Lewis Stanek's Blog

Today I completed the first draft to Faith to Faith. I'm going to take a little break before getting into the rewrite, but in the mean time you can have a sneak preview at

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1...

Let us think for a moment about our five senses. Scientists have given our senses very specific names from the Latin and Greek, in part to precisely describe our senses, but also to include them in their own particular vocabulary of jargon. Some of the senses so named include ophthalmoception or the sense of sight, audioception or the sense of hearing, gustaoception or the sense of taste, olfacoception or the sense of smell, and tactioception or the sense of touch. These are commonly called our five senses. There are of course other senses we rely on such as thermoception or the sense of temperature, proprioceptionor the sense of motion, equilibrioception the sense of balance, and nociception the sense of pain. It is through our senses that we experience the world we live in, but our senses have limits and don't let us perceive all that is there is to perceive. Dogs have a much stronger sense of smell than we do, as well as a more acute sense of hearing, and anyone who has ever had a pet dog or cat will tell you that on occasion they appear to be aware of and reacting to things beyond our own perception. There is also what some call the sixth sense or extrasensory perception. Many people practice hours of meditation attempting to heighten their psychic abilities so that they may become aware of those things not normally visible to the human eye nor audible to the human ear. Extrasensory perception comes in and out of vogue with each new generation always being sold as something new and different, but the truth be told, channelers are no different than yesterdays mediums, and the new age is as old as the mystery religions of ancient Babylon. Be that as it may be, many people study occult literature and practice meditation in the hopes of developing their senses to the point that they may delve into unseen realities.
So what is the point I am so painstakingly trying to make here It is best said by William Shakespeare in Hamlet where Hamlet says to Horatio “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Simply put there are within creation dimensions we are unaware of, creatures that that reside in those dimensions as well as the four dimension of which we are aware that remain primarily invisible to us. Why do I qualify invisible? I qualify the word invisible in this context because there are instances recorded in the Bible where angels appear to men not as spirits, but as physical entities. So although I am quite certain, that we are normally totally unaware of their presence, we are actually surrounded by spiritual beings attempting to do us either good or ill according to their will or the will of the One who sent them. So in effect we have all been born in the midst of a supernatural war. Fierce battles raging everywhere we look, with no place for one to hide. One might scoff at the thought of a spiritual war going on all about us as we go through the day to day routine of our lives, but is it really all that hard to see in the world? Muslims killing Christians for the simple reason they are Christian. Muslim militias burning down churches and entire villages in Africa and the Middle East, Christians being imprisoned for life for three generations for the crime of being Christian in North Korea. Clarification may be needed by what is meant by three generations; in North Korea, when one is convicted of being a Christian not only is that person sent to prison for life, but that persons entire family will be imprisoned, grandparents, parents and children for life. They are serious about stamping out those pesky Christians in North Korea. The church is routinely persecuted in communist countries.
One might say, but that is all occurring in the middle east and in communist countries, but nothing like that is happening in the enlightened west. One could say that, but one would be wrong. The difference in the enlightened west and the rest of the world is only a matter of degree. People have been fired for wearing a cross on a chain around their neck to work, Christians are commonly ridiculed in the media. The right to practice one's religion, if that religion is Christianity, is under assault in the United States where the federal government is attempting to force Christian employers to provide abortion coverage for their employees and pastors risk losing the tax exempt status for their church if they should be so brazen as to take a politically incorrect stand from the pulpit. Those are a few examples of the effects of spiritual conflict appearing in the material world in which we live. You must understand that the spiritual comes before the material, and although these conflicts appear as political, social, or military the underlying root cause of these conflicts is spiritual.