Jesus as Job

I like the symbolism of Job as a type of Christ. He comes from the mysterious East (Uz, east of Israel). Ezekiel explicitly ties the Messiah and the divine presence to this direction: "And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east”.

For one thing, the famous line about Job saying “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return” was literally true for Jesus who died naked on the cross.  I changed the beginning of Job from wherever it says “Job” to “Jesus” to see how well it fits: 

Jesus would send for his sons and daughters and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Jesus said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Jesus did continually.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Jesus, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Jesus fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” 

....And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they all died.

Then Jesus arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Anatomy of a Hit

When was it decided Charlie Kirk must go?  The date certain was 7/10/25 when TPUSA headquarters begged the small TPUSA club at UVU to invite Kirk to campus and then made sure they said they'd have an outdoor event with no EMS. So that date is obvious. 

The interim steps probably consisted of a get ready phase (likely Mar-June) and a final green light meeting. 

Baron Coleman estimates Mar/Apr the start of planning. Odd search engine searches begin. Baron says: "on 4/1 defense order came for 'extra small anti-personnel device' with a hard target date of 8/25." He sees that description and quick turnaround date as very unusual.

It was the end of the first week of April when Tim Pool & social media influencers meet with Netanyahu who was lobbying for war. Kirk rebuffed him. That also might've been a key point in the timeline. 

John Cullen thinks the main go-date was 6/8/25, when POTUS & the crew head to Camp David for the first time this term. Tulsi was explicitly not invited, which hadn't happened for something like this before in her time as head of DNI.  Cullen says, “I suggest this was the meeting where eliminating Kirk was planned and green-lighted, in order to secure the Gaza Peace deal.” Four days later Israel attacked Iran

It seems like a strenuous lift to get everything in place for an op like this. The easy stuff is to have decoys in place at the event and have them show up on (degraded) camera images. Make sure no EMS and have quick egress for Charlie after the event. But then you have to deal with the hospital and morgue. So you need somebody on the inside for those roles. Maybe it just comes down to the power of the military to make things happen. 

Other potential obstacles to overcome include Kash Patel forcing Salt Lake City FBI field officer out of her leadership role at the end of July 2025. (She was officially gone by 9/2.) Interestingly - maybe something maybe nothing - in mid-August Colorado gubernatorial candidate V. Marx cryptically says: "I happened to be on a call. I cannot even give you the detail, but it is regarding a national situation that I can’t tell you. A lot of agencies are involved, including the White House… and asking for my help in certain things."  

What Erika knew when is really speculative. Their last public appearance together was in mid-June and on the 19th she suddenly wipes 127 Instagram posts. Maybe then she knew something was up?  If the 6/8 date was the green light then it would make sense that she wouldn't have known before that date (why share something that might not happen?) and that she would find out within a week or so after. 

We may never know how Charlie was killed or why or by whom exactly, but we can know to some limited extent how an op like this happens and what to look for in the future. Some of the signs include: a late scheduled event, outdoor open area with lax security, lickety-split crime scene removal, hiding the body (via cremation or otherwise), and convenient police body cam failure. 

So what does one do with such knowledge? How does one live under a government capable of such horrors? Maybe Joseph Pearce or a Scott Hahn have it right in just tuning out, concentrating on the local, and not taking on an enemy that you can’t defeat - especially when the real answer is staring us in the face: conversion to Christ. Our only help "is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." 

Thomas Merton R.I.P.

State-sponsored assassinations are the new black, and they seem to have a few things in common, most obviously a jealous concern over the physical evidence, particularly the body itself. We know with Charlie Kirk there was a rush and the ol' "hidden body trick" played out, much as it did with Thomas Crooks who was instantly cremated at the behest of an anonymous "benefactor".  

With Kirk, of course, we don't know if or where he was buried or whether he was cremated. Even those who went to the Catholic funeral never saw him lowered into the ground.  

The monk Thomas Merton died under suspicious circumstance and his body was immediately taken in custody the same US military he criticized. I asked Grok AI for a review of his statements on the war during the last five years of his life before his death in 1968. 

1964

The CIA had intercepted some of his earlier mail (1958) and later compiled files on his peace-movement associations. 

In 1964, Merton began addressing Vietnam more explicitly as U.S. involvement grew. In a May 31 letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson: “A united Vietnam … would certainly do more for the interests of freedom … than a useless and stupid war. Quite apart from humanitarian and ethical considerations which, to me, are primary, it would seem that … realistic awareness of the situation ought to warn us that a prolonged war in Asia is not going to benefit … the interests of democracy. … I therefore respectfully recommend a prudent and rational course along the lines laid down in Pacem in Terris.” 

A second letter to Johnson (roughly eight months after the first) argued that “methods of sheer force are not only unavailing but … immoral and unjust” and that “our present policies in Vietnam … are probably doing more to help Communism than to hinder it. … I think the U.S. military would do more for democracy if they got out of Vietnam.” 

1965

February 17 letter: “The trouble is that the truth of the situation is consistently distorted, and it is to the interest of the Pentagon and the arms manufacturers to see that it is distorted because a bigger war is to their advantage.” 

A February 20 letter to Johnson (original now at the LBJ Library) again raised moral and practical objections to the war.

Correspondence with Kentucky Senator John Sherman Cooper expressing “distress over the Vietnam War.”

Journal comments on Johnson: he “is listening to the Pentagon crowd, and his stubbornness and vanity will harden him against criticism.” Merton later regretted having voted for him. 

1966

May: Merton hosted the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh at Gethsemani Abbey. The meeting produced the essay “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” first published in Jubilee magazine that year and later collected in Faith and Violence. Merton wrote: “He is more my brother than many who are nearer to me by race and nationality, because he and I see things exactly the same way. He and I deplore the war that is ravaging his country. We deplore it for exactly the same reasons: human reasons, reasons of sanity, justice and love. We deplore the needless destruction, the fantastic and callous ravaging of human life, the rape of the culture and spirit of an exhausted people. … this carnage serves no purpose that can be discerned and indeed contradicts the very purpose of the mighty nation that has constituted itself the ‘defender’ of the people it is destroying.” He also warned that Nhat Hanh risked imprisonment or death upon return to Vietnam and urged public protection of him. 

A February letter to activist Jim Forest (responding to reports of civilian casualties): “Vietnam is the psychoanalysis of the US. I wonder if the nation can come out of it and survive.” He described the national identity as “going slowly down the drain in Vietnam.” 

1967

March 7 letter to Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach requesting permission to send medical aid to civilian victims: “immense military power is smashing down on a primitive Asian country with half a million tons of high explosives a year, resulting in an overwhelming majority of civilian casualties. … Millions of people all over the world think they have reason to question the good faith and even the basic integrity of the United States. … It is our duty to help these people, even though they may be in North Vietnam.” 

Essay “Taking Sides on Vietnam” (later in Faith and Violence): “I’m on the side of the people who are being burned, cut to pieces, tortured, held as hostages, gassed, ruined, destroyed. They are the victims on both sides. To take sides with massive power is to take sides against the innocent. … US aggression must stop.” He also noted the financial cost: “Each Vietcong killed costs a million dollars. … We really must be interested in killing people expensively.” 

1968

Faith and Violence (published July 1968) collected several Vietnam essays, including “Vietnam: An Overwhelming Atrocity.” Merton called the war “an overwhelming atrocity” whose “exorbitant US war effort … cannot be explained or justified by the reasons that are officially given.” He contrasted official justifications with the destruction of a Vietnamese Benedictine monastery by American bombs (not by communists) and rejected “My country right or wrong.” 

February 19 letter supporting conscientious objector Joseph T. Mulloy, published on the front page of the Louisville diocesan paper The Record. Merton affirmed the primacy of conscience against the draft. The letter provoked public controversy among Kentucky Catholics, some of whom burned his books. 

His estimated influence

Merton’s statements reached a relatively small but strategically important audience. Because of earlier censorship by his religious superiors, many pieces first circulated privately among peace activists, the Catholic Worker movement, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the newly formed Catholic Peace Fellowship. After restrictions eased in late 1963, essays appeared in Jubilee, The Catholic Worker, and Faith and Violence. He was one of the earliest prominent U.S. Catholic voices to condemn the war on explicitly moral and theological grounds rather than solely political ones.

His influence was strongest inside religious and activist networks: he shaped the thinking of figures such as Jim Forest, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and Dorothy Day’s circle, and his 1966 encounter with Thich Nhat Hanh became a landmark of interfaith anti-war witness. Government agencies (FBI, State Department, and CIA files) monitored his peace activities and correspondence, indicating official notice even if he never became a mass-media figure.