Call the Banners
Are governments intentionally trying to destroy the nuclear family?
Like everything they do, it is shoved in our faces out in the open. Not knowing the answer to this question would take an incredible dedication to ankle grabbing.
What the ruling class is up to is much more sinister than just deconstructing the immediate family unit. What they have surgically removed from our shared lives, and even from our consideration, is the very thing ages of rulers feared the most.
So what is this thing? What used to threaten power the most? For millennia, rulers feared, needed, and desired one thing more than anything else.
The answer to THIS question is what we should pursue.
They needed and feared their own banner-men; they needed and feared the different Clans in their own territory. They feared the Great Houses in their own lands. They feared the people living in real community. Most of all, they feared those communities uniting together.
The goal of centralized power has most often been to sew disunity among the people. Done. Now you get power. Through this lens, current events become clear, and the fog of the most immersive propaganda machines the world has ever even imagined is pushed aside. The ruling elite fear the people living in real community.
Before they tore apart the immediate family, they planned to keep grandparents away. Before they removed the Matriarch and Patriarch, they tore apart our affiliation with like-minded friends and family who possessed the ability to effectively collectively bargain and stand against edicts from above.
Now they, the state, the ruling elite, have the only banner; they are the only clan, there is but one house sigil, THEIRS. They can inflate the money, put a diaper on your face, fire you for not getting a shot, take you to court for nothing, and so on. No one really has your back. You are alone. You haven’t a house; you have no banners to call, the clan is gone, and its stronghold has crumbled.
We used to gather in a Citadel of close friends and family. It may have lacked the grandeur of the state, but our great halls had something our rulers do not have: real community, selfless individuals that will do anything for their fellow man. These communities were a force to reckon with in negotiation and a force to be feared in conflict.
They have brainwashed the masses into thinking this is weird/stupid/unnecessary.
Boy, are we foolish for believing them.
If winning against our overlords is going to look like something worth keeping, it must include us gathering with trusted friends and family, to yet again have a sigil that means something, a clan that has consequence.
It is time to gather together again. It is time to live in real community. Take pride in your house. If you do not have one, make a house sigil. Create a standard that is the mark of your houses together.
Before Rohan and Gondor unite there must be might in the land, Elrond must re-forge the sword of Gondor. There must be weight behind community for it to attract others. Weakness attracts occasional pity. Strength gathers respect and partnership from strength.
You don’t have a community beyond what you can defend. We are all children of summer. The seasons change. Maybe not today, maybe not this decade, but at some point. Look back in time and hear the voices of your forefathers. Hear the pain of when the season turned towards chaos, and they were found wanting. In such seasons, there is only regret when we are found hoping instead of heavy-hitting. Your bloodline looks to you. Generations will bless the sovereign man who makes ready. Are you a provider? Or are you renting from someone else’s strength? Children live off of borrowed strength. Own it, forge your own Great House. Be the man that deep down you KNOW you want to be. ONLY those who can protect the flock from the lion and bear can protect a nation from a Giant. ONLY. Certainly, there are many reasons David was a friend of God; we acknowledge and honor other aspects of his character, but we scoff and belittle the warrior. Like Lucifer, we overplay the beauty of worship and underwrite the holiness of the warrior.
Experience bias may be the most difficult bias to overcome; it is rooted in selfishness… because I didn’t experience something… it can’t happen. It’s going to happen. GOING TO. Winter is coming. Days of chaos are in the future for your bloodline. What testimony will you leave? Your bloodline looks to you.
In the land where the French and Indians fought, I have friends who are at the tip of the spear of this re-forging of great communities. They have gone through so much together, so many victories and defeats… hard times, good times… high times, low times. They have evolved together in thinking and purpose, each man of iron sharpening the other. They come together and stand in the breach when a wall comes down. In so many ways, they carry the spirit of the sovereign man who still looks Xerxes in the eyes and says, “come and take it.” It is a spirit that holds through losses and roars in delight for the wins. Like the Banners of old, they have places they gather: Thursday nights, a Weekend Away… etc. Like the Great Houses of our forefathers, they have leaders who in-turn take the helm, they are a clan of mighty men, each bringing what he brings, giving what and who he is to the other. This group has a leader who every group of men should be so lucky to have. Jared Adams carries the mantle of community. Heaven knows his name.
One mighty man may do a few great things, but together, Mighty Men change the trajectory of human thriving. They march the true King to the throne in the face of ten thousand who dare not.
I am mostly an outsider to this group, and when I look in, I see one of the most important things happening on this earth. I think it's easy to look at what we do each day as normal, even mundane and boring. Like most, they likely often think of themselves as normal guys. They are Knights. I hope we can all realize how special community really is. People gathering by the spirit of no greater love to live in true community is one of the most significant missions towards flourishing. In its own way, it is the hope of nations.
To every man who reads this, I hope the words in this post comfort you. Knowing the weight of our responsibility and the eternal meaning our life has, is a great gift.
Own that you are thee Great Knight of your household, and you are a Knight of the Banner of the Mighty Men you call friends.
YOUR BLOODLINE LOOKS TO YOU
Post Script:If you don’t have anything close to community, start here: Find a group of people who are your people. Live in community. Live in community in the fullness of what it means to be human. Throw off all the fiat stigmas that cause us to rely on daddy govenment for everything and make the determination that you and yours will take care of you and yours.
If your eternal mission doesn't comfort you, it will haunt you; no matter how far you run, there this truth will be. Maybe it be on this side of your deathbed that you acknowledge the mighty man you are. Hold Tension, Be Vast. Remember, restoration alone brings victory