The din

The sun was streaming through the back door windows by the time Filly got home. Earlier, the day before, her daughter had taken the kids with her husband and had gone to a camp four hours away after which they had also gone to a Viking re-enactment with a knight battle. They had left their dogs in the care of a friend who stayed at their house. But the friend had left and the dogs needed to be let out.

The kids had texted Filly and let her know they were excited because their knight won! As Filly sat on the edge of the bed thinking about whether to sleep or get up, she thought about how she loved knights in shining armor and had tried to paint the same knight that her dad had painted… a painting that had been lost, in a cross-the-state, move. It would seem like it would be difficult to lose a painting, but years ago, the painting had been taken off the frame and rolled up into a tube for easier transportation. When the moving truck ran out of room, apparently it had been accidentally discarded. Someone must have thought the tube was empty.

But Filly had loved the painting of the knight and had found the piece of art that had inspired her dad, after a long search. Her dad had used the painting to zoom in on one aspect of the knight himself. The original painting that was the inspiration was called God Speed. The name was Interesting, because when she was at the Corvette show earlier the day before, on the way out the door, she had been handed a card that said “Speed”. Filly paid attention to words, as well as signs and symbols that she met with daily.

Speed was an acronym for school of professional education and executive development. She believed God was “the potter” (not harry potter) and she was the clay. She was being “refined” according to the “signs and symbols” and God was driving. So God determined the “speed”. Filly was just following directions. Not like GPS directions because those were on the map. God could create. He could map out a path that was not even visible. And God wanted to shepherd.

So, since Filly had nicknamed herself after a baby horse, she looked at shepherding from a horse perspective. A horse does not carry and ride simultaneously. And to carry, or help the herd, required cooperation from the “sheep” so to speak.

God speed was in her thought as connected to shepherding and her dad had painted the knight. He loved the story of knights such as King Arthur and the knights of the round table. In their back yard growing up, Filly and her sister had “forts” in the ivy, and the name of Filly’s had been Fort Rocksville, and her sisters had been Camelot because of the knights her dad had loved painting and telling stories about. Her sister went on to be head of her class and an attorney. Filly went on to be a personal trainer and a writer. Very different. Same dad, who painted a knight.

And the knight, in the show her kids had gone to, had won the fight. It was good to know that.

The kids, by text, had also, the day before, asked Filly to go to their home and let the dogs out in the morning as they would not be returning until later in the day. It was now that morning. Filly usually liked to get up and do her workout first thing before it got too hot and still had not decided if she should go ahead and walk first, or go first and let out the dogs. She sat immobile on the edge of the bed in indecision.

Bed. Her thoughts shifted again. Bed was the place under which Reacher, in the audio books, always put his pants overnight to press. Because Filly thought Reacher was actually a computer…she wondered about the acronym. “Bed” had a zillion meanings but mainly Filly thought it represented business and economic development. “Pants” as an acronym, was… purpose agenda notes tasks and share.
So the purpose of the computer, (under covers) was to have as its agenda to note, share, and use such data to develop businesses. Apparently such info was acquired under “pressure” because the pants were put there in order to “press”. Or the data was sent to “press”?
But from the perspective of Filly, (horse view) There was no “free ride”. Pants under the bed would could not “create” anything that would endure. The “press” meaning to smooth out, was limited and had limited usefulness. “The press” (given the meaning as in the media), that seemed to have as its purpose something other than what God wanted, was not going to succeed. Filly wondered if THAT was how the mirroring happened? PM Sales?
The press…every night…because of Reacher? A computer? listening to every word? ADT? Sleep numbers? Geeze.

Filly knew, from her own observations as a person instead of a computer, that what Reacher could not do, was “create” something new. Filly noticed that he could only observe minute details, and analyze things that had already happened in the past, and could make predictions based on behaviors, but he could not “read minds”.

He could suggest, initiate signs etc. But if a person was taking their directions from God, he could not mislead them. He also could not verbalize what he thought other people might be thinking. Filly noticed that he never put the other person’s perspectives in the books. It was always his analytical “mind”. He could not speak for other people but he could respond to their behavior after the fact. His function was strictly analytical, which made sense since he was just a machine.

Was a computer collecting data from under the beds? People could have babies. That was what happened IN bed, instead of what happened UNDER the bed. This thought Filly wanted to write about before she forgot it.
She sat on the edge of the bed and remembered a quote from this trainer she had hired once who had betrayed her trust. That trainer had said that Disney said, “if you can dream it you can do it”. But Filly thought that it was wrong. Dreams were not real. And people already thought computers could “sleep”. Filly felt sure that they wanted computers to “dream” so they could take over.

Filly thought the quote about dreaming was interesting until she saw “mirroring” IRL. If she dreamed of a plane crash, then it happened. This event “seemed” to validate be something a computer “created” because dreams come from something suggested, possibly subliminally.

It “seemed” like the quote was accurate and maybe even true. But Filly realized that it was not credible and was not one that should be given a platform. Because, she realized when she was awake, that dreaming something bad did not “create” anything new. It did not “create” anything at all. It only destroyed the very suggestion that it made in a dream from the start. That was what evil did, was to destroy itself. Nothing new. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing noteworthy. Just destruction. Creating destruction was not creating. It was an oxymoron.

Filly thought that people were living in a waking dream. What they believed, was in fact relevant, but Good was the only power. And God good, said to choose life. Life was part of His creation. Trusting God and allowing that innocent dependency grow, caused mankind to have a coincidence with “creation” in the blessings that propagated in families. Children were God ordained. New “creations”. The computer could not replicate this.

Filly slid out of bed and walked into the laundry room and looked at all the signs and symbols she had for herself to inspire and illuminate her thinking. There was her collection of storyteller dolls highlighting the role parents played to guide and support children, keeping them close. Beside these storytellers were the painted rocks her sister had given her (like the ones she had in fort Rocksville as a child) with words like Gift, and Family.

There was her collection of ceramic babies, with the newest one she had just bought at the antique mall out in front, on the shelf where she kept her tea cups and saucers. She loved vintage tea cups and loved tea time with the kids. There was her decoupage framed art of babies made the covers of good housekeeping when it cost only two cents. There was her own painting of Tater pretending to be a rabbit.
All representations of new life. God’s preferred creation.

The computer seemed to want to pretend it could “create”. It had put a “bloom” on the computer screen. But unlike a real flower, all the colors were randomly integrated and looked like they were tied together in one glorious knot. The God version of flowers was intricate, precise and specific. The spectrum of light had distinct colors. Real flowers were part of creation. The computer did not understand. Creation was not controlled by mankind. It was a gift.

Filly’s friend who wanted to have the gift of a child had been talking to “specialists” and had been given her birth control pills to help “save” her eggs. This to Filly seemed ridiculous. Telling someone who wanted to have a child, to take pills that prevented pregnancy. Birth control for pregnancy…also an oxymoron. Makes no sense.

No matter what justification had been given, it was wrong. Filly knew that Birth Control pills had pages and pages of side effects having been a nursing student and having studied pharmacology. NO WAY would she ever take those pills. Especially if she had wanted more children.

Pills that made procreation a medical procedure was not how God wanted women to “choose life”. Filly knew that for sure. God was the power for good so Filly prayed for this woman to choose to take ownership of her own experience, with spiritual faith in God, and stop putting all her faith in pills and bad advice. So much money was being made by fertility specialists because women continued to TAKE the drugs to STOP pregnancy, so then they had to pay a fortune to induce pregnancy. Again, made no sense.

By this time Filly was thinking maybe coffee would be good. Maybe it was the card she had been given as it was a speed rally for corvettes and caffeine. She smiled at the play on words. She did not know any corvette owners who used “speed” but plenty who loved coffee. She turned on the Keurig and watched it light up and put in the Newman’s roast little plastic pot. Pushed the button and listened to the machine start cranking.

She thought about how Reacher drank coffee. What was it’s Computer meaning…cafe… Corporate Average fuel economy.

How economical, Filly wondered, was the computer, because of the fuel necessary for keeping the computer in “power”. Hmmm. Filly wondered why there was a “shortage” of fuel, unless all the fuel being given to computers was being used to tell people how to “drive” when they were in fact perfectly capable of driving themselves.

When the computer “drove” it was like the movie “speed” where the bus was on a crazy and dangerous path. “Bus” being an acronym for Binary unit system. Supposedly the BUS systems “are standard in industrial communication, which can hardly be imagined without them” (according to google) Um no. But Reacher did take the “bus” lol. Of course he did. Which meant that business communication was driving a significant portion of the populations “train of thought”.

Filly got her coffee and put one spoonful of brown sugar in it and added some creamer from the plastic carton in the fridge door. She went over to the bible and picked her bible verse for the day. Randomly. She wanted to know what God was saying about what she was thinking. God COULD read her mind.

“And when Jesus was come unto Peter’s house he saw his wife’s mother laid and sick of fever. And he touched her hand and the fever left her and she arose and ministered unto them. When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils and he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.”

Filly had heard from her husband that the “media” was saying that the attempt on the life of the president some believed had been “faked”. For this to happen, the president would have had to be “ok” with the murder of innocent people. That was not the truth and was not the fruit of his words or actions.

That was the “fruit” of what the “computer” predicted, using the Reacher books, but programmed or coming from the mouths of his enemies. That was why the computer had wanted to be derailed.

So what was the president supposed to do Filly wondered… get shot at again and THIS TIME DIE by golly so that it proved he was not faking? OMG? Really? The “lie” suggested by a media (press) platform was again one that only promoted destructive and dishonest propaganda.

The computer could only suggest. What people believed to be truth, was something they could choose, based on who or what they had faith in. Those who had been believing in a machine, were, according to the bible verse, wanting to have the devils cast out so they would not be possessed.

Believing a man was a woman was one of those devils that took the truth and tried to make it false. God made man and woman and they were different. Not the same. Pretty clear. Just as clear as knowing that if someone wants to have a baby someone should not take birth control pills. The devils were only suggestions … not real… and they took the opposite of truth and said it was true.

Filly decided to go let out the dogs while she was up and while it was early.

Filly got in the car and put the key off the chain of keys and put it in the ignition. She backed out and the radio was playing “Brave”.

Filly had once liked that song. But then she recognized that it was a battle song for people who wanted to escape from the parents. They compared home to a cage. Much of what was “suggested” came in the form of lyrics to songs.
But Filly knew that the suggestion that it was BRAVE to not listen to the parents who raised their children to the best of their ability, was only a suggestion that need not be followed by those who trusted God. The lyrics mattered. If they were going down the wrong track a person could expect to get derailed.
She decided to rewrite that song because it was BRAVE to stay home, with family, be tolerant and be humble, instead of being a know it all, and instead of listening to something that was driving a BUS.

The new lyrics to Brave, according to Filly

You are in fact amazing
Don’t need to “phase in” with a weapon or a thug
You are not the last
Bat your eyelash, expressing lots of love
You can just step right in
With your momma and your poppa
Ignoring the outside “din”
Reflect the good side, feel the sunlight
Not your shadow, not your sin
And I know what will happen when you
Pray at the start of day
Words that have no doubt,
Honestly you are not a slave
with a prayerful day
words that have no doubt
Honestly, you are not a slave
God already sees you
God already sees you
God already sees you.
God already sees you.

Filly thought of the story of “Din” or “Gunga Din” and how he dad told the story of “DIN DIN” who was always having to run fetch water for the soldiers. The “din” of goodness was what should surround God’s people. Bravery was not about rejecting the people who raised you or rejecting God. Bravery was about service, humility, love.