NOT I

“The Child is to cause the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the hearts of many will be revealed.”  -Simeon, in the Temple, Lk 2:34

“ ‘I’m as good as you!’ “—the exclamation of us all, as revealed by C.S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man.

 

If the Sanhedrin could have called out to Simeon in reply, it might have gone like this, albeit in more erudite terms:

“What you need this kid for? Looka all you got, here! You gotta nice Temple! Herod, he be good to us! Nice Romans, too. What more you need?  Good roads, aqueducts, low crime rate, and great specimens of human race, namely us, to give you friendly advice and plenty rules so you don’t got to think of anything. We tell what to do, huh?  Alla time, any time.  So no worries, with us on your side. Besides, we such great guys, who else you need?  You gotta problem with that?”

Messiah, Shmessiah! That be big fairy tale.  Everything you need, you got, right here. Besides, this all there be! You needa good lawyer?  We got lots, and reasonable prices too!  You wanna do good, fine, just follow directions onna box…”

Jesus is more and more seen as the Biggest Insult to Homo Sapiente ever.  “I think my good deeds outweigh my bad ones,” and then we refuse to admit that anything could be good or bad, right or wrong, true or false.  (But we do seem to sense that our nay-bores are “lying” about us!!!)

However, it turns out that the “res humana” needs help more than any other being on the planet; that he alone is prone to massive self-deception; which sets up self-annihilation;  he even wishes for it! (“Thanatos “)

 Think of it! Most people do not care about heaven and won’t even think about hell; we can’t see how anyone would be held that responsible for “every careless word.”  So as O’Connor said, we breathe nihilism and the majority aim at and religiously hope for complete self-annihilation, or at best “Nirvana” ie Nonbeing; in order to escape God and His Purity, Wisdom, and His Provision for entering at His Sheepgate.

But Messiah has come-so when He returns for His Harvest from the seeds he planted 2000 years ago, will he find a crop?  Or just crumbs?  And yes, all of human history proves that, left to ourselves, we will ruin or pervert everything good gift that we receive;  and attack the very ground that holds us up.  So this is "good enough?"

I don’t know about thee; but I would not ever claim to be, “As good as you,” much less as good as Jesus.  I don’t even technically know enough to ever support that claim. I don’t know you the way God knows you, nor does anyone else. And since we are too subjective to know right from wrong or even know  when we are really being wronged, it will never ever be up to us to uproot the weeds from the wheat. God knows what He wants; He wants His Son; and for us to be more like Him than anyone else.

The hearts of us all ARE being revealed. RUR?

`TWAS A DARK AND RAINY NIGHT.

And so it is.  So after a wonderful nap and dinner with wife and dog, maybe I can catch up with my scattered thoughtz.

Here’s a new word: miscellanophobia.  I invite the reader to contribute.  Several possible meanings:

Fear of your junk drawer.

Fear of  seemingly random “to do “ lists.

It could also be a fear of apparent disorder, other’s people’s inscrutable and puzzling thought patterns, and perhaps a suspicion of  our whole culture which seems to be increasingly patchworked together even as it is ripping apart at the “seems!”  It reminds me of the wife of Odysseus, among other legends, who held off her suitors by promising to choose a new husband (hers missing and widely presumed dead) when she finished a garment—maybe a wedding dress. These must have been very dimwitted suitors since it took them years to catch on.  Or maybe they were too busy partying and dropping in on her house to do so.  At any rate, things did not turn out well for the suitors; and if we don’t learn a lesson from them, we , may end up  at the point of Odysseus’ (and son Telemachus’) arrows.

 

One could certainly claim that Americans have been too busy “amusing ourselves to death,” to hear the sound of ripping yarns!  I get frequent reminders of this when I go to the free clinic, where people’s profligate medical spending habits just don’t stop. So I pray that they will either change  their attitudes and expectations according to the new realities, or go find someone else to give in to their exorbitant demands. 

The state of Illinois has not helped by supporting a Cadillac Medicaid program that once paid even for Viagra (but only one per weekend). Now our beloved state has received one of the few downgrades given by Standard and Poor’s to represent a very risky environment for investments and businesses, because of a state that promised much, spent much, and did not plan for the future at all, much less a less prosperous one.

 

But though this is a dark and stormy night, it does accomplish God’s purposes in weaning us away from God substitutes which are never enough, doomed by entropy, and unable to provide any solace. Or even any happiness, not even that of a well-fed dog, who at least gets some joy in licking plates or gathering crumbs.

Dogs only worry if they are at the bottom of a pack. Or the beta dog.

I PRAY GOD’S ABSOLUTE AND PERMANENT BEST for anyone who may come across the above. The call is clearly to trust Jesus wholly, i.e. more and more, As the Real and HyperReal Person that He is and said He was. “The same yesterday, today, and forever.”  Or as my friend Dr. Bill Lane once said, “Everyone will disappoint you, except Jesus.

From one imperfect person to the others,

Goodnight Rain and thanks that the creek is rising again;)

 

THE INN GROUP? OR THE STABLE SINGERS?

Whereas:  Mark and Allison are flying to Burma today;

Whereas: They shall not be seen in this country x 1 year;

Whereas: …except on Skype…and

Whereas: They will be serving Jesus Christ every day…

There Fore  be it resolved:

That I, he who writes this, shall henceforth and beyond:

Fully cast in my lot with not only with Mark and Allison

But with Him Whom they are serving and will serve.

Also I am resolved that, when Christ returns

He will find at least some faith on the earth.

 

I have also fully realized that evil will pursue. God’s work is never without opposition owing to the rebel choices of men and angels.  It does not matter if one stays home and tries to live a quiet life—one cannot, and still follow Christ.  God will not allow it, nor will His miserable opponents.

The irony of course is that those who follow idols will live to see them destroyed before their very eyes—if only at the last moment.  That the silver and gold in which we invest will be left to others, who are statistically likely to abuse them even worse than we did.  Shoah shows that.  But if only in this life we have hope—we are “to be pitied more than all men.”  It means we invest everything in an account with negative returns. 

 

“Peace on earth to men Upon Whom His Favor Rests:”  We have a say in that, apparently.  Those who turned Mary and Joseph away all had opportunity to bring them into their own rooms and before their own private hearths, for warmth and protection.  Even the inn who accepted them, kept them out.  The son of God was born with the animals, already rejected of men.

Do we want to be “The Inn Group?”  Those too privileged, too much seeking personal honor, cleanliness, privacy, and the peace that comes from having one’s own home undisturbed by aliens?

The Heavenly Host wanted Him back—as soon as possible.  If He does not have a home in the domicile of our hearts, what use to build “ceiled houses” (Habbakuk) here? If we refuse Him, we also refuse His Holy Spirit, the worst fate we could ever choose. 

Mark and Allison are in the OUT BOX.  Let those of us who pray, pray for them without ceasing.

 

"Shine" -- "make 'em wish that they were not/on the out side lookin' bored..."

T'Shoah

Agnes S., Holocaust survivor, begins her talk today:

“I was very very lucky.”

And ends with:

“Don’t hate.”

 

To which I can only add, “Don’t be paranoid.” 

 While it is true that your own neighbors may turn you in under the right circumstances: under equally or more daunting circumstances, they may hide you as well.  And you may not owe your existence to luck, but to someone’s good will.  In fact, we already owe our lives to someone’s good will; from once upon a time

 to the present. 

 Whose good will?  That “will” vary, on one level; but on the other plane, it is just this:

“…from Everlasting to Everlasting.” 

Lest we forget.

WHY BOTHER? WHY SUCH A POTHER, POOH?

“Why do we bother, Fawlty?”  -the Major

“ I didn’t know you did…”  --Basil Fawlty/ John Cleese; originally a Cheese….under his baited breath…

 

“Questions no one asked me so I asked them myself.” –Walker Percy

No one has had the cheek to ask me why I blog.  “It’s an interesting question”—Satan, after vaporizing the minion who durst ask the question.(George Harrison’s “Time Bandits”)

I don’t think the answer is at all difficult. I enjoy writing.  That’s about it.

Is this “an attempt to communicate”?  Or is it just super-secular Jacques Monod averring that, “The brain secretes thoughts,” like any other gland of the body?  (If ‘twere, it would be a great excuse)

 

How about, “Because I care.”?  Well, that has to be partially true—it’s pretty hard, even with 2 large mugs of coffee, to write about that which is of no interest to me personally; even if it is a passionate subject for others; c.f. Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines…or worse  yet, The Economist. (It is a pretty consistent thing with me that when faced with the subject of finance/s , my eyes glaze over.)

I am not boasting here, these are just facts that apply to me—and I don’t claim any great capacity for self-knowledge either.  Hints that the Word of God and other people give me are the only things that keep me from being as isolated as Screwtape in his den with his nice “smoking jacket” on.

But is it wise to give in to mere compulsion? Expiating it with the idea that this is a forge for my identity and a way to work out my sins and troubles and obscure motives, etc.?

The Word of God, to which I claim to hew; has a completely different view from mine, as usual; it is impossible for a mere man to maintain, much less conform to, the divine perspective.

I may quote more from this later; these quotes are  from a devotion by Henry Morris, entitled, “Loquacity.”

“He that hath knowledge spareth his words; and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.”

-PV 17:27

“In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin; but he that refraineth his lips is wise.”-PV 10:19

“Study to be quiet and avoid foolish talking.”  -Paul

“…be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath,” for he says, “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of hell.”—James

“…let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven and thou upon the earth: therefore let thy words be few.” –Solomon

Of course it must be said that the advice Solomon gave, he only honored in the breach; and what he wrote to his sons, ie Proverbs, he did not follow, which led to a permanent division of Israel between the descendants of David and the 10 –out of 12- Northern tribes—because of careless reactionary words from Rehoboam, who learned more from his Dad by example, unfortunately, than from his many words.

It must be said, though, that much of the advice that we give, esp. the unsolicited type, is unconsciously given because of “too much information,” and perhaps not wanting our children to repeat our mistakes. But more of it is highly likely to be instantly adulterated yet unadulterated pride; uncontaminated by Christ.

All well and good, but it doesn’t work that way, which is why in the raising of our children I always deferred to the peaceable wisdom of my wife; and I thank God that even today my children are not usually interested in what I write.  And  I can also give thanks that eventually my journals—way too wordy but more meant for God and myself than for anyone else—will all bite the dust; just as will all my blogs be purged; if my multitude of words  don’t hang me first. God remembers… so I should pause, and shudder.

The question is always before me—should I continue, when one can be assured that the thoughts of our minds when exposed, will cause more of: “We all offend in many ways.”  Is a passion for record-keeping in place, outside of the medical record, or is it what Paul said in our marriage vows:  “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”  ---???

Not one of us is able to match up to our own standards, much less anyone’s else’s expectations, and surely God’s standards are continually ignored and forgotten because we can never keep up. Hypocrisy is therefore a universal sin, not peculiar to any “belief system”—a poor expression, surely: akin to the fashion magazine etiology of the neologism,  “lifestyle;” which trivializes the meaning of life to the level of a choice between chocolate or strawberry.

But if we are not content to let God manage the world, what then do we who “believe,” believe?

“To have lived is not enough…they have to talk about it.”—Waiting for Godot.

(Beckett gave up painting; but not writing! Yet the standard and the truth about us remains.)

 

 

 

 

 

Thurber Unchained

"It is no secret...

...what God can do/ what He’s done for others/He’ll do for you.”

Did it over occur to any of us that:

IF YOU TURN THE OTHER CHEEK, YOU HAVE TO LOOK IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION?

 

Now, while that’s sinking in, I have learned a great deal in the last few days.

There is no secret thing that will not be “published from the housetops.” --according to the only person Who would know. 

Next, it has been my suspicion for some time that, after 3000 page views and not much to show for it, that this blog needs to go into a different direction entirely.

Not to make it “popular,” God forbid; but to be less prideful and more conforming to Him Whom I claim is to be of Supreme Importance—because that’s the reality.

It was Jesus’ command, not suggestion, that a follower of His must not only turn the other cheek—no, there’s so much more

It has occurred to me in the middle of the night that in none of my previous  posts have I actually prayed for my readers, nor for anyone else.

“My house shall be called a House of Prayer.”

Note that while the politics of His time were even worse than ours, and  horrible cruciform injustices the rule rather than the exception, Jesus never favored one force over another.  Even when He said He came mainly for His people the Jews, He was easily intreated by a Gentile woman—several, in fact. He told the woman at the well that it was only important to worship “in Spirit and in Truth,” not whether they should go to Jerusalem or Samaria… and the “Good Samaritan” still is known in many disguises today.

So when it is pointed out that this blog has become too political,  those readers are probably right. But when I am I told I should not pray, I have only One to pray to, and it is up to the listener to decide, “Is it right to obey God, or man?”  So that’s that. (If anything it should be additional incentive to “civil disobedience,” a principle honored more in the breach of it than otherwise. )(What’s good for MLK is not for me--???)

 

Well, there I go again—this is not easy!  To us, who are so used to staking everything on our “group opinions.”  God, help me to:

“When life gives you opposition, make opposition-aid!”

When Jesus says to do good to those who oppose Him and His Father, He does not mean the lesser good of material “goods” unless the person is desperately needy and poor and has not enough of this world’s materials for life.  But for those who are well off, He means to give not things, but prayer. The Indisputably Greater Good, which is the trigger to the type of Love He means.

I think it safe to say that all of us who might read this already have too much of this world’s treasures-and most of us are sensible enough to know that we need to divest ourselves of much of it, even unto, “Sell what you  have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.  Then come and follow Me.”

How unreasonable and shocking! To give away “My Precious” as Gollum called it!  Yet “he is no fool who gives away what he cannot hope to keep,” anyway.

“What I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”   “Could you not watch with Me for one hour?” 

So let me end, and start with this: I have a note on my dashboard which I use for those who do me wrong --as I think at the time, anyway--on the highway, or more often for those who just irritate me; or both (see  recent blog on man in the headlights and my near-death experience) It says:

I PRAY GOD’S ABSOLUTE BEST FOR YOU.

So let that be my prayer for all my readers, past, present, and maybe!  And God grant me grace to follow Jesus more and more, and my own inclinations and negative feelings and critical spirits less and less, preferably not at all.

 

My thanks to those who have given me a wake up call about my  getting off the plane of Jesus and onto   the shaky ground of my own turtle-soapbox. I don’t think turning my tiny temple of the Holy Ghost into a “house of prayer” will be attractive to many, who find prayer either repulsive or annoying, but it extends the blog effect, I might say, well beyond the blogosphere.  Only what is received in Heaven—and most of it will still be in secret I hope and as Jesus also directs us into our prayer closet—is going to be of any importance in the long run.  After all, if the Holy Spirit does not change hearts, they will not be changed no matter what I say or do—because it was always between them-and-THEM, anyway.

 

Thurber Esque Esq.

Thanking / tanking with / Mr Thurber

 

There is no cartoonist I enjoy going back to quite so much as Thurber, maybe because his cartoons are not many, and the few that there are, can be relatively inscrutable, such as the one in which the boyfriend asks the girl, “What do you want to be inscrutable for, Marsha?”

 In that cartoon,all the very badly drawn furniture is outlined or filled in with black. But the truth is, women have very good reasons to try to be inscrutable; and to remain so.  And to have men remain as prosaic as possible, as we see in his other cartoons: “Yoo hoo it’s me and the Ape Man!”  These are all in The Thurber Carnival, and once appeared in TNY I think.  I would love to see all his cartoons in one book.  (Dennis?)

There is a new book of Flannery O’Connor’s linoleum-cut acidic-based cartoons for her high school and college papers.  When we visited Millidgeville one had to have special permission to view these, and we were the exception to see them even though we were not doing research. Had a nice day!

 

Thurber’s  captions come to me in odd moments, precisely as Thurber intended, for that is largely how his comic stories go—oddly.  There doesn’t seem to be  much room for this kind of gentle humor in today’s politicized world. Oddly enough.

It is also true that Mr. Thurber does not demonstrate that he gives God two thoughts in a row. Yet unlike many today, there isn’t really much of a touch of hostility towards God either.  This is a kind of Grace, I think, which used to come  very “normally” to people who, “enjoy a good laugh as much as anyone.”  Thurber was not merciless or judge-mental, as more and more of us are in USA today.  In that sense, he was a lot like Walt Kelly, who could be pretty cynical, critical, and even prophetic; but was not as harsh as is the rule today—from a more civilized day, one could say. So even his enemies had some human qualities that did not make them entirely detestable—unlike, say, “GI Joe.”

But to what do we owe such gentleness, and why is it so long gone?*

I would like to explore one possibility, triggered by the cartoon that came to mind today; in which a young woman is praying to God on her knees at bedtime-  a stock cartoon situation.  But she says, “….And Keep Me a Normal, Healthy, American Girl”  (capitalized with no period, as if it were the title of a book, I just noticed that.  Which helps us to understand that this is ironic, without the sledge hammer of insult-humor; which I would insist is not humor at all. Period!)

I wonder if Thurber knew how many layers of irony this simple-on the surface-gentle mockery of many of us, contains.  Example: What if the “prayer”—which like most of our prayers were not a petition but a demand—and went like so:

“…And Keep Me a Normal Healthy German Girl”

(And I know something about a German girl, and about being German too.)

That would be even  more startling in the 1950’s, when this cartoon hit the refined audience of NYC, “after za war.”

I think that this, while it may be a commentary on our spiritual life and our constant demands on life and/or God, is really more of a cultural commentary as such.  But perhaps Thurber did not think beyond that: to him, God appears to be irrelevant, a shadow figure at best, which people, himself included,  used on occasion when it suits them.  Even if only for comic relief; with God as the dimwitted sidekick.

Another irony is that most people are not like this girl: they don’t pray until they reach their particular foxhole, and they want to be particularly rescued. The funny-odd thing about this spoof is that it is a horrible example of what I would call, “Preventive Prayer.”  Except that this does not say, “Forgive me Father for I know not what I do”—a point of fact about all of us if there is any true fact on earth.  Her prayer is really saying is what folks generally say when one brings up God; “I’m good, thanks.”  In stark contrast to Jesus’ Socrates- style reply, “Why do you call Me good?”

The heart of the matter  is the girl’s de facto demand,

“Don’t change me.”

Give me my culture, or give me death.

 

Is’t  not so: that most of us are de facto materialists; and that what we are hoping for is not salvation or heaven but complete annihilation? A complete end to all our seemingly, and possibly  really,endless responsibilities seems very tempting from here!

I don’t know Thurber’s End—maybe he died laughing.    (remember the Python sketch on the Funniest Joke in the World?)     There are certainly those whose wish is to, “Leave ‘em laughin’ as you go."  That would make them a Normal Healthy American GI Joe, is’t no so?  But some cultures, perhaps because they are/were all about political theatre and entertainment values, are no laughing matter; and for all their strength and worldly successes, have become a veritable torrent of unmerciful acts.  

What is the heritage of Egypt? Rome? 20^th century Germany?  And of 21^st Century USA Today?

That we were “normal?” 


*answer later--how about yours?

 

 

 

FREE SAMSONITE LUGGAGE, WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Judges 14:

 

“ ‘Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father’s house to death.’”  (This is McFriendship with McWorld—“‘the hearts of many will be exposed—what is said now in secret will be shouted from the housetops.’”)

“ ‘ You hate me! You don’t really love me.’”

She may have been right, of course. Samson wasn’t known for his loving nature or a giving, grateful heart. But he was nonetheless used of God. And even his parents didn’t understand, though they had had 2 close encounters, not with a run of the mill angel but THE Angel;  Who also told them that they wouldn’t ‘get’ His Name, seeing as it is, “beyond understanding.”  So it would be an understatement to allege that none of the players on the Samsonite Stage had half a clue as to what was going on—

After God spoke, they still didn’t understand why their son appeared to be “one wild and crazy guy,” breaking his Nazrite vows with utter abandonment  of God’s Spoken Plan for his life—which I am sure Samson’s parents talked to him about—a LOT.  Samson is only one example—FO’C’s novels are full of failed and runaway prophets, such as Hazel Motes. 

Yet “God gives more Grace.”  He will use anyone and everyone at His discretion and times and places—not at random you may be sure.  As is said elsewhere—and the Scripture cannot be broken—He opposes the proud; using them “as is,” just as He used Judas, Caiphas, and Pilate; but then breaking them as surely as He broke Babylon; and  broke down the very Temples He had (semi-reluctantly?) authorized and specified to the nth cubit.

What can I say then? “If you are silent even the rocks will cry out,” “for such a time as this.” – Mordecai.   Esther had to basically go forth as one Jew against the Persian Empire—not playing by their pagan hunger game rules and hence laying her life down for her friends.  “If I perish, I perish.”  God will use great beauty as much as great strength to rescue his wayward ones, tho most of the time He doesn’t—Jesus was nothing to look at, not a body builder—but there are many prophets who perished, for every one that obeyed –reluctantly and with protest and good reasons—but after all, obeyed without their questions all being answered but proceeding  by faith, “for it is by grace you are saved by faith, not by works,” and beause of this, they were able to act God’s will in relative safety—“but not all” (See Hebrews 11)

“You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you by My Father.”

Just so. The  ultimate and apparent horrible miscarriage of Justice was entirely carried out by God’s Spirit, and Screwtape  was brought down to his lowest ever by “winning.”  So it is with  the world—they are never satisfied—“but even the little they think they have will be taken from them.”  It is incumbent on us and our choices/wills, which can be as inviolate as we want, to have what we think we want now; such as the approbation of men.

God’s call is the opposite: to resist the blandishments, the free luggage and the complimentary toaster oven and the Puce Stamps (Pogo’s), to join this ever –growing group.  And be subject to their vast displeasure.  Oh. Well. With my soul.

 

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT:

 

The divisions we have now are the same ones we have always had? Only that the broom of civility has been merely sweeping things under the rug so long,

That the carpet has exploded?

 

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT;

As one writer said, that we are just a weary old brontosaurus ready to topple over, no longer having the energy to deal with its slide into the jaws of the carrion-seekers? 

 

COULD IT EVEN BE THAT:

WE WILL GET TO THE POINT THAT WE HAVE RESPONDED NEGATIVELY TO SO MANY PERCEIVED SLIGHTS, THAT THERE IS NOTHING POSITIVE LEFT TO US; FOR US; OR OF US?

 

CALLING PEOPLE NAMES

“WHY DO YOU ASK MY NAME? IT IS BEYOND UNDERSTANDING.”

“The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.  It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”

“With our tongue we praise our LORD and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in His Likeness….my brothers, such things should not be so…no man can tame the tongue.”

The Jewish tradition of saying only G__D is lampooned in “The Holy Grail”, and of course we think it is funny because to try to do so is either unmanageable—how do you do “damage control?”—or else precludes discussing G__D at all; which most 21^st Century ethnic Jews are only too happy to do; and to follow their Gentile cousins in their paths of profanity.

“God Knows,” our tongues are all defiled enough.  Even if we don’t say it out loud, Jesus states that anyone who calls his brother a fool, even if only in his heart is “in danger of hellfire” (see above—from James.)

If I don’t confess to this, call me a liar. In fact, how can we help but lie, seeing as we are anything but disinterested parties, and know so very little?

“God Knew” that for any Name we are given in any tongue, whether that of God or a of a man, we are destined to mangle it, to idol-ize it (the ultimate mangle that makes no one clean), or to use it to curse God and man all in one breath.

(It amazes me when a person is perfectly willing to curse men with God’s names—using a God in whom they claim not to believe—and are offended by  far more trivial fare themselves. This suggests that the motive is to try to deliberately insult not only the Person but all persons who love and revere that Person. Of course most people are actually taught to say such things as a child and use it reflexively. But if we are post Christians and tolerant to a fault, why does this Name still have such power?  It seems Christ is “not dead yet!”)

When one claims to know everything that is pertinent; or even knowing the heart and soul of any given human individual, it is in the same category as  declaring we are humble,  and we really are confessing our ignorance/arrogance  for all to see. Christians are often accused of this—but actually a genuine Christ-follower has a profound respect for mystery and confesses to being unable to truly understand, much less gainsay, God.  God is just too big for the individual—much less any committee or posse - to understand.

 Nor do I  claim to  de-personalize  harmful ideas  very well. This blog is a Danger Mouse area wherein trivia may reign and anger may rule,  mixed up and confused with persons for whom Christ died, so that careless words be spread abroad; in this my critics are quite correct: “Danger Danger, Will Schuler!!!”

Yet as I have said many times, and as remains my ultimate goal, it is one thing to oppose the IDEAS of men; quite another to wish destruction or defilement on PERSONS, SOULS, AND SPIRITS; the like of which is condemned throughout the Bible.  It is thus that enemies of Israel could, on an individual basis, serve God even more than the then-current crop of ethnic tribal Hebrews.  Ruth was from Moab; Rahab a Canaanite prostitute; yet both women are highly honored and are in the genealogy of Christ. Of course that means nothing to McWorld, an ersatz entity with no soul, but to which the Screwtapeworms attach themselves every moment.

I feel sorry for us when we struggle over  greasy and stale “McNuggets” which we so quickly purchase from McWorld at infinitely inflated prices (Have ye ever found a pearl in a McMeal?) which have potential only to malnourish the eater.

It is said, or rather promised, that “Flo” and “Bill” will soon be no more. “That’s my name don’t wear it out.”( And may I add that many of my shoes will outlive me! Especially  my wedding shoes!)  There is however a “new name written down in Glory,” which no man knows, any more than  any man can know his time, much less know when He will return.  I do not confess, nor did Paul or John, to have a clear idea of what that means; only that it is all a part of the Promise that we do have a freely given opportunity to be changed, “Under New Management;” even if our name is Ray Kroc!

HOLD it!

“Not that I have already obtained all this

Or have already been made perfect,

But I press on to take    HOLD

Of that for which Christ took

HOLD

Of me. 

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken

HOLD

Of it.

But this one thing I do:

FORGETTING WHAT IS BEHIND

And straining toward what is ahead

I PRESS ON

Toward the goal to win the prize for which GOD

Has called me heavenward in

Christ Jesus.”

 

Wouldn’t you think that this would be wonderful news for “progressives,” inasmuch as it was the exact opposite of the Pharisee that Paul used to be?  Ah, but it is defined by the goal, not the process.

It is interesting that the Pharisees were the Populists of their day; and the Sadducees were the keepers of many traditions, even as they were in charge of keeping up the Temple;  unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees had no belief in the supernatural, like most Jews today, who are barely even cultural Jews for the most part.  One can tell no difference between a materialist Jew and a materialist Gentile. So in essence, the Sadducees were experts in undermining people like Simeon and Anna; but also very much using tradition to keep themselves in governance as a hereditary oligarchy who were, well, religious hegamoniacs.

As the counseling dictum goes, “People are usually what they say they are; or the exact opposite.”

Is is not ironic that the Jews of Jesus day who were considered most progressive, and the ones who compromised with Greece and Rome most completely, were in fact ferocious traditionalists bent on keeping the few privileges they had left?  But is it not the same now?

If it is true, that the more things change, the more they stay the same, this is quite understandable. People actually do still believe that they can

HOLD 

Onto their piece of the pie and not only eat it but make it bigger and stronger by rabid consumption—and I am not really talking about mere stuff here.  I am talking about the essence of one’s life.

Conservatives per se and Progressives per se actually worship at the same altar, even as the Sadducees and the Pharisees worshipped at Jerusalem together more than not; and governed in the same ineffectual way that our country is governed now. 

But note, “this one thing.” :

Neither party is ever going to FORGET WHAT IS BEHIND!!!

Indeed that is their/our  chief undoing, and why we progress only backwards, as Kerry Livegren once sang.

Grace and Forgiveness and even general maturity and not being constantly subject to a hail of emotions, are also conspicuously lacking, then and now and for the foreseeable future.

It is the goal of this blogger to divert my focus from what is disintegrating in front of my eyes, with all my “privileges” which are being taken from me—I must learn to rejoice in this and be free in this stripping, in actuality—in order to

TAKE HOLD

Of what Paul was striving for; yet even in this last epistle written from jail pending a painful execution for nothing more than proclaiming that Christ was what He said He was; the “patient” said he was not well but falling apart, apart from his will which was at least part way subsumed under Christ’s. And that before his will crumbled as well, it needed its maker most of all.

  Can I get much farther in life, towards my Loving Creator, than he did?

“I Can Only Imagine…”

 

 

 

Bi-se I Mo Shuil

Athair in Gach Rud
(Father in Everything)

They paint it black
then watch it burn....

So quick to fear
So slow to learn...


--Iona, "Everything Changes...in the wave of what's being done."

(2-letter transposition mine.) (to fit the present "wave')

Persons in the Headlights

1-15-13  pm

When I came up over a hill where our friend and renter John Sondgeroth has his cattle operation, I was suddenly faced  with  4 headlights bursting into view.  Things had been going well up to that point on my day off.  I had tried my feet at x-country skiing, and had actually  some time finally to enjoy my rounds at the hospital, as I am enjoying the slower pace in Paw Paw.

But when a foolish person and a sane person are coming at you simultaneously, and the lights on the right side of the road are coming at me at much higher rate of speed than the one on the safe side, that would be a time to be afraid, very very afraid, I’m afraid.

Strange to say,  I wasn’t.  Not at all.  I was, I think, about as prudent as I could be, given the fact that there was a semi—a third set of lights—right behind me.  I understand it’s kind of hard to stop these.

The runner up of all this is that I was partially run off the road and onto an icy and extremely narrow strip of gravel—I could hear the crunching of the frozen rain under my tires—and somehow we all survived a blatant breaking of the law—and maybe of some laws of physics.  The semi kept a good longer distance between him and myself the rest of the way home; maybe he thought I was at fault.

I swear I was not texting, reading, eating, or even listening to music—tho I would highly recommend Iona’s “An Irish Day” , before or after such encounters of a close call kind.

My reaction to this, moments later, was much the same as when I was driving by myself in Mobile downtown one Christmas and came up to a short hill and was stopped behind a fancy white SUV when suddenly the driver got out of the car and loudly proclaimed that I had bumped him and damaged his bumper, to which he was pointing in mock dismay.  He obviously wanted me to get out of the car.  When I didn’t (but I did lock my doors, very quickly) his front seat  passenger , a man about a third size again larger than his partner , bearing a very unpleasant expression, got out and started to come towards me.

It was at that point that I backed up our Camry and zoomed out on the access road looking for a place to get back to the interstate and get home. Our perp on the scene threw up his hands as if to say to the crowd (it was on the edge of a crowded mega-store parking lot) , See, this guy hit me and now he’s running away from the crime scene.  I think he hoped his next victim will understand this  better.

Since there was no crime other than the scam these ungentle giants were trying to unload on me, I didn’t feel too guilty—and I called the police since I figure this is how these guys make their living and are likely to keep doing this—because a lot of people would have been too intimidated to just leave and would have yielded to their “sweet deal” to accept some ready cash in order to avoid involving insurance—and the police.  I give them a “B” for boldness—but then again we have created such a mountainous structure of institutionalized injustice, their boldness isn’t really that striking—they weren’t risking all that much on their turf.  I, however, with my Illinois license and my Green Bay logo on the back, seemed like someone that might be an easy mark.  What they did not know is that I am a huge fan of the late Reggie White…

That was about 2 years ago; and I figure these guys are still parking lot trolls at large.  Our prisons are too full to cram in many more scammers.  But the point is that I suprised myself because I was not in fear at that time either.  I was angry—but not so angry I couldn’t think, and think fast enough to find a way out.  But if I would create such a scene in my head, I would break out in a diaphoresis.  One never knows how one will react in a real crisis until it is over.  I once read of a man who survived an airliner crash, one of the few. And he recalled vividly many voices crying out the name, “Jesus Christ” but only in the, well, angry fashion numbingly repeated on TV.  The man himself cried out, “Jesus!” but in the opposite sense. (I am not saying this is why he survived, mind you)

   I think I would prefer going down and being on a first-name basis…

 

But did I think fast and accurately?  Ironically, I when I was looking for old flashlight bulbs this morning I came across and old rusty button  which declares, “Thinkfastoolate.”  Let me here and now give credit 100% to the Holy Spirit and to God for being quite literally my Presence of mind.

 

It may be the subject of another blog, but I would like to challenge my readers to think deeply as to whether my anger in these two situations was justifiable.  It didn’t last long and no, I didn’t   say the epithets some people long to hear me say.   But would you, dear readers, have been angry, too?    Make it a Walker Percy conundrum if you like, as in his last self-help book. “What goes through your mind as rockets converge on the Parthenon…”

  Maybe you have been in such situations already—if so it would be interesting to hear;   although as I wrote earlier today, feelings are common enough, like angry birds; but Grace can only come from Above And is still easily entreated.

 But facts are few and hard for us to find in spite of our conspicuous, pious, and powerful  desires to "know" them,  better yet control them, and form a Monoply  Board of Directors with the  “factoid" house of cards we far prefer to reality.  This cuts in all "humanoid" directions, mind us...

 

 

 

 

JUST-SO STORES

50% of what you learn in medical school is wrong…

 

 

Yeah…but which half? (They don’t teach you that until 10 years later!)

 

This saying, which may be up to 50% true, is not just saying ½--but ½  of Sciencia false after only 10 years!  So after 30+ years, I am not left with much; except for the disturbing thought that, “Maybe we are going about this  entirely the wrong way.”

One must start with skepticism; and still come away with something from the store...

 

Most people, who don’t practice science, are far more sanguine about it than actual bench scientists, who know that even a shred of truth comes at an incredibly high cost, and will be called into question sooner or later, if for no other reason than to discredit you and glorify your ceaseless critics for their own uses.  The motives of scientists are no different than those of your average construction worker, only dressed up in obscure language. (see  “The Little Prince” re: the Turkish astronomer.)

(more on the uses of obscurantism in a later blog)

 

As I have said in these pages previously, “Science Proves:”-- not much.  But people are entranced  by   and in thrall to maj-ick and new toys and living as long as they possibly can even if they are quietly desperate and empty, day and night. 

For most Americans, their prosperity goals and materialism have become not just their de facto gods, but their publicly professed ones. It is now again fashionable to praise Darwin and make him into a God-substitute. In other words, the expansionism of scientism and evolutionism has brought back social Darwinism with a new poison dart of advanced technology and the overwhelming reliance on statistical analysis which unintentionally  renders medicine itself increasingly powerless to fulfill its promises.

Sanitation and immunizations are nothing  new –the Jews survived because of God’s health instructions—yet they are far and away the best thing that science can offer. Antibiotics are only a rearward defense. Preventive medicine has come back from Vitamin E, biotin, and antioxidants to whole foods and exercise, not crude megadosing of refined nutrients. But the propaganda science starts has a long shelf life in the health and vitamin section and the internet.  "Come, buy, ingest: 50% off!!!)

This is why science—based on the word for “to know”-- may be a misnomer—or represents only hubris and “sand blind” ambitions.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say we practice ”Cogito”—something like mental yoga—or “Cognitism,” which says “I think that…”  Sciencia implies that there are absolutes  and constants that can be progressively known, and modern science’s stumbling forays into metaphysics puts them out on a limb when they use publicity to utter the unprovable, say, that Darwinism is a fact—when even statistically and mathematically it is anything but.  This also puts science in the unenviable position of being increasingly political.  And being, first and last, “polity-driven.”

If it is not well known, it should be, and five minutes of lucid and unprejudiced thought (if there is such a thing) will demonstrate in practical fashion that science as god is only a few inches from virtual and practical nihilism and self-annihilation—and leans ever more towards becoming mere opinion, here today and subsumed tomorrow ,with lots of costly publicity, all down the same drain.

In other words, those whose god is science think it is the top dog; but if that is so, even in name only, then we plainly see that the tail of culture is wagging and commanding what is left of science in a post-Christian and now post-Enlightenment human global environment.  “Nihilism is the air we breathe.”  One cannot derive science from Sartre—but Sartre can, and did, grossly misuse science; or rather, assumed it was on his side. Seriously.

There is nothing to suggest that the human and esp. the male inclination toward competition is an avenue to truth. Through all human history it has mostly been quite the opposite, more of a means of suppressing the truth for the sake of narrow self-interest; if no more than to activate the popular hunger game of “the tearing of the flesh”, sarx into the mills of sarcasm. If it stumbles into  truth, it first stumbles over many corpses; and like mutations, it is unlikely to do any good much less advance; if it’s all by chance, as we are preached to  day and night.

If science has no origins above and beyond the seas of humanity, it is the more to  be pitied, then—but I would not waste either pity or love or something that is a mere concept at best, with diminishing returns if it is not a slave; and which will be thrown out when no longer of any practical use. Being a poster boy for atheism is pretty precarious—your job and your existence is always on the line. 

On the other hand, if we desert the Sadducean camp, there are dangers galore also.  Equal and opposite reaction is no bargain or guarantee. Many people believe in “God” but do not tremble—fallen angels have more sense—“the demons believe, and tremble.” "The fear of man is a snare."

Again and again- if persons—actual souls—put themselves in bondage to their excretions (see Monod)/abstractions of thought alone, then one ends up in the pig’s wallow. (Thoughts left to themselves have a short half-life).  And many purport this to be their delight!

("Government is a soft pig," indeed!) 

If "science" is to be again useful for more than toy design, it will have to get real, realize it is next to nothing and did not create itself, and owes any integrity it has to Someone--a person not a concept-- far above it in scale, and unapproachable by the bootstraps or  petards of “science so-called.”  Maybe it could start by calling itself something less ambitious—and avoid the crowds  of  publicity-seeking absolutists with no access to the Absolute.

 

"Summa" ergo cogito.