Sunday Mind Experiment #1

  I am not aware of any "rules" over here in blog-land which would prohibit a mind experiment, are you? Most of my writing is in the form of essays, most of which are speculative at best, wouldn't you agree?
  Well, anyhow, I was living in a (rather smallish) "parallel universe" tonight for about an hour; and in that private world, "I was giving a sermon". It just so happened this evening that our fellow presbyhoovians across town hosted a "joint service". The Pastor who was speaking this evening had some interesting things to say about Psalm 133 (I suppose), but I kept wanting to "corrrect" him! It was very annoying having all of this brain racket going on, while I was ostensibly listening.
  It was like those irritating people who "correct" you while (during!) you are speaking, except that I was the one who was just so irritating, to myself! The premise then of the experiment, is; "If I am so hot to speak-up (and let's face it, nobody wants to hear that!) why not write down my version of the parallel-sermon which was not preached?".
  So, we enter the tiny sanctuary, in which "Brother Mike" is sounding off on Psalm 133. What would that particular sermon consist of? It seems a moderately interesting idea to try out. If you don't care for sermons as a rule, well then; this would be a fine spot to hit the "eject" button; and close down the file. With this intro, we commence my first (written) sermon!

                                            Greasy Beard Stuff

  Our text for tonight contains passages one fellow I know claims to be his favorite Psalm. It goes: "Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, coming down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the LORD commanded the blessing - life forever." The guy in question has made a fuss over this particular Psalm (shall we say?) "More than once" in my hearing.
  To be honest with you, I never did "get" what it was he was alluding to. I mean, is this text saying "Generally speaking, it is better to be unified and get along rather than to be at each other's throats?. . . Or something?" And supposing that were true, who cares? Frankly, unity per se seems like an okay idea, but there are some serious hiccups involved.
  In fact, these hiccups show up in a variety of areas which we, of the faith once delivered, constantly flounder. Be at peace with each other, be one in spirit and intent. Well, that sounds fine, but we find (in practice) that other people are pretty ornery, and that it is difficult at best, and usually plainly impossible for us to do so. We are excluded by inability, but if the truth were known, most of the time, I simply have no desire to be "unified" thanks just the same for asking?
  That is, we as fallen persons are doubly disqualifed from "keeping the rules" set forth in scripture. We are both unwilling (usually) and in any case; simply too weak, mixed-up, and distracted by the jillion and one things of everyday life to do so. Unwilling, plus unable, that is us! Did I mention the dark side yet?
  Simply said, the more I am (personally) "commanded to unify with" others, the less I would like to have to do with anyone at all! That is, there is a mulish stubborn-ness, an "I'm right-er than you" kind of drill here, which we all to one extent or another, participate in. And yes, this could be thought of (I think) as a sub-set of "unwilling", but what we are driving at here; is that we believe ourselves to be correct, and that it is others who are in error. We do not unify, for the excellent reason that we are too right to do so! At least, that is the way I am, if left to my own devices.
  The text says "It is pleasant", I tend to disagree! I don't even like people, why would I want to unify with them? And it is not only here which we spot this ugly streak in ourselves! In plenty of places, scripture duly informs us that we are to be on the "pro-humility" bandwagon. Did you notice? The very same type of disqualifiers are at work here also. It is hard!. . . to be humble, we lack the vigor and health to do so. But way, way beyond that, we (not so secretly) think of ourselves as more excellent in some way or another, . . . "especially compared to him!". We are commanded to it, and find the double-disqualifiers at work again!
  Worse yet, as we double-down so to force ourselves to obey, the mule streak kicks into high gear, and we promptly identify an area where we will never (!) "Knuckle under" to those arrogant so and soes. First the two, then the three, they "conspire against" our best heart, and we end in frustration, anger and a kind of passive low level distrust of "those people". Well, that's the way my wretched "heart" functions at least.
  The very thing, if done (unity and now humility), which was to have been a source of joy and gladness for us; turns out to be a major bummer, just another area of heartburn in life, which I am no good at? I am convinced friend, that this is who we are! And we reject that conclusion also, both are true!
  One more theme, and we will move along. Be at one with each other, be humble toward others, and be generous, give to the needy! And I won't wear you out with a rehash of where we find ourselves, except to note yet again, unwilling, unable, and finally "too righteous" to comply. It is a pattern and a routine we are all too familiar with!
   The cure is in the psalm, we both see it, and also never notice it. Predictably, it is a both/and kind of affair. It's kinda weird that "greasy kid stuff" in the hair proves to be much of an aid to us, but actually; it is!
  The Bible is very, very clear on the central idea here, Aaron (the ancient high priest of Israel) is doing something! The high priest goes in once a year in that era to "make atonement" for the people by blood sacrifice! The oil upon the head and beard is a sign to us. Very, very clearly the message of the word is; "You sin, you die. . . Period!" The only possible exclusion was this idea that The Almighty informs us of, an acceptable substitute, a blood sacrifice, but only in the context of His authorized agent (high priest) rightly doing the sacrificial work. Aaron's oil, was logo and endorsement to the people that The Almighty was pleased with (having designed the system after all) the sacrificial offering-work of Aaron.
  That is, hope lived on in the hearts of the many for the wonderful reason that God Himself had authorized, built and executed a system whereby the offences could be paid-for. Forgiveness was real, because the claims of Justice had been satisfied, and lawfully dealt with!
  Therefore, that community of folk which "bought into" this scheme, found as a deriviative and by-product of this confidence in Aaron's work that (incidentally) they were of one mind.
  Lesson one; unity is a by-product of a legitimate trust. The substance of said trusting was that peace with God is effected by the system of an "anointed" priest ending the war between man and God through the means God had established. Unity is never built by "trying harder to be unified"! And of course, Aaron is a "picture of, or echo of" the true Priest, who Himself is also True Sacrifice! John Baptist shouts; "Lookee there! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!".
  And not to wear out my welcome today, but we might also likewise apply the same sort of medicine to those two other areas we mentioned earlier. We the un-humble are (in our own minds at least) "high". But the Anointed-one is triply so! He is Prophet, Priest, and King. He is the true "Somebody" in earth, the one sane Man, and the high King of Heaven (and now!) Earth. We, in His presence are freed to be "low" since even the highest ranking angels ever, are mere peons compared to Him! That is, we are brought back to sanity, and to a remembrance of our actual identity, this; not by "finding ourselves" but by being found-of Him!
  It is a relief (don't you see?) to drop all of that high and mighty pretending, and just be regular people. Out of sheer mercy and kindness He elevates us (the lowly nobodies) up where He is! He seats us, not only as children of the King, but as kings (and queens might I add?) in our own right! And humility is built just here, upon this rock solid reality. It never really was a matter of play-acting at "trying to be humble", but rather the sober and clear realization that He went far, far out of His way to elevate the worst among us (me, I mean!), and so, we are all freed to honor the you above the me, for the simple reason, that you really are more honorable! Nobody that I have met is as despicable as I. It's reality, and the King of the real we discuss here.
  So too then, with the final anointing of Prophet. The apostle asks; "What do you have, that you did not receive?". The word of truth, the word of life, the word of sanity and of wholesome gladness, did you invent any of it? Heck no, and so we pass on a treasure belonging to Another, which was given to us; for the express purpose of aiding others. That is "why" He gives us stuff!
  On every account then, the fix, the repair we so desperately require, is found in the grease on Aaron, the oil upon son of Jesse, the goop on Elijah's noggin. They were the precursors, of the really greasy Guy, The King of Jews, Jesus Christ (christened!) The Righteous! It ain't about you, nor your lousy excuse of a job, of "trying to obey". It is about the unshakable conviction that Eternal Covenant was struck between Father and Son, and out that utterly fierce and eternal love, room has been made. A welcoming in, a gathering round that Holy Fire, and the joy of that gathering of the living  is unkillable!
  Marvelously, out of that unbreakable nature of Their love, we find a place made (graciously) for "younger brothers". We trust in His plan, His scheme to save us. . . From Him, Unto Him, by His strength, in His time, by His means, for His glory.   It . . . Ain't. . . About . . . You!
  Deal with it.
  And we shall mercifully conclude today's sermon with a final look back at Psalm 133. So, what's up with Mount Hermon and the morning dew? And I (for one?) say; "Clearly, He's a romantic!".
  After all, what could speak of love better than a rendezvous? You, my friend who trust the Sane One, shall, one day; most certainly die, unless of course you are here to greet Him upon His return. But, supposing that were so, the transformation in you on that day, the renewal and the strengthening would be at least as supernatural as what He has in store for the rest of us!
  We shall, at His summons "stand up again" (re-erect), this time clothed in immortality and power, shining with the light of an unkillable gladness. It's future-history baby.
  There is a meeting place, a place most green and fresh and bright. Cool waters, lush colors, song, food and welcome! It is the high place, the mountain of God where we shall see Him face to face! It's the real deal, the straight skinny, the inside dope on what shall be. Truth told, Mount Hermon is a bit like that place, much in the same way that Aaron is bit like the True Oily One.
  What makes heaven so blasted "heavenly" after all, ain't the real estate, it is the Land-Lord, present and accounted-for! He Himself is the reward and the treasure. And in that day, even we will be sane enough to want He-Himself, rather than the stuff He made.
  All cruelty, murder, lies and corruption, all sin and wickedness come to a screeching, permanent, and violent halt one day soon! He wins, King Kong sized slam dunk! The enemys' insane idea of "rivaling" Him, never did make a lick of sense. But in that day, even we will know that much, and that, right well!
  But He, the Anointed Himself makes sense of all else.
  Ain't He grand? What a Genius! What a Champ! Around Him we gather, bend the knee, respect and greet our brothers, even now, how much moreso then?
  He blazed the trail and made for us, the way home!

Mirror World (date unknown)

  We could firmly assert (I think!) . . . that; "If there were such things as "mirror worlds", they would prove awfully blasted difficult to navigate". And it is not that I seriously believe that any such thing actually will present itself as a problem to work through, but rather; it's a mildly interesting line of thought to pursue, don't you think? Let's see where this essay of the crazed pants variety goes, eh?
  To begin with, I ought be honest and admit, that this concept of a reverse world has been sorta hanging out in my skull; for most of my life. So, for something now approaching a half-century, this thought-set recurs at least now and again. So apparently then, I personally suppose it to be substantially more than "mildly interesting"!
  Back in the mid-60s, Mom and Dad owned a 35mm camera (Argus?). They weren't fanatics about photos, but I do recall looking at "slides" projected up on the wall. We would turn off the TV, and Pop would load the projector. The great thing (to me) about those little shows was the possibility of a reverse!
  Of course, anyone could occasionally make the boo-boo of loading a picture into the projector upside-down, and that was fun, but the really fascinating thing was to see it flipped left to right! Imagine a photograph of your own home, but "reversed". Such would be a kind of mirror image of your actual home. The garage ought be on the left side of the house, and see? Now, it's over on the right. The left/right symmetry of faces might prohibit you from immediatley grasping what you see, but clearly that china cabinet is in the "wrong" place. Fascinating!
  I couldn't seem to get enough of this sort of thing as a boy. To further complicate matters, our parents also had a large mirror in the center of the main wall in the living room. When slideshows were not in progress, if a chap was diligent enough to turn himself upside-down, and then look into the mirror? Well, for one thing; he could imagine that the floor was the ceiling, and as you look into the reverse of the room, and imagine navigating "over" the tops of the doorways so to go down the hall, does the turn to the left become a turn to the right in that other world? Doesn't this seem interesting to you too?
  But such topological turnings cause a plumber to wonder; "What actually would constitute an 'opposite-world'"? Ruminate upon this. If in "world-a" (the real one!) we turn left, in order to descend stairs, would "world-b" (it's symmetrical opposite) feature a right turn plus descent, or would it become ascent? I mean by this, from a topological perspective, we can "get" a left/right function fairly obviously, but why would up/down not likewise apply? Or, to rephrase; how "far" do the bonds of symmetry hold? Gosh, isn't this interesting?
  I have apparently long loved thinking spacially about this kind of stuff. Let's play with this some. If in world-a, you slip and fall; damaging your right knee, do you in world-b, hurt your left knee? Or, would the "true opposite" of a knee injury manifest as a wrist-hurting affair? Or perhaps the really-real-oppo of a knee-fail; might rather prove to be a strong and healthy joint eh? Now we are getting somewhere! So, if we deal with a visual only right/left parity, it would be difficult (at first) to navigate, but all bets are off, if we propound an alternate world of "true opposition". In that case, our compass goes wild. I mean, what if the "true opposite" of "north" is not in fact, "un-north", which we would normally deem south? What if the true-opposite is some sort of seventeenth dimensional "un-direction", named "bob"? Oh, I love this kind of thing!
  So, before we are committed to a home for the topologically challenged, let us lay down some ground rules. Rule one reads; "Any switch of worlds, requires a center point". So, look into a mirror today. You do not indeed look at all like that. But, the reversed image possesses a center line at which both "halves" rotate. Fair enough for you? Such a pivot point may itself "rotate" (I wouldn't know) but it can't run away down the street screaming about zombies! Fair enough for you?
  For example, we note that the fulcrum center, always "embraces both ends". In world a, you might be an infant, and in world-b, a codger with a walker. But rule one asserts that the center of "mid-life" remains. World-a features a "you", both left-handed and famous, while world-b corresponds; with a righty of the inconspicuous variety. We are free to propound thus, many mirrors, male/female, rich/poor, educated/rustic, white/black and slave and free to name but a few. At "the fulcrum of worlds", there is a "keeper of sanity", a master of the axial pairings; which itself has no opposite, And frankly, I don't see how anyone could think otherwise . . .
  If the purpose of these ruminations is to consider topology (without going entirely bonkers!) such a center-point, which itself having no opposite; seems the mildest of assertions, to my thinking at least. Which brings us (I infer) by a roundabout scheme, to the topic of holiness!
  In it's simplest form, the business of the Holy might be thought of as "The Master (point/axis) possessing zero opposites"! Isn't that tidy? The spooky part of such, would necessarily be that such a central/axial would be in this estimate . . . Alive! Clearly, if it were dead, or merely an abstraction; it would retain opposites, namely the living and the concrete.
  We propose thereby; "So, this young guy all in a lather, runs up to the (topological) Master. 'Hey man, I'm with you, and "the cause", where you go, I go'; proclaims the young chap". The Master (oddly enough) responds with; "Well, how's about this? Birds make nests, and foxes have holes to sleep in, and the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head!".
  What gives? Is this non-sequitor-city or something? Is this an exercise in weird-pants statements, or is He "rotating the world" for the young zealot? The very concept of "there-ness" which the young devotee proclaims, is countered by, the bald assertion of "having nowhere". It is a mirror, but this Image (He-Himself!) is the true one!
  The mirror-Master is the one at the central axis, He is participating in "both" worlds. Possessing no "shelter", He "is" the (True) Shelter. He dies penniless and alone, so enriching and visiting with undying friendship, the many. Dying naked and shamed, He clothes, and makes-honorable, others. But He-Himself, in this process does not "reverse". Rather, He-at-center, correctly has the cosmos rotating about Him! I hope I am being clear "here"?
  Wow, this is even better than Mom and Dad's slide shows! This is the genuine article, in Person. As such, things keep "falling-out" of this kind of topo-think.
  Think of a "problem". I propose a guy trying to make his way cross-country in an old Winnebago. On the distant end, is the hope for a job, and enroute, the vehicle craps out. What is the solution?
  And if you are anything like me, you immediately break out the mirror into a proposed world-b. And in that tidy little universe, which the guy "ought to have planned" (and taken into account setbacks), he would not be just now pan-handling in a parking lot. Our private reverse worlds, in which we thus "fix" things, are clean little spots, and (frankly) problems of this sort (in those private little worlds); just do not arise! There, problem solved, and I hope he learns his lesson!
  Except for one little thing, the guy and his family have not moved an inch closer to the promised job, duh?
  There are all kinds of Bible passages about being good to the poor, which we normally excuse ourselves from. There is ample evidence that a central axiom of having a faith which grows, is directly related to us forgiving others what they cannot repay. And this too, we usually "overlook"; because nobody can know how deeply I have been hurt, yadda, yadda. The central axis of reality, is a He, not an "it", and He Sees! From His side of the axial, there is always "plenty", and upon ours is "want". He is Master of both.
  We spoke briefly of the Holy in paragraphs above, but in practice, we are not so much "holy" as (instead) being sanctified. The basic requirement we have as humans is that the debt we cannot pay, be somehow paid. At the center of history, stands the Cross of Jesus, where just this transaction is accomplished. This central fulcrum has ripple effects all across reality!
  The prayer at it's center goes; "feed us with what we require, forgive us what we cannot pay, as we are likewise doing". Our prayer is saying that we give what others need! Is this so awfully true of us? No, but it is becoming true!
  So, axiomatically then, two things are coming-into our world, from that other one, with Him as "gateway". We are beginning to make peace with our enemies, and we are making first-steps at giving to the poor! Friendliness and generosity clearly "do not belong" here, and the Master of the fulcrum (He-at-center), owns both opposites. It is our faith in Him (which is growing) which is causing us to begin to likewise participate in the "folly" of generosity. So says the plumber!
  To give something to a homeless guy is "wrong" by our lights. What if he uses the money to buy dope? We certainly wouldn't want to be party to that horror. . . now would we? But if we cannot be generous to the guy living in a parking lot, just who precisely can we be generous to? The "folly of faith" then, is that we believe that as we expend resources, He is faithful to (also) grant us what we require.
  Our real problem then, is not that poor people might prove to be bad bets. Rather, we find it nearly impossible to be "so foolish" because we are (obviously!) so blasted "wise". We suffer from an excess of "right-ness"! Ordinarily, we simply are unable (not to mention unwilling!) to "buy" the premise of generosity, and prefer to wisely retain our "hard-earned" money, not to mention our time, and visiting priviledges. So, in Bible-speak, we are thereby defined as "small-faiths". We are spiritual pygmies, and as soulish midgets; are satisfied? But, that way, lay dragons!
  In order to grow in trust then, of the One-at-center (Who has no opposite!) we begin "foolishly" losing wealth. We extend friendship where it does not belong, for the simple reason that we ourselves are the prime targets (if rightly considered) of such bias. He has extended to His enemies (me and you I mean) peace. . . bought by blood! He has impoverished Himself, so to enrich us beggars. So then, what Gospel "does" in us, is to begin a new desire in our guts to participate in this axial world-switching! The invitation to walk between the mirrors (with Him), is real! We, having been given-to, are finding more and more the freedom to likewise give. That's reality baby!
  I tell ya, this is way, way better than the slide show. But, there remains parallels from that discussion to consider. Would you like to know that you are "safe in His arms?". Well then (obviously) be un-safe! Or, in English, give away to those who cannot repay. Would you enjoy being clothed with honor? If so, then hang around and visit with the wrong crowd. Ain't it obvious?
  And all of the rest of The Master's upside/down talk, is likewise founded "just here"; upon He-at-center, with the genuine invitation to join Him "there"!
  It is "there", where everything switches, "there" where the blind see, and the lame dance. It's the "place where" the hungry are filled. "There-at-fulcrum", where the dead are received back to joyous embrace, this is the true mirror-world, and He the True Image viewed!
  Hope isn't some pollyanna misery about "not-despair". Hope is real, hope is a joining in, a stepping-with The Master-at-center of worlds, The Holy One has no equal, and no opposite, and hearts soar to find Him, or rather; to be found of Him!
  Ain't He a marvel? Ain't He grand? Any which way you turn, He shines, all stunning and brilliant . . . and remarkably friendly too!

On Romance

  I am not quite certain here, but I may well be the world's least foremost authority on matters of the heart. The topic of romance was on my mind this morning after waking at about 4:20 a.m., or so? Dreaming something of which I have no waking memory, the very concept of "romance" kinda hovered in my brain for about twenty minutes after waking, and (oddly!) it even made sense?
  So, with this hefty resume' of experience and insight on the matter, we courageously venture forward! Anyhow, a crazy-pants-essay seemed like a good idea for today. The theme appears to be interesting enough, and add to that; the statistically improbable fact that I have nothing to do on a Sunday morning? Our Kirk is closed today, due to a large (by Las Cruces standards) snow storm which dumped for about seven hours yesterday. I began this "think-piece" on Christmas Eve, but it kinda stalled several paragraphs below here. Today seems a good day to attack it again.
  There is a "magical" or "romantic" aspect to the holiday (Christmas, I mean) which up until this morning, just never made any sense at all to me. Over the years, my basic strategy on this type of thing, has been to  pull "a mike"; and conclude with a; "I am surrounded by lunatics in any case, and so why would we expect their ruminations on holy-days to be any more reasonable than the rest of their nonsense?". This not-entirely charitable assessment of things romantic, has remained remarkably uniform in me over the years, and then; for decades!
  My keen insight on romance thus has been; "I don't get it". Overall, we presume it to be "a girl thing" in that (often) it is the fems who are most glad about it, they often seem interested in it, and appear to understand what the "it" in question refers to? Moreover (and this is kinda cheesy), the few guys who profess to grasp what romance (itself) "is"; have often struck me as basically pretty unreliable. They can wow the girls, but cannot seem to get the job done, or to that effect, has been my "take" over here, on them.
  A year or three ago (I have no idea of exactly when), I hand-wrote a C.P.E. having to do with Valentine's Day. No, it has not yet been transcribed into blog-land. Anyhow, as I recall; several women objected to some of the observations within that essay.
  I have no idea what they found to be objectionable. As I recall, I was bemoaning (again) "the r-word". In my brain, "the r-word" is relationship, not romance, although links exist between them we might suppose. Culturally, or socially, "relationship" has become a huge topic in the past twenty years, but the structure of the thing remains almost entirely weird.
  If we could imagine two people in the room, you and me. The "r" appears to be a third "entity" of an abstracted variety. It too, is "in the room"? Are fems actually saying that; "If I care about you (the person) I then, in order to demonstrate this, should pay more attention to the abstraction, the "r" present also? I believe that they are attempting to induce me to pay attention to "it", and thus only "indirectly", to them . . . but why? I mean here, why is this cogent to anyone at all? And, as best as I can detect, it makes sense, because it is romantic.
  Houston, we have a problem . . .
  If some sort of fixation on "r" (the abstraction) is a sign of romance, and romance goes undefined, well then; we get . . . Me! This mind-wreck has just never filed in my poor little skull. The delusional stretching and contortions required along the way, to somehow decode this mess into English, has been lots of work with zero output in my experience.
  I infer thereby, that men and women speak two distinct languages. The tricky aspects of twin languages include our rememberance that some sections of usage are quite similar in terms of intent and vocabulary, but beware! Even in those areas of commonality, meaning can wildly swerve. "The dog needs to go to the vet", might well have linguistic parallels, and imply something about animals and their doctors. And also; at the drop of a hat; it might well contain a surprisingly alternate (and sinister!) meaning.
  Recall that you are just now reading, and so the twin functions are at low tide. In real life conversation, with all kinds of rising eyebrows, inflections and pauses thrown in, a veritable world of possible alternate meanings of the one sentence arise, and most of those are treated as grave personal insults by fems. In brief, it is work, to talk to women.
  An outlandish assertion of mine like; "Nice day, huh?", can be taken to imply everything and nothing, depending upon which girl it is said to, and (crucially!) her mood. Such an alarming statement about air and sunshine, might well prove to be the most brutal personal slander ever delivered by human lips, or it could be just another asinine truism, delivered by a patronizing chauvinist. Women are weird. They seem to enjoy "being offended", and the romantic thing to do (I think?) is to decode what they actually say into some sort of charitable assessment of what they meant by it. But nothing of what I say is to be taken at face value. It is an "un-even equality" so-to-speak.
  Overall, I have found that it is usually simpler to only talk to them about strictly structured topics, and that for limited time periods. The creatures seem to very much enjoy wrangling with words and emotions, and this tussle and constant fussing is (I assume?) what they refer to, in their "building relationship" concept. They want me to pay attention to it, and this demonstrates romance with them?
  My strategy over the years has thus become a three pronged approach. (1.) First, get the heck away from crazy people! (2.) Next, note that some of them are not entirely insane. Little old ladies, and young girls for instance, often have the ability to speak normal English, and are often fun to talk with. And we ought grant that some Christian women are also sane, and so, they can be worth a guys time to visit with. (3.) But, the final and obvious prong has been to develop the finer points of alone-ness as highly desirable, over the onslaught of daily disasters and chaos which manifest in close proximity to me whenever I am falling off of the wagon (again) and contemplating "dating". Simply said, I have learned to value a distinct lack of small-scale emergencies manifesting in my daily personal life. If I am even mildly correct in assessing this bizarre romantic scheme, I think that women enjoy making things difficult, and then seeing if I am willing to hang around long enough to deal with their warped thought, so to prove romantic intent?
  For instance, I recall, years ago; a young minister of the Gospel asking point-blank; "Why aren't you married?". The correct answer rose up effortlessly in me, and I truthfully answered; "Life is hard enough, and I already have a full time job".
  Every day at work, it is from one small disaster to the next, In each, I am to find a fix, to answer an issue, and to build the solution, so to minimally reduce the sum amount of chaos in the known universe. Uh, not to be impolite, but why in the world would I want to be doing the same thing in the middle of the night, and on weekends at my house? Dealing with women is work! And I have plenty of that, thanks just the same.
  For me, the strategy of generating distance, and of only talking with sane females, and most importantly, of valuing downtime from chaos-reduction, has served fairly well over the years. But it certainly ain't romantic! My main thing all along the way, has been that I do not understand what is implied or meant by "r-word-2" (romance), and it looks (to me) like more effort than it is worth; in order to find out! In my book, and in this fashion; it would be true to describe the leviathan of the federal government as romantic!
  Just imagine, millions of dollars spent, years wasted by scholars arguing and defending. Consensus only very slowly emerging; "Fruit bats don't ordinarily prefer to turn left in flight". Well, I just now made that up, but I mean by the illustration, the yield-benefits never begin to approach the investment-costs. As such, I have historically considered, finding out what "r-word-2" means, as a ridiculous personal boondoggle. It is years and dollars and heavy work invested, only to find out that women really are weird . . . or something? But, didn't we know that, going in? Romance thus, has been a bust in my life, a bad investment and a pointless, and painful waste. So, instead of throwing yet-more good effort after bad, I prefer to leave them alone, mind my own business and try not to purposefully rattle their cage (too much). And "here" I have come to rest.
  So then, overall this C.P.E. is a first for me, in the attempt to speak about romance in a friendly or even mildly accepting way. The drifting thoughts of an unremembered dream, with which this essay began; do we recall that? Those half-ideas were very interesting to consider. Thinking it over some, I am fairly confident that I have never really tried to think-well of romance.
  To me, the violently brief version of "r-word-2" is; "Everything is going to work out alright". It is your basic, "Happily-ever-after" drill here, which has likewise never made any sense to me. But, as a first; and to some slender degree, today I "get it"!
  What follows then, is my version of romance, and it begins in the toilet. As a little kid, I once (ostensibly) flushed my Mom's car keys down the toilet. I have no recollection of doing so, but she informed me of the act when I was old enough to understand. Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't, but we do know two things. The keys did indeed disappear one day, and a child we recall, certainly was fascinated with flushing toilets!
  You just trip the lever, and a swirl and a whoosh, and everything disappears? Wow! And we are talking 1950's era toilets here, none of that wimpy 1,6 gallon stuff, this was a real flush! I think I saw things through this type of lens.
  Vietnam was going on then, un-rest and riots in the streets, corrupt politicians with their finger on "the button", narcotics and "free sex" ruining a generation. And for you younger, (this present gen) "the button" was the premise of a nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. being a very real possibility (the "Cold War"), breaking out any old day now! With one push, an atomic holocaust ends civilization as we know it, and then there were also some "negative trends" to consider!
  The end of oil was being predicted, a "Malthusian die-back" was in the works, world-wide famine predicted, along with an ice-age just to make things interesting. . . This was life, and life was a big toilet. To my young eyes, the lever had already been tripped. What we were observing then was the beginnings of the big swirl, which necessarily must end in the big whoosh, or so it seemed to young me at least.
  The very concept of "everything working out fine" was not only a blindness to reality, it was also functionally insane. And in that young me, what was true on the grand scale over-rode and eclipsed anything on the personal scale. The everything-okay theorm of; "I got my bike fixed in time to go to Kevin's house for lunch", was not much help when considered in light of coming mushroom clouds, and hypersonic shock waves to follow. So, if romance was a "happily ever after"; in the long run, it didn't matter even if it was true. And I doubted the truth of it in any case.
  Meeting a nice enough girl, so to settle down and argue happily for fifty years was small compensation for an entire world swirling, about to go whoosh, down the drain. I doubt that I fully thought this out as a boy, but the elements of this despair in me are (I think) being fairly considered today in this essay.
  So, as a newly minted romantic, I shall divulge the over the hill plumber-philosopher spin we all await! And I think it is about good and evil.
  Our concept of a romantic "happily-ever-after", is rooted in a dim-echo, a mirror image effort of grasping the real happily ever-after, of Gospel. The presbyhoovian spin here is ordinarily lumbering assertions concerning "Sovereignty", but nobody in their right mind wants to consider that.
  No, it is the The Son who leaping every barrier, crashing every wall, losing even His own life in the deed, proving to be "The Spouse" extraordinaire, it is He whose love is the headwaters (as the actual), of which our reverse-image river of romance; originates. And as true as that may be, it yet does not deal well (in my opinion) with the basic set involved of good and evil.
  It is a flat assertion that love triumphs over evil, and that is true enough, but says nothing about what precisely is being conquered.
  The short version here, is that we (to some degree) know of ourselves, that indeed; we are ugly and mean. As such, we generate distance between ourselves and others, for their good! The romance theorm (and it is a true one) says that He is not repulsed by our efforts at "saving Him", in the same fashion as we would "save others" from ourselves. Rather, He inverts our reverse image back to the true, and saves us from Him! This, I think goes a fair distance in explaining what women are so busy doing in their "developing r" construct.
  They inherently reject the notion that they are beautiful, insofar as they are aware of their inner ugliness. All of the dumb shenanigans they invoke, are designed to push away the seeker, because they wish to limit their own damaging effects, while trying to assay the genuineness of professed love. This is my guess at least, and know it to be true of myself also.
  The glory of Gospel is that He ratifies the terms of life and peace, and then applies that merit to us, "AS-IF" we were the loyal ones? Thus freed, we are given license to begin growing into what He has already remade us to be! And boy-howdy, I'm all for that, but we have not yet even dented the discussion of what precisely He is overcoming in this victory, i.e., "evil" (or perhaps more accurately, "sin").
  I like to eat at a Chinese "all-you-can-slam-down-your-neck buffet" here in town once or twice a month. Last night, on my way there, the "X-tion" radio station was playing a sound bite by Ravi Zacharias. He sounded in the content, much like C.S. Lewis and a big ol' slug of lessor lights I have heard over the years on the topic of sin. One and all, they inform us that the lever, the motivation and main driver of sin is . . . "pride". It is this that I have come to doubt, for it is this, which has so thouroughly made hash of my past efforts to decode the intent of romance. Or so, I now believe.
  I am no theologian, but do like to think over some of the things they talk about. I cannot (just now) recall a single verse in the Bible which would afford us the luxury of defining sin as; "unrepentant pride, at root". If it were true, wouldn't it perhaps be also true that the premier value in life would thus be humility? If pride is the force which makes sin go, then wouldn't humble-lowness be the cure? But, He-Himself is the real cure! And so, I contend that this is the bait and switch, which accounts for much of my confusion over the years on the "r-word-2".
  Houston, we have a weirdness. . .
  As my friend Greg says: "Many Christians seem to think that the central and necessary attribute in The Almighty is love. Hogwash! The Bible makes it clear that, that axle of necessity; is His Holiness.". And I agree with Greg, yet the holy goes by-in-large undefined in Christian-land it appears to me. And so, whatever sin proves to finally mean, the main driver of it, must needs be unholiness, not pride! And if that unholy must also involve hubris, insanity and cruelty, I'm okay with that. But, the central pillar of sin (and death) is the un-holy in us, so reads this plumber's lexicon.
  Whatever the package of sin finally contains, that Pandora's Box of chaos which pours out lawlessness and oathbreaking, as it belches forth addiction and passive collapse, while it continues cranking out perversion of the true, and the harsh and arrogant purging of the "useless", whatever the load ends up containing, the thing consistently rotates upon the axel of the un-holy, so say I. But, wouldn't defining un-holy, ought require a working grasp of the genuine article, The Holy? And just here, we are numb and un-naturally quiet. I won't bore you to tears with yet another hashing over of my view on this. But simply holiness is not a moral attribute of El Elyon, it is His unique ontological stance.
  Being, "is-ness", the very most basic aspect of our lives is that "we-be". But, our being is always and always unlike His. His Name, "I Am Who Is", or perhaps "I Am, That Am" is holy, I mean the Name is! The referent here, is to a two-type of being, The Author, Who of Himself "Is, Was, and Shall Be", is being compared with all which He made, directs and supports in its being. It (The Holy I mean) is the Creator/creature disjunct, writ large and forever true.
  Unholiness then, formats as an intense (and might we add, insane?) avarice for, and longing; and ambition to cross this divide from our side, so to become "like God". The unholy (sin) is rooted right here, in the ontologically impossible and frankly undesirable ambition from hell. The unholy is trying to be its own author, supporter, director and goal. And even if it were possible (which it is not), it would be a horrid end, a monstrous perversion, a lie writ large. It would be that which would be "demanding" revenge from the True "He who Is". And that is just what we, in fact; have! The original romance, He is saving us . . . from Him, unto Him!
  So, in order to grasp romance, we must understand good and evil, but we are prohibited in correctly doing so; if we assess evil (sin) as primarily pride run amok. Thereby, we do not understand romance, this is my assertion today. But a proper understanding, involving the fear of God, holds life, and eternity-future as the prize!
  Thus, the genuine article of romance is Immanuel, "God-with-us". Our crazy conspiracy to cross that gap from creature-to-Creator, is the source and headwaters of all our ills. But His remedy is to cross the gap from His side. And boy, is it ever romantic! In His story, everything really will work out alright, for it already has! There is an actual and real "happily-ever-after" of which our dim copies are of necessity, reverse images.
  Who saw that one coming? Mike Labor, the hopelessly romantic plumber? Gadzooks! But it actually makes sense now. Hey, maybe I oughta get married after all? All of that scheming double-talk, those decades long cases of emotional extortion, the boatload of crazy blather, conniving and implacable mean-ness that is "wimmen", suddenly it all makes sense? If we can deduce (by faith) the future reality of a sane and glad future, then it becomes "worth-it" to endure their temporary insanity? Well, I (for one) am surprised by this development. Perhaps "romance" was His Christmas present this year?
  No wonder I was lingering over that dream! For the first time in my life, voluntarily taking on that second full-time job appeared cogent, and lucid? It was not, in those moments at least; the familiar girding up, so to endure pointless madness on the way down the drain.
  I get it! Or, more appropriately, He got us, and even we block-hearts are very slowly becoming aware of a sea-change!
  Another world beckons, a place where things make sense!
  He's so good, it's scary!

Christmas Story (date unknown)

  No, don't "fix" it, that wreath is supposed to be egg shaped. That's the one Aunt Sally sat on, it's a keeper for sure! That perfectly round one you saw down at Macys is just a thing, a mere object. It has no character, there is no family legend to attribute to it, and brings nobody a smile when they remember her big eyed surprise at what she had accidentally done.
  You can try (if you'd like) to frame a "perfect Christmas" with one of those utterly conical  green things which never lose a needle on the carpet . . . but I tell you, the stinker is still leaning!
  Think back with me, those family stories you recall best; don't they involve those pesky trees which not only refused to stand erect, but finally came crashing down on the magical day that Sam the dog came roaring around the corner? The tree-in-motion, which was to have been "the-rooted", now that's memorable! Nobody recalls the "perfect" one, which just stood there, and never did anything interesting.
  Our little stories are connected-to, and ultimately based upon the one Real Story. Our constant urge to "repair and dress things up", our chronic fixing of things just doesn't tell the story right.
  The grand tale told, of a peasant-baby "pretending to be food" (asleep in a manger) ends with Him becoming the "true food" for our souls. It would just ruin the story to take the tyke and place him in a "proper and decent" bassinet.
  The real saga of He, without beginning, popping suddenly into our crazy world is hurt not helped by our insisting that He was nevertheless always-with us. He, without end, all just and true, dies miserably at the hands of rotten men framing Him on false charges. The story told is supposed to be messy! To prettify it, to make it smooth is no longer jarring, and it is we who slumber at noon, who are thus not called awake by such "repairs".
  The One who died friendless and alone, had nothing in this world but the clothes upon His back, and those were promptly stolen and gambled away! He the Friendless One, then proves to be the only True Friend we have ever really known. Out of His naked-ness we are clothed, out of His violent suffering, we are calmed and cared for. If we take out the ugly sections, the pretty parts end up making no sense at all for our sore and tired lives.
  He calling for help, goes unheard, and so the calling upon our lives is ratified. We then, called anew, out of our stupor, out of our pointless busy-ness, called out of our soul devouring acid loneliness; we are called alive, by Him-Who-Died! It's not supposed to be a pretty story, it's way too real for that kind of stuff. "It" (He actually) is the new thing in the world.
  So, He The Rememberer, and incidentally The Inventor of dirt, shows up, and is buried in the stuff and promptly forgotten. And as He verbally repeated, predicting His Own return from the dead, not a soul "heard" it. The utterly expected, becomes thus the ultimate. . . Surprise!
  The Perfect Son is joined to a deeply flawed bride, and He is not ruined in that union, but she is lifted up. Perhaps it might be a bit like Mark Twain "entering" his own story, so to meet in person those rascals Tom and Huck. And all this, so to bring them "back up" with him, back to the real world?
 So don't you listen to all that moping over the "ruin" of the holiday. All of that caterwauling over there about the shabby materialism, the crass tinsel and shallow merchandising; just forget it for the day. Let it go! The day was never really intended to "be perfect"! You, by your own self can't fix it, but you can become a grouch. Who wins there?
  Let's face it, the dinky lights are charming, amid the schlock and spiel, the music yet remains haunting. The ever-new, the evergreen day doesn't need repair, for it is part of what is repairing us! You needn't fuss over things, for He is The One fussing over you!
  This transformation, this rebuilding shows up as a kind of glad boldness in His folk. He is the new "thing" in earth, and He relieves our fears that everything has been ruined. Do you see? He was The One-ruined, and He emerged on the other side of that disaster fiercely loyal, and strangely lively indeed! The First-born of the dead, is transmitting this very same mighty conquest into we-dying. He, always and always The First, amid and at the heart of what shall prove to be an uncountable multitude of the likewise fiercely loyal, and strangely lively, is glad of it all!
  I tell you, the story is true! The new creation has commenced, it is begun just here; in our sad, stupid and lonely hearts. From there, it shall spread out to a whole new Making! A whole new reality is in the works, this one founded in justice, rightness and joy, I tell you, He is unstoppable!
  Your hearing heart friend, your listening center is the priority (His priority I mean), the new beginning starts in the lowest of the low, even me! And once He has your heart, once He has that, ALL-else follows.
  So, I (for one) am going to let the ACLU continue to make their snarky, cheap-shot attacks on "dangerous manger scenes" this year. I am going to let the "outraged and offended" leftists whine about what a terrible "waste" this ritual is. Heck, bring on the Muslims, Hindus and every cadre of the complaining. Drag in the combined powers of hell and all earth for that matter, NOTHING can deter Him! He is our Champion, and shall prevail, for the excellent reason, that He already has!
  He crashes every barrier, leaps every wall, and busts down every prison door. Upon His Own honor, He will not halt! . . . Until He finds every last one of His lost lambs. He ceases not, until the day that the very last crazy rebel, hating Him for no cause (the one that He foreknew!), comes out with his hands up! The story isn't the thing that is being fixed, but our sad and wretched lives and hearts.
  It's all right there in the story. See? That wild looking wreath is supposed to be egg-shaped!
                                                                                         Merry Christmas to all!
                                                                                          Love, M.

That Jonah Dude (a.k.a. Christmas 2015)

  Well, it's about that time again. Thanksgiving is past, the FM radio stations are playing Charlie Brown Christmas music, and you are seriously considering going to the Bahamas for about six weeks, until "the season" is history.
  Okay, I made up that bit about the Bahamas. For a lot of people, "the season" is actually something they look forward to? My guess on that score is that such folks likely have some active link to short people.
  Christmas is much moreso a "kid" holiday than most others, and if you have links to little people, then the feast (as NASA would say) " is a go". If, on the other hand, you have no kids; and your nieces and nephews are themselves parents, then the holy-day takes on an altogether more "sinister" aura. Well, sinister is likely a strongish term, dreary maybe?
  I say dreary in that (to me at least) the concept of "cheer" is ordinarily the result of something, not the cause. The emotional strong-arming effort to have you join-in, so to likewise spread "cheer"; appears to be founded upon the premise that if enough of us do so, then peace and order (or happiness?) will somehow or another result. The premise that feeling good generates good, can work to a degree, but such normally requires other persons. It is not the sort of thing you would busy yourself with, if stranded alone. So then, as practiced; Christmas is a celebration of ongoing "successful" marriage, and for that, you need girls.
  Not wanting to overly offend the fairer sex in this diatribe, there is a nostalgia related to objects built of wax; and tiny ornamental fixtures, which the ladies appear to find interesting. Most guys are not precisely on that page. The day-holy has some sort of link with the DeBeers consortium? Diamonds are actively marketed, although I can't say why a poverty stricken couple giving birth in a barn, to their firstborn; has any natural connections to an artificially controlled demand for clear and hard rocks. But, my point is, the chivalrous, the "women and children first" ethic, is basic to the day as observed; and who can argue with that?
  Positionally then, I am in a statistically improbable "place", with a view to 25 December. I like small children well enough, and observe that the "romantic" aspects of the day, have strong internal impetus for the many, but basically, am not much interested in acquiring either of the assets involved.
  Which, in a roundabout fashion brings us to my first point of discussion. I hear lots of people decry the "materialistic" acquisitiveness (it used to be called "greed and envy" I think) so prominent in our era. There is a sort of "product status" which is clearly present. It is not good enough to give a $60 wristwatch, they "need" a $400 one. Designer names on shirts speak of a social pecking order, an "upness" to be had, and a lot of people resent the heck out of the "class" distinctions that are thus being made. Product stuff is sold with words like "exclusive". Uh, who exactly is excluded? Well, the people who either can't afford, or actively reject the "offering" I would guess?
  So, we get this weird sort of "not-wanting", an inversion of the generalized; because to want (the exclusive) is to say that you are so shallow that you are seriously considering yourself "superior" (to un-named persons?) by the mere owning of the "trinket of the week"? And who wants that kind of shallowness anyhow?
  This type of consideration tends to blowback, and in the (neo) desire for a simple and unaffected holiday, one just oozing with humility, and such; kinda boomerangs? But, this boomerang effect, this disdain for shallowness per se, next becomes the chic, the new "must have" commodity? It's kinda like brain gymnastics for the emotionally bizarre? It is depressing to watch others caught in this loop, and far worse to realize that I am not immune!
  Christmas becomes in this matrix, an informal police effort to guarantee "good intentions" in even the harshest and most hardened souls. It functions as a war in time, against the ravages of time. It is a retreat-from, the constant beating-down of life. It is an artificial hub-bub, featuring tremendous busy-ness; which drowns out (temporily) the actual tensions of the rat-race.
  As such, the way I see things, if a Nintendo or a Rolex is what might temporarily assist a person from growing ever more cynical about, and leery of humankind, then maybe they should have one?
  Be that as it may, it just isn't too important whether a "perfect Christmas" is produced or not. The way I view things, Christmas is a lot more like Jonah-dude in the Bible, than some sort of yearly delusional elevation of our opinion of humankind.
  Jonah might not seem (at first) to be a very good role model for "our youth", and any links made back to the Nativity, could well appear slender indeed! I won't bore you with a sermon on the guy. If you would like to bored that way, you will have just to go to church yourself I suppose.
  The guys from Ninevah got thrown out of the Hells Angels for being "antisocial". The Nazis wouldn't have them, because they were "insensitive". But the mind bending brutality of these goons certainly did make other city-states think twice before messing with them. They were awful!
  The Almighty tells Jonah to go down there and announce that their "inner child" was crying out for relationship! He was being sent to build their self-esteem, which would naturally cause them to embrace compassion. . .
  No wait; wrong theology! He was told to go warn them that The True King was going to turn them into hammered dogmeat, pronto! Jonah-dude did the reasonable thing, and said "You've got the wrong Hebrew! I am outta here." And it's not like Jonah was all appalled at the notion of these psychos getting whacked, in fact, he was kinda looking forward to it. And if we buy the idea that he would have probably gotten skinned-alive by these murdering pukes (which they considered "good fun") for his troubles, it makes tons of sense for him to go the other wày. If we can just remove the verbal warning, then it becomes a sure thing! There is no chance of them escaping Judgement, if he keeps quiet, and so he kept his mouth shut and split. How hard was that to figure out anyway?
  If, in the modern world, The King informed you likewise to march into the ISIS headquarters and announce terms (acceptable to Him) for uncondional surrender, and you knew that if you refused, the hammer would indeed fall, so to take them all out in an unannounced and violent fashion, where is the motive to go?
  You see? The old testament does not exist in order for us to pretend at some "spiritual superiority" to our elders in the faith. Usually, the story of Jonah-dude is told as a kind of cautionary tale, and kiddos, don't let this happen to you, always obey God; as the "moral of the story".
  Hogwash.
  Our hope is not built upon the schmaltzy premise, that we the "latter and evolved" have mastered a prissy and knuckleheaded optimism about human nature in the abstract, which the ancients were ignorant of. Our hope is not that "caring" formats as national foreign policy, rightly grasped. A "don't let this happen to you" kind of spiritual superiority complex is retrograde ballast which has to be jettisoned, prior to launch.
  The story of Jonah is preaching (in part) Christmas! It is not the full-tilt-bozo treatment of St. Luke, but it is "there' for all the world to see; nonetheless.
  When the self-esteem gurus of Messiahs' time demanded a sign of Him, He said; "No dice, unless you are thinking about the sign of Jonah." That same sign goes mostly unread to this very day.
  The content is basically; "Come out with your hands up!". The context is that; The Judge of all has found you evil, and will no longer abide you wasting His air. The running of Jonah is human wisdom at its best, saying; "I am getting out of the way, let the hammer fall!". But that, that wisdom of ours is not, and never has been enough.
  The deliverance from the fish (i.e., the rising again from the dead); points at a new thing in earth. And here, Jonah, like David, like Sampson, like Moses, like Abraham (like us!) is just not up to the task of fully carrying out the work of the anointing, and he, like the Master; is (post death) freed to participate!
  The background never shifted. That great and terrible day surely coming remains as the context. But, Jonah unaided; is not "empowered to speak" by that new thing in earth (resurrection power to be had), prior to getting swallowed by "death-fish". His emergence from the maw of death escapade is prefiguring the genuine article Christ, The LORD! The firstborn from the dead, is like-Jonah; but moreso, so to speak. The True-Jonahs' adventure is declaring in bold-face that new thing in earth, which was hinted at, in the pre-figure. Here, the Man-singular has paid the Ninevite debt! Now, reason declares that there is a meaningful and actual purpose for us to come out with hands up! He means us good.
  Previously, God "overlooked" the high treason of Adams' seed, but now a new thing is breaking forth. Whispered by the fish, the actual death of the new Head of the race is the sign awaited. Hope lives!
  Indeed He do! Christmas is a high holy feast, a remembrance, a celebration of His current Presence, and a firm confidence that all ends beautifully well, not because of some moronic "optimism", but because Mr. Almighty Himself has come to meddle in our affairs!
  Jonah-dude was pretty bummed out when the demolition show was canceled. I have always thought that he must have had a fine sense of humor.
  "Why did you drag me all the way out here to watch You NOT destroy these animals? I could have stayed home, and enjoyed myself, if You intended to let these nut jobs off the hook in any case!". It is humor we see, and of all that annual "cheer and tidings" jazz, this is the real deal, of which ours is but the faint shadow.
  The difference between Jesus and Jonah is that the True Jonah, the True David fully completes the trip without giving the Father any lip, whatsoever. Now, that is amazing! But the part of the sign of Jonah which we keep, is that he did stand-up, he did finish the task, and it was not out of any "innate compasssion" on his part. He had no alternative, AND was empowered to speak, it is both/and, not either/or.
  It is the language of freedom, which Paul so loves. He is freed to be compelled! In that slavery is liberty, and in that speaking of the True Jonah, hope descends to the depths, even so low as me!
  Messiah is robbing the enemy blind! He is turning the worst of the worst, the Hells Angels, the Muslims and Nazis (even "acquisitive" Americans!), men from every "tribe" are being compelled to live in that very same deliverance Jonah first experienced. And oh, what a difference the turning makes! It is what Christmas is, the original gift . . . life!
  Look back and remember well. Look about you and "see the invisible hand" faithfully guiding back to sanity and self-control. Look ahead, to that wildly glad embrace of the True Dad, surely to come!
  Dec 25 is Him saying; "I Personally guarantee it!".
  Have a Merry Christmas indeed, 2015!

Your friend,
M.L.

November Thoughts

  I haven't written anything like an essay in weeks. That darned facebook thing has become way too much of a time sponge, and much of my writing comes out as barbed statements, snide commentary and such like stuff. True enough, I do enjoy making punchy loaded statements, but too much of that kind of thing is unwholesome. Facebook is a bit like television, a sort of chewing gum for the mind.
  A second reason for the hiatus is that I often conclude that nobody actually likes my writing anyhow, and so, why do it? But, the fallacy here is that I do not (in fact) write in order to entertain or inform others. I write because I enjoy laying out ideas, and making snarky comments now and again. It's fun! Yet, it does remain true, that a bummer-spiral wherein I just quit trying is pretty darned accurate, as an estimate of my "character", so it does remain as part of the big quiet. So anyhow, lame excuses aside for now, I do enjoy writing, even if nobody enjoys the reading! So, on we roll.
  My November thoughts are not yet a full set, cookies which are cooking are not yet fully cookied, nor are they still but blobs of dough; they are midway. These comments are a bit like those mid-cookies, we can't yet taste; but we can sniff, and we can get the gist. There is a strange tension inside Christianity which I would like to discuss today. It is linked often to escathology, also it shows up in the talk of "victorious living". Sometimes, a general "take" on sanctification causes the topic to bob to the surface.
  In my mind though, there is a problem in speaking about this idea-set; from any of those viewpoints. The main reason being, that we have so muddied the water that we often forget what the topic was. Such an approach normally yields quote and counter quote of scripture in a "can you top this?" ascending disorder. I have no interest in that.
  So, let's us try a more roundabout method to see if we can spot the topic, and stick with it for ten minutes eh? There is an American train of thought, you would immediately recognize. We see it in sports, it shows up in gossip magazines, politics is heavy with it. Strangely, it is almost everywhere and at the same time; we normally don't take much notice of it.
  In this land, kids are taught from their earliest years to want to be a winner, to become a success, or alternatively to become a "somebody", that is; to seek fame and fortune. The very undesirable inverse of this, is being a loser. The language is in the form of a threat; "What? Are you some kind of drone, just another nobody?". In politics it is about being popular and wielding power. In sports it is about prowess, agility and smarts. The link of money to success, although nowadays somewhat muted, is still the clearest marker of whether a body has attained "somebodiness". It is a divide in our culture, our families and our own minds. I call it a "polarity". Imagine a world with no middle but only poles, what kind of world is that? It's our kind!
  This polarity in us, and manifesting around us; has frequently caught my attention over the years, but it is only this month that my spinning brain has begun to gel on the matter. The polarity shows up in our world, our minds, our churches and we almost never think about it, because it gets very confusing, very quickly. As an indirect route of inquiry then, let us consider war to the death!
  Think of three famous battles and what they have in common. Dien Bien Phu, The Alamo and Thermopylae. In all three, the "good guys" are wildly outnumbered. Each features a defensive posture for the guys in white hats. In each case, said defensive position is finally over-run (but at tremendous cost) by the hordes invading. These battles have captured the imagination of a lot of writers over the years, and perhaps one reason for that is our polarity issue we have in mind here?
  In these battles, who here is "the true winner"? Or perhaps, how do we go about determining such? See? In this type of scenario, the advance knowledge of certain death does not sway the warriors from continued fighting. Santa Ana really did sweep the Texans, but who has the final victory? Which side, the Persians or the Spartans is remembered by a hundred generations? To fight to the last man, fully aware that none shall leave alive is a different kind of war making than we are used to. There is a third dimension creeping into our flatland, and our simple win/lose framework cannot hold the freight.
  I don't know about you, but so often, the "extra reality" of this sort of "dimensional" look is lost on me. S.O.P. in my brainstem decrees that I prefer to see things as a "flat" layout, wherein the victor is the victor, and discussions to the contrary are a waste of time. Simultaneously, I am also dissatisfied with my own attitude? It is like; "Very strongly disagreeing with myself . . . in principle!". There is an un-ease in me, a pesky discomfort at the thought of a "flat polarity" being the real deal, either "out there" or "in here", and yet I very much function as if it were really the interpretive guide to favor. Weird.
  Perhaps a similar discomfort in others has spawned the industry of "participation trophies", wherein "All of our kids are winners!"? Beats me.
  So, there is something both desirable and also undesirable to each leg. If we bifurcate reality into an up-down schema, then neither is "fully" what we want, nor is the undesired completely without merit. And so very nearly immediately, there is talk of "compromise", or that; "things are not so black and white as all that". Recall that I warned of confusion here.
  There is a lot of material flowing from this tree, but most of it is pretty lousy stuff to try and file in the brain. We are thus, in search for a "captcha" which will allow for a victory-in-loss so to speak. Or perhaps conversely, we are interested in that mysterious rich man who somehow remains humble and accessible?
  Not being able to locate these, we collapse again backward into speaking of diversity, and of overcoming challenges and whatnot. Much of that talk also rotates around this button. We are trying to get to "a place" in which success (but not too much of it) compensates for our fear of going un-noticed or leading a pointless life. So, we try to blend up with down, or left with right in order to get to "the place" but ordinarily, you just can't get there from here.
  The problem with success is that it makes you one. Money bends people, and power twists men. There is no end to success, one cannot have "too many" billions. And to us down here at the bottom of the food chain, it seems to require the loss of money-power (often) for a man to possibly resume being human, after having been bent by power. So, there is it appears; a kind of "failing" which is better than mere success, but it (the better option) is not something we would be in a position (as a success) to ever desire! I have spent much of my life in one fashion or another examining this set.
  For years (no, that's not true; for decades!), this mess has just never really settled into a recognizable shape in my thinking, except that I was quite confident that I did not want "success". And that was simply because of what I saw it doing to people.
  In the mike-book, I reject the notion of pop psychology which asserts that; "The abused become the abuser". The simple knowledge and memory of what it was like being at the bottom, ought prove strong enough fuel for me to nix the offer of up-ness. This sort of analysis may not be altogether true, nor do I fully execute it; but something very like it has guided much of my life.
  This sort of reasoning is why I chose to begin with battles-famous, rather than a discussion of the "prosperity gospel" versus orthodox faith. The topic (lately, this month) seems clearer to me if we focus upon loyalty and courage to the death, rather than whether a "prosperity" (or not) is in the offing. Next, the whole messy bag of various spins on the end of the world also displays the polar thing but so sloppily! This same winner/loser scheme; which is so "America", is clearly also in the church. But, by the time we doff our Sunday best and brush up on dogma, we can easily forget that we agree-somewhat with both ends of the spectrum! By then it is too late, and compromise becomes a dirty word.
  Everyone loves a winner, but nobody loves an arrogant one, yet by definition he owns bragging rights. By gaining the desired, he himself becomes undesirable, and this, applied to theology is just a mess. The real issue at hand (says the plumber), is courage. Yet, in the theology end of things, that C-word has almost been emptied of meaning.
  In our era, the feminine push to (forever!) treat the central axioms of scripture as "developing relationship" (gaack!) and "working toward true intimacy" just has no place in its' lexicon for any such thing as a blood and guts, fierce warrior ethic. There is no file available to find the tab called "courage unto death" in our system. And I mean certain death!
  In this school of ours, The Almighty is verifiably NOT "A Man of War", and so (says me), the only working solution to a flat polarity (which is loyal courage to the death) is permanently out of reach for us. We cannot find a way out of the maze called "does God want us to succeed or fail", so we keep getting muddled with some sort of homogenized mental gymnastics until it tires us out. Whether we are to rise or fall, to live or die is war talk, and in this plenum, the answer (in Christ) is "Yes and Amen!"
  The actual situation on the ground down here is that we live in a war zone, and the same poison which ruined angels and men is still active in us. As it stands, none of us are getting out of here alive. The usual exception being unless (of course) we are here to greet the Maker upon His return. Now, for purposes of this discussion, we will discount (for now) that exclusion clause. I flatly assert; "We are all going to die". The question has never been whether we will die, but crucially; shall we die well?
  Twenty centuries and more of faithful men and women doing just this, leads us to believe that He certainly has an interest in the matter! There is a peculiar statement by the King referring to Himself. We have either a stone which is stumbled over, or a rock which crushes. We have the Psalmists' lament that; Your people are being led like sheep to slaughter. We have the Saviour talking this odd upside down riff where the high are the low and vice versa, the last are the first.
  My basic take on the schmeer in question over the years has been to "opt low". If the basic premise; "You cannot serve both God and riches/power" is guiding our thought, then to be a "failure" is clearly better than its' opposite. But the polar flat layout itself crashes! At this point, I usually throw up my hands, and announce to Him; "I don't get it. You (Sir) appear to be telling us to aim low, except not, aim high? Am I following the drift here? Go down, which is to say, up? So, the dimensionally flat paradigm yields flat contradictions or pointless paradox, and hooray for that?". The missing element, the Anointed One is out of the loop here, and minus Him, we get nonsense, but shouldn't we have been able to predict that?
  Think then of the three tossed into the seven-fold heated furnace. They went willingly, and were joined in the heat by "A fourth, which looks like a son of the gods!". The premise here is that death comes to all, and the way "out" is not escape-from, but deliverance-through. So, the three become social zeros by not bending, and also become rulers by submitting willingly. In the Coming One then, both poles are Personally occupied, redefined and reapplied. And I say it is in the war construct, just here; in the bloody pointless death of good men, that victory is won. This is weird, let's face it!
  We get results in our lives when we walk by faith, and left to ourselves we will never walk by faith, both are true. The key here is that we have not been, are not now, nor shall ever be, left to ourselves. Moreover, we are to personally see to it that we do not! Both/and, not either/or is the drift.
  It doesn't really matter how hard you "try" to live gody in Christ Jesus, if He ain't present, and we request His presence. It is both. So, the third dimension is a uniting of abstractions back to The Person. He is uniting us back to abstract things like; home, truth, peace and safety. Oddly then, the safest thing is to waltz into the meatgrinder. The peaceful option is reached via a warring unto death with the foe. The truth is found when we freely admit our lies, and half-truths. Home is realized in the cauldron of a nomad life, ever-wandering. He is the One who binds the opposites into meaningful patterns, with Himself at the ends and in the middle.
  With this sort of gist in mind then, the November thoughts are to this effect. The pursuit of orthodoxy, if correctly executed ought yield objections by others of cultural, familial and ecclesiastical high heresy!
  In light of the cultural, the plain rejection of greed, of sly dealing, of sneaky personal empire building; makes His folk seem downright bizarre. The inexplicable is that when an opportunity to personally benefit is purposely overridden, we are violating the cult-ure around us.
  Likewise, to be a familial heretic might best be seen where Christendom has only begun to capture hearts and minds. A typical Muslim converting in Muslim lands becomes an insult, an embarrassment both in the community and pointedly in the family, not to mention possibly getting murdered in the deal. These two, in our favorite polar fashion, format the norm, but what of being named heretic amid the congregation of the faithful? Here, just here is where "the fourth man present" is mainly ignored think I.
  Although for publicitys' sake, the phenomenon does not officially exist, there remains a definite insider/outsider model at work in the Kirk of the Living God. May as well deal with it? There is a most favored status inside the organization, and so there must also be "invisible" persons present as well. Hey, I can testify to that for sure! Here, a flat and polar scheme would generate (I presume) a disgruntled demand for inclusion on one hand, versus a professional form of patience-with, or a discipling-up tendency. And here (especially!) The third angle, the surprise of the fourth man amid the fires gets lost, forgotten and unapplied.
  Now, my previous stategies on this type of thing have included a bold, and in-your-face rebuttal occasionally, sometimes a weak retreat and finally a quizzical kind of amusement at how very strange humans really are. But, the November spin is to point out that all of my previous copings with the polar flatness in the Kirk also themselves defy and deny the fourth man amid.
  As a kind of thought experiment then, in hopes of courting an aggressive; "You are a heretic!" charge from one of the insiders at church (so to ratify orthodoxy as it were), think on this.
  The three axis approach is always and about union with The Messiah. There lives life, there victory wins, there death dies. I hope you get the idea? With this in mind then, consider the future.
  The apostolic tri-axial emphasis of faith, hope and love are bandied about as if we were to "get good at them" for fairly certain! And it appears to me, that it is precisely here that the flat and polar index is at its height. Some claim to have "mastered" the three you see? The pre-December insight then is to reconstruct presence just here.
  My tentative first atttempt then will be to blow the sucker out of the water (as usual). And with this, I shall let the matter rest for another day, and another C.P.E.
  I have noticed that I can cause the innies at church some real discomfort by talking about faith in a certain way. The norm on that topic is that we are to have faith "in" Jesus. But what then of the faith "of" Jesus? Simply said, out of the entire race there is found precisely one faithful man. He grants to us, a measure of His faith, and so we do indeed believe! That is disturbing que no? But when we apply this same personal interference model to hope, it becomes downright obnoxious!
  We have become so used to the God-Man assertion central to right doctrine that we have made the King into an omniscient man, which is to say; not a man at all. In our model, it really doesn't make much sense to speak of Jesus walking by faith, even though He flatly asserts that He does so. The problem here is our unfounded belief that in humbling Himself to be joined to man, He yet retained exhaustive knowledge. Sorry, but you are going to bust a braincell or two if you try that! Here and there, He confesses His ignorance of certain things. He does not know it all, and (like us) trusts! This, we profoundly ignore. But, the even worse message is hope.
  We do not know how far and how deep our transformation will be. What a "celestial man" is like, is clean beyond our ken. But hope asserts that when we see Him, we will be made like Him. The bizarre result is that Jesus hopes, because if He didn't we couldn't! The rebuilding of us from the ground up (the resurrection coming), will display the "new creature"; us! Hope is here, and He is here, awaiting us. We are joined to His hope!
  This then is preaching a profound and unthinkable reduction voluntarily undertaken by God, the Son. He has put Himself in the pickle of utter dependance upon the Father, to the point that He trusts and obeys! With Him, in Him, we walk also in faith (His), and expect good to come (hope) from disaster. This can mean but one thing!
  He is the One hoping, and we are invited to join Him in it? Boy, if this doesn't get me trouble with the innies, nothing will!

It's The End of the World! . . . Part 17

  Just kidding about the "part 17" up in the header. I used to write these things out longhand (on graph paper) and circulate a few to friends in person. Normally, I would pass out some (ten or twelve?) to folks as they were heading into church. Years ago, there was this old guy named Edgar, and he would hand a copy of the church bulletin to people as they came into the sancuary. He died of natural causes, and for some reason or another; I took over for him.

  I can't really say just why I do the job. I describe it as; "I've got to go stand around and pretend I like people". But, however the position became (more or less) mine, it was a great choke point in the traffic flow. Some people at minimum pretended to enjoy reading Crazy Pants Essays in those days. I figured it wouldn't do them any harm at least.

  So anyhow, back in those days; there were several of the  papers which were titled "End Of The World!" . . . part 3 or 5 or whatever. I just choose a number. There are not 16 more of these monsters floating around somewhere! But please do not think that in these we intend to mock or minimize the importance of the eschathon. No, it is far more like a church I vaguely recall in Albuquerque years ago advertising thus: "You can hold the Scriptures in one hand, and todays' newspaper in the other; and actually see (!) prophecy being fulfilled! Come to the XYZ conference, as Pastor Bob teaches us how".

  It is that sort of thing I hoped to blow out of the water with some humor on the topic.

 Now, we will not overly tax your patience with some plan, or scenario about some proposed "millenium". The short version is that there are "pre" (two flavors), "a", and "post" (about nine flavors). Of the many "post-mill" spins, I (willy-nilly) toss in the "preterist" speculations, and don't get me started on that! The short version please? My take on the millenium runs; "Millenium? What millenium? Where, ever; did you get that idea?". This makes me (I think) an "a" which is pronounced "ahh", as in ah-ha!

  The short and sweet a-mill position lines up with several of the Messiahs' parables, but the one I have in mind is the wheat and tares (go look it up). So, both the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of man are present on earth until a rude interruption from outside earth ends the story. As the bad are getting worse, also true the good are gaining traction, and "doing exploits". Both develop simultaneously, and are directionally opposed, got it? So this is "where" this C.P.E. is "coming from".

  This essay is spawned at least in part, by my recent viewing of "The Age of Ultron", the latest installment of the Avengers series. This is not a movie review, but it did seem striking (to me at least) that some of the sub-texts of the film were near matches to the regular day dreaming that I do. Plus that, it was on the same day that I went for a ten or twelve mile walk, and concluded (prior to the viewing) that AI cannot possibly be a good cultural developement.

  This Artificial Intelligence theme I was taught to lowball as a probability by my software genius friends Dave and Larry. In brief, a binary switching (on and off, one and zero) cannot ever, ever "come alive". The logic and the instructions of the program assign adding and subtracting tasks, at a high rate of speed, but under no circumstance can such ever become "aware". This would be true it appears to all binary switching. But, neither of my friends was speaking of "Quantum Computing" either.

  I do not pretend to grasp the theory or practice of qc, but in brief, it breaks the rule of two. One guy descibes it as a tri-phasic process. As such, it might yield a yes, a no, and a maybe. The valuation could be one or zero, or "both or neither". This is an entirely different scheme than what we are used to. And importantly (for the purposes of this essay), such a new tech solution might (one day), prove basic to an actual functioning AI device.

  Now, as an aside; I would suggest that you go read "That Hideous Strength" sometime soon. The extremely abbreviated version is that a 1950s era story features a machine with tubes (remember those?), levers, knobs and lights. That would be the quantum device in question. In the story, a decapitated head provides the mapping protocol, the directional processing occurs via established brain pathways. But, in the Lewis story, the thing cannot come to life until a "bent eldil" inhabits the contraption. Somehow, C.S. Lewis saw what I see, or vice-versa. In order for the final blasphemy to arise, a "three-ist" structure must fuse tri-disparate legs. 

  We get a proposed device, but that is not enough. The processing must follow routes of coherent and recognizable thinking, so a human mind becomes the template. But that is not enough, because we are still talking about a bunch of wires and circuits. For such to actually "live"; there must be a spirit, and the Father of spirits would never assign one of His own into such a monstrosity. Therefore, a kind of demonically "inspired" habitation is required.

  Now, before we move on I would like to interject an idea which has arisen somewhere else amid these essays. We like to imagine ourselves as modern and sophisticated, very unlike our simple and primitive ancestors who worshipped blocks of wood or statues. 

  This is a highly biased premise of ours, in that what was actually going on then was a magical interface, a mediated contact. The goal of ancient priests was to "chain or bind" a spirit to a place and an object via incantation and blood sacrifice. The petitioner approached the idol and asked of it, but that thing (the idol itself) was an "inefficient telephone" to communicate with the entity which resided (was bound to) "in" it. The basic problem of the occult then, is that you do sometimes get results! So, the artifact, plus the priest plus the oppressive ancient entity operating via the array is not (definitely not!) a new idea. The main difference I discuss today is signal strength, clarity of contact and the continual rather than intermittant nature of the "animal". But, let's return to the movie for a moment eh?

  The Age of Ultron (more accurately, the two and a half weeks of Ultron) touched upon some of these themes. But watching the film is akin to drinking from a firehose. Too much is happening, too many witty and zany lines are spoken. No, it's not there we look. The movie has a theme which I have been mulling over for nearly thirty years.

  The only way to get warring mankind to finally or ultimately unite is by a dreadful enough common enemy. Simply said, a threat from outside the world is the only working human motive which would be powerful enough to overcome our constant sniping at, and destruction of; each other. So for a true "End of the World!" scenario to logically function, the return of the Captain at the head of His armies must be viewed as a true threat, a dire future indeed! Of course, such a ploy would never mention Him by name, (except to the inner circle) and instead a proposed "alien invasion" is my guessed-at future strategy proposed to the "masses". Frankly, I spend altogether too much time (usually around dinner time) mulling this over, so trying to see better. This threat incoming (no mention of Messiah), the movie writer got pretty much correct it seems to me. The metaphor is dual in the flick. A very heavy object crashing in from above is one angle, and also, a foreseen (privately) threat alternative to, and far worse than the big rock, is the idea in the film.

  In brief, the prophecies about the un-man indicate this kind of duality. No one can (effectively) war upon him, (Ultron dressed up as the anti-christ) He is the dropper of the rock, and through dread of him earth is prepared for a much much worse danger "from above". He (Ultron) is the threat, and simultaneously ensign of a far greater danger-coming. 

  Interestingly, the prophet spoke also of a three, the beast, the false prophet and "the image built, which speaks". So, we derive a man like Hawking or some other genius type being the template. The false prophet (computer designer) does the mapping of the genius brain so to configure the "circuitry of the (itself) three-ist machine". The device speaks, but not of itself, for that voice is the voice of the dragon.

  So, it could be, we surmise; a working possibility sometime during our "natural lifetimes" (whatever that is) that such tech could produce  something along these lines? But recall that C.S. Lewis "saw" this sort of thing sixty-plus years ago. He died the same day that JFK was murdered. So, there is a "stretchy" time feature to this sort of speculation. The tech-flubs, boneheaded mistakes and the usual dead ends do not work by our schedule. It could take another century and more to build the final blasphemy, this "new creature" which the foe proposes. Or it could be here in less than twenty? I just don't know about the clock function in this type of thing.

  What we do know is the theme, the narrative and the finale. In brief, it reads; "God wins . . . bigtime slamdunk!". The enemy is simply forced into an idol-strategy of some kind. Since ancient days, the interface project has been his recurring plan of operation, because it is the only route open to him. 

  Do you see? The genuine artice, of which that fraud the anti-christ is stupidly trying to best, that real deal is unbreakably sound! Christ is joined to mankind, that the "new man" be joined to the Almighty. The results of that astounding transformation coming in us, are not at this point imaginable, but we do have some hints. We understand in part, but then we shall fully know.

  The New Man has a human body and a rational soul. As such, He is "One with God", and nothing is impossible for Him. He passes through walls like we pass through the air. He speaks, and life returns, He touches and the blind see. But He is not a one of a kind exactly, but rather; the First of many! We "are one with" Him! So, to what extent in the age to come, extraordinary powers manifest in His folk, I am in no position to guess, but I do guess, almost every night at dinner time!

  The dream of transit of the heavens, flying to worlds unknown, even our hymn writers buy that much. But here is the point, the eschaton coming, is come! We have (today!) become junior partners in a never ending dance with the Bridegroom, and I guess He shall teach us some fancy steps indeed in future days. Already, we are noticing alarming differences between the two races. 

  The living are freed to courageously die, and the dead are terrified to get near the grave. The living sing songs of gladness in the darkness, awaiting the true light, and the dead are never truly happy. These are small but yet astonishing fruits of His already-operating in/with us.

  We have been sheared off from a huge catastrophe, the certainty of Judgement! The devils? They are hammered dog-meat in that coming overthrow, and they know it. There is zero hope for them, and their rage is great because of it, their time is short. But the humans can (yet!) be turned out of that path! The link, the union He has established, is a rich and never ending source of vitality, of welcome and of understanding. It is a life fully good and grand, with no terminus!

  The miserable hatchet job mockup of this, which the enemy proposes, cannot begin to equal the real deal. And this is why eschatology is really so important. That coming-age has arrived, it has commenced, and there is no authority in heaven, earth and hell combined which can reverse it! An eschatology of hope is a meaningless phrase unless we define the word "hope".

  Our coming transformation is certain for the excellent reason that it has already fully occurred in our Head, and begun in our bodies! He the fully transformed, is permanently "moving in" with us! And we are being rebuilt in that image. The everlasting and infinite God, is today and evermore also a Man (or more correctly, The Man) and that (already and not-yet) one-ness with Him, is going to be a mighty and wild and good thing, Yes-Siree!

  Hope has meaning because He Who Is (our hope) is alive and well, having busted out of the tomb, there is no going back to it . . . ever!

  For Him, or (one day) for us! So says the plumber.