The carp in a rice field quote was attributed my many to Mao, and some years ago an examiner threw it into the final written exam as ‘A psychiatrist should be in the community as a carp in a rice field’. Everyone failed. Most complained.

The point of the quote is that the carp is invisible. The fish cannot be seen: the rice is. The carp are found when the field is drained, and the grain (and fish) are harvested. By analogy, a community psychiatrist does not have flash and fancy offices and sits in an outpatient clinic of the hospital, but instead sees people at their usual medical clinic, in the room next to the GP, or in their home. Their office is a base from which they travel and serve.

The kingdom of God is not that visible. It is hidden. It is among those around us: we don’t wear distinctive clothing unless we are religious, of the Anabaptist error, or forced to. We know that there are many who, in our out of the church, are not of Christ. And we know that we do influence.

He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

(Luke 13:18-21 ESV)

(“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!”)

(Revelation 16:15 ESV)

There are a people chosen to be different, and from whom salvation came. They are the Jews, and they act as a warning. Of what not to do. This is Rabbi B, who speaks to all of faith.

Note the passage from Revelations. We are to do our duty, and be disciplined, regardless of the season.

God prescribed for us a duty to be loyal to every state and every country which provided for us a home, along with our wives and children, even when this hospitality grew cold and the nations became indifferent and hostile. We were never exhorted to seek special representation or advocate for special treatment. Rather, we were to live as inconspicuously as possible while praying to the Lord for the prosperity of the nations with the understanding that the welfare of the nations was bound up with our own.

Not only that, but our chief duty among the nations to which we had been scattered was to demonstrate to the world the highest ethical and moral standards the world had ever known. …

So, what did we do? We turned our back to our Creator, abandoned the Torah, and exchanged the “burden” of obedience for the “acceptance” of our host nations in hopes of satisfying, gratifying, and enriching ourselves…

Rather than serving and seeking the prosperity of the nations to which we had been scattered, we served ourselves and sought our own prosperity instead. And then, in the wake of the resentment of the nations to which our dereliction of duty had contributed, we scratched our collective heads in agitated wonderment and were quite surprised to learn that we were once again unwelcome objects of persecution, persecution which we ourselves had co-authored, not because we were too Jewish, but because we had shirked our duties as Jews and were not Jewish enough.

We need to be Christian. The Kingdom of God is more righteous than the Pharisees. We need to not appease, but the Christian enough. We need to rebuild our homes and congregations and communities. We need to seek God. Because the spirit of this age will not. It considers that summer never ends.

I live in the South. We get winds from Antarctica, summer included. And winter will come, if we are prepared for it or not.

UPDATE.

This is what being prepared looks like.

One of the reasons we are moving to Casa Weka is because no one needs to lock their doors in that village.

I thank God I’m from one of the most geographically remote, ethnocentric, conservative, religiously and lingusitically distinct regions of the British Isles.

The fact we’re a traditionally agricultural society and managed to support 2x the current population ‘off the land’ 100 years ago also helps in terms of prepping for any SHTF scenario.

Counting the overwhelming majority of neighbours and many of those in nearby villages as some type of ‘cousin’ and knowing every native family will have at least 1 person (even if of an older generation) who knows how to work livestock/the land certainly gives you a bit of comfort that is lacking for most 1st worlders or urban/suburbanites.

Let the economic collapse come – and the destruction of the degenerate cities with it – the hardy, conservative, skilled and fertile rural stock will replace those who are lost.