What I've learned in the interim

I feel so changed now, from what I was when the 40-day "fast" began (April 21), that it's a little hard to know what to write, by way of "personal update".

My "personal relationship with Jesus" (to use the Evangelical catchphrase) has been deeply revitalized (think: "raised from the dead"). I feel that I've been given the ability to read the gospels, and imagine myself there, hearing Jesus' words from his own mouth, hearing and seeing the people he interacted with.

A common way of describing the "story of the bible" in a single phrase is "God's work of redeeming his creation from the Fall", or something like that. Sometimes it's described as the story of God's successive covenants with "his people". However, I now believe that, from beginning to end, the bible is about God's continuous efforts to eradicate slavery from among humanity and, conversely, his efforts to teach humanity what freedom is and to act it out. More time has now passed from Jesus' time up to the present, than from the beginning of recorded history up to the time of Jesus. The only way of viewing things that makes any sense to me, is to interpret history since the death of Jesus in terms of the successive systems of slavery (read: governments) and the apologies made on their behalf, and the reasons given for their overthrow, and the sacrifices made by those who saw (by faith) a world without slavery.

Mahatma Gandhi introduced "satyagraha" ("truth-force") to a world unfamiliar with the Sanskrit language and Hindu spirituality, by means of his non-violent campaign against British domination of India. I believe that he correctly understood Jesus to be all about the very same thing, as "the stone that makes them stumble and the rock that makes them fall" (Romans 9:33, I Peter 2:8).

Here in the United States, with the first governmental system in all of human history created largely "from ideas", the evolution of free society has advanced far. The "framers" (i.e. of the U.S. constitution) took the huge step of abolishing hereditary titles and honors. They did not take the even huger step of abolishing taxation of the populace under threat of force. However, over the period of time since the founding of the American state, Americans have shown just how much can be done without government, and they have also been shown how much violence and cruelty and destruction even their supposedly "noble" government is capable of.

As a "voice crying out in the wilderness", there is the Libertarian Party, which was founded in the U.S. in 1971, a mere 14 years after Atlas Shrugged was published. I'm a few chapters into Atlas Shrugged now, and the philosophical nature of the novel is clear. Politics lurks as a marginal concept in the book, but it is not a blueprint for political change. The LP has had virtually no impact on the U.S. at the national level, over its 47 years in existence. It is far outside the mainstream, although one could possibly make the argument that a significant percentage of American voters registered as Republicans have a lot of libertarian sensibilities.

What has held them back? I believe that the LP was doomed from the moment it was founded, not to change American politics per se, because of its very acceptance of the government-promoted system of election politics, itself. Voluntaryism appears to be "like" LP core beliefs, in that it believes that "government" (read: NOT the "state") should have a minimal role in society, a role that restrains individuals from violating the life, liberty and property of other individuals. But in accepting a taxing entity called the "state" to perform this supposedly "minimal" role, the LP cut off the very branch they were trying to climb onto. Voluntaryists go "all the way", and repudiate both the state and electoral politics entirely.

I will say some more about Libertarians and Voluntaryists, and their (apparent) current strategies and tactics, in a post soon to follow.

Anyway, back to me. Even though I felt, throughout my 40-day sojourn, a strange sort of centrifugal force in my soul, flinging me outward and into "the market", I have been repeatedly reined back in, in the true spirit of Voluntaryism ("present the world with 'one improved unit'"), to the "smallest" reaches of my existence, i.e. my home (population: 3 humans, 2 smart-ish animals) and my little Presbyterian church, a few blocks away.

But if you want to "get started building the voluntary society", you necessarily want to start a business (or help start one, or grow one). And I do. Many businesses, actually. But I need to start with one. I still believe in Dendron Growth Strategies, which is (currently) a coaching, business planning, and micro-venture company of one (that would be me).

My bedrock image is Jesus' analogy for faith, in the Kingdom of God: the mustard seed. It starts very tiny, and it eventually grows into something pretty big. That's how freedom spreads: one little mustard seed of faith at a time.