Based Jack and More Victories
Jack Dorsey endorses Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, trashes the Twitter board, and defends Tucker Carlson in a single day. Maybe Twitter was holding him hostage. I sense the hand of God at play
Sometimes wins come in bunches.
A federal judge struck down Biden’s transportation mask mandate, ruling no federal law permits such bureaucratic overreach.
And Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and former CEO who ushered in the age of cancelations, has gently endorsed Elon Musk’s takeover bid of Twitter whilst simultaneously slamming Twitter’s board of directors:
It gets better. Dorsey later seemed to defend Tucker Carlson against an attack from a rabid leftist (Brian Stelter).
I’m probably getting ahead of myself, but is it possible that Lent and Easter have somehow sapped the strength from the demons who have had their way with humanity for these last loathesome two years? Sure, my faith in humanity is zero on the Kelvin scale, but everything is possible with God.
The spirit world, you know, is like a video game. Spirits can do only what God permits. If it’s not in the code, it can’t be done. And it’s not like demons obey God. They don’t. It’s much more like software code where the characters in a game are limited to the actions programmers have written. That German soldier you’re trying to kill in Call of Duty might want to throw a grenade 50 yards and blow you up, but if the code limits his range to 30 yards, there’s nothing he can do. Demon code, like our code, is written by God, not us, not demons.
The difference between that German character in Call of Duty and God’s creatures is that we and demons get frustrated by our limitations while software doesn’t.
What’s more, if God decides to further restrict some of the characters in this simulation we live in, there’s nothing anyone can do it about. If God decides to limit a demon’s ability to communicate with other demons or to influence people, the demon’s just out of luck.
So maybe our Lenten fast has unleashed enough graces in the world to strengthen the force field around some people with influence: that federal judge who nixed the mask mandate and Jack Dorsey. Even the White House and TSA apparently chose not to appeal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s ruling.
I know this sounds crazy, but demons have a way of creating doubt. And doubt hinders the best minds and bravest hearts. Demons rarely cause crucifixes to fall off walls or heads to spin around 360 degrees. And the lack for such anti-miracles is what leads men to doubt that demons exist at all.
Demons are much more active in tiny ways. That gorgeous woman you looked at in church. Twice. A demon probably nudged you to look up just at the right moment. A hundred other people had walked the same course she walked, but you blithely ignored them. You heard their footsteps and saw their movement at the edge of your field of vision, but you kept your eyes on the Missal and your thoughts on your prayer. Until she walked by and you looked up having no idea she was not just some random dude make his way to an empty pew, and you thought, “wow, she’s beautiful.” Then you felt guilty, didn’t you? You glanced to see if anyone (your wife?) had followed your eyes to their target and let out a sigh of relief when all eyes were cast down on something more wholesome.
The demons high-fived and laughed a fiendish, devilish laugh. “Got one!”
And that’s what demons do for a living. Little nudges. Little doubts. Little guilts. Little annoyances. Little fears.
So, you pray real hard. You apologize to the Blessed Virgin Mary, confess your foul obsession with beautiful women to God, and ask for the graces to avoid the near occasion of sin.
And you’re better for it. You’ve been humbled. You turned to God to overcome a weakness, admitting that your own efforts would be futile. You trusted that God, not you, can silence the demons, or, at least, plug your ears like the men on Odysseus’ ship sailing amongst the Sirens. And your little act of contrition and humility brings down graces that further muffle the murmurs of the demons, protecting those around you from the siren song of attractive women and thoughts of anger and revenge and all the other little thoughts that blot out our thoughts of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
For 40 days, a large portion of the Christian world gave up little treats and dedicated a few more crumbs of time to humble itself before God and ask for the graces to be a little better. Some demons, Christ tells us, can be driven out only by prayer and fasting, after all.
Is it not possible that God has blessed us with a fresh set of graces to battle the demons that nudge us and our neighbors? Like a football team with a fresh set of downs, we can keep the ball moving or we can fumble it away.
I’m not going to overthink these delicious little wins of today. I had nothing to do with any of them, so I don’t have to worry about pridefully taking credit. Instead, I will thank you, my brothers and sisters, for your Lenten sacrifices and prayers, not for me, but for yourselves, your souls, and your salvation. None of us is alone in this valley of tears, and each one’s prayers and fasts unleash the graces we all need. Yes, friends, in the economy of salvation, I’m a socialist, happy that my feeble prayers might attract graces that help someone else, but with no illusions that my prayers do much good at all. And I will greedily accept the benefit of those graces you won for me. It’s a team sport traversing the narrow path to tiny gate.
It was the whole pool of prayers and the scope of fasting that merited God’s hand to dial back the power level of the demons who move men to doubt and, in their doubt, fear and crave and envy and grumble and pout and conspire and plot and seek a man-made, self-made “justice” that’s completely devoid of the divine. Perhaps our Lord turned that demon dial down one click to the left as an Easter present to humanity.
So the demons who instill doubt in judges couldn’t quite make their point to Judge Mizelle, and the demons who nudge billionaire tech CEOs got a little shadow-banned on this Monday of Easter.
Go ahead with your own theories, I’ll stick with this one. It’s the only one that actually makes sense when you really think about it.
How do you sense the hand of God?? St. Paul would like to know.