatens! Film at eleven!

     I know, I know: you’ve been there. Actually, for those with short memories, I too have been there, and if the tune is the same, the words differ somewhat:

     President Donald Trump and his top officials have framed their drive for Greenland — a semi-autonomous Danish territory — as all about U.S. national security, broader NATO footprints in the increasingly competitive Arctic and grabbing critical minerals.
     This is a somewhat thin justification. The U.S. has for many decades had a defense agreement with Copenhagen to keep a military presence in Greenland.
     Plus, much of the concern plaguing Europe for the last year is built on a fear of the U.S. pulling away from the continent — not committing more American troops to a region NATO is desperate to safeguard against growing Russian and Chinese influence.

     Please read the rest. It’s not bad for a Newsweek article. But most of the salient points are already part of public discourse.

     There’s a strange feel to President Trump’s desire that Greenland become a part of the U.S. Since this is the second time around for this initiative, I have to wonder whether America’s national interests are his real reasons for pursuing it.

     A few things that Greenland is not:

• It’s not arable.
• It’s not “living space.”
• It’s not easily exploitable.

     I’m told it’s valuable for military purposes. I’ll accept that; many harsh places stand guard over strategic travel routes, and the North Atlantic is forever full of vessels, both surface and subsurface, that bear watching. But the U.S. already has military bases on Greenland. Denmark, which claims sovereignty over Greenland, has expressed willingness that American military exploitation of Greenland should increase.

     I’m also told that Greenland is rich in natural resources. That may be so, but again, the Danish government has been accommodating toward commercial exploitation of Greenland’s resources. We must ask why the formal acquisition of Greenland – its transfer from Denmark’s jurisdiction to ours – matters so greatly to President Trump.

     The simplest explanation may be the correct one: Trump’s a real-estate man. Any real-estate man would rather own than lease. And there are possible advantages in not having to bargain with another power for the use of Greenland. But responsibility for the people of Greenland would come with it.

     Another, somewhat darker explanation, would be that contention over Greenland makes an ideal lever by which to pull the U.S. out of NATO. NATO is the conduit through which American resources are pulled into Europe. The drain NATO places on American military power and funding was the original reason that President Nixon ended the redeemability of the dollar in gold. Fomenting discord over Greenland might be an indirect method for ending NATO, an alliance long overdue for dissolution.

     There’s been talk about a morphing of the Monroe Doctrine into a “Donroe Doctrine,” under which American authority and responsibility for the Western Hemisphere would justify enfolding Greenland. That’s a bit thin. Greenland isn’t really part of the Western Hemisphere, and as previously stated, our military is already there.

     A minor possibility is that the matter is ego-driven: President Trump may envision American acquisition of Greenland as securing his place in the history books. It would be America’s largest territorial acquisition, edging out the Louisiana Purchase. That would be an impressive enlargement of the U.S., but in practical terms it would change almost nothing. Anyway, President Trump’s place in the books is already secure for other reasons, and I’m sure he knows it.

     Finally, there’s this: Back in the days of the Plantagenets, it was a common practice for the king to “give” a province to a brother or son. If President Trump is thinking of Greenland as a college-graduation gift for Barron, I’d suggest a snowglobe instead. Young men don’t often cherish such gifts for long. They thank Dad for them, but soon enough they stick them in the back of the closet and forget them. There they languish until their wives-to-be decree a “cleanup” that sees them left at the curb for the recyclers. No one would want to see Greenland suffer that fate. Especially the Greenlanders.

     Anyway, I still think if we’re going to go national-real-estate shopping, we should buy Canada. The National Hockey League Hall Of Fame really belongs in America, don’t you think?

The Baptism Of Jesus

     According to Matthew the Evangelist:

     Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
     And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
     And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

     [Matthew 3:13-17]

     It’s a curious episode: the Son of God submitting himself to baptism by a mortal! Why? What made it necessary, or appropriate?

     This morning’s Mass celebrant offered his thesis, which for all I know may be official Church teaching: that by accepting baptism by John, Jesus was validating Baptism as a sacrament. As Catholics believe that sacramental Baptism cleanses the new Christian of the burden of original sin, that has some weight. But it might not be a complete explanation.

     For further insight, let’s look at Jesus’s lifelong adoption of lowliness.

     Jesus was born to two poor travelers, who were far from their home. He spent his earliest hours in a manger. He spent his youth laboring alongside his father. When he undertook his ministry, he traveled Judea as a mortal, in the humblest of all modes of travel: on foot, without any money, luggage or “extra” possessions. He depended upon the generosity of those he visited for his sustenance and his shelter. He would die in the most torturous and ignominious manner of that time – and between two petty thieves!

     Accepting baptism by John was fully consistent with Jesus’s adoption of other lowly practices. Only in his miracles, most of all his Resurrection, did he display divine power and status.

     There’s a lot to ponder in there, especially in light of what Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen had to say about him:

     When God came to Earth, there was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. What lesson is hidden behind the inn and the stable?

     What is an inn, but the gathering-place of public opinion, the focal point of the world’s moods, the residence of the worldly, the rallying place of the fashionable and those who count in the management of the world’s affairs? What is a stable, but the place of outcasts, the refuge of beasts, and the shelter of the valueless, and therefore the symbol of those who in the eyes of public opinion do not count and hence may be ignored as of no great value or moment? Anyone in the world would have expected to find Divinity in an inn, but no one would have expected to have found it in a stable….

     If, in those days, the stars of the heavens by some magic touch had folded themselves together as silver words and announced the birth of the Expected of the Nations, where would the world have gone in search of Him?

     The world would have searched for the Babe in some palace by the Tiber, or in some gilded house of Athens, or in some inn of a great city where gathered the rich, the mighty, and the powerful ones of Earth. They would not have been the least surprised to have found the newborn King of Kings stretched out on a cradle of gold and surrounded by kings and philosophers paying Him their tribute and obeisance.

     But they would have been surprised to have discovered Him in a manger, laid on coarse straw and warmed by the breath of oxen, as if in atonement for the coldness of the hearts of men. No one would have expected that the One whose fingers could stop the turning of Arcturus would be smaller than the head of an ox; that He who could hurl the ball of fire into the heavens would one day be warmed by the breath of beasts; that He who could make a canopy of stars would be shielded from a stormy sky by the roof of a stable; or that He who made the Earth as His future home would be homeless at home. No one would have expected to find Divinity in such a condition; but that is because Divinity is always where you least expect to find it….

     The world has always sought Divinity in the power of a Babel, but never in the weakness of a Bethlehem. It has searched for it in the inns of popular opinion, but never in the stable of the ignored. It has looked for it in the cradles of gold, but never in the cribs of straw – always in power, but never in weakness.

     The Jews of First Century Judea believed that their Messiah would be a temporal leader, a warlord who would cast off the yoke of Rome and lead them to glory among the nations. They got a man in a simple robe and sandals, who sought neither power nor status. He accepted baptism from a crude wilderness figure, and went on to preach gentleness, simplicity, and repentance. Is it any wonder that so many failed to accept him?

     May God bless and keep you all.