Author: Jason Zerbey

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Grateful for These Strange Creatures

Of course I love my boys and think they are, objectively, the best humans. That should be a given with 9- and 11-year-olds who have had half decent parentage.

But these boys are special. They lost their mother almost three years ago and bring her spirit alive every day. Isaac, the younger, struggles with fading memories of Mary, but he has no idea how much he embodies her compassion and warmth. He’s a half-grump and slow to wake up, just like mama. He’s always thinking of little things to do for people. He gets overwhelmed by the nuclear energy that emits from his dad and older brother. He loves music and art and when he’s in the present, no one else is more present.

Mary and Isaac would have been best friends. They would have built fires and cuddled in front of them. They would have cooked and baked together. They would have slept in on Saturdays while Westen and I went on a morning adventure.

There’s sadness in those “would haves,” but I am grateful for the connection his existence creates with his mother.

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A Month of Gratitudes

I’m a couple days late on this fine November trend, but I don’t mind. I’m grateful for this blog and my freedom to express myself when I wish.

I begin each day with intentional Wim Hof breathing techniques that take 15-20 minutes. I have a hyperactive mind that often distracts me from the meditative space created by this practice. One of my favorite solutions to the busy thoughts is to direct my attention to God and thank him for all of the wonderful and difficult aspects of my life.

This practice has become especially comforting as my place of worship has remained closed throughout the Lockdown. My prayer life has grown and lifted me through dark days. Today is distinctly special as I am rising out of a second wave of depressive pressure since March when the Lockdown began. I am thankful for His steadfast hand through my personal storms. The waters always calm, even if only for a few moments. The more often I return to that clear, cool lagoon of peace, the more I see that the storm will pass.

The sun is rising behind me, brightening the room as Enoch Light’s music reminds me of the fanciful pleasures of this world. God’s creation is truly a miracle full of beauty.

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Not Imposing My Will on Others

I don’t determine my potential by who is in elected office. I am the driving force in my life.

I participated in politics for 20+ years. Voting, phone banking, volunteering for the Republican National Convention in Philly in 2000, attending city council meetings, speaking at school board meetings, Tweeting wildly in the pre-censorship days, watching C-SPAN and listening to Rush Limbaugh at age 16 and spinning that into a 24-hour TV news habit, and generally believing all those activities were important.

Then I had children.

I turned off the TV. That’s adult stuff, right? I don’t want to poison there minds with that…yet.

Then I came home to take care of those children and facilitate their development full time. That was around 2009-2011 and I was sure Obama was our greatest villain. He and Hillary were getting us into unnecessary conflicts in the Middle East and I was with the Right on all the arguments against him. It took me a long time to unwind my hypocrisy.

In that period, I was working out my principles and how to pass them on to my sons (as I thought that was my job as a parent). I hadn’t found faith in Jesus Christ yet and had no easy source for answers. I was working on my simplest truths.

I decided to formulate how I would explain my support for Bush’s wars and opposition to Obama’s (and both Clintons’) wars to my sons when they were ready. I couldn’t do it. The Golden Rule kept getting in the way. How could I act one way in my life and support the opposite policy in my political beliefs? Lesser of two evils? That’s a false choice. The near term cost may be great, but good is always an option.

It was a slow, quiet, and internal process. I had wanted to be a dad since I was ten. I had put a lot of thought into it and this was the first time I felt the Holy Spirit telling me that I was in the right place. I was learning at least as much from my sons as they were learning from me.

As we grew into a homeschooling family, I discovered Tom Woods and libertarian philosophies. My wife and I were taking on a task that many assume is the role of government. If we could be responsible to educate ourselves and our sons, what else could motivated individuals accomplish? What could they NOT accomplish?

The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) was the concept that cleared away contradictions in my mind that I had been trying to reconcile. It is the articulation of the Golden Rule in political terms. I was finally able to say that I had been wrong and that I can be right going forward.

In 2016, I was driving my young sons to vote in the Presidential Primary in Delaware. Our polling place was in the church that I would eventually join as a follower of Christ’s Way. Trump was on a roll and it seemed that Ted Cruz was the only one who might stop him. I was torn and discussed it with my sons. I told them war and education were my biggest issues. Cruz was better on education and Trump was better on war. My seven-year-old asked, “You have to decide between war and homeschooling?” Crap. Simultaneously, he exposed the false choice and gave me the answer I still give today, “If the people are dead, you can’t educate them and you can’t move their hearts.”

I’m pretty slow, so I didn’t absorb all of that before pulling the lever for Trump that day. I was more right than I knew, Cruz eventually tried to meddle in homeschooling from the Senate and he (or Hillary) certainly would have given us more dead bodies through military conflict. But that would be the last vote I cast.

I came to learn that democracy is one group of people imposing their values on a larger group of people (most Americans do not vote for the winning candidate) through force of law. I could no longer support that system of aggression.

Today, my sons have their own political ideas. They discuss candidates and issues with their friends in a juvenile manner that isn’t far off adult conversations on the topic. I see my role as always advocating for the opposite position as best I can. Freedom and voluntarism extend into my parenting. I’m not here to direct their thoughts, but as a stone for them to sharpen their blades upon.

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Maybe You Shouldn’t Vote

How many millions of dark-skinned men and women have been put in cages because of Biden and Harris?

How many millions of dark-skinned men and women have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, and elsewhere due to interventions backed by Biden?

Your vote won’t change my opinion of you, you’ve got your reasons.

Just don’t slap a flag sticker on your profile tomorrow and claim you voted against racism.

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100% Compliance?

If there hasn’t been full compliance (With what exactly? Guidance has been shifting, they lied about masks, restrictions are confusing and sometimes contradictory, and the “laws” are ad hoc and unenforceable), what rational mind would expect 100% compliance to occur?

Without the compliance you call for, our numbers are magnitudes below the predictions. The noncompliant have been reinforced in their beliefs by results.

How is calling them stupid going to get your desired results?

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I’ll Take the Freedom, If You Please

The Lockdown is killing untold numbers. Many sources have numbers already beyond covid deaths. The years of life lost due to the economic restrictions are outweighing the likely years lost by covid deaths.

I don’t think it’s a close call. But if it is, if more freedom will equal approximately as many deaths as less freedom, then YES give me more freedom and allow me to use my own capabilities of risk assessment.

I don’t take any of this lightly. My seemingly healthy wife died from complications arising from influenza. Did somebody go to work when they shouldn’t have? Did somebody not wash their hands? Should she have skipped a hug? A party? A homeschool field trip?

Would she have lived a smaller life knowing she might die in her 40s? Or a larger one?

I’m opting for a large life because I don’t know how long it’ll be. That includes doing the only thing I can do to combat any pathogen: make healthier choices.

Suffering is essential to life. But when it is imposed by a government that has no concern for my wellbeing, then I will fight against it through civil disobedience, sharing information, and applauding those who do the same.

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Digging for Courage, Part II

I started this blog category near the beginning of the Covid Lockdown. I used this space to explore the gut-level intuition that the popular narrative was wrong and dangerous. I felt powerless and confused. Little information was available and huge things were happening. I was reading and searching and fighting for a truth that wasn’t clear.

I found clarity through writing, praying, and living by the principles that had ushered me through dark times. It was like becoming a widower again: easier in that I had done that before, harder in that the whole world was experiencing the trauma collectively. There was no one with an outside perspective.

I don’t know how I moved through the malaise exactly, there are many movements to the process and they’re complicated by past traumas and assumptions. But I did move through it into a place of meaning and happiness. As tribes collapsed, I found the individuals who shared my journey and new bonds formed. I saw a rebuilding of community out of the wreckage of government restrictions on assembly. I found my place and purpose.

Part II: Weariness, accumulation of pain, old trauma back for healing, another business shutting down, self doubt, looming threat of increased restrictions, and a salad bowl of shit storms are riding me again.

It’s easier this time. Second rodeo and all that rot. I know there’s a stronger Jason waiting for me at the end of the day. Heck, I know there’s a stronger Jason at the end of this post (’cause the end of the day might not come).

So, back to it. I’ve got a fantastic life that’s only going to get better. I’m grateful to God for the strange miracle gift of language and for this crazy brain of mine that will not accept defeat.

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The Safety of Schools Reopening

My fears are no higher than those due to influenza. Influenza appears to be more prevalent among, and more dangerous to, school children.

I have the choice to keep my children out of those institutions. I do not have the choice to keep anyone else out, so we maximize our health and engage freely with anyone who respects our choices.

Lots of schools around the world are open, many never closed. Between suicide, depression, abuse, and delayed care, it seems those societies that chose lighter restrictions have come out ahead.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-19/covid-s-spread-in-schools-is-questioned-in-latest-nordic-study

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Honor Your Body

This’ll sound simplistic to many, but maybe it is this simple:

Most people survived the virus with no masks in November to April. The answer then is still the answer: Healthier people are more capable of surviving pathogens.

Every person can be healthier, whether immunocompromised or in seemingly peak health.

The answer is better choices for yourself, because health is individual. Only you can know your body and what it needs. Educate yourself about yourself, then learn what you can do to better honor your body, then do ONE THING better.

Once you see results from that one thing, you will be hungry for the next thing. Then you will be as powerful in the world as you should be.

Hold on, I gotta take this call from Jocko…