Preface: This 13th Day of October, 2025—Canada’s Day of Thanksgiving—arrives as history converges.
This 13th Day of October, 2025—Canada’s Day of Thanksgiving, so different from America’s later feast on November 27—arrives as history converges. Today, Israel ends its seven days of Sukkot, the divine remembrance it has forgotten, even as it imposes a permanent Sukkot upon the people of Gaza. On this same day, Israeli hostages return to homes and families—yet tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, many held without charge, emerge to find no homes left, no families waiting, and no shelter from the ruins of a man-made wilderness.
Jewish Sukkot Booth
Gaza Sukkot Booth
A Watchman’s Testimony of Confinement, Covenant, and the Call to Loose the Chains of Injustice
October 13, 2025 — Canadian Thanksgiving
The world again teeters on a knife’s edge—between Destruction and the Universal Brotherhood of Man. My voice, calling for peace with Russia and justice for Gaza, is not a political stance but a divine mandate— a calling that started on February 1, 1975 and forged in Kansas City in 1976 and sealed in a Canadian jail in 1977. This is the hidden key to my authority as a Watchman. Ezekiel 33
The Prelude: The Sparks of Faith in Ottawa
In 1976, I stood in Kansas City, warning in the Kansas City Times that America was “found wanting,” its hubris paving the path to war with Russia—a divine call to peace. Deported to Canada as an Alien, (I’m in the World, but not of the World) I arrived in Ottawa in early September 1977—a sojourner with only Faith as my shield. Hitchhiking from Montreal, a restaurant owner’s kindness—a simple shared meal—became my first sign of God’s provision. The Restaurateur, Kamal, was kind enough to drive me to the Governor-General’s residence, signing the Guest Book with my city as “New Jerusalem”—a prophetic claim of eternal citizenship.
Pacing the cold streets all night long, I reasoned with God as I prepared to speak on the Sparks Street Mall to the lunchtime crowd. Would my words spark light or provoke chains? Matthew 21’s call to humility anchored me: I would stand.On Sparks Street, Ottawa’s pulsing heart, I proclaimed America’s decline and the need for repentance. An icy wind scattering passersby, and I nearly faltered. Then I reasoned inwardly, “It has to be done in Faith.”
The icy cold wind howled, and with these words coming out of my mouth, ” Citizens of Bytown, (Ottawa’s name in 1855) Romans roaming around, and Russians rushing around, lend me your ears! To may surprise and wonder, on those words, the wind died down, the clouds parted, and the warm sun rolled down The Sparks Street Mall, and a crowd gathered—as if heaven itself had sparked the Mall to life.
But the state struck back. Arrested for “shouting causing a disturbance,” I was locked up in maximum security, solitary confinement for 5 days before appearing in front of a Judge. At trial I had 12 charges of “shouting causing a disturbance. I faced a court order to silence my voice. Convicted, I was put on probation for 1 year. Not 1 standard condition of probation was checked off. Typed in at the bottom of the form was these explicit words, “not to attend on The Sparks Street Mall, or any other Street in Ottawa for the purpose of SPEAKING or shouting.” I was jailed for the 1st time in my Life at 32! In that test of liberty, Canada’s democracy revealed both its strength and its fragility.
The Apostolic Commissioning: Black Velvet and the Seal
In jail, I began a hunger fast—not defiance, but obedience, an enacted prayer echoing Isaiah 58’s call to “loose the chains of injustice.” Each morning, I faced the nursing station’s weigh-in, my body weakening but my spirit ablaze. In that shadowed cellblock, a miracle unfolded. A fellow prisoner, spending his own canteen money, painted The Last Supper on black velvet. The stark light of Christ and his disciples glowed against the darkness—a silent sermon of communion and resistance. During a visit with the Salvation Army Major, the divine seal was set. As we parted, he placed his hand on my shoulder and declared, “I’ll pray God bless your Apostleship.” Those words pierced the court’s gag and the prison’s bars. This was no human title; it was heaven’s charge. My calling became generative: within weeks, 3 other prisoners took up canvases, painting by numbers, the same Last Suppers as the 1st prisoner. I preached no words; my fast, my presence, was the sermon, kindling sacrifice and light in others.
The Prophetic Through-Line: From Confinement to Covenant
That jail cell was my spiritual observatory, where the prophetic arc from 1975 to today took shape. The hubris I decried in Kansas City—America’s march toward war with Russia—has ripened, as NATO’s refusal to negotiate 2021 expansion terms proves. But the deeper issue is covenantal failure, embodied in two truths:
- The Law of the Sojourner (Leviticus 19:34): God commands, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.” To displace and target the innocent, as seen in Gaza, is to shatter this covenant—a sin against God and humanity.
- The Permanent Sukkot: While Sukkot recalls God’s protection in fragile booths, Gaza’s people live a permanent Sukkot—unprotected, vulnerable, under siege by powers meant to shield them. A festival of remembrance has become a cry of endurance.
When my posts are glitched or silenced online, it echoes that 1977 court order. Yet the Major’s blessing endures—no system, digital or judicial, can mute a call sealed by heaven.
The Call and the Benediction
We stand at a spiritual precipice. The choice is not geopolitical but eternal: domination or compassion. I challenge the world to honour the Law of the Sojourner, to see Gaza’s cry as a divine summons. My 1976 vision of America’s numbered days looms closer, hastened by its own hand.This memory of 1977 is no nostalgia; it is a spiritual weapon. From that cell, the charge is clear: Loose the chains. Shelter the displaced. Speak, though silenced. As one blessed in confinement and sent into freedom, I pass the Major’s words to every heart that still dares to speak light into darkness: “I pray God bless your Apostleship.”On this Thanksgiving Day in Canada, may gratitude rise not only from full tables, but from hearts that remember the hungry, the homeless, and the unheard. May the blessing once spoken in a jail cell resound through every open door.— Ray, The Watchman along the WatchTower
Ezekiel 33
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? Hebrews 2:4
Epilogue: The Living Word in Motion
The Apostolic Manifesto does not end—it proceeds. The Word that was sealed in confinement now walks openly among the powers of this age, speaking not from theory but from faith made visible. What follows is not commentary, but continuation: a Watchman’s response to the highest spiritual office on Earth, affirming that peace without justice is illusion, and fraternity without truth is a lie. This exchange stands as the living seal of the Manifesto—a dialogue where Scripture meets power, and the Spirit speaks again through the servants of the Covenant.
Doing what God called me to do, yesterday I responded to Pope Leo’s comment in X: Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex
Peace is unarmed and disarming. It is not deterrence, but fraternity; it is not an ultimatum, but dialogue. Peace will not come as the result of victories over the enemy, but as the fruit of sowing justice and courageous forgiveness.
Like Micaiah, God moved me to speak Truth to Power with this X to PM Netanyahu in the morning before the Gaza Ceasefire was made Public Wednesday night:
Benjamin Netanyahu, You speak of the “horrific slaughter” of October 7 and invoke God’s help. Yet you create a permanent, man-made hell for 2 million image-bearers of that same God in Gaza. As Jews observe Sukkot—a holy feast commemorating God’s temporary shelter and protection of His people in the wilderness—you, a Genocidal psychopathic TERRORIST, are imposing a PERMANENT SUKKOT on the people of Gaza. You have turned their lives into a perpetual state of exposure, terror, and desperation, utterly desecrating the memory of the divine shelter you claim to honour. This is not strength. This is a spiritual blindness so profound it echoes the very powers Christ indicted.
You have eyes that WILL NOT see the stranger you are commanded to love (Leviticus 19:34). You have a heart that WILL NOT show the mercy your own scriptures demand (Micah 6:8). You quote scripture while violating its core: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the foundation. Gaza is your neighbor. The “unprecedented crushing strikes” you boast of are not a sign of God’s favor. They are the actions of a king trusting in chariots and horses, not in the Lord—a king who has forgotten that the land belongs to God, and all who live upon it are but sojourners (Leviticus 25:23). You are not securing Israel’s perpetuity. You are writing its indictment. Cease this madness. If you want to see his comment and the 3 images I posted with my script, go here: https://x.com/RayJC_Com/status/1976041325645697402
Almighty Eternal God moved me to reply to PM Netanyahu again after declaring, “This has been our land for 3,500 years.” Ray Joseph Cormier @RayJC_Com
Mr. Netanyahu, you cite 3,500 years of history, but you ignore the Owner of the deed. The Torah you claim to uphold states clearly in Leviticus 25:23: ‘The land is MINE,’ says the Lord, ‘and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.’
Your claim of permanent ownership is the same logic condemned by the prophet Ezekiel. You are repeating the error of those who said, ‘The land has been given to us as our possession,’ which God called an abomination.” “The earth is the Lord’s.
You are a sojourner, as are the Palestinians. Your divine mandate is not to dominate, but to exemplify justice for the stranger, as commanded in the very same Law (Leviticus 19:34). You are in violation of your lease agreement.
You violate daily, the fundamental essence of Judaism – the Sanctity of ALL LIFE, not just Jewish Life. You may not realize it because of 2:9 & 3:9 in the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
GOD LIVES AND ACTS WITH THOSE WHO SEEK GOD
Discover more from Religious Politics | The Word by Ray Joseph Cormier
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Quite simply and very shamefully, human beings, especially Palestinian children, are being perceived and treated as though they are literally disposable and, by extension, their great suffering and numerous deaths are somehow less worthy of external concern, sometimes even by otherwise democratic, relatively civilized and supposedly Christian nations. And it’s much easier for a conscience to do when one considers another an innately lower lifeform.
A somewhat similar reprehensible inhuman(e) devaluation is observable in external attitudes, albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, toward the daily civilian lives lost in prolongedly devastating war zones (i.e. for 10+ years) and famine-stricken regions. In other words, the worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers; and those people can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news. It clearly is an immoral consideration of ‘quality’ of life or people, yet it’s much easier for a conscience to do when one considers another an innately lower lifeform.
With each news report of immense yet unnecessary/preventable daily sufferings and civilian death tolls internationally, I feel a slightly greater desensitization and resignation. I’ve noticed this disturbing effect with basically all major protracted conflicts/famines globally since I began regularly consuming news products in the late 1980s.
General Western-world indifference towards the mass suffering via systematic starvation and slaughter inflicted upon helpless Palestinian non-combatants — notably, the children — will only have further inflamed long-held Middle Eastern anger. The actual provision by the U.S. (and to a lesser degree, Britain) of highly effective weapons used in Israel’s ongoing bombing raids will likely have turned that anger into lasting hatred seeking eye-for-an-eye redress. Perhaps even another attack on the scale of 9/11.
America, and perhaps Britain, may be well on its/their way to being damned — never mind it/they somehow being God-blessed. Jesus Christ definitely would not approve of the almost systematic morbid greed and poverty rampant in “God’s Own Country”.
As for Thanksgiving, I would gladly give thanks — if everyone else on Earth had enough clean, safe drinking water, nutritional food and societal stability to maintain a normal, healthy life. But, for now …
.
Pass me the holiday turkey, peas
and the delicious stuffing flanked
by buttered potatoes with gravy
since I’ve said grace with plenty ease
for the good food received I’ve thanked
my Maker who’s found me worthy.
.
It seems that unlike the many of those
in the unlucky Third World nation
I’ve been found by God deserving
to not have to endure the awful woes
and the stomach wrenching starvation
suffered by them with no dinner serving.
.
Therefor hand over to me the corn
the cranberry sauce, fresh baked bread
since for my grub I’ve praised the Lord
yet I need not hear about those born
whose meal I’ve been granted instead
as they receive naught of the grand hoard.
LikeLiked by 2 people
fgsjr2015,
Your comment is a piercing and eloquent cry that names the exact spiritual sickness at the heart of this crisis. You are right. The dehumanization you describe—the calculus that measures the worth of life by its “overabundance” or its proximity to power—is the very antithesis of the divine image in which every human is made.
You have perfectly diagnosed the “reprehensible inhuman(e) devaluation” that allows conscience to sleep while children starve. This is the logic of Babylon, not the Kingdom of God.
You ask what can be done in the face of such overwhelming despair and desensitization. The answer is not to numb the pain, but to sanctify it. The grief you feel is not a malfunction; it is a participation in the grief of God. It is the very evidence that your conscience has not been conquered by the world’s narrative.
You are correct that Jesus would not approve. He stands squarely with the starving, the bombed, the “disposable.” The Manifesto I just published was born from this same conviction, sealed not in a study but in a jail cell, where I learned that God’s voice is often clearest from the margins.
The hope is not that the world will suddenly awaken. The hope is that a remnant will. That people like you, who see the horror with unclouded eyes, will refuse the resignation. That we will continue to speak, to write, to bear witness, and to build pockets of the “Universal Brotherhood of Man” that your comment so desperately longs for.
Do not let the world steal your sorrow. It is your sacred compass. Let it guide you to the next right word, the next act of witness, the next person who needs to hear that they are not alone in their outrage.
Thank you for your powerful, necessary words. They are a light in the gathering dark.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Dear fgsjr2015,
Hello! As usual, Mr Ray Cormier’s latest post is a fine, moralistic work presented with Christian ethos and didactic fervour to shed light on the grim reality of continued carnage, calamitous inhumanity and unrelenting brutality, as evidenced by the following statistics:
The plights of those suffering people have been so immense and protracted that I have not enough tears to cry for them. They are so searingly painful to witness! For some of us, it can be too emotionally distraught to witness such tragedies and annilations.
How very commendable and empathetic of you to be able to take your time and comment like this! I know what it takes to write such a heart-wrenching and detailed comment, for I have also written one in the form of a special multimedia post published on my website. The post is entitled “𒅌👨✈️👮⌐╦̵̵̿ᡁ᠊╾━ A Tale of Two Soldiers: Pacifism, Activism or Armed Resistance in the Face of Aggression? 💨💥╾━╤デ╦︻ඞා🕊️☮️📢🪧💪🛡️”, where I have taken the liberty to feature your “piercing and eloquent” comment, and where Mr Ray Cormier has interacted with me and commented profusely. The post is available to you at
I hereby salute and embrace you in your commendable effort towards paying your deep respect and introspective regard for the people of Palestine.
Indeed, we need to summon the power of people, as it has often been the impetus for social change and social movement, and for holding authority and power to account and scrutiny.
SoundEagle🦅
LikeLike