A Journal: Chapter 14 (Part 2)

November24, 1999  **********************************

. . . . . Well, I tried to read chapter 14 when I realized I hadn't posted it yet, and I may be wrong but I don't think I touched upon the main point I wished to make when I started that chapter, so let me rectify the situation or repeat myself, whichever is the case.

. . . . . Consider Paul's pronouncement "Behold, I shew you a mystery!(1 Co 15:51 [Behold, I shew you a mystery! We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed.])" (He who has ears, let him hear. [See A Brief Bible Study for a study of Jesus' repeated use of Isaiah's stern warning to the believers.]) When one accepts mystery as a fact of life, angels walking the earth as people is easier to accept. When one accepts angels as a fact of life, one naturally will consider at some point (if sufficient consideration is given) that everyone except you is an angel. Now one can feel responsibility, and humility. For twenty years I've been thinking that America has a higher percentage of sentient beings than any country in the world. Nothing has changed my mind really. Think about it. We can't know, but we can speculate.

. . . . . With the World Trade Organization fiasco happening now in Seattle, I heard one of spokespersons' for a protest group say that ninety-six percent of the population of the world outside of Amerika cannot afford to buy Amerikan products. The sad truth probably is that that most of that population can't afford Amerikan products produced by them in their kountry. Kind of skimmed through James getting to my daily Bible reading today. Recommended reading.

. . . . . Let me put another image up for folks to buy <smile> by making a donation to www.heifer.org :

. . . . . This verse has really just kind of clicked with me for a long time. Imagine that, anybody who knows me. Or thinks they do. I would imagine an agent for my art would encourage me not to try and market this image. "Don't remind me of my failures," Gregg Allman sings. Still, because of my life as I perceive it, I would prefer to remind people of the past to avoid a similar mistake in the present/future.

July 15, 2000  ***************************

 . . . . Yeah, I'm still alive. Still hoping I've done everything I'm supposed to have done. Still dreaming that mankind might get it together, share the vineyard/garden/earth and show God when He returns that He can take us all home with Him, that He doesn't have to come with the rod and fire and take vengeance for all His oppressed people.

. . . . . The reason I'm making another entry is pretty simple__something happened. Just a small thing, no big deal, coincidence you might call it__but something is telling me to put it on el web, so here it is:

. . . . . I have/had just about quit doing the Zen Bible thing, where I open any copy randomly hoping I'll learn something or be blessed or corrected or whatever. Anyway, the other day I opened my computer Bible (Parsons QuickVerse [still]) to this place:

. . . . . Yeah, I know, 'So what?'. Right? I agree, it's kind of a beautiful passage of scripture and a blessing to read, but no big deal. I agree, but then that afternoon I scrolled down to read the second scripture from the C.H. Spurgeon Morning & Evening devotional mailing list to which I subscribe and here's what I saw:

"When I cry unto Thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for
God is for me."         --Psalm 56:9

. . . . . I said to myself, that's really familiar, what'sup with that? Then I remembered. And I wanted to share that with any and all. (Also let me remind careful readers that I've mentioned [i think] about Spurgeon almost always using only part of a verse for that book's intros; quite unusual for him to use a whole verse as he does here.)

"Nothing really matters much; it's doom alone that counts." -Bob Dylan

December 29, 2000  ******************************

. . . . . Watched this guy name of Mac Hammond this morning. He started off by saying that we are capable of convincing ourselves that anything is the will of God. Which, of course, is what I've been saying too. Psalms 131 was the basis of Mac's talk. He said that verse 2, "My soul is even as a weaned child", should be our focus. Anything that produces agitation is something the mind (which, with the will and emotions make up the soul) needs to be weaned from is Mac's contention. This "doesn't mean you don't properly address intellectually" those things which trouble you Mac said. It's just that problem-solving is different from dwelling on things.

. . . . . What Mac doesn't say but probably if you asked him and you filtered out the waffling would say is that to intellectually address things which trouble you mostly means finding out what well-respected (don't follow God's lead in not respecting persons you know) intellectuals contend and accepting those contentions whether you understand them or not. (See A Sermon: There Is No Santa Claus for an[other] authority's confirmation of this contention.) Told somebody on a newsgroup just the other day that I don't pay attention to who is saying anything, but rather to what they say. Later I thought for some reason about the validity of this as a concept, especially given Jesus' statement (in Matthew 11:25 and Luke 10:21 "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes").

. . . . . Of course I'm gonna have to put in my two cents here and say verse 1 ("LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.") doesn't necessarily convey the correct instruction: it's not that we shouldn't concern ourselves in great matters (like God's thoughts, huh? even though we know that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him we're supposed to not consider such things because that would be haughty on our part?) but that we should not despair about them. Seeing that all human beings get say one good meal a day and shelter in which to rest that night just isn't feasible? Doesn't mean it shouldn't be our number one priority every day? I mean, loving our neighbors as ourselves is second in importance only to loving God so much that children hardly matter in comparison, right? So when enough people realize this (just count as fools those who don't profess to believe in God) everybody will get a good meal every day and have a place to sleep at night.

. . . . . Mac interestingly asked his (rather large) audience who the God of this world is and got a resounding "Satan!" in response. Yeah, that's right! And another way to phrase it is to say "Ordinary mind!"

. . . . . Kind of got called on an earlier posting (here) putting down the notion of personal integrity. Actually I suppose I might better have addressed "intellectual honesty", a concept nowhere more widely ignored i think it safe to say than in the Christian community. Jesus continually indicated this was the case with the Israelites who at the time were, let us not forget, the chosen people of God, yet Jesus time and again said things are not as they seem. Let those who have eyes and ears see and hear, ya know. (See A Brief Bible Study.) Strait and narrow is the way. Actually when you look at the big picture it seems clear to me that the Amerikan system is mostly governed (and legal matters decided) by people professing to be Christians, not to down-play the extent to which we consider ourselves a Judeo-Christian nation. Generally speaking, most people take a common-sense approach to life, regardless of their nationality; certainly that seems true in the good ol' U S of A. People pride themselves on not exercising themselves on things too high or great, and are mostly quite happy for the priests and preachers to have the final say in matters regarding God and any matters which might be troublesome, ala Mac's talk.

. . . . . Almost forgot about my success this year with hurricanes. I need to go back and find where I mentioned my discovery of the power God apparently has granted me and my ability to use this power to kind of control hurricanes. It's kind of complicated (remember "attention is energy"), but i decided last year to ask God to keep hurricanes away from the United States. (I made a claim somewhere a year ago, and the unbelief was strong enough that we had a major hurricane in the middle of November ['99], quite unusual ya know.) I spent a good bit of time this summer praying and suppose the only thing which might lend some credence to my claim would be the way Gordon made it almost to the coast of Florida and lost power (rather inexplicably if you haven't talked to me about it) and was downgraded to a tropical storm before it went ashore. Actually I think there were quite a few people surprised that no hurricanes came ashore on the U.S. last year. And let me hasten to assure those who might wonder that I realize the large role played by hurricanes in removing heat from the oceans of the world and wouldn't dream of asking God to stamp out hurricanes period.

. . . . . I suppose it would be quite remiss at this point for me to not address the matter of reality. (What a concept, huh?) "If the doors of our perception were cleansed, we should see things as they are: infinite." I think it was William Blake who said something like that. "For now we see through a glass, darkly," Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12. Now that I think about it, this needs to go in this sermon I'm working on, the title might be "There Is No Santa Claus", i forget. But hey, I'll put it both places. It's not like anybody's gonna read it huh? Okay, it's like a lot of people seem to believe in the end times referred to so often in the Bible. But it's also like they don't think they're gonna happen any time soon ya know? And then there are the people who think we are in the end times. People can't seem to agree on anything. Especially about what's important.

. . . . . So it ain't like I've heard from God lately except in the whisper of the wind in the pines and the sad song of the whippoorwill on a country road. But I must I suppose claim that I am closer to Him than anybody alive today. And I've certainly longed to know His thoughts and His ways (Isaiah 55:8-9), and worked and studied to know them, to say nothing of all the weird signs that seem to follow me around. That's probably why I seem so sure about some of my interpretations of the Bible I suppose. And, conversely kind of, why other people, like preachers especially and students of theology and such, seem to think that they know stuff. Sure, they've studied hard some of them, and some of them are real bright. But I must maintain that these guys basically are sold out to ordinary mind (see Romans 12:2), conventional wisdom (see 1 Corinthians 3:19), the doctrine of men (see Matthew 15:8-9) if you will.

. . . . . And yeah, maybe I even wanna claim to be without blame, because God knows how much negative energy has been directed my way. A Sunday School Lesson, or one of them, talks about how heavy "blameless" is. 

. . . . . At any rate, I bought a new Bible not too long ago, one that contains the Apocrypha, but not only because of that, a different translation actually and my computer Bibles are okay but I like books sometimes. Anyway, I was doing my Zen thing the other day and landed in the Wisdom of Solomon and chapter 5's "The Final Judgment" caught my eye and I read "creation will join with (God) to fight against [His] frenzied foes." (I suppose I should reference Matthew 13:49 here: "So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,".) I say Lao Tsu had it right when he said (something like) "Love the world as your own self, then you can truly care for all things." Like, a starting place toward loving thy neighbor as thyself.

. . . . . Anyway, while I'm thinking about it, as I am apt to do I started reading backwards from where I started and soon found myself at chapter 4 verse 7: "But the righteous, though they die early, will be at rest." Just wanted to let y'all know, just in case. I mean, you don't have to worry about me starting something, not unless God tells me to anyway, (2021 note:  did you read my post about the games i played with myself and the voice i heard) but there are some real weird types around and I mention that to like cover another base. Speaking of bases, if we take as a basis for importance the simple matter of truth, we might find a book or books of the Apocrypha more important than a book or books of Paul.

. . . . . But end times . . . I'm like serious as a heart attack with my angel talk, and maybe angels are just like part of God (and there really are dark angels too huh?, with dollar signs for pupils), and there really are no separate things.

. . . . . And you know, that's the funny thing about this business: although the church crowd pretty much has all the t's crossed and i's dotted, when you look at the big picture there are little bits of the puzzle they've put together that really don't make sense. (That's where they say, you gotta have faith, or God works in mysterious ways, or such.) And when you get right down to it, the message I've been trying to propogate here (and in my life too i like to think) really does have not only (to me anyway) the ring of truth, but also a logical foundation. Pretty wild huh?

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