"The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in
people who are trustworthy."
Proverbs 12:22
America has become a nation of feckless, unrepentant liars who use deceit to manipulate other people into giving the liar something he or she wants. Usually, it is money or power or some derivation thereof.
No, this isn't a blog about Donald Trump, though it easily could be, because he is the most obvious and most prolific example of what I am talking about. (Currently, he is lying about the number of Americans stricken with the new "novel" corona virus, disputing the number reported by the scientists at the Center for Disease Control.)
No. I am making an observation about our culture, in general, and how low our moral personality, as a whole, has sunk. I will give you an example.
Tonight I received an email from Amazon, the title of which read:
"Silver Parnell, here's a $5 credit toward your wish list title."
"For, whoever would love life and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil and their lips
from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil
and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it."
1 Peter 3:10-11
The first rep keeps trying to guess at what might have happened. I keep telling him to stop guessing and let me speak to somebody who knows. He keeps putting me on hold. 16 minutes later, I insist that he let me speak to someone else. He says he will, but he keeps talking and he keeps guessing. I am getting more and more concerned because his English isn't good and he is wandering all over the topic. I keep asking him to let me just talk to someone who knows rather than him, because he is just speculating. I can speculate also, but that isn't what I want!
"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to
carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from
the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no
truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language,
for he is a liar and the father of lies."
John 8:44
Finally, he says, "who do you want to talk to? You have to give me the name of a person, otherwise I can't transfer you." Apparently, I am supposed to have such magnificent psychic abilities that I can simply pull a name out of my transcendent clairvoyant brain. Of course, I recognize this for what it is - a delaying tactic of someone who does not want me talking to his supervisor. I suggest he just connect me to whoever can answer this question for me, so he tells me I need to tell HIM the name of the person or the department!
Really aggravated at this point, I point out to him, again, that I am not psychic. He is supposed to tell ME the department or the person who can answer this question. After all, the email came from Amazon, not from me - but he just mumbles and bumbles around and will not. Finally, I am fed up and demand to speak to his supervisor. I've been on the phone for 26 minutes and counting.
The supervisor speaks English really well and comprehends my concern immediately. She admits that this email is really weird, but she seems to know who to talk to about it, so she puts me on a brief hold, then connects me with someone named "John" who will explain it to me.
35 minutes on the phone, and counting.
After a short conversation with John, he informs me that the email I received is a "legitimate offer." Apparently, someone at Amazon decided they would be clever and send me an email in which they try to make it look like they were giving me something I supposedly wanted, by lying and saying that this book they are flogging is something on MY wish list. Except that it isn't. It is all just a big fecking lie. THEY want to sell this book and they don't mind lying to manipulate me and whoever else to whom they've sent these fake emails.
When I object to this underhanded, unscrupulous and really reprehensible fabrication, John behaves as if I am being unreasonable. He sighs and explains, again, in the tone that one uses with someone less intelligent than oneself, that it IS a "legitimate" offer. They really ARE giving me a five dollar credit toward the purchase of this book - so it isn't "fake." It is a real offer.
I object, again, to the lie that the book is supposedly on my wish list and, like Mick Mulvaney trying to defend Donald Trump's insidious mendacity, "John" repeats that it is "a legitimate offer," as if the lie is completely irrelevant and I am being really stupid for objecting to it.
39 minutes and I am done.
"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and
impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and
being deceived."
2 Tim 3:12-13
I could write a blog post every day and call it "the lie of the day" and have no trouble writing a story about the latest lie.
There was a time, not so long ago, that no one wanted to be caught telling a lie. There was a time when it would embarrass just about everyone who was caught in a lie. Fervent excuses (and perhaps more lies) would be piled onto the original lie in which they had been caught. No one wanted to be known as a liar.
"Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but
afterward his mouth will be full of gravel."
Proverbs 20:17
Nowadays, however, many Americans brazenly lie and then gaslight anyone who objects. Americans now stand by their lies and defend them with bizarre, twisted logic, like Kellyanne Conway and her "alternative facts."
It makes me really sad and sometimes mad, to be lied to on a consistent basis, by friends, family, neighbors, merchants, and that freakish carnival barker and his outlandish companions who somehow found their way onto The Hill and who behave as if a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, as if by magic.
"Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and
harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously,
believe him not, for there are seven abominations in
his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception,
his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly."
Proverbs 26:24-26
Many of these people who are lying to me and to you and to the rest of the American people are claiming to be Christian. Christians love Jesus, and Jesus tell us that those who love him follow his commandments. You just can't deliberately lie and mislead people and con people over and over again and, at the same time, pretend to be shining the reflected glory of the light of Christ. You just can't.
And, as a merchant, you can't continually express the mawkish sentimentality of pretending to care for the welfare of your "Amazon Prime" members while trying to dupe them at the same time. You just can't.
"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy
and empty deceit, according to human tradition,
according to the elemental spirits of the world, and
not according to Christ."
Colossians 2:8
While it is fairly clear that I find it upsetting to be lied to so frequently (and in such a adolescent and transparent manner), what I find most sad is that none of these liars will experience the bliss of being in union with the Lord if they keep up this deliberately deceptive lifestyle. And it IS a lifestyle when lies are routinely employed by a person as a method of getting what they want from others.
Living in harmony with the Lord means you are living a heaven on earth. The Kingdom of God is among you - if your soul is submerged in the love that is God.
Tonight I am praying for all the liars of the world. I pray they stop the lies, the schemes and the cons. I don't need to name them. They know who they are. But I DO pray for them, by name, here in my little hermitage, not only because I find it annoying to be lied to but because I want the entire world to be able to experience the transcendent, gorgeous love of God, and they can't until they stop lying.
God save us all.
Silver "Rose"
Sannyasini Kaliprana
