07 August 2023
First, a little refreshment for your heart and mind. One of our readers, preferring the nickname of Fun_and_Prophet, offered this little poem in response to my parable of slate:
THE SLATE OF PRIORITIES
As foot-traffic polishes slate on the floor,
so my taste for His Glory increases the more
when I turn a soft cheek, pursuing the exercise:
to respond more gently, to grow more wise.
It's a good set-up for what follows.
We know that preppers blabber endlessly about having a "bugout plan". I'm not suggesting that's a bad idea, but it would work only if a tiny handful of people decided to do this at the same time. If you wait for a mass evacuation, you'll need to prepare for a wholly different scenario. It really depends on what you take as your cue to exit.
For that, the preppers are all over the map. That is, there is no consistent advice on what to take as your evacuation cue. The few smart ones will know it's just a matter of what kind of threat is enough to sacrifice your investments in things like property and structures. Granted, a very large number of preppers suggest you should have already gotten out and gone off grid. That's not for everyone, so it really depends on what kind of prepper you are.
From what I've read online, it appears that most of the best land is either taken already or locked up under federal control. Anywhere you go, you'll need a good life support situation: year-round water, ample foraging or arable land, and a defensible site for your housing. You'll probably need a lot of firewood, especially if cold weather is part of your refuge. About the only other option is to have your home on wheels that you can move to the best opportunity within range of your fuel tank.
To be honest, I'm not even thinking about that kind of thing at all. The only reason I mentioned wishing for a motor home is because I simply prefer to live that way. Yes, it would offer a strong advantage if things get hairy, but I'm not really expecting that. It's just that I enjoy living self-contained like that. This is the initial reason.
The secondary consideration is a long-time dream of a special kind of mission work. Should fuel remain available and affordable, I would dearly love visiting with some of my brothers and sisters in the Radix Fidem community. A few of them have made themselves significant in my world, and I would dearly love to meet them in person before things get much more unstable here in the US. It's not about prepping.
Some of the people I know around my area have mentioned wanting to get a motor home, or travel trailer and towing rig, because they believe the prepper message. That has put strong upward pressure on our local market for RVs. I'm content to wait awhile until a bunch of them find out they can't hack it, then I can get a nice used one for a low price. I'm thinking a year from now would be a better time to take this idea seriously.
For most of us nonconforming types, the one biggest hunger we have in this life is fellowship with our own kind. Becoming in their minds a real person they've met will provide a much stronger bond with each other and with the Lord. It makes us stronger for the isolation that is sure to come when the economy collapses farther. While the Lord can use me any way He likes, I'm not expecting to plant churches, but it's otherwise no different from much of Paul's ministry travels. He constantly referred to a strong desire to see certain close friends. There are some elements of faith and fellowship that simply cannot be transmitted without face-to-face contact.
Given the psychology of nonconformists in general, I honestly don't think anyone with strong convictions could take too much of me for very long. That's why I'm honestly praying about an RV. I can stay out of their hair and still have a decent length of visit before moving on to the next one.
As previously noted, I don't do fundraisers -- not on this blog, not under this persona. Rather, I'll ask you to pray with me about this. There is a risk that the changes coming in this next year or so could make that kind of vision impossible, regardless of whether I managed to save up for a decent RV. There are too many variables to calculate; this is just a fond dream. But it's the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense as the Internet becomes more difficult to use as a means of communication and fellowship.
Now, this connects via tangent with something else: There are a few people I know who also have dreams, not of escaping chaos by going out off grid, but they are thinking in terms of building a place big enough to be a refuge for people they love. It might surprise you that none of them are thinking in terms of subjecting their guests to some form of communal controls, but something more like a motel for family, where everyone can live separately, but still be within easy reach.
I'm going to suggest that most Americans could not actually do something like that for very long. Only a tiny minority have experienced the kind of social culture that makes such a situation work. Desperation from some kind of broad threat might help for a while, but most of my extended family couldn't do it. I know precious few people who understand the utter necessity of sacrificing a piece of yourself to get along in tight quarters like that.
There are people in my extended family who would flatly refuse to make any adjustments for the sake of harmony. I'm sure you have kinfolks like that, too. Our American society has conditioned people to feel entitled to all kinds of things, and our way of life no longer demands peaceful interaction. The cellphone life creates artificial expectations.
And yet, that kind of social unity is precisely the lifestyle that the Bible calls for. That's because it's a different kind of "family". People in a church were supposed to gather in some kind of enclave as much as possible. It worked out rather well in the New Testament because those people came from very different cultural backgrounds versus Americans. There are plenty of social science studies showing why most people from Northern European backgrounds could never do that without first sacrificing their whole ethnic identity.
I've seen it work before, but it's been quite rare. I've known only a handful of tolerant folks who could do it. Even in the military, with all the strict social controls, it was just an elite few. We always had significant tensions in the ranks of any group larger than a half-dozen.
If living communally like that was necessary for survival, I expect most white Americans would not survive. Grace can overcome any human flaw, but you would need a rather strong faith group to try it. Cultural mixing, even as spiritual believers, would be very tough. Of course, it can be done, but it would be a painful transformation.
This is precisely the kind of struggle that takes up so much verbiage in the New Testament during their time of tribulation.
This document is public domain (except for the small bit of poetry); spread the message.