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The Smoke
There was a prayer rally Thursday at the site of a scheduled Satanic meeting for young children in a K-2 primary school on the southeastern corner of Virginia. A schedule of meetings was arranged under a “tenant” lease used to allow for meetings outside of the familiar teacher-sponsored club arrangements that most people have experienced. No teachers were sponsoring Satan in this instance.
The school principal and the school board approved the lease agreement allowing Satan’s group to hold meetings in the school. The group publicly deny that Satan exists, or at least started to when they picked up the meeting in schools with minors schtick a while back, but some of them still give the stiff-arm “Hail Satan” salute and slip into recitations of Satan’s “sterling” qualities. Many of them gave false names and addresses in order to speak at the school board meeting, where local community input on the matter of leasing space for Satan was considered, only to be found out at check-in when their fictitious addresses were found out and their ID, when presented, did not match. Satan has fallen on hard times, indeed, when he can’t even manage forged documents to avoid being caught in simple lies.
Satan has a preferred sparring partner in an established religious after-school club, a kind of Washington Generals to Satan’s Harlem Globetrotters. They claim to be Christian but are quoted in the press as welcoming Satan’s participation as a competing element in these schools. Saint Paul warned us of such. It is a neat little arrangement that likely draws dollars to both sides. It is a very old game.
The group I prayed with Thursday is not a participant in neat little arrangements. It was made up of children, parents, grandparents, neighbors, and priests who know full well the power of Satan active in the world today. The prayer rally lasted an hour, the hour of the scheduled meeting.
An interesting thing happened as we prayed the rosary. As part of the rosary, we meditate on different events from the gospels. In this case, as Jesus was carrying the cross to Golgotha, I smelled a whiff of smoke, and my eyes were irritated. By the time we reached the crucifixion, the smoke was strong, as if I were immediately downwind from a bonfire, and I was unable to open my eyes. As we moved on to the resurrection, the effect was quickly alleviated. There were no flames present, and the brisk Atlantic breeze would have quickly dissipated any smoke, but nonetheless, the smoke clung to my nose and lungs. The world is on fire, though few have noticed yet.
In this event, our prayers were answered. Satan’s side did not appear to exercise their tenancy. That leaves the group with much still to pray for. The administrators and politicians who willingly opened the doors to the greatest evil in creation have stained the whole community with their actions. And, of course, there is the problem that our entire legal system is geared to enable Satan wherever he presses in the name of equity. We need to plan for the post-public school world.
Happy Lord’s Day.
Published in Education
Thank you for this. Your actions answered my prayers.
Thank you, but my efforts have been the least among the ralliers. There are still religious communities in this country, despite all.
Ahh – but you reminded me not to despair. And maybe many others. And maybe/probably gave encouragement to the shy or fearful of affirming faith.
Brimstone has that effect, or so I am told.
I thought about passing over that part because it was so strange and nobody else appeared affected, but the more I thought about it the more I thought it was meant to be shared.
Thank you for having the fortitude to fight evil!
One thing about many conservatives, they think only their religion is protected. Actually, they usually think their religion should be enforced.
The concept of Satan is as preposterous as the concept of a god, but let’s just say it’s not.
If public school buildings exist, and they rent out space during off hours or seasons, then Satan worshippers have the same right to rent the space as anyone else.
Don’t like that? Then abolish public schools. Abolishing public schools eliminates 80% of public controversy anyway.
Until then, getting the vapors over a frivolous group of eccentrics is kind of silly.
It would be ungracious of me to pass over such a comment, no matter how tempting. It is good of you to mark your position so vividly, And I can honestly say, there but for the grace of God go I. When the Exorcist came out I dismissed it unseen as unworthy of my time, no more relevant or factual than Frankenstein or Dracula. But I have no excuse for doubt, as I have written here.
Anyone seeking evidence as part of developing and informed opinion, as reason demands on any important question, can start in several places. My suggestion for a start would be M. Scott Peck, MD’s excellent People of the Lie, available from Apple and Amazon, and Robert H. Bennett’s I Am Not Afraid. The first is a psychiatrist who walked dumbfounded into the arena and used his reason and training to navigate and contend with the demonic. The latter is a missionary who actually paid attention to the demonic underpinnings of the pagan world he liberated his converts from. His work includes some interesting surveys and statistics.
A simple application of rational inquiry should serve to resolve your own vapors at concerns of those far more experienced and better informed. I hope that anyone else with similar views reading this will take up the evidence.
None of that matters in the least. We are a nation of laws and the law says no religion may be favored over another when it comes to contracting with the government. This is a foundational element of our legal system and our society. Wanting it to be otherwise is ignoring reality.
It would be if we were. We are not. We are using free speech, freedom of assembly, and processes intended to discern the values of the community. These are all foundational elements of our legal system, however indecorous you find them. As for no religion being favored over another when it comes to contracting with the government, this is no more an absolute principle than freedom of speech, and has been rightly challenged in other cases where the safety of the community was at risk.
Finally, I am already on record saying that public education is a failed experiment and largely responsible for the skills decline we have recorded from generation to generation.
Challenged by religious bigots repeatedly, and lost repeatedly.
Yes, yes. Those knuckle dragging religious bigots who object to infanticide and euthanasia and the sterilization and mutilation of minors and the forced medical experimentation on whole populations and the whole rest of the steady parade of atrocities served up by Satan’s secularists under the rubric of “rights”. At least you honestly express your contempt.
I honestly wish I had your genitility.
Me too.
I mean, I wish I had my gentility.
LOL. That’s the way I knew you meant it.
None of which have anything to do with renting time in publicly owned buildings.
My faith in humanity waxes and wanes with discussions like this, on Ricochet and elsewhere. The waning is closely correlated to the presence of evil masquerading as militant atheism or paganism. (Lots of modern -isms fall into those two categories.)
You didn’t sit through the the four hour board meeting where these guys pled their case, many having lied about their residency to speak glowingly of how the organization guided them in finding their true gender and seeking transition treatments. And pointed them to pro-abortion resources. And, of course, there are lawsuits and sordid news stories about scandals attached to the leadership circle. And the issue is about bringing modern Aleister Crowleys in contact with a K-2 community.