BRAZEN LIARS

"The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in

people who are trustworthy."

Proverbs 12:22

America has become a nation of feckless, unrepentant liars who use deceit to manipulate other people into giving the liar something he or she wants. Usually, it is money or power or some derivation thereof.

No, this isn't a blog about Donald Trump, though it easily could be, because he is the most obvious and most prolific example of what I am talking about. (Currently, he is lying about the number of Americans stricken with the new "novel" corona virus, disputing the number reported by the scientists at the Center for Disease Control.)

No. I am making an observation about our culture, in general, and how low our moral personality, as a whole, has sunk. I will give you an example.

Tonight I received an email from Amazon, the title of which read:

 "Silver Parnell, here's a $5 credit toward your wish list title." 

In the body of the email, Amazon names the book which is supposedly on my wish list, and I do not recognize it. I have quite a few wish lists, so I look through all of them, on the off chance that I have accidentally put this particular book on one of them. I have a habit of falling asleep at the computer, and I posited that it might be possible that I inadvertently added it somehow, while dozing off, but no. There is no such book anywhere on any of my lists.

"For, whoever would love life and see good days

must keep their tongue from evil and their lips

from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil

and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it."

1 Peter 3:10-11

So, I call Amazon and ask them what the heck is going on and why have they sent me this weird email. I am concerned that they may have confused me with someone ELSE and have mixed up my account with someone else's account, which would be disastrous, since we all have our banking information saved with Amazon.

The first rep keeps trying to guess at what might have happened. I keep telling him to stop guessing and let me speak to somebody who knows. He keeps putting me on hold. 16 minutes later, I insist that he let me speak to someone else. He says he will, but he keeps talking and he keeps guessing. I am getting more and more concerned because his English isn't good and he is wandering all over the topic. I keep asking him to let me just talk to someone who knows rather than him, because he is just speculating. I can speculate also, but that isn't what I want!

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to

carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from

the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no

truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language,

for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:44

Finally, he says, "who do you want to talk to? You have to give me the name of a person, otherwise I can't transfer you." Apparently, I am supposed to have such magnificent psychic abilities that I can simply pull a name out of my transcendent clairvoyant brain. Of course, I recognize this for what it is - a delaying tactic of someone who does not want me talking to his supervisor. I suggest he just connect me to whoever can answer this question for me, so he tells me I need to tell HIM the name of the person or the department!

Really aggravated at this point, I point out to him, again, that I am not psychic. He is supposed to tell ME the department or the person who can answer this question. After all, the email came from Amazon, not from me - but he just mumbles and bumbles around and will not. Finally, I am fed up and demand to speak to his supervisor. I've been on the phone for 26 minutes and counting.

The supervisor speaks English really well and comprehends my concern immediately. She admits that this email is really weird, but she seems to know who to talk to about it, so she puts me on a brief hold, then connects me with someone named "John" who will explain it to me.

35 minutes on the phone, and counting.

After a short conversation with John, he informs me that the email I received is a "legitimate offer." Apparently, someone at Amazon decided they would be clever and send me an email in which they try to make it look like they were giving me something I supposedly wanted, by lying and saying that this book they are flogging is something on MY wish list. Except that it isn't. It is all just a big fecking lie. THEY want to sell this book and they don't mind lying to manipulate me and whoever else to whom they've sent these fake emails.

When I object to this underhanded, unscrupulous and really reprehensible fabrication, John behaves as if I am being unreasonable. He sighs and explains, again, in the tone that one uses with someone less intelligent than oneself, that it IS a "legitimate" offer. They really ARE giving me a five dollar credit toward the purchase of this book - so it isn't "fake." It is a real offer.

I object, again, to the lie that the book is supposedly on my wish list and, like Mick Mulvaney trying to defend Donald Trump's insidious mendacity, "John" repeats that it is "a legitimate offer," as if the lie is completely irrelevant and I am being really stupid for objecting to it.

39 minutes and I am done.

"In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in

Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and

impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and

being deceived."

2 Tim 3:12-13

Yesterday I was supposed to receive a Sunday parcel from Amazon of an order I had placed a few days previously. Amazon sent me confirming emails that the U.S. Postal Service would be delivering it on Sunday. The Postal Service itself gave me a running commentary, via email, about the whereabouts of the package, in each leg of its journey from Amazon to me, but what happened is what always happens when the Amazon packages are supposed to be delivered on a Sunday. The postal carrier lies and says they can't get into the building. What has actually happened is that they are too lazy to be bothered to find the apartment. So they lie.

I could write a blog post every day and call it "the lie of the day" and have no trouble writing a story about the latest lie.

There was a time, not so long ago, that no one wanted to be caught telling a lie. There was a time when it would embarrass just about everyone who was caught in a lie. Fervent excuses (and perhaps more lies) would be piled onto the original lie in which they had been caught. No one wanted to be known as a liar.

"Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but

afterward his mouth will be full of gravel."

Proverbs 20:17

Nowadays, however, many Americans brazenly lie and then gaslight anyone who objects. Americans now stand by their lies and defend them with bizarre, twisted logic, like Kellyanne Conway and her "alternative facts."

It makes me really sad and sometimes mad, to be lied to on a consistent basis, by friends, family, neighbors, merchants, and that freakish carnival barker and his outlandish companions who somehow found their way onto The Hill and who behave as if a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, as if by magic.

"Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and

harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously,

believe him not, for there are seven abominations in

his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception,

his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly."

Proverbs 26:24-26

Many of these people who are lying to me and to you and to the rest of the American people are claiming to be Christian. Christians love Jesus, and Jesus tell us that those who love him follow his commandments. You just can't deliberately lie and mislead people and con people over and over again and, at the same time, pretend to be shining the reflected glory of the light of Christ. You just can't.

And, as a merchant, you can't continually express the mawkish sentimentality of pretending to care for the welfare of your "Amazon Prime" members while trying to dupe them at the same time. You just can't.

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy

and empty deceit, according to human tradition,

according to the elemental spirits of the world, and

not according to Christ."

Colossians 2:8

While it is fairly clear that I find it upsetting to be lied to so frequently (and in such a adolescent and transparent manner), what I find most sad is that none of these liars will experience the bliss of being in union with the Lord if they keep up this deliberately deceptive lifestyle. And it IS a lifestyle when lies are routinely employed by a person as a method of getting what they want from others.

Living in harmony with the Lord means you are living a heaven on earth. The Kingdom of God is among you - if your soul is submerged in the love that is God.

Tonight I am praying for all the liars of the world. I pray they stop the lies, the schemes and the cons. I don't need to name them. They know who they are. But I DO pray for them, by name, here in my little hermitage, not only because I find it annoying to be lied to but because I want the entire world to be able to experience the transcendent, gorgeous love of God, and they can't until they stop lying.


God save us all.

Silver "Rose"
Sannyasini Kaliprana