I get it. I do. If I were given power and control over what people do, how the world goes, I would eradicate all the stench, the bleeding, the fear, the violence, lying, murders, torture, and horrible things people do to others and themselves.

Reality is that every person is given free will. Every person chooses what to do when presented with whatever situation they find themselves in. This began in the Garden with Adam and Eve. It has never changed. I recently read a column by a Christian written questioning how it could be, what was it that made Adam do what he did when he was in perfection? The same thing, the EXACT same thing that writer, you, me, and everyone face, deal with, and encounter every day — temptation and to turn from it or to it. To keep in mind God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Who we are to imitate and worship, or do we allow the strength of our weakness, the flesh, self-desires blot out what we know we ought to do?

I do understand our nature is not only sinful, evil, and at odds with our Creator, God Almighty, but that nature also — especially since the latter 20th century — only wants to see and hear pleasant things more and more, refusing to allow objectivity, rational thought, and critical thinking in. To live every moment with a Biblical worldview, which means seeing, hearing EVERYTHING through the lens of Scripture. What does God’s Word say?  People, even many professing to be Christ followers, now prefer moonbeams, sugarplums, “nice stories,” and “feel good” stuff.

Bible literacy, Bible fluency, is at an all-time low since the Gutenberg printing press. So many Bibles around, so many Bibles being bought through the years, and presently, as it’s reported, Bible sales are up 22% over a year’s time.

Yet only about 6% of those professing to be God’s children, the disciples of the LORD Jesus Christ, go to Them daily for nourishment, guidance, Their words of life in Their Book, the Holy Bible. You eat food daily, right? You drink something daily, right? To sustain life, yet imagine showing up for a quickie sermon of lukewarmness, baby food, watered-down words for a bit on a Sunday morning is all you need? So what? You fast from God’s Word for six days, get a small dose, if that, on Sunday morning, and that equips you, nourishes you for the rest of the days in the week?

Seriously?

And people wonder how we got where we are?

Seriously?

So, Bible sales are up 22% according to all reports.

Great! Now open those Holy Bibles. Read them. Study them. Pray them. Meditate — think deeply upon what is read and studied and prayed upon. BELIEVE every word. God’s Word is not a collection of stories. Nor merely poems, metaphors, parables, and stories. God’s Word is history. A physical and spiritual history. Every word of it. To be taken to heart. Carried within hearts and spirits. To be believed. To be revealed and lived out in the lives of those who do believe.

Another sign of erosion in language, in the Church? Refusal to acknowledge the Bible is HOLY. Can’t be bothered saying the word. Lazy speech. Eroded speech. Eroded minds. Weak, dead hearts. Can’t call sin sin, evil evil, or what is holy holy.

Think about that for a spell.

I realize this place doesn’t offer much in the way of sugar cookies, warm milk, glitter, a hot bath in a quiet house with some wonderful easy jazz music playing, with a nice, clean furry dog smiling and wagging its tail waiting for you to pet them.

I have had people close to me, and there are very few of them — it takes years, and I can count who they are if I had a hand with only two fingers on it; my wife of 38 years, close to 39 years, and a cousin who also has been a friend for as long as I have memory, and while an old guy my memory goes way, way back [that’s what happens to old people’s memories] — facetiously call me Mr. Sunshine, being the bringer of much of the information I do.

Hey, it’s not up to me. Really. I know that sounds foolish to many, nonsense to most, but I was never directed to operate Candyland. I was knitted together and directed to present Realityland. Others can do what they are called to do. I didn’t seek this. I don’t have an obsession regarding wicked, horrible things people do on this earth to each themselves and other people. To the contrary. But being unaware, avoiding recognizing the evil in the days — I think there have been some men and women throughout history mentioned in the Holy Bible showing us the example of paying attention to what’s going on and calling it out. Not hiding from it. Not ignoring it. But through awareness, calling out evil.

Why? Because let’s be honest, shall we? Most folks are lazy. Otherwise occupied. Deniers. We’re also told in Scriptures there will be many who say it can’t be the end of things, this Jesus you talk of isn’t coming back, nothing really changes.

Those people are listening to and paying attention to the noise and distractions placed in their heads and hearts by Satan. Telling the same lie he told Adam and Eve in the Garden, just using a few different words, but that’s who they are listening to, rather than God speaking to them through His Word. But then, to hear His voice, know what He expects, requires, and is saying, you have to open The Book. Read The Book. Believe all the words in The Book, don’t you?

When you open God’s Word, is it all warm and fuzzy, latter 20th century, 21st century philosophies about only eat the sugar, pay attention to what you want to, ignore what is going on around you?

You may have at one point come across my revealing how a guy I used to have weekly phone conversations with, and had been in two online Zoom Bible studies during COVID-19, eventually get around to telling me, when he was on A Crooked Path, he felt he needed a shower after finding and reading a few things.

It’s not me. I don’t make this stuff up. And avoidance of reality does no one any good.

Avoiding and denying what has and is occurring in the world.

Avoiding and denying what has and is occurring in the Church.

The rise of all the false teachers, ravenous wolves, the unsound doctrines, and the other gospels.

Ignore, deny, remain on autopilot, keep pretending, stay distracted, and what?

Stay silent regarding that which should be mentioned continually, and what?

Imagine if you will…

It’s a Friday in spring. The news has been coming fast and furious. A lot of activity in town. Something big is going on. Soldiers are out at night. Arrests are being made. Crowds gather and gawk to see if they can figure out what it’s all about.

There’s blood on the court floor. There’s blood on the stone pavement of the streets of the city. There’s a big commotion on a nearby hill outside of town. More soldiers, more people gathering.

If there, or even a bit far off, you can hear pounding noises and screams of men in agony. As their wrists and ankles are secured to Roman crosses with large spikes, and then the men spread out on the trees of shame have their crosses pulled up by soldiers, to have the base of the cross fall violently into a hole, jarring the men nailed to those crosses even more.

The one in the middle is different. Something very different about Him.

What He says while hanging there.

What one of the men next to Him says.

How the weather drastically changes, unlike any other time. Total darkness. A massive earthquake. A major commotion in the temple within the city. The people of the city have had their equilibria turned upside down and inside out.

The man in the middle of the three to meet their death that day says one more thing and then gives up the breath of life within Him.

Big news. Big event. One of the biggest news events in world history. THEE biggest to date, it could be argued.

Now, it’s hard to take. Too much violence. Ewwww, there was a lot of blood, might want to give people a warning what they are about to hear, read see could be disturbing, they might want to change the channel, turn the sound down, have the kids, and themselves leave the room! Too much to take in these soft, soft, eroded hiding out from reality times.

But let’s get back to what was taking place that springtime weekend a while ago…

People are acting horribly. The injustice! I can’t bear to look or listen. The man was innocent! He did nothing to deserve death! Why, no one ever could find one fault, one honest beef, one legitimate reason to murder Him like a criminal.

Fingerpointing galore. Fingerpointing out the wahzoo. The people are in a froth. Mob rule reigns. Lawlessness is the order of the day.

Can’t bear to hear it? Watch it? Know it? Well, it didn’t go away, isn’t going away, did it, does it?

Yet so many hide from the reality of the illegal court, the brutal mocking, beating of an innocent man, all the bloodshed, the act of crucifixion, arguably the most horrific way to kill a human being.

It was a spectator sport in the Roman Empire.

So many make sure to ignore, deny, hide from the reality of what took place that spring weekend and deny Who it was that was murdered that day. Making doubly sure to ignore the real story three days later, right? Whoa, can’t print, speak of, pay attention to that!

Really can’t pay attention to why it was all this took place. That man, Who happens to be God, Who was then fully truly a man as well as fully truly God endured what He did spiritually far more than He did physically, as He, God had to take upon Himself, bear EVERY SIN of EVERY PERSON of ALL-TIME who would eventually come to know Him, have Him as LORD of their life.

REALLY have to hide from that reality, right?

Even the professed church hides, denies, and refuses to pay attention to that in these times.

Imagine that.

Yeah, wouldn’t it be wonderful to sit on a perfect beach, sun just placed right in the sky, air temperature just right, breeze just right, just the right amount of people on that beach, the water temperature just right, nothing in the water to eat you, and having someone show up to serve you in comfort?

As you languished there, nothing horrible happened anywhere on earth. Everyone was on their best behavior.

Wouldn’t that be…a book, a movie, no one could believe, yet so many run to in their minds every day as they refuse to pay attention?

We are instructed to pay attention. To notice things. To recognize sin and call it sin. To be able to distinguish evil from righteousness and mention it.

What has happened, folks? Why all the hiding, only wanting to see, hear, know pleasant, sweet things, denying reality?

There is coming a time, an eternal time, of nothing but the most pleasant, sweet, wonderful, no pain, no tears, every moment beyond human comprehension, time coming — but for now? How about as difficult as it can be, as smelly, as rotten, as horrible as it is, and can be, and pay attention to the muck and do our part to mention it, and do our part, according to God’s Word, clean it up. By being light and salt, and a conduit aflame in the heart, spirit, and mind for and with the LORD to spread the word of Him, what He did, and why.

Places supposed to educate, keep safe when not in their parents’ protection, and arrange premeditated murders of human children? High schools arranging abortions for teenage girls and working in a manner to keep that from the parents? Yeah, who in their right mind wants to know about that?

God’s people, Christ followers, that’s who. So they can then be the instruments of God on earth to call such sin and evil out.

Without paying attention to such atrocitiers, such evil and sin just increase.

It’s why we are where we presently are. The refusal to speak up, to act, to say something along the way. Fearing offending the world more than offending God.

Imagine that.

Want to really know why, really know why, since 1973, almost 67,000,000 premeditated murders have gone on in America? Because prior to that time, and since, God’s people, those who are commissioned to be salt and light in this dark world were more concerned, have been more concerned with their own lives, their own material, worldly lives than doing the work of the LORD, for the LORD.

Allowing evil to have a freer rein than ever.

Then comes the time of outrage. How could this happen!? We can’t have this! Well, perhaps something should have been done prior to the horror. But that isn’t human nature, is it? We always respond late, after we should, once the damage has been done. Then we lament.

Never learning.

Not fair? Hey, I don’t make reality. I just report it. It’s how I’ve been put together and led to do what it is I do. Believe me, I’d rather be writing other content, reprinting other content, but the world is fallen, evil, full of sin and corruption, and ignoring it, denying it, hiding from it does not shed light into that darkness.

Other folks are knitted together, led to handle all the sugar cookie recipes for you. Not me.

Aware of Mike Rowe and his long-running TV program Dirty Jobs? Well, this is just another of those dirty jobs needed in an attempt to get a few folks to break out the light, the salt, the spiritual brooms, and clean things up, tend to things where they are, the best they can. That’s all.

Yes, it’s a dirty job at times. But as the saying goes, someone has to do it, and most aren’t willing. Just as most aren’t willing to do the other dirty jobs in life — but aren’t you thankful there are folks to do them? So you don’t have to?

And it isn’t all Bleak Street here, folks; Hope In The Heart Of Wokeness: A Spiritual Uprising In Portland.

NOTE: I just cranked this out. As the words came to my mind and were transmitted out through my fingers — isn’t it amazing how God makes that possible? I wasn’t paying attention to typos or errors, or if the syntax read well. I’ll publish it and go back later to see all the mistakes I made and correct them at a later date. Right now, I have some other things to attend to.

Read on…

Ken Pullen, Friday, August 8th, 2025

High School Caught Arranging Secret Abortions on Teens Without Parental Consent

August 7, 2025

By Steven Ertelt

Reprinted from LifeNews.com

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia is under scrutiny following allegations that staff at Centreville High School arranged and funded abortions for two students without notifying their parents.

The abortions, arranged in 2021, are prompting outrage from pro-life advocates who call the actions a violation of parental rights and state law.

According to a report by WJLA, two former Centreville High School students, one of whom was 17 years old at the time, claim school officials facilitated their abortions at Fairfax Healthcare Center without parental consent. The allegations, which surfaced on social media, have sparked a district investigation into what pro-life groups describe as “state-sponsored child exploitation.”

“We learned yesterday of these concerning allegations from 2021,” FCPS said in a statement to WJLA on Wednesday. “We are launching an immediate and comprehensive investigation as we take all concerns of student wellbeing very seriously.”

The school district’s policy, outlined in Regulation 2504, states, “Every effort shall be made to encourage and support students suspecting pregnancy to discuss their concern with their parents or guardians.” However, the policy does not mandate that staff inform parents about such discussions, a gap pro-life advocates argue enabled the secretly-arraigned abortions.

Pro-life organization 40 Days for Life condemned the reported actions on X, stating, “A Fairfax high school secretly arranged and paid for student abortions—without telling parents. This isn’t ‘healthcare.’ It’s state-funded child exploitation. Every official involved must be held accountable.”

The allegations have raised questions about the use of taxpayer funds, with claims that school resources were used to cover the costs of the procedures. FCPS told WJLA that employees do not currently arrange abortion services for minors and that students seeking health-related services are referred to public health nurses employed by the Fairfax County Health Department.

“Not to [our] knowledge. We have launched an immediate investigation into these concerns as soon as we were made aware,” the district said.

Critics argue the incident reflects a broader erosion of parental rights in schools.

“This operation has been around since 2021,” wrote Neil Minock for WJLA, highlighting the timeline of the alleged activities. Posts on X echoed this sentiment, with one user stating, “Fairfax Co. school staff allegedly used taxpayer funds to secretly arrange abortions for teens without parental consent, in violation of VA law. Girls were coerced. Parents shut out. Public money abused.”

The controversy comes amid heightened tensions over Fairfax County Public Schools’ policies under Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid. The district has faced prior criticism for its handling of sensitive issues, including a 2025 incident involving controversial Women’s History Month posters at West Springfield High School that promoted abortion and other political messages, which some parents deemed indoctrination.

FCPS, the ninth-largest school district in the U.S., serves over 180,000 students across 199 schools. The ongoing investigation will likely intensify debates over school transparency and the role of educators in students’ medical decisions.

Pro-life advocates are calling for accountability, arguing that the alleged actions not only violated trust but also undermined the sanctity of life and parental authority. The district has promised updates as the investigation progresses, with pro-life groups and concerned parents awaiting answers on whether those responsible will face consequences.