A Journal: Chapter 4

February 3, 1998      *********************************************************************

. . . . . Back again. "How do you sleep at night?" John Lennon asked. I sleep okay, but I do seem to pick up psychic jabs a little early in the morning sometimes. Of course, the question was directed at the conformists of the world, and that's one thing of which I will not be accused.

. . . . . I decided to put at least one more entry (obviously) along the lines of religion. (I suppose my emphases these days are on religion and politics; does anyone doubt how little attention I pay to the adage about not referencing these two topics if [how does it go?] you wish to win friends and influence people? And the truth of the matter is that I'm close to giving up on both traditional religion and traditional politics. Maybe I'll give up on the traditional news media as well. A digression: The New York Times [I continue to use a deferential attitude which might not be deserved in general, and I know is not deserved in some particulars. By this I mean I've included the word "the" in the title of the two newspapers I know I've mentioned, and in particular I mean my generally polite demeanor in public, acknowledging even the ostentatiously fur-clad presence of people who could be rotten rich and those who look to be judgmental( not to be judgmental, you know), condescending, etc. (2014 note:  was thinking about First Baptist Church of Jackson, Mississippi when i wrote that)] in a front-page article yesterday reported that welfare applications are down substantially over a record high just a few years ago; President Clinton [does he deserve that?] truthfully acknowledged this was probably due as much to good economic times as new welfare policies. The Times also reported that it is difficult/impossible to tell how much of the reduction has resulted in people falling into poverty more abject than they experienced while on the welfare rolls. This points out the complexity of the situation I face: I wondered about but did not know how rich the lady was to whom I spoke in the church hallway maybe a month ago even though she appeared to belong to the worst class, the ostentatiously rich, who might not revel in big houses and fine cars and clothes but certainly indulge themselves in them[ and indulge themselves in what I call false humility]; I thought about my addressing the preacher as pastor last week, something I certainly now regret. It's Frank. Next week it might be frank [or worse]. The bottom line, I suppose, is that I am becoming less forgetful intentionally about slights and worse. Anybody can take this any way they wish. My considered recommendation is that people become intentionally more forgetful.) Back to the subject at hand: I decided to share, possibly again, a recent experience with our (would-be) church. (First though, an after-breakfast [peanut butter and jam on RYE!YES!!Thank You God! (And if you've never tried welfare peanut butter [not fit for human consumption], you don't know nothin' bout poverty)] digressional return, if you will: Getting rich has been a way of life for some people for a long time; perhaps even most people have aspired to this. An ignorant person can be excused for being ignorant; after their eyes have been opened, however, whether they acknowledge the truth or not they must be held accountable. I'm not sure what he meant, but I like the way Thoreau said, "I will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality" or something like that.) The man in the church whose acumen I have respected above others there one week several months ago made a derogatory comment in Sunday school about, I believe, the translators of the King James version . (Sunday school is considerably more informal than church services; I'm tempted to expound on Southern Baptist formalities here, but shall refrain, at least for the moment.) The Sunday school teacher of the moment had made the occasional foray into what I considered foolish-on-the-face church doctrine and I gave it a glancing thought, but this man making this statement made me think. I later was cornered and questioned by a couple of intrepid class members about this matter of doctrine (concerning the validity of Old Testament relevance to our present-day reality [interestingly, people don't seem to mind too much about whether or not you adhere to this particular matter of church doctrine, but the doctrine of inerrancy of scripture, for which I have gained a measure of infamy in Baptist circles by my opposition, is (to some anyway) another matter entirely]) and I simply refused to answer( I really hadn't plugged Matthew 5:17 into my doctrine at this point[ or was too stupid to call it to mind]).) Lao Tsu and Paul certainly agree on foolish arguments. Anyway, one week when there were some new (to me) people in the class and we were in Jeremiah and the teacher called for questions I asked (to point out the rampant hypocrisy) if his (repeated, and apparently quite carefully worded) statement on Old Testament validity was Southern Baptist doctrine. He stopped, and waited, and finally said something about it not being doctrine, but personal. Then I asked if there wasn't Biblical reference to the mind directing the heart, since we'd just looked at the verse about the heart being deceitful above all things. He said he didn't know, and I stammered and stumbled about a reference the week before to soul and mind, he responded with church gobbledygook about mind and heart and body, I told him I was "real interested" in stuff like that and thanked him and that was that. That week Mary Ann and I went to visit family an hour-and-a-half away, and she drove so I could do the devotion. We were referenced to Isaiah 28, which we had read probably in the past two weeks in our Bible-reading sessions, and when I read verse 12 I asked Mary Ann what "the refreshing" was. She didn't know. Verse 11 says "with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people". That's what we read in the first read-through. That Thursday (I believe), I read also the alternative translation in the middle column of my Bible, "he hath spoken". Earlier today I looked up "refreshing" in my Harper's. The concordance referenced Isaiah and Acts 3 (19), which states in part, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come . . . (a prophet) shall ye hear in all things . . .every soul which will not hear that prophet (who apparently will be speaking in "another tongue" to those who don't hear), shall be destroyed from among the people." (emphasis added)

. . . . . How people can doubt that for all this, His hand is stretched out still, in anger? (editor's note: click here for mNN Factoid Number 2 [i've put what might have been the original image here]) The answer has to be that those who won't listen to reason are the devil's own. How long, the Bible asks, how long can this (the ways of the world) go on, how long? God knows, we are told, God knows.

pm (again) I searched the computer Bible for "how long" and got a lot of references. I opened this (computer: number eight) King James with a modified Zen method to Psalm 94, where verse 3 has a double "how long", and I think we should all be required to read this chapter today, and consider it with a humble and contrite heart. Could somebody get in touch with the networks for me?

February 11, 1998 *******************************************************************

. . . . . Back again. I had thought, after my wife and I started undergoing the legal divorce process, an ordeal which included my moving back to the town in which I grew up and my web site being taken off its original server, that I would simply let stand what I had written. But events of the past year have been so incredible that I decided to re-post the site (with no changes to doctrinal matters I had raised) and allow people who have expressed an interest in it to view it in what basically is its original form, while adding to it facts which might be most pertinent to issues raised in it.

. . . . . Perhaps a little perspective on this site and my self would be in order here. I don't think a real careful reading of this site would be required to understand that I consider myself an authority on the Bible (2014 note:  maybe i should say i used to consider myself an authority), or even that I consider myself special in God's eyes. I suppose the only claim I have made (and plan to make, for that matter) is that I rule my spirit (see Proverbs 16:32), a claim I made at a recent open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, immediately followed (the vibe was intense when I said that, believe me, like I had claimed to be The Comforter, The Holy Ghost [as opposed to The Holy Spirit, which I consider God]) by mentioning that the first part of that verse commended he who is slow to anger (which is a claim none who know me anything like well certainly would not dispute).

. . . . . My reputation, for those who may not know, has been that of someone insane (via genetics or drugs a moot point, I'm certain), foolish (in the Raca sense), worthless (naughty, in Proverbs 6, might best be translated "worthless" or "a thing of naught"). But, like the opening line in the only writing I did which I considered serious before I was thirty-five years old, "all these weird things keep happening." Seriously weird, some of which I have alluded to on this site and one of the most serious (I plan on mentioning) later in this journal entry.

. . . . . Empathy with others might be my strong suit, and a peculiar weakness, for I realize that I tend, actually, to take on personality traits of those with whom I am interacting. I even profess the ability to read minds, (but only open ones). As I have said elsewhere on this site, I have worked at having a loving, understanding approach to people and situations for nearly thirty years now, and it has been this work to which I have attributed my patience and longsuffering and peace and joy, etc. Now, I am not so certain. When I came back to this area last April, I confess to a sense of paranoia that kind of defies description, but which I certainly do not attribute to problems in my personal (i.e., wife and loss of job [which had given me, for the first time in my life, a sense of self-worth in a worldly sense]) life, (or lack of same). All these weird things kept happening, and I knew it wasn't all in my imagination, though possibilities [I realized] were mostly what I was dealing with. Mostly it was just a sense of being under a microscope, and I tried to keep in mind that it could have been the effort at a continuing process of self-examination making me wonder what people I encountered thought about me, if anything. And I did perceive attention of a sort with which I was not wholly unfamiliar, but more intense. Go with the flow was my approach. "Life's a beach; groove when the surf's up" was how I loosely interpreted John 3:8. And the wind blew me in some dark corners here.

. . . . . Conspiracy has been a major possibility with me during my sojourn here, this time around. In truth, posting this web site in its original incarnation (if you will) might be the main reason for what psychiatrists surely would call my paranoia if the conspiracy theory were more to me than a mere possibility. But anyone who has much knowledge of the Bible would recognize, as I have from the inception of the site, that what I propose (indeed, what my very life has been) is precisely the type of world the Anti-Christ is supposed to attempt to impose, given what even might be a literal interpretation of the scriptures. (Please see 2 Corinthians 3:6, about "the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" and 2 Timothy 2:15, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.")

. . . . . Yes, I have found myself considering the possibility that I am a very special soul to God, have become convinced that I am an authority on His (Living) Word, and have tried to share the truths that I have gleaned from that Word, only to find myself feeling I'm a voice crying in the wilderness and even considered by some, I have no doubt, an occultist (because of things I've only alluded to in these pages), one possessed by a/the devil, even the Anti-Christ. And, again, I can surely see, just because of the things I've written here, why these possibilities might be true.

. . . . . For example, I found myself some several months ago in a gathering which contained people whose very presence aroused in me a sense of trepidation (again, I recognize this merely could have been my very own ordinary mind) and, interestingly (to me, anyway) a Bible. I picked up and, for whatever reason(s), opened the Bible and read the verse I saw when I looked at the page to which I had opened (after saying something like "Check this out...") to the silent but (to me) intent group. The verse happened to be Psalm 36:1, which ends "The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes." This, for those who haven't investigated this site, is the heart of what Jesus taught about the "religious" people of His day and what I have been trying to say about those who profess to be "saved".

. . . . . I'm not just talking Baptist (or Catholic or Buddhist) doctrine here. And I'm not saying that most people who regularly attend church or read the Bible, say, don't have moments of humility and awareness of just how awesome God is; I'm saying people who aren't willing to change when confronted by truth have become so conformed to the world, to the indoctrination of ordinary mind, that they are not just lost but in very real danger of spending eternity in hell. (To anyone who is just starting to find their way onto this web site, let me encourage you not to close your mind to what strikes me as a rather fanatical attempt to give you everything at once. I write this entry, and leave the only thing I started to add to these pages until last, because I believe the Spirit of The Living God moves me. I mention trifles like the last two paragraphs mostly for reinforcing the validity of my words to those who have followed them from earlier.)

. . . . . Best for last, huh? (Just a minute.) And this might be the last of my journal entries (as I had hoped for the previous two). Time will tell, but let me say here that all of my readings since I abandoned this site, and they have been rather extensive, have only served to reinforce my conviction of the truth about what I have written. And perhaps I should say here that certainly I have gotten the impression that change has been taking place along the lines I've been advocating, probably with no thanks to me (and if any has been due to my poor efforts I say, with Paul, let me glory in God and give Him all praise if I have in any small way been a good and faithful servant of His), but the reasons I press for changing everything are simply too important to ignore. Time, for example.

. . . . . Anyway, here's what I promised about the most important event I suppose I ever shared: I said in these pages (I think) about Jesus meeting the fishermen and saying only "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" being a bit far-fetched perhaps; certainly, I thought, it would require more talk to get anyone for forsake family, job, life, and follow this guy on his journey... A digression, though. I still remember vividly my second guru saying that it is for each of us to call himself a man (or woman). And before I continue, let me lay to rest all this chauvinistic thinking about women (or men) being inherently bad, dead to moral law, enemies of one another. Certainly this battle of the sexes thing seems to continue, but as one who has studied people and claims to read minds, let me say that we're all in the same boat, and that ordinary mind is our common enemy, and that we all need to be transformed by a renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). As I was saying, claiming even to be a man or woman is like professing to be a Christian; God knows all truth. But as I've exercised my senses (see Hebrews 5:14) I've been an observer (and a more acute one) over the years. And since I've been here I have truly been moved a time or two upon meeting people I'd never laid eyes on before. Really real people, I thought. Then one night (a month or two after listening to an Al Green CD and writing on a legal pad, dreaming ya' know, that all the rich MFs ought to leave house and income and learn real humility) I encountered this being who really blew me away, and in the process kind of put things in perspective for me. He never said a word, was actually introduced to me as "Johnny J", and left such an impression on me I actually have told (maybe only two) people that I think Jesus is back.

. . . . . Yeah. And He (if it is) sure ain't here in a spirit of meekness, but with power, like Paul wrote of himself in I Corinthians 4:21. He's big and He's black and He's angry. If he (and I think, even if this was/is Jesus, he'd rather I use the lower-case) is come back to judge us, believe me, we need to get it together and serve everybody on the planet. My impression is, believe it or not, and this certainly is strong as any kind of doctrine can get, if people don't change it all and everybody maybe decide on a time for every person on the planet to sit quietly, even take LSD (who knows? [postscript: Actually there is a major problem with this scenario: people who don't have good karma (one might say a sane, healthy subconscious [or even "conscience"]) will have, in the parlance, a "bad trip"]) and pray for the end of the world and time, he might take out some of the hard-hearts who evince pride every day they don't change. (This mainly addresses the critical, some call heretical, issue of reincarnation: i.e., give these folks another shot.) Maybe I'm first on his list, though I do get the impression I'm in his book of life. I believe so, but you better believe I'm willing to change the way I live so my neighbors everywhere can believe, like I do, that the light can and will overcome the darkness of ordinary mind. Maybe we don't have to change this civilization's money-based system of lifestyle; but it strikes me as necessary for belief and/or faith to flourish that charity or love needs to manifest itself in a common effort to bring about our Father's kingdom here on earth, as well as in heaven. I don't know. But I do know that in God's Kingdom there are no children starving to death.

Top of Page
To the Journal Contents
To Table of Contents
To the SAFE Home Page