666 Today

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Kind of a longish post, but I wanted to set in context a couple occurrences of "666" I'm keeping my eye on.

One is the zip-code.

Working at the Post Office, you quickly pick up that the zip-codes of every major U.S. city can be identified by their initial three digits.  Kansas City, Missouri's, for example, are "641."  The different areas of the city are designated by the last two digits.  So I grew up in zip-code 64127, and later got an apartment in the Westport neighborhood, zip-code 64110.  I went to college at U.M.K.C. in 64111.  My parents moved to 64134.  My cousin lived north of the river in 64151.

It was a handy trick to know when you worked at the Post Office.  The zip-code for Kansas City, Kansas, is 661.  Wichita is 672, St. Louis 631, Chicago 606. New York City 100, Washington, D.C., 200; and Los Angeles 900.

I was always bemused that the hick capital of the hick state where I now live had the zip-code 666.  It seemed an odd cosmic joke that Topeka, Kansas, ended up with the scriptural "number of the Beast."

In recent years, I've found that fact less and less of a joke.  I'll just say that the political faction which has ruled in Topeka for some years has done a great deal of evil to our state, while loudly claiming to be the faction of "Christian values."

In that faction's (lack of) thinking, "Christian values" have played out as victimizing the poor, the sick, and the alien: fanatical "Second Amendment" lawlessness (including criminalizing federal enforcement of federal gun-laws in our state !), and short-changing our schools to enable corporations to pay no taxes.

I'd also mention that the primary national funders of "conservative" propaganda, the Koch brothers, are natives of our state, and hugely influential with (i.e., in full control of) the faction ruling in Topeka.

But the individual I've been most keeping an eye on is the amoral and hugely-ambitious Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach.  A native of Topeka and graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, Kobach has established himself as his faction's top man for voter-suppression and anti-immigrant fear.  The first Kansas politician to join the Trump campaign, he is currently co-chair of the Trump committee "cleansing" America's voter-rolls of all those illegal alien voters.  He professes to be a Christian.

It's been clear ever since Kobach has been on my radar that his intention is the Presidency.  He's currently on track to be the next Governor of Kansas.

The zip-code that identifies Topeka is 666.

A couple months ago, N.P.R. did a lengthy piece on the Kushner family, and how they achieved the prominence that made their son Jared a fit mate for Donald Trump's daughter, and now the president's closest personal advisor.

It's a fascinating story.  All of Jared's grandparents were Holocaust survivors.  N.P.R.'s story included some of their recorded testimony of their experiences.  And after coming to America in the late 1940s, they prospered in New Jersey rental-properties, eventually owning several thousand.

Jared's father Charlie built the business even larger.  He also became a major player in state politics.  And there the story becomes very tangled, and Charlie's maneuverings (personal, business, and political) very questionable.  Eventually Charlie was convicted on federal charges by the rising young U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, Chris Christie, and served 14 months in a federal prison in Alabama.

Jared was out of law-school by then, and remained loyal to his father, running the business in his father's absence.  He visited Charlie in Alabama every week. And when Charlie was released, he stayed behind the scene at the Kushner Companies, and let Jared lead.

The Kushner Companies' first big move after Charlie's return was something that had always been Charlie's greatest desire.  As wealthy as New Jersey real estate had made him, Charlie always knew that the neighboring Manhattan real estate scene was the real Big League.

So, soon after Charlie's release, the Kushner Companies made the splashiest possible entry to the Bigs, buying the premier midtown-Manhattan property then available, for what was at the time the largest price ever paid for a piece of real estate in American history.  The N.P.R. story traces how that venture also turned to ashes for the Kushners.

But what most caught my attention in the story was the property the Kushner Companies chose as their flagship entry in Manhattan real estate.

That building is 666 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.

The full N.P.R. story is fascinating, and is online at

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/26/560276794/how-politics-have-complicated-business-for-kushner-companies

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Syria

Can anyone see or hear about the sufferings of Syrians caught in their nation's civil war without being moved to tears and prayers for them ?.

Can anyone who claims to have the heart and mind of Jesus not be moved to pray for peace and mercy for these sufferers ?

But politicians tend to see all things in political terms: the wrong priority when it overrides acting in mercy.  Bill Clinton's greatest moral failing was not his hidden adulterous immorality: it was his failure to use America's power to protect Rwandans from genocide as the whole world watched, day after day.

Politicians' delusional self-interest is not news.  And it would be no more than dust on the scales, weighed against the sufferings of Syrians: except that how politicians view that tragedy will determine how they act toward it.

And that, of course, many in the politically-enslaved American Church will quickly adopt the view of their politician-de-jour, and baptize his actions as "Christian."

(The unrighteous "Christian" faction that rules my state is ahead of that curve.  They have been posturing their rebelliousness for a year, trumpeting that our state will not accept any of the Syrians to whom President Obama gave refuge in his America-hating "tyranny."

God bless my state's former Methodist Bishop Scott Jones, who publicly called on congregations to act in Jesus' mercy, and help Syrian refugees relocate here.  I admire his courage for standing against the politicians: and even more his courage for standing against the members of those congregations, the majority of whom undoubtedly take the politicians' view more than Jesus' view.)

I have little hope America will act for peace or mercy in Syria.  The little our incoming-president has said about Syrians' suffering is that the military forces of Russia, Iran, and Syria's President Assad are "killing ISIS."

We all know Donald Trump lies.  And one consequence for those who choose to follow lies is that they themselves come to believe lies.  First their own (for all deception begins in self-deception), then those of greater liars than themselves: and in both, ultimately the "father of lies" himself (John 8:44).

We all know Donald Trump believes lies.  What crushes any hope that America will act mercifully toward suffering Syrians is that Trump shows he believes the lies of deceivers more deceitful than himself.

Trump, and America, will undoubtedly act on Russian lies, Iranian lies, and Assad's lies.  That the people suffering so horribly in Syria's war are evil people, ISIS people...who deserve to suffer horribly, and die horribly.