Monthly Archives: October 2026

The Greatest Culmination of All Time

Where will it find you? Will you at last be trying with all your might to pray, to belatedly cry out for that forgiveness, that repentance you always felt you had the luxury of postponing to a more opportune time? When the very heaven above your head becomes rent with the awesome power of the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ Who finally manifests Himself to a world long gone astray, and many, having repeatedly ignored His gracious offer of forgiveness for those offences ever piled up in the darkest corner of their souls, it comes time to reckon with the ultimate King, where will your heart discover itself to abide?

When I woke up this morning, I had no intention of writing a post, but as with all things spiritual, our own intentions are found to be of lesser importance than what the Master has planned for us. His will is always of utmost priority in everything we undertake, so if my intention for today was to go out into the magnificent autumn wood here in the Ozarks and consume a feast of color and silent wonder, then I can still do that, but only after following this Spiritual task judged to be of greater import.

What a waste of my time and yours, dear reader, if my choice of words lacks of inspirational offering. Perhaps the Spirit will bless us with a succinct communication, a missive of hopeful vision for what lies ahead of us, the sordid condition of the world notwithstanding. It’s as if we find ourselves on some great ship sailing to an uncertain destination and only a few of us understand exactly where we are and where we are going, but the vast majority do not. Some of us by choice have laid hold of words of immense promise from the Scriptures and as a result have found we have an obligation of utmost importance to speak them as we are able to those who wander about the deck in listless confusion, to tell the lost of the very promise we have been privileged to embrace, though in such a way as to pique their interest and yet avoid offense.

These times in which we live offer much trepidation to those who are less informed of the very prophesy we have at our behest, those oracles so graciously bestowed on chosen men of long ago. Such fears of oncoming darkness and the evil it encompasses are easily put to rest with such Spiritual gifts as the Lord Jesus Christ has blessed His children with, primarily the love for God and the love of God. We are reminded in many places in scripture of the profound, unimaginable love that God has for His people and that nothing in all creation can come between us and our Father’s love. It is also made clear that if we possess that Godly love in our hearts, that we have no room for fear of any evil we might face. [1 John 4:18]: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” This is one of the greatest defenses against all of the threats of the enemy and one of the most comforting verses in the whole Bible. Pray therefore for that perfect love which is only available from the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. That perfect love was undoubtedly what buttressed the hearts of the early Christians who remained steadfast in their faith though they were being slaughtered by lions for the entertainment of people of the same bloodthirsty mindset of many of today’s leaders.

If we dwell too much on preparation on how to survive the coming tribulations, we can find that we are placing too much emphasis on surviving in this world, but “prepping” to survive in a world that has been completely taken over by Satan and that has become the realm of demonic principalities is a futile effort at best, at least for decent people. Who in their right mind would want to continue to exist in the darkness ruled by such evil entities? Jesus promised His followers that He would be with us to the very end if and when it comes upon us and that by avoidance of fear, we would earn a crown of life on the other side. [Revelation 2:10]: “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Since these are the words of the Lord and Savior, these things will assuredly happen, but remember that part about love casting out fear and it becomes easier to understand how we can remain faithful even as we face the end of this experience we erroneously consider to be our life. Our life starts the moment we emerge on the other side of that divide we allow ourselves to fear so much. That is the existence we should all be prepping for while we have the time.

Believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world are able to walk through this world without fear of AI or data centers or robot armies. We need not fear man-made plagues or cars that shut down when big brother says they must. We don’t have to worry about getting vaporized in a nuclear war, nor being shot nor beheaded by servants of the enemy. When we arrive at the level of our Spiritual development where we have that perfect love in our hearts that casts out fear, we have reached a point where we completely disarm the enemy, because fear is his greatest weapon which serves him well in a world of nonbelievers. Fear is always brandished; people always speak of coming plagues, theft of property and/or freedom by the “authorities”, etc. In our world today, most news and discussions of existential threats to humanity (mostly commoners, the rich face entirely different threats) are what folks like to think about. Again, too much worrying over what might happen in this life in this world long grown too evil for humanity anyway.

There will be some of us who survive through these troubled times and actually be here to greet Jesus when He comes back for His faithful. It doesn’t matter that much whether were here above the ground or not because the dead in Christ will rise first so those believers who’ve passed on will get to see Him first but we’ll all be gathered together to join Him in the clouds and then we’ll be with Him in Paradise forevermore. Those who rejected Him in this life will pass on to a really awful existence in a horrible place, so by all means get to know Jesus soon because there just isn’t much time left here and a lot of people are going to tragically miss the boat and end up relegated to everlasting torment. This ain’t my judgement, the Bible says it very plainly – get on the right side of God now!

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

I Think This Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

The picture on my homepage isn’t AI. I don’t like AI – one bit. My daughter went out one day after a particularly heavy rain spell and took a bunch of pictures of the aftermath and that one caught my eye. The colors seemed perfect, at least to me, and as she always asks me what I want for Christmas and I can never think of anything – seems like it’s a thing to try and explain I don’t want anything that costs any money, but one always needs to consider other folks’ desire to give something, so I asked her if she’d get that picture blown up and mounted in a lighted frame so I could hang it in my old farmhouse, and lo and behold she did, it turned out really nice. My brother came over and commented on how much he likes the pic and ordered one just like it for his house, so I guess it’s pretty to others besides myself. The notion of giving gifts on Christmas has been – and is still being – debated as to whether or not it’s appropriate within the bounds of the New Covenant of Christ. Some point to the passages in the story of Jesus’ birth when the magi came bearing gifts for the newborn Savior as the origin of Christmas giving, and that’s plenty good enough for me as far as being an example of why folks like to give gifts in remembrance of that event, but on the other hand, Christmas has inarguably gotten out of hand in the context of commercialization with rich folks making money off people’s desire to give.

That landscape picture my daughter ordered up for me, and later for my brother, probably didn’t cost much in our valuation of money, so not a lot of cash changed hands, but a great deal of satisfaction was derived both from the giver and the recipient(s). I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that’s the reason, the spirit, if you will, of Christmas giving. There should be love on both ends of the transaction if the gift is to comport with the substance of the act, it has to be loving thy neighbor in it’s purest form. That said, I must go back to what I mentioned about the cost, because even though 30 bucks (or whatever it cost) might not seem like much to folks in our society, it is a fortune to people in some places and that’s a sad statement of the condition of our world. Even though here in our neck of the woods in the Ozarks, most of us don’t have a lot of money, even we lowly hillbillies live like royalty compared to a lot of places in the world. There are even places in this nation of abundance where many people don’t even have a roof over their head. In some of our biggest cities where rivers of wealth flow through skyscrapers, people down on the streets live in tents – the lucky ones have tents, others sleep on cardboard or in dumpsters.

In countries like India, Pakistan, and many Asian countries, people live in great slums, they don’t know of any other lifestyle. Children are raised sifting through garbage trying to find a little food. In the Philippines, night people prowl through the garbage bins for leftover scraps from fast food cafes. In some places there, they recook fried chicken scraps to make what they call pag pag, a cuisine of the truly destitute, but accepted as a source of sustenance by those who have nothing else. Whole families can be found in the refuse dumps at night prowling through garbage for some small bits of something, anything edible. Alongside most of these slums, across the tracks or whatever divides the universes of wealth and poverty, shiny skyscrapers stand brimming with champaign-guzzling rich people who haven’t spent one day of their lives worrying about the price of a bill of groceries. They’ve never experienced the struggle to pay an electric bill or had to watch a child endure a fight through some easily cured illness because they couldn’t afford to go to the doctor. Way too many people in our world have to leave this life entirely because of the exorbitant cost of medical care. Rich people have no concept of the spirit of Christmas, nor will they ever.

Famine and disease have become a way of life in way too many places in the world. There are way too many stories out there, way too many pictures of little emaciated African children with bellies swollen from starvation, so many flies on their tiny faces they have long stopped trying to swat them away. I’m not trying to say there is any easy solution to these woes of humanity, but how many people are even trying to help? There are some cash-strapped organizations, totally dependent on the generosity of Godly donors and organizations out there trying to help, but as always, the attention of the majority of the world that might otherwise be made aware and able to help is drawn to things and events of lesser importance – international soccer matches, unnecessary wars, stupid undertakings like the “Line” in Saudi Arabia, etc. How many starving kids in the world could have been fed for the price of that farce? Or how much sustenance could be made available for the price of an aircraft carrier? How many homeless people here in the US could be put in affordable housing for the wasted treasure expended on these damnable temples to demons they call data centers?

The US allocates over a trillion dollars a year on “defense”, i.e. the greatest scam of human history in which the stockholders of organizations like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, McDonell Douglas etc. have grown unfathomably rich in the business of promulgating humans murdering each other. Wars are started precisely to enrich these soulless entities in which countless innocent people are murdered every day somewhere in the world. The US has privatized institutions like prisons so as to further enrich more of the already wealthy as more and more activities of the public are criminalized so as to increase the number of incarcerated. Wealthy men can rape and traffic minor children and get completely away with it – indeed, become president – but poor people risk being incarcerated in these private prisons for stealing food.

The real war going on in our world is not between immigrants and residents. It is not between blacks and whites. It’s not even between communists and capitalists. The real war, as everyone will someday understand, is between the rich and the not rich of the world and it always has been. But that’s just on this side of the great divide. This life. Satan has armed his servants with the wealth of the world and between those who have the wealth and those who desire to have it, Satan has near complete control of humankind. Men who desire wealth do not need to actually have it in order for Satan to capture and control them, the desire for it is plenty enough to get his work done. Things will be far different on the other side, for over there Satan doesn’t have any say in what goes on.

There’s just so much actual evil happening in the world right now that it should be obvious to even the folks who have made it their life’s mission to preach against giving gifts on Christmas that there are more important things to worry about than celebrating what a lot of folks think of as Jesus’ birthday with their own versions of frankincense and myrrh.

A lot of the thoughts in this article go through my head when I look at that beautiful picture my daughter gifted me for Christmas. It’s a complicated world, but Jesus has a great way of simplifying it. The only way to emerge from this existence victorious is to get right with Jesus Christ and if you haven’t done so, I implore you to – today, we don’t have much time left here, and the rich folks are going to crash and burn along with their master, so don’t look to them for help, they have no desire to see you on the winning side of this great battle.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

Serene Wonders of the Ozark Autumn

(If you’re a long-time reader here at Folkpotpourri.com, at this time of year you undoubtedly expect this, so without further ado…)

From somewhere down the one path come voices scarce to discern at first, then growing to clamor; from the other naught but silence, mist, and enveloping dark. Choose I must, but having only this moment arrived and come to understand this sudden and seminal path now demanding a choice at it’s bifurcation, each into destinations at odds with the other, I am confronted with invitations to follow one. Do I opt for a roiling avenue toward some familiar end whence I’m bidden to follow a tumultuous riot of temptation and merriment amid throngs of fellow travelers, or the serene, shady lane of nature’s offerings whence cool autumn peace and misty colors wind into a silent yet eerily boding woodland alone. A serene invitation of evening darkness and a bracing north wind make the choice for me. Yea, and the moss-covered hickory with gilded foliage of indescribable resplendence makes the choice for me.

As I proceed beyond the moment of my option, I’m at once greeted by a blush of deep-scarlet sumac abruptly thrust from the dark autumn mist offering its own feast of visual delight upon this table of an autumnal banquet. Ere I’m able to partake of a morsel comes to view a palette of green and heavy moss upon a weathered escarpment of limestone, impeccably strewn with ornate burgundy gum and pumpkin-colored sassafras discards. My eyes deliberately and eagerly trace a vine of crimson woodland ivy high into a stalwart red oak whose slowly changing hue of verdant summer proudly displays his early fall decor.

Far from regret at this choice of roads, and thus further from the din of a crowded city of men, I’m left in amaze of an autumn world of which few partake, a world of wild songbirds eagerly gleaning seeds from generous ocher grasses who sway in desiccated undulation as the northern breeze wafts first down wooded hillside then into an amber ocean of this silently awaiting evening dark, a world of hastily-gathered drops of yesterday’s rain gently meandering through burgeoning turves of earthen form. This choice of roads lead among exuberant tumbles of maple and black gum whose autumnal gowns beckon great envy of other woodland members who choose to await the onset of colder winds to alter their attire, which will of certainty be no less extravagant once they determine to do so. Indeed, where such beauty and magnificence abound, there is no time nor inclination to regret this path.

Among the browning jungles of the fen with her ripe throughout tule, rush, and cattail, jewelweed blossoms fall to bespeckle tiny sunsets among the briars – summer frogs have grown silent, the only noise to be heard here are the thumps of ripe walnuts escaping from lemon-yellow branches who race one another to shed plump burdens. Gently seeping clear waters from the spring ply this peaceful mire, slowly disappearing beneath discarded foliage of waning summer. Indeed, autumn seems in haste to conceal every vestige of summer – it is her season now and she harbors no inclination to share attention of her magnificence, her color, her silent arrest of nature.

Gold is in abundance here and is not to be confused with the lesser gold of value to men. Crimson also abides in increase as the trail progresses through the somber, wooded hills. Ebony flocks of complaining crows now flit listless and great columns of white geese sail aloft in rare open patches of a melancholy blue firmament, seen but by the keenest of eyes, but irascible honking of their clan heard plainly by all. Winding brakes of clearest cold streams carry golden leaf-drops away to drift on the sea or to rest alongside some lonely fallen sentinel of the forest as it floats to an unknown edifice. Soon, tendrils of winter cold will send ice to immobilize all who dwell on this exquisite water.

Until those grim and stolid warriors without leaf upon steeds ever alight on winter wind approach to take it all away, take the road less traveled – get out and enjoy the fall!

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK

Surviving in a Turbulent and Insane World

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in several days, but the accident I mentioned in my last post turned out to be somewhat more serious than I thought and I had to break down and take a trip to the emergency room where a scan revealed a couple of broken ribs. There was considerable soft tissue damage as well and I’ve been laid up taking pain medication and not in any shape to be writing, but as always, God has brought me through what I hope to be the worst of it and though I still have a way to go, I finally feel good enough to make a post.

When we are overwhelmed with our problems, we should consider what He went through for us

It seems that every new day brings about its own challenges and the worst of humanity (in the service of the enemy of God and man) keeps resurfacing to create doubt and instability to this world in which we find ourselves trying to survive. There are, as prophesied, wars and rumors of wars taking place with new plagues and earthquakes happening at an astounding pace, leaving us little time to gravitate to those places where we may find peace and solace, but find the time we must. These are the very days for which we are admonished to watch as well as pray as Jesus Christ’s return draws nigh.

Although I’m adamantly against this confounded AI and the opprobrium it threatens to bring into our lives, I nevertheless attempt to use this weapon of the enemy against him and write articles on the internet in my own feeble ways and speech (I never use AI generated narratives, but sometimes find images online that may be AI generated due to the likelihood of unavailability of whatever image I need) in my own effort to get the Word of God out there. There are many others, especially videos made by influencers, who are doing similar work in the name of Jesus, but we have to be careful of whatever articles or videos we watch or allow ourselves to be guided by. Always weigh everything against the Scriptures and you’ll never go wrong. Satan certainly realizes the potential of the internet for growing his own following, in fact the whole thing is a creation of satanic billionaires attempting to turn away the faithful and that in itself is a pretty expansive project. In choosing to use the weapon of the enemy, I’m reminded of Matthew 10:16, where Jesus admonishes His disciples, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

If people, organizations, societies, and even some churches are not deemed by the enemy to be a threat, i.e. promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they are generally left alone and even if they started out to try and do the right thing, many of them typically decay into some iteration of sinful, lustful immorality that becomes more and more accepted as time passes. Satan knew this would happen hence he takes no action against them. However, when you see some pastor who appears to be stumbling or otherwise threatened you might want to take a second look at his ministry because Satan might well be at work trying to destroy him and his church. Most of the real ones are usually hanging on by a thread, but that’s the kind of people Jesus is after. Those who, despite the odds of being defeated, still hang on with all they have to live in the light. They are the ones Satan is after, too. His whole schtick is to try and take those who have chosen to follow the truth away from the Lord, but what did Jesus say of His people? [ John 10:27-30]: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. 30 I and My Father are one.” There is no greater Scriptural example of Jesus’ protection of his “sheep”, so if your heart is in the right place, you are safe in His mighty hands, but that doesn’t mean Satan won’t try, that he won’t do everything in his power to turn us away from the faith, so always be prepared for his attacks – sometimes they are frightening, sometimes seemingly overwhelming, but we have One who is more powerful to protect us as long as we hang on.

Do not let the dark clouds of plagues, wars and rumors of wars dissuade you from God’s calling in your life. He promises that we will emerge from this tumultuous existence into a place of unimaginable joy and peace. I can share an experience I had many years ago in which I had a dream where I was falling from a great height, presumably to my demise, but during that long fall as I tumbled through the air, I experienced an indescribable peace that I could actually feel. I was about to say I have no idea where the unimaginable peace came from, but I really do. Although the sensation only lasted for the moment of the dream, it has been with me for my entire adult life and if I should live a hundred lives, I could never forget it, such was its impact on me. It was the most awesome experience I’ve ever had the blessing of going through. That peace, the peace of God, awaits us in His kingdom. I wish everyone could experience that feeling – there’d be many more followers of Christ if that were so, but alas, it is a seminal experience only for me to try and describe with fumbling words, but it is nevertheless true and that peace is there in the presence of the Almighty in His Kingdom waiting for us to enter into!

For all readers of this article, always remember this definition of success, for it is the only true success and it is not measured by the number of zeroes in some bank account (which will all burn). Success is standing before Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and hearing these words, [Matthew 25:21]: “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. The one thing of importance that can result from this life – everything else is a waste of your time. He patiently awaits to speak those very words to you and yours. Get to know Him if you have not yet done so and prepare to experience His unimaginable joy and peace.

May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

MK