The Path

"If your desire to do that which is right did not propel you down this path you now tread, 
If your passion for that which is good, virtuous and righteous did not impel your steps,
If the commitment to follow after and pursue the One whom you love did not inform your decision...

Then by what were you enticed to pursue this road?
What lust has carried you away in subjection to its desires?
And can you yet bare the burden it has laid upon you?
Subjection and submission express the perpetual condition of mankind.
Either you will joyfully submit to that which is asked of you for your good,
or in waywardness you will become a servant to that which defiles and denigrates your soul." - Jimmie Hopper

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light".
(Matthew 11:29-30)

The Voice of Pure Evil (Part 3)

There is yet a further reason why the recent release of the Flight 93 recording is worthy of mention and I draw attention to it. As I mentioned in Part 1, this recording is exceptional in that it offers us the opportunity to listen to a particularly well documented...lie. And we are not just talking about a minor stretch of the truth:

Ziad Jarrah: "Hi, this is the captain. We'd like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard. And we are going to turn back to the airport. And they have our demands so please remain quiet."

There is murder behind this lie. Despite its seeming innocuous appearance we already know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the speaker fully intends to murder every single passenger on that plane, and in fact did so. But it is not for its vulgarity or its shock appeal that I post it here, but rather for its profundity.


What does evil sound like?

What does it look like?

What does it encourage us to do?

How do you know it when you see it? When you hear its voice?


An old adage has been circulating for some number of years now about how bankers first learn to identify counterfeit currency. As the saying goes, new bankers are trained to recognize counterfeits simply by closely studying the genuine article. Having studied the real thing long enough, they are then able to pick out the frauds on sight. Unfortunately, the adage itself is only partly true. Talk to a banker, they will set you straight.

Bankers learn how to identify counterfeit notes both by studying the look and feel of currency through frequent handling and also by learning the common techniques that counterfeiters employ and the clues they inevitably leave behind. The question a new banker ought to ask is "What are the telltale signs of a counterfeit note?" By studying the techniques used, and the clues a counterfeiter often leaves behind, you will be in a position to frustrate their efforts.

It is a nice idea to be able to ID fake notes by simply spending time looking at the real thing. But that's all it is - a nice idea. When you are dealing with an amateur, it may work just fine. But when you're dealing with the pros....the idea doesn't hold water.

The Voice of Pure Evil (Part 2)

Flight 93 was a different story.

In one sense I suppose it was very much the same story; the same terrorist hijacking, the same lie, the same frightened passengers, the same anxious air traffic controllers listening for any clue as to what was taking place in the sky above them. But the lie that had been effective with passengers on other flights, was about to be shown for what it was. The veil was beginning to fade. The reason?

Flight 93 did not take off on time as the terrorists' had planned. Instead of taking off at 8am, Flight 93 experienced a full 40-minute delay before take off due to the congested runways at Newark. While the hijacked plane hurtled towards its intended target, passengers onboard learned of the earlier attacks by phone. The hijackers' carefully devised timetable had failed. The curtain had been pulled back and the passengers began to see the ugly truth of the situation; a truth that could no longer be denied.

No amount of saying "If you move, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane - Just stay quiet" could compel them to remain quiet and motionless any longer...

At 9:57am the passengers revolted.

But the heroes, though they included a 6'5'' Rugby star, an all-state wrestler and judo champion, a basketball player, and a trained pilot, could not turn the tables and save the plane. The damage had already been done. The White House was saved - but the plane could not be. The attempted rescue came too late.

Without a doubt, from start to finish it must have looked a very different event to those who lived it and experienced it, almost like looking into a completely different world perhaps. Knowing what we know now, we can -- only with great effort -- transpose ourselves back in time to that fateful morning and attempt to see it through their eyes. Today, we look at events like the warning text message that Flight 93 received from the United Airlines flight dispatcher at 9:23am that morning:

"Beware any cockpit intrusion - Two a/c hit World Trade Center."

...and we stare in bewilderment, wondering how it was that the plane was still hijacked, and every person on board still lost their life. 9:23am -- five minutes before the plane was hijacked -- here was the warning that was needed!

To us, looking back, it appears plain as day. And yet the plane was still lost and forty innocent passengers perished. The brief opportunity to avert the danger had come and gone. Those who had eyes to see the truth were in a position to do something; those who did not, were doomed to perish without even a fight.

In the days after 9/11 The Churchill Centre was often asked to research what Winston Churchill had said amidst similar circumstances in his own day. They assembled a collection of statements he had made that possess relevance to our own day and published them under the title "Our Qualities and Deeds Must Burn and Glow: Churchill's Wisdom Calls to us Across the Years". I have pulled out two quotations that seem particularly apropos:

"When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now that it is thoroughly out of hand we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong, these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history." (1)

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves." (2)

It is tragic, truly tragic, how often we fail to heed Cassandra's warning; the warning that could for us avert disaster. In our folly we find ourselves endeavoring to gag and silence, or simply to ignore, the voice of truth; and turn our ears instead to the voice of evil: "It's not really that bad (yet). Do nothing."

(Continue to Part 3)

1  House of Commons, 12 April 1935
2  The Gathering Storm, 272 (English edition), 348 (American edition)

The Voice of Pure Evil

If you've ever wondered what the voice of pure evil sounds like....here is a rare tape recording.

ABCNews: Voices from the Sky

It is not "rare" because you've never heard it before. I assure you - as a human being walking this earth you've heard this voice many times. This particular recording is exceptional, however, because in this case you are looking back on an event with 20/20 hindsight. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt who the speaker is (now long since dead), and why he says what he says.

The speaker is a terrorist.

Further, his words were not spoken with you in mind. His words were targeted at others - and he makes no effort to camouflage the pure evil of his words from you, because he was not thinking about you when he said them.

Like a house of cards, when you look at it straight-on it appears solid and strong, but when you step to one side, you notice the walls are paper thin - its facade is lost to you and you perceive the true nature of its strength.

And so it is with the words of this recording. You are now looking at them from behind and above, rather a bit like Dorothy looking in upon "the man behind the curtain" in the Wizard of Oz. Looking "straight-on", she trembled in fear, perceiving she stood in the presence of a wizard with immense power. But once Toto pulled aside the curtain; the thin veil that had aided in deceiving so many others before her; she perceived things as they truly were.

Listen to what these two voices are saying. It is eerily and profoundly predictable.

First Terrorist: "Ladies and Gentlemen here. It's the captain, please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard." (9:32am)

Minutes later, another ominous transmission, likely hijacker Ziad Jarrah: "Hi, this is the captain. We'd like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard. And we are going to turn back to the airport. And they have our demands so please remain quiet." (9:36am)

These words were not transmitted to the passengers of Flight 93, as the terrorists intended, rather they were transmitted to the air traffic control center in Cleveland, Ohio (see full transcript of the Flight 93 recording).

Looking back, we well know the events of that day, and the intent behind the terrorist's words. We know that Flight 93 was not headed back to Newark Int. Airport, as the terrorist had promised, but was on course to destroy either the Capital Building or the White House, just as Flights 11 and 175 had destroyed the World Trade Center, and Flight 77 would attempt to destroy the Pentagon one minute later.

Students of what happened that day will immediately recognize the parallel between the messages above and the message heard by the passengers of Flight 11:

Mohammed Atta: "Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."

And later: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport."

This -- again -- is the voice of pure, unadulterated evil, laid bare before your eyes and ears. Perhaps to the passengers of Flight 11, there may have been some ambiguity - but looking back now there can be no denying it.

And what does such a voice advise and encourage us to do? What is its aim? What does it want?

It is rather simple, which is also why it is so profoundly and eerily predictable.


It wants us to do.........nothing.


The passengers of Flight 77 did not survive.

The passengers of Flight 11 did not survive.

The passengers of Flight 175 did not survive.

They were slaughtered.

(to be continued)

The Modesty of Truth

A fashion show may welcome any number of participants, dressed in a scandalous variety of regalia, but such a setting hardly befits a topic as profound as "good or bad," "right or wrong." I dare say that Truth will be loath to make an appearance at such an event. For, in all honesty, she has not been invited - and she will not attend without an invitation.

You Cannot Multiply Wealth by Dividing It

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." -Paraphrase of Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1996


"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money." -Paraphrase of Prime Minister Margret Thatcher, 1976