A Journal: Chapter 15

January 26, 2001  *****************************

. . . . . Well i picked up my Companion Bible this morning and prayerfully opened it, asking God to speak to me, and opened it to Ezekiel 3:27: "...and thou shalt speak to them, Thus sayeth the Lord God; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house."

. . . . . Very interesting I think. 'Rebellious house' has a note to check verse 9, so i do, and it says "See note on 2.5" so i go there and the note says

"whether they will hear, or . . . forbear. The latter is evidently assumed, and to be expected; as in 2 Tim. 4.3. But no alternative is given. 'My words' correspond with 'preach the word' (2 Tim. 4.3). forbear=abstain, or refuse to hear. a rebellious house. Heb. a house of rebellion. . . The Verb occurs forty-three times in O.T. The Noun occurs sixteen times in Ezekiel . . ."

(That's exactly how the note is written except following 'house of rebellion'; there are a lot of references there and also following 'in Ezekiel' mainly. [Let me add two things, hopefully because God is telling me to: one of the bookmarks in my The Companion Bible is and has been for years on the two pages which cover Ezekiel 2:3 to 3:27; also, Ezekiel 2:5 (where the above note came from) reads in its entirety: "And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them."(emphasis mine)])

. . . . . So i go to 2 Timothy 4:3 and copy verse 4 too: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."

. . . . . Very interesting I think. This kind of ties so perfectly in with what i (was told to[?]) put in my sermon (here and here) it is rather uncanny. By the way: does Paul's "heap to themselves teachers" remind anyone else of Isaiah's "the priests bear rule...and my people love to have it so", i mean really; check out Paul's "strong delusions" too, of the famous 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2. I (re-)read that chapter with particular interest because of the referencing of the anti-Christ, which, yeah, I know, some people think I am. (See here for my response.) And like I told my doctor when he asked me if I think I'm the anti-Christ, Jesus like cautions us to pray that the light that is in us is not darkess, (and also warns that "all who call me Lord..." won't be recognized on Judgment Day).

. . ... . The light/dark reference is in Matthew 6 and Luke 11 of course, and says that "if therefore thine eye be single" you are full of light, leading me to state that God's doctrine might be that if we are double-minded, if we do (or have done) a lot of rationalizing about our lifestyle, say, then we might be proponents of darkness. Tim LaHaye, say, could be a ravening wolf in sheep's clothing (though of course my fervent prayer is that i am wrong about all of this ['cause if i'm not it appears likely there will be bad trouble in River City as the song might go. And I picked Tim because I just posted a commentary plus here about a sermon of his from January 20, 2001.]).

. . . . . I suppose I could put in an "evil eye" ramble here, since i have no doubt whatsoever that there are people who have judged me to have one (and refused to "break bread" with me, though they doubtless were/are not judgmental, anal types with closed, literal minds). And not to be judgmental ("I judge no man, yet if I do, my judgement is true" Jesus said) or literal, I've seen too many people thinking (yeah, i can almost see thoughts a lot) about me being somebody they could take advantage of to not know what one type of evil eye is for real. (And for anybody who's wondering, I learned a long time ago not to react to those thoughts, just to store them away for future consideration.)

. . . . . (When I said "signs and wonders" in my sermon i think i mostly meant stuff that could/should make people think. Reason. Like "a reason to believe." Tim LaHaye talked about church doctrine giving people reasons to believe. [i put his "sermon" here.] i think i started this 'signs & wonders' [editorial] digression for a reason, but i'm tired out; maybe i'll get back to it. [maybe because i had just read about Satan deceiving with "power and signs and wonders"? later: maybe that was it; anyway (no, it was to put a link to this example here], now I'm thinking about posting some of the things i've seen, like an infant's dislocated shoulder [or collar bone] miraculously [maybe] healing, cataracts disappearing from a horse's eye, irises growing like the devil was chasing them, mostly like i said what i would call signs and wonders.])

. . . . . Just by the way: I went to 2 Timothy in my Quickverse; when i just turned there in my companion Bible I (stupidly [?]) went to verse 3:4 (by mistake [?]) and read verse 5 too: okay, i did the "previous chapter" command and read verse 5: "But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." and then saw that i was still in chapter 4 (haven't used those chapter commands a lot). Anyway, here's 3:4-5: "Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." (There are people who profess to be Christians who "believe" that the age of miracles is past. They also "believe" their doctine to be God's doctrine.)

. . . . . I just noticed that chapter 3 starts off with the warning about what will occur in the "end times". Far indeed from the first time i've wondered about this. Wonder again now about other people.

. . . . . Well, anyway, I've turned away from organized religion. More like run off. (not me running off but being run off ; perhaps most truthfully being glad to leave.) Probably the "doubtful disputations" clause in The Contract was what caused those (would-be) Christians to send such bad vibes (or evil eyes). (Romans 14:1: "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." [Interestingly 'doubtful' only turned up twice in the Bible when i searched in Quickverse; the other occurrence is Luke 12:29: "And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind." (I just went back [it's later now] and read verse 33 [which is also featured here] which says: "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth." [A lot of this discourse is right out of the Sermon on the Mount, though not attributed to it; don't have much doubt what church (i.e., man's doctrine) has to say about this. Check it out, y'all. Let's do like Thoreau, and try to drive life into a corner and discover the truth, then publish that truth to the world.])

. . . . . "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." That's 2 Timothy 3:7. That's also i'm afraid just about every sentient being.

February 2, 2001  ****************************

. . . . . Well, I can't seem to put this web site down. Let me put in a little Bible study I did the other day. Opened my new NRSV to Daniel 7 and read verse 9: "...an Ancient One took his throne. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. .. I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven...and was presented to the Ancient One." Reminded me of my notes on angels (here) and also my worries that I have been different people at the same place at the same time (like the mount of transfiguration bit here*) and in particular the fact that much of my astral projecting (?) has been while surrounded by books.

. . . . . Okay, that was enough Daniel for me, and one of my focuses, like I think I mentioned, is going to be the Apocrypha. (I haven't been doing much lately. Sorry.) Anyway, I opened to Tobit and started reading; in 2:6 I found: "Then I remembered the prophecy of Amos...'Your festivals shall be turned to mourning, and all your songs into lamentation.' And I wept." (a digression: I put on volume two of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" for the first time since maybe '97 and when it got to the song about no hungry children at the turn, the turn of the century I broke down and wept just like i did in '97, only the first time it was me going "Please God let it be so beautiful" and the other day it was because it hadn't happened.)

. . . . . That was Amos 8:10. Verse 9 says "On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight." (another digression: I wrote that down on the notes I made, but don't have any idea why.)

. . . . . Tobit 4:7 says "give alms from your possessions and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. For almsgiving delivers from death and keeps you from going into the Darkness." Then verse 16 says, "...Give all your surplus as alms, and do not let your eye begrudge your giving of alms.(emphasis mine)" (See here for one thing Jesus said about possessions.)

. . . . . Tobit 5 is a lengthy story revolving around an angel who takes the form of a man, and only at the end of the story reveals he is an angel of God. The story obviously (to me) is myth with moral. We would do well to conduct all our affairs with others as though the others are angels. It also shows (to me anyway) why the Apocrypha (which means "hidden", as in "meaning is hidden" an Episcopal priest told me when I asked him why the service included scripture from Ecclesiasticus[sp?]) was removed from the Canon of the church: the church needed to move from mythos to logos and some of the books of scripture made this virtually impossible to do. I.e., for the scriptures to be inerrant, some of them needed to be taken out.

February 5, 2001  **************************

. . . . . In Los Gusanos, a great novel i found remaindered, John Sayles writes, "

. . . . . "Y si no les gusta"__they would laugh__"siempre ha mas haitianos."
. . . . . There were, in fact, always more Haitians if you needed them. They were the curse the Dominican cutters toiled under, living proof of someone hungrier, more desperate, willing to work harder for less pay."
Then, a page later he writes "To bring people to God," he said, "first you have to bring them to each other."

. . . . . And no, I have no idea what the Spanish means; can't actually keep up with characters like I think i've said before, and other languages, no, i don't have them. 

February 6, 2001  **************************

. . . . . How about this poem by Richard Wilbur? Could the last line be symbolic of a great truth about mankind? (see here for my connection to this oak tree; also check out Isaiah 1:30[ ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth . . .])

Advice to a Prophet 
Richard Wilbur

When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,

Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.

Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.
How should we dream of this place without us?--
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,
A stone look on the stone's face?

Speak of the world's own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,
How the view alters.  We could believe,

If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip

On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling.  What should we be without
The dolphin's arc, the dove's return, 

These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken

In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.

Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long standing
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.

From Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems by Richard Wilbur, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Copyright © 1961 by Richard Wilbur.

. . . . . It might have been God (and hey, i know what i've said here about attention, and believe it's the truth, but even if it was the attention of others who changed Hurricane Gordon to a tropical storm just before it hit Florida last year [like i mentioned here], i was instrumental in this matter and i did it for God, hence I was God's Instrument in the matter) and it might have been God who led me to Isaiah this morning. I just mentioned the famous "let us reason together" line, maybe in my sermon, and read today in my Companion Bible, that it means like "let us put an end to the matter". Ain't that wild. Of course, that's what I'm saying: if you're a reasonable human being you will agree to feed and shelter every body. If enough people agree it's the number one priority to day, it will happen. Period.

. . . . . "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" made me think of people reading about me running off from organized religion and it struck me that my reasonings are in fact resistance to the ordinary mind which i maintain is the devil, so my resisting the devil of man's doctrine resulted in advocates of said doctrine fleeing from me in spirit and in truth.

. . . . . several times over the past week maybe i've thought about my testimony earlier in my journal about Jesus being back among us and being (i think i said) "black and angry". Well, really it wasn't too much different then than now. I know I was being mightily buffeted by the winds of ordinary mind, forsaken but not forlorn like, and my understanding had led me to a God of Judgment, who might have led me (like i said earlier) to Isaiah that day, where I read (again) that verse that so resounded of truth to me that I posted it here: "For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." (That "this" includes people calling evil good [free enterprise?] and good evil [me?], that put darkness for light [man's doctrine for God's?] and light for darkness [my exhortations?].)

. . . . . but back a little bit, to Isaiah 1, where 'to reason together' is to 'put an end to the matter' (simply because the truth is so obvious to one who sees it ya know, like it's easy for me to see God's truths and it's easy for a lot of people to see man's doctrine as God's truths). That's verse 18, by the way. Verse 17 says "Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." The note in my Companion Bible says this verse is "for all kinds of helpless and bereaved persons." Period. Well, don't know about you, but that's the way I've been reading it for years and years.

. . . . . A little big picture: Much of chapter 1 is a rage against not the wickedness of man but the wickedness of the church, i.e., it is a rage against man's doctrine. Then we read verse 19, right after "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool", verse 19 says "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land." (I just talked about obedience and sacrifice somehere; mercy and sacrifice too.) Then verse 20 says "But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." Now it just isn't really clear to me if "the sword" is wielded by God or man or angels, but I gotta say that "ye shall eat the good of the land" probably is not about like material food but rather light as opposed to darkness, even heaven as opposed to hell.

. . . . . An aside: I don't really like creflo dollar's preaching because he and tammy focus so much on the abundant material life which they maintain God annoints believers with when they figure things out, which it happens creflo can help you do with four tapes for twenty bucks or four videos for maybe seventy-two bucks. (Yeah, it isn't God's doctrine they're pushing, but man's.) Anyway, I made a couple of notes the other day when I watched that show (with a continuing to grow sense of disgust but I'm praying for a miracle, dig?) and creflo talked about Mary telling the servants at the wedding feast to do whatever Jesus said (right before He turned the water into wine). The servants were obedient, creflo observed. He talked a minute, then he said rather loudly "partial obedience is . . ." and the audience said (i think) loudly "not obedience"; a minute later creflo said "delayed obedience is . . ." and the audience said (i'm sure) loudly "disobedience".

. . . . . At any rate, that proverbial sword crops up proverbially in chapter two verse17 ("And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.") and verse 19 (". . . they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth."). Perhaps it is worthy of note that verse 18 says "And the idols He shall utterly abolish." What this makes me think of is Jesus saying "You cannot serve God and money." It's double-minded and hypocritical and, yes, paradoxical. ("The truth is often paradoxical," Lao Tsu wrote.)

. . . . . I mean, it's impossible to not serve money, huh? But this reminds me of the great sermon the preacher preached titled "Be Ye Therefore Perfect" (straight out of the Bible; that verse ends "even as your Father in heaven is perfect."). I mean, he really got down on ordinary mind, again and again. I'm sure there were a lot of people in the congregation uncomfortable with what he was saying. Then, as he was wrapping up, he mentioned, almost casually, "Of course, what we practice is 'relative perfection'." He destroyed a great sermon in a sentence.

. . . . . Listened to First baptist church in Hattiesburg today; they sang "It Is Well With My Soul" which I thought/think is an interesting counterpoint to God's harsh "Shall not My Soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" Psalms 36:1 says (in the New Revised Standard Version): "Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes." Combine this with "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" and I think we as a people have cause for concern. I'm willing to do something about it. "You gotta serve somebody."

. . . . . Looking back over this i see that i didn't really make a point that i intended to at least try and make: I realize that it could have been me identifying with that man's anger which led me to such a radical supposition. But let me hasten to add that I also recognize that his anger was a righteous anger, and the anger that I know I have aroused in more than a few people definitely is not. And maybe I should mention that it is a lot of little things before and after that meeting that led me to the conclusion I made, one I am not renouncing, just admiting that it was possibly a premature pronouncement. (Which almost compells me to mention that the reason Jesus said that about anybody speaking against the Holy Ghost wouldn't be forgiven them [see Matthew 12:31-32 and Luke 12:10], one of my great fears is that it was/is me to whom He/he referred.)

February 18  *****************************

. . . . . Watched a good bit of a sermon today which focused on Luke 16:19-31, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16:19-21 says "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores." The guy preaching said that (current man's doctrine says that) we know this "rich man" was full of ego because his wearing purple clothing "was like me wearing a tuxedo seven days a week". He was vain and pretentious we're supposed to believe, and those are the folks this parable is aimed at.

. . . . Now not to be judgmental you know, because maybe I don't fast like God would like me to (seven days is the most on water for me, and thirty days is the longest on liquids [which people (correctly) call a "semi-fast]), but I don't think the guy preaching has skipped a lot of meals lately, to pray and fast and try to rid himself of ordinary mind like Jesus said in Matthew 17:21 ("And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.") and Mark 9:29 and it strikes me as incredible that we hear no discussion on how this rich man "fared sumptuously every day". My thinking, no, my inspiration is that this is because it's simply too close to home, too close to Paul's admonitions about worshiping yourself (in Philippians 3:19 ["Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things."] and Romans 16:18 ["For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple."].) Yeah, that's just too close to home for your average ameriKan, huh?

. . . . I mean, if I announced that people who mostly wear suits to work and don't much check prices at the grocery store (to say nothing of eating out, ya know; talk about sumptuous fare) are precisely the people Jesus referred to in these red words, probably a lot of people who fit that category or come close to it would automatically out-of-hand deny it. Period. Not true. Not me. (And it is all about me remember.)

. . . . Anyway, that was the gist of it. Look at Luke 16:25-26: "Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." (I did it in red 'cause it's Jesus talking remember.) Here are a couple of verses to focus on, and I'd like to focus on two facts: the good things and the evil things were not thoughts or feelings but material things. I was at a chain store a few months ago I guess, and this woman and I noticed how many items of clothing were being made overseas and the woman whined about all the jobs leaving the country and I observed that it was still ameriKa that was buying all the stuff. Again I must wonder at what percentage (first, remember that six percent of the world's population controls fifty percent of the world's wealth [and i would guess 90 percent of that six percent is ameriKan]; also note that every 3.6 seconds someone dies of a hunger-related problem; add it up, you get evil[ "The way of heaven is to take from those who have too much, and give to those who do not have enough," Lao Tsu wrote. "Man's way is different."].), yeah, again I must wonder at what percentage of the world's sentient beings reside in ameriKa or can claim ameriKan citizenship.

. . . . Wordy, wordy. "More words count less," the Tao tells us. "Hold fast to the center." (But how about Jesus' talk of the "great gulf" between the living and the dead? How about my speculations on how the way is not only strait and narrow, but long and winding, [at least for the majority(?)]? What do you think, dear reader, not about the possibly shrinking ameriKan middle class, but the monstrous gulf between the haves [ameriKans and euroPeons for the most part; the wealthy Klasses elsewhere] and the have-nots [surely the world's majority huh?  (2014 note: i haven't read much of this before putting it up; must add that the have-nots include people with vehicles; yeah, the bottom fifty percent control something like 5% of the wealth; 2021 note: just read last year that eight people in ameriKa have as much wealth as the bottom 50%)]?)

. . . . Just found Proverb 10:15, which says "The rich man's wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty." My note now says 'Very worldly proverb. "Destruction" better translated "consternation". Parable of Lazarus might need this proverb for completion, showing how transient riches (and indeed life) are.

February 20  *******************************

. . . . Well, i don't remember if it was yesterday or Sunday when the news came out about the two hundred experts' report on global warming, but regardless I feel compelled to mention it. I mean, the snows on Kilamanjaro melting in a decade maybe is enough, I would think, to give anyone pause, but these eminent scientists are saying that north ameriKa and euroPe are the only continents which will be able to adapt to these changes.

. . . . I know Stephen Gaskins said that prophets of doom should stay home (because they provoke more attention, which Stephen pointed out to me is energy), but seriously we are talking about man (and woman)kind. Will we turn our backs on humanity? If history is a guage, then yes, in a heartbeat. We have, after all, been collectively turning our backs more and more (by drawing more and more lines, huh?) the more our communication's technology advances.

March 3  ****************************************

. . . . Happened upon (well, actually God directed me there, but I can't prove it) Dueteronomy 18:13, which says "Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God." My Companion Bible says perfect is "devoted, or single-hearted". I say "Yeah!" Single-hearted, like one-eyed, the single eye of Matthew 6:22 and Luke 11:34! Not mature, not devoted, but perfect!

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