Out of the Shadow,

Bucket of Hope

2010-02-05T15:54:00.000-06:00

Haitians need food, we as a God fearing people have a good opportunity to share with these people in a meaningful and material way through these 'Buckets of Hope'

God's Character by Name

2010-01-26T12:44:00.004-06:00

El Hakkadosh Holy God

Rav-Chesed Abounding Love

Rachum Ve-Chanum Merciful and Gracious

Emet Elohim Emet True and Faithful

Higdil Tushiyyah Excellent in Wisdom

When Adam hears the Voice of God Walking, that Voice does not condemn him but rather asks him to think. "Where are you?", with the implied "Don't you know I know?", And "Who told you you were naked?"
which follows the implied "Weren't you already naked?". So God (notwithstanding the consequences of, is it pride, disobedience or faithlessnes) rather than acting vindictively responds to Adam's fear and new found guilt by clothing him. He stands by His Word and His Word is Holy, Loving, Merciful, Gracious, True, Faithful, and Excellent in Wisdom. God is perfect, uncommon, illustrious. His love is like a rock. He keeps from us the guilt and fear we deserve, and gives to us joy and and the hope of eteranl life, which we in no way deserve. He is more loyal than 'Old Blue', whose tail wags whenever we come close. Our abode with Him will never fall. Our understanding and rationale will never explain how He has known to do just the right thing, at just the right time, in just the right way, every step of our wandering path, for who but God could pen 'Let them go, when they desire to Love they will return.'

Emmanuel

2009-12-03T10:58:00.001-06:00

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Im--"with"

'am--"people"

el--"God"

ask for a sign...

ch 20 and en toto Getz Discipline

2009-11-23T12:00:00.001-06:00

Here we are hit with some of the reality of living in a material world where it is difficult, if not impossible, to continually dwell in the confession of the Holy Spirit. This is a point which its statement often foresights a disagreement between conversationalists. But, I think we can all agree that, as God calls us, then we respond, some would say without reservation given the Mighty God who is, and others would say to our own frustration if we try to negate what the Spirit has led us to see. So, with that caveat in mind, I would say that when God calls, there is some movement on our part to either become more aligned with what God wills in our life, or, to try and hide ourselves from the truths we dare not entertain. Either direction involves discipline to succeed materially(while only one direction will succeed spiritually). If we are highly disciplined then we can cover a multitude of tactical errors, and with adaptive discipline even work to correct some early errors in strategy, but the thing I see here that Getz seems to ignore is that the correct discipline is not always logical, nor is it easily discerned, but springs eternal from God who gives to each according to his need. So that the important discipline is the one which incorporates the physical turning to God(time and place, Bible study, fellowship, worship, discipleship, ministry, mission, prayer underlining all), the Spiritual awareness of God's manifestation(silence and listening, observing and trusting) and the Spiritual confession of God's Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience. After all this is said and done then we are left with the fact that Jesus himself discipled his disciples and yet they faltered numerous times in their discipleship leaving themselves with the necesstiy to return to the discipler.

Lastly, I would say it would have been nice if Getz had added a chapter telling us what he was going to tell us and/or one telling us what he had told us(the twenty items altogether), but then we do have the scripture references don't we?

ch 19 Getz Holiness as a gift

2009-11-23T11:13:00.000-06:00

We begin to see what Getz has been driving at here in this chapter where all those incremental things should mathematically add up to what this and the last chapter address Holiness and Discipline. But Getz interjects, and appropriately so, that Holiness is not something we do, although what we do may indicate the degree to which we have accepted God's gift of Holiness, Holiness is something then that we accept, admit, confess, encourage; and only do we so encounter it from Jesus alone. While behaviour is to be circuscribed and attitudes are to be healthy and focus is toward the needs of others, the actuation of all these mores begins and is continued and culminates in the Word of God.

Ch 18 Just and upright

2009-11-12T23:46:00.001-06:00

In this chapter by Getz, we are reminded that we really are inferior in our love and effort to love so that our justness, our righteousness must come from God--it is God who justifies us through the death of His Son. And by the ressurrection of His Son we are given the Spirit of God to comfort us and guide us and empower us into a just behaviour. So by Jesus life and death are we forgiven and by his ressurrection and Spirit are we quickened. If we accept Him as our Justness then we will behave in an upright and just manner. This is made possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit in a perceptive and willing soul. This Spirit then guides us into the work and sacrifice that God would have us to do and when we realize we really are not able of ourselves to do it, then His power will be made manifest in His willing and faithful servant to finish just what He wants done. So being just and upright involves being in touch with God, communicative and still, just enough, to be mobile, yet sensitive to that which has no flesh nor bone, and yet can be so overwhelming as to move mountains into the sea. When we can rely on God in this manner then we can open ourselves up to those who are in need and lend God's wisdom to their plight and allow God to manifest through kind word and gentle encouragement. This will offer light and life to that which has hidden in darkness and decay, and is wreaking havoc upon its bearer, allowing them to enter into the truly satisfying fellowship which only God can and does offer. So as we become just and upright so others are brought to justness and uprightness.

Ch 17 Loving God Wholeheartedly(loving what is good)

2009-11-12T23:35:00.001-06:00

Getz does a good job of setting this table with the example of a 500 ton 747 climbing into the air--Gravity/aerodynamics. Adam and Eve set a 500 ton stone on the opening to our tomb while Jesus removed the stone and placed wings on our shoulders. Adam and Eve gave us sin and death while Jesus gave us forgiveness and life. If we love the aspects of our worldly existance more than the fellowship of God and the benefits of His character, then we refuse life and light and step into dark and death. Getz sets a good descriptive contrast of loving pleasure and self and money and hating good with loving God and loving people and doing God's will. Getz involves other letters by Paul here to underline and define and to clarify what the law of sin and death means and how God has given to us the Word of light and life. He gives us as the key to balance the love of God.

Why Fatherhood is not dpendent upon correct spellingness...

2009-11-12T10:02:00.000-06:00

This is the only spot I have found a misspelled word, I think. The word is atheisy as refers to Freud on pg 186 of chapter 16. This being the most egregious error of Getz entire book, gives me the opportunity to comment upon his unit on fatherhood. I like that he says an elder doesn't have to be married or have children to be an elder, he just needs to act as if he might be or might one day be. This tends to fall into the harmony of fidelity. When you consider fidelity and its commencement, I feel it is possible to hear that perhaps it began during the tune-up, or in the dressing room or at home in the tub, or maybe at that point in time when music was created as a concept. Does fidelity have a beginning or an end?
Maybe the question should be, "Does Fidelity have a beginning or an end?"
So a father must be good and loving and honorable toward his wife, the mother of his children and concerning his children equitable which involves individual and personal and self sacrificing.
If God is our primary example of a father when we see His Fatherhood toward us, then our fatherhood involves many foster and adopted children as well as our blood descendants if any.

Since our position as father is a result of world inhabitance then we can accept that our performance as fathers is sometimes flawed and even if not, probably in need of some sort of ameliorative example to our children as to the (mis?)manifestation of our love and intent toward them. Sometimes we must swallow the poison pill of pride, that they might grow into that more fully capable emulation of ourselves(that they have in mind), partly as an extension of ourselves but mostly as independant actors in a play begun in part by us but largely just handed down by us and many other contributors as they may have the circumstance and destiny to encounter. Our role then is to exemplify Godliness to them and receive them back home as we find their need.

Going from the fairly specific to the very general and not moving a stitch

2009-11-05T13:54:00.004-06:00

So the other night we were discussing 1 John 4. In approaching this passage we began by attempting to turn 'is' into the mathematical sign =. And therefore the /=(not equal sign) then is 'is not', except that sometimes it seems that 'not equal' and 'not(~)' are not the same. But to advance through the exercise and a bit further perhaps then, a list of symbols for substitution and some are added now as I have had time to consider and reconsider this exercise somewhat:

'is' becomes '='

'is not' becomes '/='

'confesses' 'sent' becomes '*' (added by me)

'confesses not' becomes '/' (added by me)

'born' 'hear' 'acknowledge' 'love' becomes '+' (added by me)

'death or not hear or acknowledge or love' becomes '-' (added by me)

'not' becomes '~'

so if you are already confused, just wait...

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

this then becomes by the substitutions(subjective) aforementioned

7 Beloved, let us + one another, for + = God; and everyone who + = * God and + God. 8 He who does not + does not * God, for God = +. 9 In this the + of God was * toward us, that God * His only begotten Son into the world, that we might = through Him. 10 In this = +, not that we + God, but that He + us and * His Son to be the propitiation for our ~+. 11 =+, if God so + us, we also ought to + one another.

but actually it might even be simpler and more straightforward. Although it is hard to individually symbolize in mathematics separate but similar functions. But if you can accept, what was at first hard for me anyway, that God being a name of someone personal to us can be a concept, Love, which encompasses all that He = then we might = God's +!

So

God = Love

Love = His only begotten Son

His only begotten Son = propitiation

propitiation = forgiveness

forgiveness = Life

Life = God

but then how does this jibe?

14Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;

15(For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

along with

4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

So this leads to a conundrum of

God = Love

God = jealous

but

Love = ~jealous

so what then?

Pauper/Prince Generous

2009-10-23T10:41:00.000-05:00

I was at first resentful of Getz' description of the accumulation of wealth as a character of God. But now I see he is probably taking the route of least resistance in approaching the giving habits of the smaller group of people rather than the larger group by income stratification.

When a man who makes 1,000,000 dollars gives 10% he has given a great deal of money and yet there is still, at his disposal, for taxes and necessities and pleasures 900,000 dollars. When a man with an income of 25,000 dollars gives 10% he only has then 22,500 dollars on which to live.

Getz takes on the wealthier man, stating that many people, with examples from the Bible, when encountering an increase in wealth forget to thank God in the appropriate manner, with tithes and sacrifice. So we might easily assume that often the burden of the church is carried out by people of lesser means who are faithful in their giving.

So where I began resentful I end up thankful that he is obviously writing to somene else-not me.

Hospitable and Generous?

2009-10-22T12:15:00.000-05:00

Now what sort of duplicity is this? If one is hospitable have they not been generous already? Or is ti that hospitality is actually directed at strangers and generosity is applied to all who are found to be in need?

Generosity from God by Getz ch 15

2009-10-22T00:32:00.000-05:00

Be sure to tip well whether you can afford it or not or you really should not go out to eat. This will attest to your understanding of the plight of other people's poverty if not your own. more later...

From El Shadday...Peacemaking 101 ch 14 Getz

2009-10-22T00:20:00.000-05:00

A funny thing happened...chapter 14/Getz
I am a turtle. I hide my fears in a vest pocket. I try to enjoy this as security. With security there is peace. But when the shell-cracker arrives, the pick pocket makes a tangential passing, peace is lost and security exposed as false. Thus it becomes known that even in seclusion there is not security, rather vulnerability. Now to what am I vulnerable? If I am vulnerable to God, then Love enfills and His power enables and rather than reactions of angst and fear, senses of security and peace abound. An abounding peace must by application be intentially inclusive, and if inclusive by mutual acceptance, then is there security.

Surely by these scriptures is this concept underwritten:

KJV Romans 12:16
16. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.

KJV Romans 12:18
18. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

KJV Romans 14:19
19. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

KJV Romans 15:5-6
5. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:
6. That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

KJV Ephesians 4:1-3
1. I Therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
2. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
3. Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

...and in this corner, weighing in at nealry 300 pounds, with a record of no wins of his own to spreak of,3 draws, and 100's of losses mostly by knockout, including one of the draws, called by most "Christmas", meaning "Slower than Christmas"...

2009-10-09T14:08:00.006-05:00

soon as my hands quit hurtin,

my nose quits bleedin,

my head quits throbbin,

my face quits achin,

my tears dry up,

my heart quits quiverin,

Ima gonna grease your noggin to the floor!

Bub.

Well! I Never!

2009-10-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

It makes me so angry when somebody thinks they have the right to tell me I should not get angry...who do they think they are. Then this guy Getz tells me it is ok to get angry but only if I am driving crooks, deceivers, and sellers of morality out of the church building. Or, at least, he says I should not be insulting, overbearing and threatening to others when I explain to them how and when they seem to be doing things which I am wondering why they are doing them without at least consulting me first.
I like the reference to James 1: 19-20

This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

Overcoming Self -Centeredness means becoming better centered

2009-10-06T22:58:00.001-05:00

Some of these last sections I have already touched upon earlier, but I suppose it will not hurt (me) too much if I fly by them again. I have known people who were strong willed, always going about their business without a distraction. But if someone were to bring up a legitimate complaint about their focused behaviour in accomplishing what they were, many times these strong willed(accidently selfish) people will be taken aback enough to pause and consider their endeavour, and perhaps even to amend it so that others are not offended or slighted so much by what is happening about them. On the other hand some folks are just insecure enough to, if not ignore the complaint, direct blame for the complaint in some other direction than perhaps where it legitimately belongs with 'yours truly'. These type people are not strong willed but rather selfish by intent.
It seems unfair that strong willed people who were over-indulged(spoiled?) as youngsters now have the inside track on regaining their composure and correcting their ways while the one who was overly restricted must find some outside help to deal with the neuroses and deepseated foibles they have developed and glom onto no matter the obvious consequence. This chapter has ignited in myself some very trying prayers and introspection that can often lead me into deep research whereby, after sloshing through a cloud of confusion, I find that the best thing for me to do is hold fast to the faith which I have been given and let God work on the meanness and selfishness I have uncovered in myself. I start to ready a list of names that take on something of the characteristic of Earl's list of Thursday night TV fame. I begin to remember people I need to at least apologize to if not correct past misdeeds or slights I have thrown their way(or in their way).

mea culpa

2009-10-05T12:19:00.002-05:00

My study of prayer through Baylor U's 'Christain Reflection' has converged
with my study of Getz'z 'The Measure of a Man' to uncover a flaw in my skin, surely not my heart. To wit: I find it easy to hide in the multitude of scriptures and avoid religion (personal application of the
living Word)...maybe scripture, rather than religion, is a word we need to revise its usage.

see what I mean?

so duplicity and contrivance become machinations of otherwise good and true habit and occupation lending themselves rather to self empowerment and self protection which stems, of course, from selfishness.

Lord I believe! help thou my unbelief! Mark 9:24b

de-Centering Self part two

2009-10-01T11:52:00.001-05:00

So how in creation does smacking with an oversized mallet a frog leaping at you through a hole in a table top help you become less self conscious and more Christ like? Unless the frogs are icons of the mean and stupid little things you occupy yourself with in order to shirk love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, meekness, and self control then it probably serves the opposite. In other words if you no longer, or perhaps never, considered and enacted the responsibility of honor toward your neighbor before yourself then these frogs: hate, anger, violence, impatience, vileness, rowdiness, doubt, pride, and greed, at least nine frogs in all, need to be swatted regularly and as often as they appear.

de-Centering Self

2009-09-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

This msy be more around the bush than on the nail head, and as such take on the appearance of one of those old arcade games where the player stands before a console with a broad flat top into which has been cut nine(or is it twelve,) holes through which randomly, and with increasing frequency and abruptness as the game wears on, appears the target of the unwieldy hammer in the player's hand which is tethered to the console through an elictric cord by which the promptness and accuracy of attack is recorded in the console's scoring mechanism as to whether the gopher, frog, alien or whatever mascot has been designed into that particular console(and oft times even the correct hole) was swatted and swatted in a timely fashion.

Two cases in point:

Adam tended the Garden. In that Garden was that beautiful mal-fruited Tree. Adam tended that Tree. Eve was Adam's helper. When queried by Satan, Eve misstated "If I even so much as touch..." that tree.... Satan leapt fast and struck hard, sinking the fangs of deceipt deep, flushing now hapless Eve's fiber and soul with the toxin of self neediness promoting the senses of self focus, and self importance, and self aggrandizement. Eve's first sinful act was self deception, her sense of self preservation was involved. She overstated the facts. She misstated God's Word. God said tend the Garden--Do not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Eve said what she said...responding with self contaminated scripture. Or was it Adam who countermanded God's word for the same reasons, that is not germain here. Animals were necessary to cover the reason for guilt.

Paul from a tradition of Excellence, Success and Discipline, when he was Saul, misunderstood the point, missapplied the devotion, mal-adapted his behaviour in such a way as to serve to disperse, disband and destroy God's new sons. He was carrying his inherited family honor and glory and tradition to new heights. He was gonna be somebody. He really was not intending to change his name...

We have to be still and quiet and focused to hear God's still small voice of devotion, development, and direction. This is a decentering and serves to decenter so that God may be the center not our whims.

Moderate behaviours enacted

2009-09-28T11:24:00.000-05:00

As I read the 'to do' section of the chapter on moderation in Getz's book The Measure of a Man I suddenly feel compelled to post on that section of this chapter (which has been present in each chapter but heretofore un-commented on by me). This chapter I realize, largely through his, Getz's, insight, touches on all that we are and all that we think and all that we hope and all the we do. In other words how we enact the submission to God in our lives plays itself out not only in our moderation of behaviour(to which all the other chapters speak), but also in our moderation of judging of others. God as a God of mercy has given us freedom, Christ has freed us from the judgement of condemnation, now we are to do the same for our fellow sojourners in the world. This is a moderation rather than a liberalization. There are still fundamentals that cannot be ignored. But we who are 'raised in the faith' must understand that our understanding and the particular channels by which we recieved that understanding are not the sole bearers of understanding. To become as someone else, in order to seed them with the Doctrine of atoning love, forgiveness and enthusiasm (study that word before complaining, please!)for action we must remember the genesis of that seed and through relationship built on firm foundation begin to understand that fertile soil into which we are planting.
So mostly we must pull the weeds of our own soil, as we might be, by geography of body or mind, unaware of the tender shoots of Spiritual produce in another's garden which would be lost or destroyed by our yanking at the roots of closely proximated or noramlly(to our above referred to limited understanding) apparent weeds, which otherwise (without our having removed them) would have served to increase the Kingdom Build in a facilitative mannner beyond our wildest imagination.

So the log in our own eye before the mote in another's, for it might not even be a mote but the moisture of Living Sparkle we should rather be nurturing.

How to grow the body of Christ at home

2009-09-21T19:44:00.001-05:00

http://aintsobad.typepad.com/aintsobad/2009/09/retail-religion.html

Dr Davis is still laying the cards on the table...

In Moderate behaviours actions have a loud voice...

2009-09-17T13:11:00.000-05:00

and to voice by mouth our preferences or abstinences can have the effect of being judgemental, boorish and offensive. So the best way to build a mutually respectful relationship is to find, over time, common interests for discussion while continuing your good habits and behaviours, and voice advice only when it is insisted upon by others and wqithin your expertise, or necessary to prevent the loss of life. If you want somenone to respect you and your philosophy in a way that they might accept that philosophy themselves personally, then they must feel attracted to it--not forced or goaded into it; for as soon as the enforcer is gone, they will flee to their own predilections.

Vin as wine or just juice

2009-09-10T12:30:00.000-05:00

Getz takes the approach in investigating 'being moderate' and its application to drinking I had never heard until I was out of High Schol, that the 'vin' could actually be just like Welch's Grape juice. To me as a young man a novel idea and the way it was presented was in that intransitive way, not that it had to be nonfermented, but that it could be nonfermented, When you think about the turning of water into wine and the statements made as to its quality you are left to surmise and assume what quality iin wine was at that time. Was it higher in alcoholic content, dryer or sweeter in flavor, clearer in its presence, what about its bouquet? Perhaps some secular historian from the time has lent us his opinion on what most thought a good wine was, or what the elite thought a good wine was, or what the frequent imbiber or the drunk or the abstainer. We really cannot say, though we, as a rule usually form an opinion about it as we do on most things. But if we look at Jesus staements about the effect of new wine on old flasks then we might wonder if new wine is the good wine and old wine the less good and thereby make the assumption that of course new good wine was less fermented and at least more desirable to the untrained palate.

Where Getz spent most of his time was in the use of the phrase moderate in all things. I remember, more by the homily than by the direct memory(it has been so long), that too many pbj's(who could stop me?) will clog the system! Time and laxative to the young intestine'a rescue.

A word spoken is not communicated until it is understood. Getz pg86

2009-09-09T11:09:00.001-05:00

After wincing and dodging through some of the earlier chapters, it is refreshig to read this chapter on communication. Not because I am the penultimate or even standard communicator, but rather because when I was young it was the highlight of my childhood to sit with a teacher and have them explain to me what I envisioned were the secrets of life. KNOWLEDGE A tool for the correct completion of any project, and who wants to complete a project incorrectly. Getz does a good job of explicating the surrounding context of his source verses to teach a teacher what teaching is. I went a little further though in my excitement, and looked above his reference at 2 Tim 2:23 where my literal translation reads

'|1161| But |3474| foolish |2532| and |0521| uninstructed |2414| questionings |3868| refuse, |1492| knowing |3754| that |1080| they generate |3163| quarrels.'

Now, you take the GSN 2414 and find he is refering to 'Jerusalem'. 052 is 'stupid'. and so we have 'stupid Jerusalem'. A better historian than I is required to understand exactly whazt Paul refers to here, but in the context of the 'Living Bible' or the 'Bible as the Living Word of God', it may be that any time the leadership of the church becomes enamoured of their own personal, self centered, and overly specific essayes, then they can be seen as the object of this statement, no matter how well meaning, otherwise respected by peerage, or well elocutioned. An effective tool of teaching, for any leaning or suasion, is the question which inspires introspection before answer. So people of position may be asking questions which lead us into stupid assumptions and therefore they are stupid questions and should not be answered at all. The one who is able to recognize these situations can stay away from direct involvement in that particular discussion but rather maintain the course of study, presenting Truth rather than 'uninstructed(misconstructed?) questions'.

All around the above referenced section by Getz on Didaktikos was a well thought out, kind, encouraging, peaceful summation of what teaching is, how it flows from the study and understanding of the teacher, when it might occur, and how the soft word of compassion, encouragement and enlightenment turns a violent hand!

Except for the middle part to which I have added some flourish it was a very edifying and peaceful read, this chapter of Didaktikos.

Generosity as an expression of Love

2009-09-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

It is hard to imagine the love that must have dwelt in the heart of Rachel Saint who was successful in planting the seed of Christianity and nurturing it germination and growth to a grand harvest by God, in the hearts of the Auca Indians of Ecuador. This was aafter her brother and friends were murdered by those very individuals who later responded to Rachel's generous effort. The subplot of the 9 builders from Fellowship Bible Church being flown by Missionary Aviation Fellowship into Ecuador for a two week project to build basic infrastructure for Miss Saint to help in her day to day operation and creature comfort, is notable and plaudible.

The very core of love your enemies is exemplified here.

Getz segues then to a more fathomable perspective of helping those within the church as we perceive need or find opportunity, especially those involved in the ministry of the Church, or on mission to our area as we Shadow Hills have done recently in supplying lunches for the World Changers. Sometime the need is harder to ascertain and more spiritual in aspect, so we must be about applying these verses here(esp 1 Tim 3:2) to our lives and our minds and oour hearts and our life habit in a way that we are open to the Spirit leading and others plight in such a way that they can know we are following the Christ who saved us.

He then brings to our attention 1Petrer 4:8-9, which teaches as much about hospitality as we shall ever learn. No complainging. And Getz says we should do it whether we feel it or not. If we wait on our feeling we just may and probably will miss the opportunity God has supplied us to be that little bit of Jesus we can be.

I like that he then moves to opening our homes as a part of opening our hearts and does a good job of building the foundation for an effective home bible study. Right down our alley eh? Befriend some folks, and afterwe have befriended them then we might invite them to our small home group bible study. A probelem some of us have seen in our home groups is that some prospective type folks have shown up to attend but did not feel comfortable going to someone else's house even for Bible Study right off the bat, and so, because there is nothing else really offered, it may be that we have lost the opportunity to grow with them as a part of our spiritual nest.

A beautiful Word is a Truth with Sweat Equity part II: Worthy walking explained

2009-08-31T11:10:00.004-05:00

In Ephesians 4 & 5 Paul gives us some details and 'how tos' for accomplishing the thing everybody wants to see in 'the other guy'-no hypocrisy. We are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.

We have been called into the light, out of the darkness, and are now bearers of that light and as such are not to shade the light from others in a way that causes them to turn away or scoff or stumble.

We are to take care in the way or manner in which we walk because the opaths on which we traverse are filled with potholes and cliffs and assaulted by falling rocks, it is narrow and winding and sometimes great furious beasts may be encountered in our way, and always there are those about us who are watching curious and needful of our good and wise step and pace.

We have abandoned an old nad corrupt way of life for a new way that refreshes as we walk and encourages those about us to follow after us in hope, truth, joy, kindness, gentleness and generosity.

This then becomes us as an imitation or emulation of Christ who offered himself as a sacrifice for us, to God, His Father, a pleasing aroma.

No specific actions here so much as detailed attributes of an attitude.

An attractive word is a Truth with sweat equity

2009-08-28T12:57:00.000-05:00

Getz puts a chapter marker here, I seemed to have already arrived at this point, probably by peeking ahead. If we say what we mena then we mean what we say so what does mean mean. Did you ever hear the phrase, probably from your mother, "and I mean it!"? It ususally meant if I did not do what she was saying I should do then she was going to do something I would not enjoy but had demonstrated that I needed. Words without sweat equity are just blatherings.

Disciplined to what?

2009-08-28T12:50:00.000-05:00

Anybody can learn, anybody can learn just about anything, given time and motivation, so what are we to learn through the discipline process that Getz refers to Paul as suggesting. To start and finish: humility, gratitude, prayerfulness, wholesome(exemplary) activity. Find your own list of wholesome activities...I hope and pray you know where to look.

free book contest

2009-08-28T01:13:00.000-05:00

Shay Bills has a book out titled 'Is your Spirit Holy'. From what I have read it should be a good read and an excellent guide to analysing and understanding one's relationship to God. Click the title to read some of the author's prose and possibly enter a contest to win a copy of the book 'Is Your Spirit Holy?'

Sophromismos

2009-08-18T10:57:00.004-05:00

There is a study going on at Shadow Hills, admittedly on again off again, but it is a review of the book by Gene Getz called 'The Measure of a Man'. You may surf there and read for yourself by clicking the title of this post. Today I was reading in Getz the call to meekness described as 'not weakness'. Getz uses 2 Timothy 7-8 'For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;' to show how Paul, who constantly and consistently acknowledges God's right and power to rule over him, and that the necessary element of our proper relationship with God is an open heart to our neighbor, encourages Timothy to be confident in his faith. To look forward to the suffering inevitable in the sharing of the Gospel. And, to the point here, to be sophromismos, or of a sound mind, disciplined. I know he says disciplined is the KJV word but I do not find it in my copies of the KJV, but do like it, as it tells us to rely on what we have learned. If we think of the discipline used to teach those going into battle then we can feel confident in believing he is speaking of a knowledge, if not even wisdom, discerned by frequent repetition at practice, the kind of practice(repetition) Navy Seals, professional athletes, consummate musicians, successful archictects use. Discipline builds confidence and character and awareness for the unforeseen. So get out there and practice practice practice, and when it is obvious that God could not possibly have meant for you to do any of it, just make yourself available for Him to do it with you. There is the meekness that overcomes the doubt and causes those about us to say 'what a great (fill in your on blank) so and so is'. Please be sure to give credit where credit is due, for that is an important part of what God's will for us.

The leadership yoke

2009-08-12T12:23:00.002-05:00

The leader of a church is described by Paul in such terms that, as far as for behaviour it would seem that he need not sancification. But surely this is a blurriness of human understanding and so we a church goers generally back off the hardline and follow 'The Message' inference and choose 'men from among you whom everyone trusts' leaving off the 'without reproach' of many of the other versions which would force us to observe much more closely those we would have in charge of our daily church life. Rgw King James seems to also have an ameliorative phrasiology in calling for men of 'honest report'. pergaos refering to men with pasts such as Zaccheus who whole heartedly and obviously have turned that corner from the past to a blessed newness of life.

Comparative Acts 6:3

2009-08-12T11:17:00.003-05:00

KJV

Acts 6:3 Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

ESV

3(C) Therefore, brothers,[b] pick out from among you seven men(D) of good repute,(E) full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

YLT

3look out, therefore, brethren, seven men of you who are well testified of, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may set over this necessity,

HCSB

3 Therefore, brothers, select from among you seven men of good reputation, (C) full of the Spirit (D) and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty.

NASV

3"Therefore, (G)brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, (H)full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.

TM

So, friends, choose seven men from among you whom everyone trusts, men full of the Holy Spirit and good sense, and we'll assign them this task.

NLT

3 And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility.

NKJV

3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;

NIV

3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them

Amp

3Therefore select out from among yourselves, brethren, seven men of good and attested character and repute, full of the [Holy] Spirit and wisdom, whom we may assign to look after this business and duty.

"You can see by the above," he said while cheswing on the middle part of his tongue with the upper and lower molars of his jaws, leaving the tip of his tongue to dance around the inside of the side of his mouth, "YOU HAVE to be careful which VERSION you read!"

A thin blue line

2009-07-21T10:53:00.001-05:00

Purity What is purity, Getz says it is not necessarily sullied by temptation--but can be, so be careful out there.

2009-07-16T21:08:00.003-05:00

So Getz says, (and this is a little out of order in the sheme here, but the first opportunity I have taken to blog on the reading of The Measure of a Man), that sinful thoughts involve planning the accomplishment of the sin, perhaps he really means thoughts with intent to sin, rather than just the thought of an awkward(sinful?) situation.
That would seem to be a relief.

Book study and review underway with Pastor Doctor Randy Rogers

2009-07-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

It has already begun, so I am tardy as usual, but there are twenty characterisics we have the opportunity to think on and incorporate into our lives...do I have to list 'em or can you find them in Timothy and Titus? More later...

recustomize alert

2009-07-10T13:05:00.002-05:00

I have added what I think are interesting features to this site. I will be using it as my homepage. You are invited to scroll down and observe and use the 'Newslinks' which have been added to the right column.

from God's Chisel

2009-06-22T11:59:00.002-05:00

Perfection, an eternal ultimate, after a lifetiime of encountering wandering, observing or ignoring, accepting or rejecting, and applying maybe misapplying, then processing or reprocessing in order to venture forward, surely not backward. Then suddenly GRACE: Otherwise imperfection.

The violence of the Good News is both nail head hitting and way overstated.

2009-06-05T19:09:00.006-05:00

Pardon the lengthy title, it was only meant to start and finish this post succinctly. Now for the ambling about: When the Hebrews described the creation of the world it was with words of tumult and roiling imagery, hardly a peaceful or idyllic scene. When light enters the world it is sudden and abrupt, separating, surrounding and rejecting while encompassing and warming and enlightening. This is the world we live in. A place teeming with life in such a way that it more than calls, it cries for salvation.

If God is Holy and His holiness is beneficent then by His nature we must be changed from our flesh-tendency in order to abide with Him, otherwise goodness would be corrupted by proximity and mingling with unfettered shortcoming and meanness.

God required that an animal be skinned to provide the peace of mind Adam so desparately wanted-foreshadowing the day that Pilate would tack a hide to his wall and thus atonement would be made, access to God granted, and peace established as the bedrock for all mankind.

But we look about and see murder and mayhem, war and torture, greed and lust. Not somuch a peaceful picture as yet. We observe even the select few who have found Christ and often they slip and must ask forgiveneness, and fall and must call out to God for help. The people of today, the ones coming into the fray we call life, they have a new perspective that some of our own group may have thought about taking on. That perspective is one that couold perhaps simply be stated as a desire to be honest, to not be a hypocrite, to do and follow with passion and vigor but not so much from duty or discipline, rightness or value, as from the knowledge of purity of character and fidelity to intent. This may become understood to be sophomoric in the end, but what virtue, when it is raised to the level of demagoguery is not foolishness.

The point is that each generation is given its choices and its chances and its reign. Honesty and integrity to oneself and thereby to God, while a cart before the horse sort of configuration, will at least develop people who can be trusted to do what they say they will do. At least until they begin to realize they have followed the letter of the law and missed the Spirit. Of course through all of this there will be the very select few who will understand the futility of being true to oneself while ignoring the need for depending upon guides based in traditional(longtime pre-existant) strictures which are sometimes unwieldy but often the very thing which protects civilizaton from civilization. So into the 'next' next generation will be infused the opportunity to correct the heading of this next generation so that perhaps through time and trial and error we as a religious sub culture have the opportunity to appeal to yet another generation of souls who might not otherwise come to the table with that new song mentioned in the psalms. I think that is what revolution means, that things just keep on roiling until the Master returns and says, "It is finished". The peace we yearn for is ours as spirit and hope, but we must continually refresh ourselves in the living water we find about us, and that means we must make judgements and choices and stop and start over again and again, knowing that we are forgiven, even though we hung no stars, nor breathed no life into a leviathan, and probably will be mean or short or stupid a time or two before we are gone home. I just hope I will have said some of the words of peace and enlightenment which tend toward salvation to the ones appointed for me to do so, before I go.

Robert

Memorial Day Burger Burn at Shadow Hills Baptist Church

2009-05-26T18:55:00.002-05:00

for a record of

Good food
Good people
Good times

click on the blog title

Are post-moderns given to avoiding right/wrong judgements and how does that set with a rise in Calvinism

2009-05-15T00:58:00.003-05:00

The title springs from a question posed to me about an assumption I made concerning Post-modern thinkers. The assumption I made was meant to indicate they seem to live in a world of gray areas, which I, rigntly or wrongly, labeled universalism. So maybe a course in philosophy should be undertaken to define these systems of thought so that we all are talking the same dialect.

Well I will have to do some background research first...

After some thought rather than research into definitions I have deceided that Post moderns are probably drawn to Calvinism because of the popular notion that Calvin did not seem to allow for free will, but rather to the thought that because 'an all powerful God' then nothing happens except God will it, and this is the explanation for the way things are is that they are what they are and cannot help themselves. It rally has little to do with right or wrongness. What could be wrong if it is as it was meant to be?

to be continued.

kleronomia

2009-04-15T14:01:00.002-05:00

Colassians 3:24

Helps us to understand that ultimately God is there for us. 3:15 presses that He is there for us now.

The question then becomes are we there 'for(thankfully)' or 'despite(to spite)' God.

a human+1 to eternity God

2008-12-03T12:22:00.004-06:00

1 Cor 15:28. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Matt 1:23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Mark 15:44-5 And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.
And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.

Is God not human or is God more than human?

Rev 21:22-3. And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

1Cr 12:27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

Merry Christmas

A Mountain of Laundry

2008-10-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

Insincere racaism

2008-08-04T13:06:00.003-05:00

So you think you're a bad boy, eh? Look, there is none worse than me! I have been baa-aad! Don't you even start to kid yourelf. The reason I am so bad is that I am bad-to-the-bone. I mean to say I will always be bad, and there is no way I can be any good. But you oughta see that guy across the aisle, now he is unredeemable!
Only God is good.

So what is imagery?

taking the most to beganagain

2008-07-19T19:14:00.001-05:00

I will begin some housekeeping and try to categorize and divide these posts into some sort of order.

RFR

Did Adam know the Earth was Round

2008-07-14T13:04:00.002-05:00

Unless Adam is merely legend, only rooted in truth and not actualized as an individual of flesh and bone, or indicative of a tribe, rather, even so, then, they would be much closer to God and His knowledge by His choice and the understanding by them of the actual shape of Universe might be more attuned to their purer DNA as well as a Biblically unreported or lost revelation from God[surely not!(I mean what good is truth if it is incomplete?)], or even just common knowledge later corrupted by 'you know who'. Now that might be something to report on...just when was truth interrupted and how fast did its corruption spread thus disallowing natural observation and overrinding that with shaded assumption? And just how complete was it or was there some remnant of acknowledged and perceived truth in existance until today concerning the shape of the universe. Does 'above and below' prescibe a flat earth? What seems more real than the physical realities we live in and accept, and how does the physical condition of our existance effect our need for salvation? so, 'Why report on it?' seems to be the operand. Or, am I living in fantasy, and the world really is flat, is that it? <8~} Then allow me repentance and confession, long live the Pope Paul V(a snake in puppy's cloth to Galileo) and Pope Urban VIII, his Inquisitor, as well as Melanchthon, his antithesis to the Protestant!

Fun duh mentality

2008-07-11T15:51:00.004-05:00

Fundamental of or relating to the necessary

fundamentalism one of a modern group of protestants

modern and basic?

how does this jibe? I have my doubts! I have a Great Grandfather from Missouri, you know, I mean like what are the fundamentals the fundamentalists of fundamentalism are purporting? Love and forgiveness? the Faithfulness of God to an unwarranted people?

Evangelism Now

2008-07-09T11:25:00.004-05:00

Links to a couple of places influencing my thought right now.

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-problem-with-real-christians

http://evangelicalmanifesto.com/

http://aintsobad.typepad.com/pastorspal/2007/12/instantaneous-s.html

To train or not to train

2008-07-08T10:34:00.002-05:00

What is the purpose of church. Is it only to reach out to ever increasing numbers of people in need? Shall it focus solely on bringing them to congregate with others who are needy? How shall it reach those in need, what shall it say to those in need, what shall it offer to those in need? At some point, more a focus than else, but real nevertheless, and in need of time, substance, place, and earnestness, there must be the effort to learn of the people, to learn of their needs, to learn their dreams, their culture. There must be an effort in the same brush stroke to learn the capacity of the Church and the churchmember, to concentrate the interest of the Church and focus the effort of the church into a Christ centered, Holy Spirit inspired, amalgamation of individual and grouped missions emanating from within the Church.

Now, perhaps you noticed, I have capitalized the word church at almost every instance, in order to indicate the universal church. But the universal church hardly needs man's(our) attention to it so much, because we appropriate that attention to the manifestation of that Church as we find it in our local sphere of attendance. The storehouse, as it were! So, no I am not railing against the Body of Christ, it will continue with or without me or my consent. Rather, I speak to those of us who attend, and pray, and work within a particular set of walls, a stack of bricks and mortar and steel and electricity and plumbing, on a regular basis, for the purpose of ministering to each other and those from outside our group as we realize their need.

To this group I say, pause, consider your roots. A plant which is constantly subjected to the harshness of the weather can only wither until and unless such a time as relief is granted it in the form of respite from the weather and nourishment from the ground and water.

While I am assured of God's ability to accomplish despite my frailty and stubbornness, I am sure that He wants my best effort, my fullest attention and my sincerest willingness.

So how do I get to that point without some descipleship?

Is there not a time when Christ called His very closest to Himself and leaned on them or closely instructed them.

Instructed them, descipled them, TRAINED THEM.

Sinners and Church Insidership

2008-07-05T13:02:00.004-05:00

There are two sides to every coin and an edge besides.

The one side of the coin is defined by the question of evangelism and witnessing.

The second side is defined by how the Body of Christ is seen as a place of rest and minstry of needful things to an evangelizing outreaching yet human body in need of rejuvenation.

Besides, the edge is that both sides of this coin are called for by a Spirit enfilled Church.

Evangelism is based on iindividual calling along with group emopowerment.

Rubbing the coin we see that empowerment takes many guises.

Baptist fundamentalism and forgiveness

2008-07-05T12:59:00.001-05:00

I note that much of our moneys and benefit packages are still tied to the SBC, and until we become independent of that then griping, we come across as biters of the hand that feeds us, though in reality as Rick Davis says, we the church member feeds the church which feeds the Convention, Association and Fellowships or Alliance. They will all have divisions, almost too numerous to mention. This leads to politics and thus to compromise, which becomes tricky in the realm of religion, where soul competency is foundational and everyone believes their version of the Word Of God is the one true revelation.

Some of us see the struggles of the past twenty years as rooted in those very differences Baptists have always tacitly encouraged by tolerating them for growth and the purpose of ministry under the banner of Christian unity. So the disagreements were always there, and are not some sudden flare up leading to the "takeover twenty years ago". Our inability to overcome the pride engendered by hurt feelings, which did lead to that takeover and seems now to emanate from it, is a real failure--and a sign to us that arrogance has its consequence. Within the local church and inside the associations and conventions there needs to be a return to genteel open minded conversation. I know from my own youth experience based during the sixties that the fundamentalist view was in part an expression of frustration with the secular social centers of influence and a desire to protect children from what can be desctribed as a determined, metered, unbounded, focused attack on Christian ethic and institutions, groups and individuals--almost a paranoia.

The moderate view has a more complicated expression in its seeming desire for secular or government regulation on common definitions and enactments of charity but a laissez faire attitude concerning control of certain personal behaviours. Time and space and fersure my capacity limits a true analysis here of the differences, but as one who feels torn between, as opposed to pushed aside, or demonized, may this be a decent restart at a conversation which should have retaken place much earlier, but might possibly be mute, as to effect and affect, today, due to tardiness or lack of humility.

Degeneacy as gospel, no brag just fact and past

2008-07-03T23:56:00.002-05:00

I try not to advertise my degeneracy, for I am sure it would shock most any who found it. While it might speak to some one struggliing in the throws of the same or a related degeneracy, if what I say to them is, 'My past is who I am and never better can I be,' then where is the hope? But if I can say 'That was how I was but now I am free from the chains of that _______________________(fiyob), then at least I am not offering the prospect of nothing really happening or changing because I am so bad, with inferrence that all are so bad, that nothing ever really changes other than now I can rely on Jesus to stand up for me...I firmly believe that God could and would under the right conditions forgive Attila the Hun, but only if those prescribed conditions included a change of heart detectable by God as a change in behaviour, if not even so much as a sigh of repenteance and tenderness of look, but its beginning, on a death bed. When God breathed life into Adam did He not say to himself something on the order of 'It is Good!' And he celebrated. Why should I argue with the edict of God? How do I love another as myself if I do not love myself? And this is not to say that I did not need, nor do I now not need, Jesus the atonemnt and His forgiveness. It is to say that if I mean it in my heart of hearts then I will begin to step out of the way and and Christ will begin to live through me. Edification anyone?

So here it is Raca 3

2008-06-27T10:59:00.002-05:00

Of course the Raca is hard to listen to.

One, the Raca pontificates from an assumed perspective of expertise.

Two, the Raca is given to buffoonery.

Three, the Raca mundanely reiterates the things that most people already know and do not care to hear.

Four, the track of the Raca’s own life has been uneventful, flailing or failing in terms of social success.

Five, The best record of the Raca’s accomplishment(s) might be found in various courthouse files.

Six, the Raca often speaks in complex ideation but always assuming prior knowledge or agreement on the part of his listener(s).

Seven, the Raca has demonstrated no intent other than his own self interest.

Eight, the Raca has been bully more than his allowed term.

Nine, the Raca has shown very little ability to maintain the even keel.

And

Ten, of course there is at least ten, the Raca is known for many, most, or all the above and is proud to claim some other person’s accomplishment as his own.

Of course the Raca is hard to listen to. He isn’t the voice chosen to authoritatively deliver the message. Usually. Do you notice the phonetic similarity of the Hebrew raca to our own rock? Dumb as a rock?

Yet, I wonder, have I been the object of someone I perceived as a raca's throw?

This leads to the next topic: insincere racaism.

a delay

2008-06-26T00:13:00.001-05:00

there must be a final Raca to bring things into focus...but later not tonight

RFR

Complete/Perfection

2008-06-25T23:27:00.002-05:00

I may have to question to some degree the use of the word complete. While one of its nuantic meanings is perfect, it also and more primarily means finished, over, done. Ish may be fulfilled when joined with Isha, and, while without sin, Adam and Woman may have been more nearly perfect(complete?) had they eaten of the Tree of Life, but they ate that other fruit, whereby they realized their incompleteness(sin and guilt) so the Tree of Life was kept from their diet and thus they remain incomplete yet perhaps fulfilled(less lonely) in each other. As to: Were they 'complete' meaning perfect? Not for long, if at all, and only in that euphemism called 'potential'....

that other aspect of completeness-finished and done--keeps raring up and mok=cking me in this situation because when you look at the progress or perhpas devolution of man into a techno wonk and his frequent neglect of others and even God then complete seems a little out of the question. Now if complete means largely and almost exclusively capable of fending the world for themselves without thought or care for eternity and no shadow of "not gonna change nosiree" then complete is a good word for the state of man at alomost any time in his history.

RFR

Raca 2 as messenger

2008-06-23T18:17:00.001-05:00

I thought I might begin again to explore the blogosphere at my place here with an essay or two from the perspective established by the previous post, namely ‘raca that I am’. So to that expect I purport to you that you have no reason for acknowledging my ranting and raving other than you might want to gather ammunition with which to further extinguish than I and others already have my reputation for being one who should be summarily rejected as to having any noteworthiness whatsoever and even go so far as to quit your reading now! Thereby leaving me to write to and for myself and worry not whether some one or another might agree or disagree or just think ‘what the hay’! But to halt the feeble attempt at humility and go on to the point of writing this attempt, it comes to my attention, from regions not mentioned for purposes of secrecy alone, that I might be one of the more obtuse thinkers of my time and somewhat unable to stir up any emotion of clarity or thought of focus in myself, let alone any other superficially or deeply interested block of grey matter connected by neurons skeletal structure and such to motor response mechanisms which could then act or react to my grating, halting, jumping and thumping line of thought. So, without aver I go to the point that it matters not so much the skill or reputation of the messenger but rather the message itself, if founded from sources which are respected and listened and adhered, then some means will be established by the receipt bearer to reckon the validity of the message and ascertain its appropriateness by those who are worthy of receiving it. Their worthiness of being messaged then will reveal itself in their ability to translate the conversation into its intended meaning and act, react and respond accordingly. While I might have at one time considered myself one who whould not be summoned in a way or some other personally percepted reprehensible way, I now am convinced that whatever the message, it is the source which determines its worth and not the medium in which it is delivered.

Worthless Perfection

2007-10-17T22:23:00.000-05:00

I guess since I was unable to finish a thought during the discussion tonight at Prayer Meeting, I will finish here, where no one will hear and especially no one will interefere, interupt, or stop me from finishing. Matthew 5 is one of the most famous passages of all Jesus recorded sayings and perhaps includes a synopsis of almost everything He did say. After climbing to a spot from whence He could be heard He began with blessings, blessing which we today utilize as instructions to our behaviour and attitude and guidance for our relation with God. Then the lesson was probably as true but perhaps not as poignant as the possible personal connection Jesus was making to the majority of the individuals probably present in the mass of teeming flesh which was following Him and pressing Him at every turn. After this series of blessings Jesus began to teach concerning the familiar Rabbinic topic of the Ten Commandments. Perhaps feeling a common acceptance by the masses of the importance of respect of parents, and knowing that many present felt ostracized from true worship of the Father, and perhaps even intimidated into a feeling of worthlessness concerning their attempts to worship, or at best a frustration with their material lack of receipt and the ostensible inequity of God's Graces as the social, political and religious powers of the time both local and foreign tended to keep the proverbial heel of the boot to the neck of the downtrodden. He attacks all the so called keepers and interpreters of the law as too lenient in personal application and lacking in true understanding, pointing out that anger is murder and the epithet of 'worhtless waste' is no worse than the term 'fool'! The thought is as pregnant as the deed in terms of sin and separation. Finishing the diatribe against those who were able to, by position and circumstance and careful adherence to the letter of the law while skirting the intent of the law, show appearance of perfection and thereby foist themselves upon the public as examples of God among us by encouraging all of us to go with this new and expanded understanding and be perfect.

I think He finishes with the admonishment to perfection because God always finsishes with a positive note however strongly we might think that He should be pessimistic.

But right now I know that I am probably the least likely to be understood, but, if understood, then most likely disagreed with, but more than likely I will not even be considered. Raca that I am. Thankyou for your time.

RobeFRe

Wheels grind slowly to make correct change

2007-02-20T11:00:00.000-06:00

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Ostensible Christianity

2007-01-26T21:05:00.000-06:00

While touring Dr Roark's orchards for his most current fruit I found this one, not so recent, but, which has a poignant aspect to it for me. When I was in HSchool, I and two other well meaning witnesses purposed to form a group whereby voluntary organised Christian Fellowship could be found somewhere in the halls of the public school which we attended. I, the congenial, all accepting one, the young lady, a potent strictly thinking future 'church lady', and the warrior, no holds barred full steam ahead 'twist their arm till they repent', type began to debate first what it was that would bring us together. The one wanted to seclude ourselves and demonstrate our faith in a passive way so that others would see the Grand Effect in our behaviours, another wanted to choose particular individuals and go at their beings with all the might the Spirit could bring through our selves so that prospects could not help but to be affected as we would want them to be. I wanted somefolks I could rely on as a source and haven of Christian affirmation and activity. We never were able to get beyond definitions, intents and tactics to establish a time and place or modus operandi, so it never actuated. A short time later, some group began to meet early, before classes and pray around the flag pole, I hear they still do that. I was one of the first to stick a smiley face to my notebook cover, I actually recieved grief over that! (A continuous smile could not be real!) I wonder about those fish on the backs of some people's cars, how many lemons have been sold to an unsuspecting public under the auspices of Christian Tradesmanship? Many times I raised my index finger, pointing to the sky, informing and reminding others of the 'One Way' through Christ, but I never (at least I hope I never, and its my story so I never) repeated that awful mantra coined by Flip Wilson for us "The Devil made me do it!". If God is truly relative then surley He means for me to do my very best to glorify Him, realizing when I fail to do a superb job of it, He will forgive me, He will forgive not only me, but any one else who acknowledges in their heart His being and effort on our part. So when He says in Matthew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.", how does He expect me to glorify Him, through silence and inaction? For surely men will notice my actions and inactions both--aha it is the attitude, and not that I should judge the actions or results of others, nor expect that people even passively know my righteousness. I should do these things to make God known and certainly not to further my own self centered cause before others. If somone else is promoting God who am I to tell them they should not promote God because I know of their duplicity, hypocracy or outright deceit? That speck in their eye, and the log in my own what of that? Paul did say, and I am too lazy right now to find the scripture and verse, that we should do those things for which we could be proud. God Himself will judge that for its truth.

entelechins

2007-01-19T14:10:00.000-06:00

What is intelligence?

Recent readings indicate it has its origin in a contained purpose of being. So if purpose is innate and discovered, realized and conveyed, remembered and displayed, then intelligence must also be ability, effectiveness and reliability. But that leads to the question," if you can't see it is it there?"

Plaristo

2007-01-17T12:08:00.001-06:00

I love the opportunity to display my ignorance.

Plato describes the idea(-l) as the co-existance by three characteristics in man, 1)ration, 2)appetite and 3)spirit to effect a subjectified (quantifiable), understanding of truth, beauty, and reality(God somewhere out there?)or qualitative metaphysics, depending upon the chariot driver's competence of rationale.

Aristotle expounds the reason(s) for that subjectivity in metaphysical description as a consequence of faulty syllogism. Limited perception, poor observation, leaping surmisal.empirism and particularity over all, through all and in all.

Too simple, I am sure, and no where near the original authors' true intent.

Both seem to think reason able to explain all there is, or if it doesn't, then something is wrong.

I am not sure I understand the juxtaposition of Metaphysics to Empiracal and Particular in describing the differences of Plato to Aristotle.

this is also posted at http://aintsobad.typepad.com/ikant/

Omnipotent Omniscient Omnipresent

2006-12-19T14:49:00.000-06:00

Dr Roark wrote

Yes, you do seem nearer to Plato than Heraclitus, and, I suspect, nearer Plato than to the scriptures. Nearer to the Platonic stream of theologians who have been among the major shapers of our Christian thinking. In the process, I am convinced that many of them have not been good witnesses; rather, they have been mis-representatives of God. And too many of us have inherited their influence, although we were completely unaware of it.
We all know that the New Testament was written in Greek, but Plato and Aristotle also wrote Greek. Many learned Christians read and listened to both. Study the history of the first four or five centuries of the history of Christian thinking.
Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent? This is traditional rather than biblical language, language to which I will offer some challenges when the time seems right.
Let's keep the conversation going, now that I have learned how to respond.
The Bible doesn’t say, “God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
so I developed this scriptural and philosophic basis in response
aliquid quod maius non cogitari potest--St. Anselm circa 1050 AD that than the which nothing greater can be imagined

Term: Omnipotent
Definition: All powerful; all mighty.
Example: And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God OMNIPOTENT reigneth. (Revelation 19:6)

Jhn 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Jhn 1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

omnipresence (De 4:39 Know therefore this day, and consider [it] in thine heart, that the LORD he [is] God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: [there is] none else.
De 10:14 Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens [is] the LORD'S thy God, the earth [also], with all that therein [is].
everywhere even small or deft and delicate of hand
Ps 139:6-16 [Such] knowledge [is] too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot [attain] unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou [art] there: if I%2

and published this there then

I would posit that we use terms not found in scripture other than by description on numerous occasions, for brevity's sake, and while it may be that this propensity opens us to errors of assumption, I am sure with due dilgence in reading and earnest humble spirit and God's consent, then we might ascertain the intent of God's revelation unto us. As Anselm put in the ninth century, 'aliquid quod maius non cogitari potest'-'something greater than which cannot be thought'! But a pipe which seems straight to me now, yet by my passing through it I realize it has a turn does not convince me that the pipe was not always designed to engulf me wherever I may go, and moreover it is most lilkely that I have found a place of pipe configuration that I had not previously observed, me being nearsighted and all. The pipe is still the pipe and as it probaby always was,(or is it the underside of an elephant, me a bangladeshi fixing to shower, it being no engulfing pipe at all, but rather a protruberance?
RobeFRe

my 24 character

2005-12-20T14:21:00.000-06:00

George Mason

Which 24 Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Spirit of Word

2005-10-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

So then a third derivation of question arises. What is the secret? What must I do? How can I attain the fruit and the blessing? Who is the watchman? Where are the doors? What do the keys look like and what is the password?

First, there is no secret, other than as I am earless to hear. However, I do not care which side of the argument you fall on, if you perceive yourself in receipt of something there is some condition by which you feel you attained the answer to the above questioins, and that others must meet the same or similar condition in order to realize the same blessing. But this may lead us to presuppose that we all have the precise same experience, personality, intellect, and spirit, which we know we do not.. If we can at least agree that we are in possession of very personal experiences with God, we can see how it follows that our experiencing God individually is not of exclusionary of us from commonality with all others who have experienced God, but the most sublime addition to our own individuality within the group of those having experienced God and a ready made testament to those who have no experience with God. I will stop here for a moment to state that the preceding statement only reflects the timbre of how I came to know Christ and receive salvation exposing a time in which I did very little, from within a desparation and realization of need, other than express hope and receive faith and assurance of salvation from God through His only begotten Son, my Lord Jesus, and manifested toward me, and within me, by the Holy Spirit.

At some point we are chosen. It is not the intent of this essay to investigate the mind of Christ as to the choosing of followers nor that timing, but rather to uncover something about what it is that informs us we are His. By defiintion, he already knows whether, or when we will respond or not, so the purpose of a set of recognizable conditions by which we experience a saving knowledge of Christ must be for our own and other brethren's edification as well as the beacon call to outsiders to join Christ with us. Or, do our actions not speak louder than our words? So then, the statement "If you don't trust Christ above all, you don't trust him at all" should reflect in our walk, ur behaviour after we have received that Holy Spirit as guide and comfort, power and endurance, knowledge and hope, and the freedom and the discipline. And while I would like to say that I am always focused on God, targeted, I know that many times it is He who has proved to still be aware of me and my need despite my unexhibited trust in Him. What is the meaning of the spirit of the word?

Fallen down upward? Stinging, Staining, Stinking

2005-10-06T23:38:00.000-05:00

Today, begins a series of essays addressing questions which have come into my life in a most disruptive manner. Questions deriving from what has been described as a situation where one person calls a rose what may in fact be a used tail wipe. And we all know the law of the roses--if it aint a rose, it might be a flower, or something. But the question is, does it stink to high heaven? Sumpin' does.

As I enter the Gates of Heaven, how will I be received? Note that I said after I enter the Gates of Heaven. The pass through the Gates is Jesus. So, for the sake of this argument we will assume that the judgement seat is under the Needle's Eye of the Gates, much as we can imagine Mordecai's seat, or the seat where Boaz went to find settlement.

Some conversations have been concluded, the facts and truth revealed, some judgement passed, but now because of Jesus' advocacy on my part, I have passed through the Gates and in I come! How am I received?

Well, let us look to the first to live and choose, and the first to realize inadequacy and guilt, and first then to receive cover and consequence. Adam, given (by God himself) breath, duty, challenge, sustenance, companionship(help meet), fellowship(face to face), honor, and limit and promise, to everyone's despair, fell, revealing his nakedness. In his despair he tried to hide his nakedness, and for that nakedness was given cover by the shedding of blood, but made to live in flesh outside Paradise, by sweat and frustration. As he had frustrated God's plan for Paradise and caused the Word to sweat, even die, so he received. Did this please God? How was he received through the gates--all we can say is as he lived. Would I have liked the opportunity to reside in Paradise? Wouldn't you? Because of Adam, all must live in flesh outside of Paradise. Life is burdensome and deadly. Man 'O' man, do I hate to sweat! It stings my eyes, it stinks my pits and it stains my shirts.
Stinging, Stinking, Staining sweat. But if I had been there instead of Adam, no different outcome can I imagine. I have had the proof and the test and failed many times.

Thank God for the cleansing flood, the blood of Christ shed on a tree, the bruised heel of Victory's march, that pays my ransom and grants me entrance through the gates. Through the expression of honest humble gratitude I act differently, better, closer to Christlike, I treat others with dignity and respect and care, then as I return to Paradise I become honored in the honor I have tried to give. And as is evidenced throughout the scriptures the attitude of trying, of being ready and willing, of being at my best possible condition, brings a surety to my self, and or as Peter said in NLT from BlueLetterBible.com

2 Peter `1:

3 As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! 4 And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,* work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

to repeat 10-11 in the literal Bible

10. Therefore rather, brothers, be diligent sure of you the calling and choice to make, these things because doing not at all you will fall ever.
11. so For richly will be furnished to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord of us and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My best try at this passage tells me that if I have actually believed in the Creator of my Salvation then I cannot help but do those things which give evidence of that belief and salvation. So then I will be received as I lived, else how have I have accepted the Son and rejected the Spirit with which He offered His life-in service to die.

So yes smitty, it does matter what I do once the blood of Christ covers me, but no smitty, it was not good that Adam fall. To state such feels antithetical to the Holy Spirit of Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Goodness, Kindness, Temperance and Meekness.
Who is raised that I must see

His bronzed skin at the height of tree?

His frozen stance upon some crain"!

His esteem we must behold,

His story yet goes so untold,

E'en in the brightness of his light,

How can I be so cold,

Such 'til yet to be so quiet.

Especially when grappling

2005-10-06T13:56:00.000-05:00

one must be gentle but firm.

In a comment to a post herehosted by Dr Rick Davis, on multicultural expression within the anecdote of the local church I commented the following in response to comments to my on leading comment:

I would only ask, if perhaps in our zealousness to be faithful in our understanding and use of the language, through Baptist anecdote, we might not be attributing to that faith(LDS), strictures, which are not there other than as some of their own members have misunderstood or mistated them, and herein is the point that makes that anecdote they use a false one in my understanding, because rather than further explanation I end up with further confused questions. As a good disciple of "What is free choice without free thinking?" I submit that Jesus in our own New Testament has suggested the need for labours and the reward for those labors,ayaaahh ooh nooo-
do not misquote me, I am not saying that salvation comes as a result of my accomplishing anything other than accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and that as best I can glean from reading the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, without the apochrypha, God and Jesus and Spirit are One yet Each distinctive(perhaps perichoretic circumincession unveiling a panentheity), to say much more than this, as regards the Three in One, becomes my personal anecdote and susceptible to the limitations of my experience and intellect or else God's supersession. Does God speak to you? He seems to say that we are to reach out to even those we detest, re: the Samaritan woman.
After she leaves...read it in John 4:31-42, speaking to His desciples, He is not hungry-His meat is [for]doing the will of God.
The fields are ripe to harvest, the reapers should get busy and harvest so that fruit in life eternal may be enjoyed for both the sower and the reaper. see also 2Peter 1:1-11 and Galations 5:18-25. Not to forget James. All of this I bring not to further dischord but to hopefully find some way of reaching into a culture whose anecdote, as evidenced by its growth of membership and the demeanor of that membership, has some sort of appeal, that we as Baptist and Christians would do well to effect a calm and respectful conversation with its proponents so that we might, by the presence of Truth, some degree of right living and the Holy Spirit, encourage them to be weaned away from what are becoming more and more obviously, thank God for good science, false concepts.

Theologianly thinkin test

2005-07-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

Link

You scored as Anselm.

Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?'

Anselm 100%
Karl Barth 73%
J?Moltmann 60%
Augustine 60%
John Calvin 53%
Charles Finney 53%
Jonathan Edwards 47%
Friedrich Schleiermacher 47%
Martin Luther 40%
Paul Tillich 20%

Still on Hiatus

2005-05-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

I had thought I might write some today, but time is pressing and the connection is skipping, so I will try, and return, to the treatise on community as a needs , desire and expectations realization at a near point in the future.

Time out

2005-04-15T17:34:00.000-05:00

I will take some time out to celebrate a friend from childhood's passing into the kingdom way ahead of my schedule for him.

Spirit edified

2005-04-08T09:53:00.000-05:00

If we acknowledge the propensity of humans to refer to the presence of spirit as evidence of the presence of at least a mystery, we are open to an examination of spirit function and manifestation in life and community for the purposes of describing its possible origin. To find a vantage point as regards some manifestation which reveals the function of spirit, we will approach the subject from two directions, in order, the individual’s perseverance and the group’s congeniality.

As has been noted in other papers and demonstrated via the life process played out in the real world, individual living things have a great inclination to survive, and work very hard to do so. As was noted earlier in this paper, in order for an individual to survive, it must first satisfy its physical nurture and security needs. This trait of individual life to focus on feeding can be observed especially at feeding time in large groups of young mammals. They squirm and grunt and learn to growl and fight and snuggle determinedly, even single mindedly, ever closer to the teat where succor is found. The sight could hardly be described as sharing or friendly until all mouths are aligned with their own spigot of nourishment. So it would seem that a force has drawn even blind, traumatized, insensitive, inexperienced units into contact with the nurture source, the very thing that they need. Depending upon physical endowment of strength and quickness and determination, a youngster will successfully find that resource for which it yearns and grow, or become runted and possibly die. To state the obvious a spirit of survival drives these individuals as much as any physical sensory stimulated response, for these early infants could not know from experience where nor what is needed.

Part of survival even of the individual is regeneration. Regeneration requires community formulation of at least 2=>3. The successful construction of this formula in communal terms then guarantees at least one more generation of the gene pool, perhaps as valuable a pay load to present downstream as we can carry. When the gene pool is regenerated then community is given a chance at continuance. But why would the singular individual feel drawn to community? Raising the standard definition of 'resource for need fulfillment’ to better describe the traditionally accepted understanding of people interactions, though the detail would be daunting, even overwhelming for this article, we can better observe that humans have at their core an engrained selfishness which can be overcome, evidenced by their ability to develop acquaintance, comradery, alliance, friendship, partnership and marriage. Marriage, then, yielding children and the beginning of extended family, is that regeneration of the gene pool which accomplishes the 'successful community'. Although I am unable to set myself outside this petri dish and make absolutely unaffected assumptions and conclusions, it is logical to believe that there must be some outside force influencing the behavior of selfish, obstinate individuals to do things, which, at least on cursory glance, and to 'a priori’ thought by those individuals, would seem counterproductive to the self so involved. It is in hindsight that the community is seen as beneficial, and often for reasons unfathomable to a purely materialistic mind set. Spirit is able to goad us into action whereby we are made, if not more obviously complete, at least more comprehensive through time. The effect then of this comprehension is more life. If the assumption from evidence found in the behaviours of young is accepted as indicating a selfish person, then from whence do the selfless characteristics issue that are required to rear selfish young to selfless maturity?
Mustn't it be from outside ourselves?

Drawn Together

2005-04-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

What is it that draws us together? Surely our individuality and competing interests, our dependence upon the same sources for need fulfilment, our natural character and tendency would at or during our interface with each other, separate us through greed in fear or at best diffugient and alone. But no, partly by resource concentration, are we physically drawn to the same space. Other than resource availability, and need fulfilment, what determines our common arrivals and departures. Coincidence?

Who is it that feeds at the same time we do? Kindred Spirits? Competing interests? Happenstance common arrivals? Predisposed entities? Whoever it is, the fact of their presence in a want satisfying resource rich zone, means that they have, or are, or will probably partake of the same resource we partake.

The common arena, the condition of common want fulfillment, the tendency to arrive in common and individually at places which contain the substance for which our physicality strives in necessity, forces our behavior toward each other at this common site to be defined as consensus. Consensus, even cooperation, in their broadest understanding, propose a dichotomy: amity in all its various forms vs animus in its distinctive manifestations; a dichotomy which helps us to place a handle on this topic of the esoteric community. The dichotomous approach gives us a pendulur reference by which to arrange our awareness into a communication that leads to consensus, "Do I stay and feed?(Comfortably?, Warily?)", "Do I aid and inform others?(sincerely, in subterfuge", "Do I flee?(as quickly as possible, slowly and ceremoniously)", "Do I stay and fight?(briefly, to the death)", and the capitalist "Shall I profit?(what no parenthetical?)".

This is the context in which we find spirit a part of life. Not to be so anxious as to accept that there is spirit without first investigating the facts, we might simply, though, consider the reference throughout much of history to spirit as an indication of its vernacular presence there. Then, to hear today of the ‘team spirit’, the ‘spirit of cooperation’, the ‘spirit of meanness’, the ‘spirit of the law’, and the ‘spirit of life’, as non exhaustive examples of its broad acceptance in current vernacular. Even in the words such as amiable and animus is hidden the thought of a spirit which precepts and contains and projects the definition of those words. These understandings of spirit, then, give us descriptions of a tangible spirit. There are tomes and traditions of culture, rooted in antiquity and verdant yet today, where ‘Spirit’ is understood as more than feeling, sense, emotion, or intuition, rather as encompassing and an entity, a being, a person, even a god.

As you receive so shall you give

2005-04-02T13:11:00.000-06:00

I almost put off the essay portion of this lesson today, too long. I had never read 2 Peter for the purpose of public explication. I was told by my pastor, Dr Randy Rogers, that this book was not commented upon until the third century. The rest being largely commented upon often and much earlier. Some have said this fact brings into question the authenticity of Peter as author. Methinks perhaps another explanation likely. That being, that others may have encountered, as I did, the sense of a very personal, poignant, direct plea by Peter,as he prepared to put off his tabernacle, for readers to inculcate, to adapt, that which they spoke, into their daily walk. A call to not just say but to do. If we are going to use God, let us try to use Him up! Let us hide His word in our hearts that others may see Him fully!

When reading this passage I became aware of many of my own shortcomings as pertain to the discrepancy in my life where sincerity and 'See I do as I say' is the tool which most "hear" from afar, so that my voice, my speech is drowned and faint. This letter forces me to introspect, to peer deep within, and I do not want to tell you all the things that fall on my heart as I read this first chapter and realize how many times I have said "well I am just human I can do no better, after all Jesus is forgiveness". I remember now that I have a Holy Father and He has Given His Holy Son that I might live within the Power and Protection and Enlightenment and Encouragement---as well as the Forgiveness of the Holy Spirit. If as the 20th verse of chapter one says 'no prophecy is private' then let us begin to call upon this power to deliver, this promise of protection, this spirit of enlightenment, and realize, manifest the encouragement publicly and loudly at least as often as we do the forgiveness. We have hidden God in our hearts and speak of only a part of Him? Who are we to hide God's face from others. People did not write about 2nd Peter because it wasn't there, they did not write about 2nd Peter because they were ashamed of the disuse/misuse/abuse of power it reveals in the reader! This is a personal onslaught by God through Peter against the weakness within and evil about his friends of the time and his readers today. This is the meat and potatos of scripture, folks. So hold on tight, and if you should wake with a fright in the night call out to Jesus with all your might and He will bestow upon you His Light!

Peter begins his last letter, with a standard greeting, but one directed at the growing number of believers. He refers to those believers in the King James as 'them that have obtained like precious faith'. Then he gives a blessing that as their knowledge of Christ Jesus grows so should their grace and peace. This increase in grace and peace is in accordance with that which God is able and wills to do for us, His faithful, and includes the things which pertain to this life as well as those things spiritual and eternal. We are given those things that we need here, now, so that we might be able to focus on those divine things from above. Avoiding the lust and corruption of the world and attaining unto the glory and virtue of the Father.

Along with this undertaking we, being sincere and earnest, are to add to this faith we have first received, acknowledged, then developed, virtue, add to this faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, and patience godliness, and godliness kindness, and to kindness love. If we have these things, and abound in them then we will not be unfruitful or lacking in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, if we have not diligently applied ourselves to the aquisition of, and application of, the increase and growth of faith through virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and love, then we are blind and forgetful of the price of our atonement and always stumbling and unsure and an afright, a wall, to others who would draw closer to God. We should rather be diligent and work toward those things noble and uplifting of the Divine nature as have been revealed and given us-ward, making our calling and election a certainty in our minds so that we might not be a stumbler nor an idget. As we have been diligent here, when we arrive through the Gates of Heaven, then, we will be given that entrance into eternity. Due diligence.

Would I be negligent if I did not mention here, now, to you these things which help to secure your faith in your own mind and encourage your faithfulness, even though ye already know the things of which I speak. If yes, then I shall not be negligent to speak these things and often so that we may be reminded and encouraged toward our diligent doing.

At this juncture, Peter, refering to his body as being in a tabernacle which he will soon put off, begins to segue, from the exhortation for his readers to work hard at spiritual growth, to what was for most of the original readers of this epistle, a reminder, and, to later readers of the gospels, a summation of Peter's personal witness and testimony of the Christ, Jesus our Lord and Saviour. Here, I am reminded of that hymn we all know 'I Love To Tell the Story'. The last verse especially poignant here--"I love to tell the story for those that know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest, And when in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, 'Twill be the old, old story, that I have loved so long."

Peter uses his impending death as a reason for the impetus, the fervent exhortation and admonitions of this book. He is indicating that there is not much time left for him personally to do that which God has for him to do. He is repeating many things which his readers have already heard, but as the song states, we relish in the rehearing. We can take this as a message to each of us today, for surely as each day passes we are ever nearer that time when we no longer are able to convey to our family our neighbor our friend, acquaintenance or stranger, those things which God wants them to hear and believe.

These two books of Peter make it more plain than nearly any other scriptures, the importance of our being as separate in body as we are separate in spirit from the chains of sin. This passage also demonstrates to us the effectiveness of telling the story as we have experienced it so others might hear and know God's presence and power and promise.

Peter reminds us of the closeness to our Majesty he had. He was there when the voice from heaven said "This is my beloved Son In whom I am well pleased!" And again the voice was there on the holy mount at the transfiguration of Jesus. We do well to take heed of these words of Peter concerning Jesus and the light He offers us through Peter.

The chapter concludes by stating no prophecy is of a private nature for it comes from the Holy Ghost to men God has chosen for the task. I think it seems obvious to the reader, this writing of Peter tells us in no uncertain terms we are to do those things which please God for if we do not please Him here we will not please Him when we enter the Gates.

We all thought just alike, sort of

2005-03-23T12:05:00.000-06:00

Working to establish a definition of community, we move from looking at the building blocks of its structure as physcal entities within an entity, and the general patterned appearance of that super-entity, to describing how mentality works as an individual moves toward community, and then, how a group-mentality works within community. This platform, as a subsidiary of the array being uncovered here, gives us the vantage of turning from the dominating focus on physicality, toward that more nebulous effect of living we call thought process. For the purposes of this sub-section we will separate inspiration as spirit for the next essay and deal, as exclusively as the subject will allow, with the effect of the physical upon the bio-chemistry regimen of thought. Not to be overly technical then, bio-chemistry will be described as it can be observed from accomplishments along a continuum from inception to nexus for manifestation of community accouterment(s).
Awareness, trying not to be deceptive when I say "Simply put", is a necessary prequel to all other thinking. The degree and scope of our awareness is always a result of the effect of stimuli involving the senses and it is often factored through discipline. Discipline, by definition, indicates a dependance upon tradition. Tradition must, wrongly or rightly, arrange ideas or objects according to their potential appropriateness and detriment to success. Success being reliant upon spirit will be investigated at a later writing. Here, suffice to say that success must evidence itself in birth, growth, and regeneration.
In a social entity, the tradition of communication is one of the ways in which awareness moves toward ubiquity. The tradition of communication manifests itself as a language which is dependent upon voice, common morphology, geography and experience and observed but uniquely endowed, desirable or undesirable, conditions upon individuals or groups within the group with needs. This grouping of increasingly diverse constituents, partly through language, then develops, via consensus and time, a system of responses to stimuli which, as a broadly accepted practice, becomes culture(succession) or extinct(failure).
Consensus springs from authoritative agreements that something either belongs or does not belong as a part of the formulation of the community. Consensus is then a political tool whereby a community with wants moves through awareness, communication, and agreement toward regeneration.

Biblical Authority

2005-03-23T01:25:00.000-06:00

Cruising the pages of blogdom I found an interesting discussion on Biblibcal authority and truth at
Here
So being enamored of the truth I could not help but resond as follows:

Bill

I think what I am reading you to say is that things, for example, such as how the world was created fall into an abstract truth because I am unable to see the truth other than as a statement that God spoke it into being. On the other hand, how and that God provided for my realization of His supremacy and love is an absolute and singularly detailed for me. But it was a personal encounter such that as many thousands upon millions have experienced the Epiphany in their own personal ways, then as a corporate understanding it, God's revelation, becomes abstract truth. So that when I say an elephant looks and feels like a tree trunk and you may say a shower, we both are true and wrong.

Jacob/Esau/Rebekka/Isaac, on the other hand demonstrate that God will make good on His promises whatever deceitful deal we have worked

RobeFRe

Theoblogian excerpts and comments

2005-03-22T03:31:00.001-06:00

I have elected to comment here on my site as opposed to the original,
>theoblogy,
because the discussion there is of a very technical nature, where, rather than big words being used and misused it is the names of authors, ancient and modern, being flaunted about as if they were common household cleansers, so I will finish what I began earlier, to whit:

What can I say that better serves to confuse the issue than these excerpts from the poster and commenters

I. Tony Jones states: options available to Christians in a globalized/pluralistic/postmodern society: liberal accomodationism, conservative retreatism, Hauerwasian sectarianism, and the newcomer: Milbankian (Radical Orthodoxy) withdrawal into the liturgy.

These all seem at once the same option, and as if I am a bit and piece of each one of the differences attempted. Yet again the redundancy!

II. Again Tony Jones: the ability to maintain a "robust doctrine of God" (Steve's words) and a robust understanding of pluralism...is there a way to negotiate a healthy, dialectical relationship with culture and maintain an orthodox doctrine of God?
!st Peter indicates that there is a correct way, but perhaps the best way to consider health is in eternal terms, though striving to maintain the best lifestyle as we can, re Daniel in Babylon.

III. And Tony Jones again: Among practical theologians, there have been a couple major avenues for navigating these waters. Among the University of Chicago theologians (Tillich, Tracy, Browning), there has been an evolving "correlational" model in which theology and culture stand in a dialectical relationship. Tillich said that culture asks the questions and theology provides the answers; Tracy and Browning amended this by saying that each asks questions and each provides answers -- i.e., theology and culture stand in a mutually critical relationship.

I know that I may be a bit sophomoric or worse here but people ask questions and apply disciplines and populate culture. I especailly love it when people ask ‘what is your point?’, to what degree are theology and religion interchangeable?

IV. Tony Jones then states: theology trumps all other disciplines when it comes to issues on which theology is uniquely articulate.

Sorry Tony, and I don’t think that this changes much of the rest of your essay, but idiocy trumps all other disciplines when it is uniquely articulate.

V. Steve B. posits a spirit of fallibilism as necessary to a relationship with others when corresponding upon a subject, in case his box has been incorrectly built by himself.
As humans we will have blind spots and weaknesses but God’s revelation needs only our flexibility in view of others hardness of conviction in order to draw as God himself did the outsiders in through compassion. Flexibility more than fallibility would seem to be a better ideal for me now if it is yo perhaps you are right in using the word fallible. Wink wink nod nod

VI. And Steve b. again: I know what is at stake when I surrender (explicitly or implicitly) my theological convictions on ultimate matters to another discipline
Sounds like you think you have peered through the gates of Hell into the Dark abyss of an unHoly Ghost!

VII. Dlw writes: do both biblical and practical theology.

If it is not Biblical how can it have anything but temporal practicality, and thus no real pracicality?

VIII. An anonymous commenter, Tim Keller, I believe said: the way to a post-modern, post-secular theology

unless any ole who ‘ll do ya, isn’t that through Jesus Christ?

IX. Steve B then wites: The believer, in evaluating state and society, employs a standard of common grace to which she holds others...accountable

This works to place man in control of God’s gift to others, which grace as with any grace elicits only one of two reactions that being acceptance or refusal. God made grace common.

From Place to Place

2005-03-15T00:50:00.000-06:00

Just as the previous paragraph avoided the aspect of limited human influence upon the physical environment other than in world changing natural habitat degrees, Demography of more than one will be used to describe the categories of groupings of humans by numeric parameters on a continuum from rural to megolapolitan and not as an exposition of intricate sociological intrigue other than as to predominant economic activity.

A brief chart of the major divisions of population are as follows:

CTGRY Rural<=Hse=Vill=Twn=Cty=Metro=>Megalo
TYPE
Scn/hunt/gthr Ag Dstr/Serv Mnfctr
[______I________I_______I_______=>
0-1====<5=====~200====>2000======>
POP/sqmi./Csqmi

The types listed in the chart above are proposed as characterizations of the primary economic activity. While they are generally exclusionary in the diminishing size direction, they are not generally exclusionary in total but rather usually additive and inclusive in the increasing size direction with anomalies as per specialized conditions from dense population centers toward rural population centers.

We can see by the numbers that the least populated community is one of a maximum of 100 people or less living in a 10mi x 10mi area. The greatest size being somewhat vague as to specific size, and generally as population centers grow together or expand beyond the base size of the sample area used they become considered one unit. The term Megalopolis is one coined to describe specifically that area between Chicago and New York and other areas in Europe, Africa and Asia where population centers of expansive area and hpgh density have emerged with cultural and social characteristics unique to communities of that size. So here we have an initial look at the strata of human community as nodal entities involving varying numbers of individuals.
Pathway(s) indicate to us the existence of communication. Pathways also help us to analyze the direction, type and amount of communication flows within communities and from one community to another. The term Pathways is used because it would have been an early form of other early forms of commutation used largely by individuals and sometimes by groups, that is still viable today, whereas, smoke signals and drumming are not, save in very isolated and infrequent situations. From microwave and satellite to radio, telephone and facsimile, and computer based internet information communications to the more traditional modes of conveying bodies and packages along roadways and rail and in ships, maritime as well as air, and today even rocket travel becomes more and more approachable, yet footpaths are making a comeback largely as intra-community pathways for recreational and health purposes for individuals so inclined, but also have some revival as inter-community modes of conveyance in areas such as Appalachia and Europe, and have remained in use as significant but diminishing modes in developing regions of the world. Pathways indicate to us the existence of communication by their evidence of movement of individuals between individuals and nodes of population which are limited and delimited in part by the physical environs upon and within which they exist.

Becoming Social

2005-03-10T14:53:00.000-06:00

Social interaction is a necessary condition of community by being the action through which life is replicated and in which life is experienced, within varying degrees of social integration. To avoid the argument of chicken or egg as regards individual or society in order
to focus on the conditions and conditioning we know exist, seems the direct tact in developing a more cohesive understanding of the physical relationship of individual and society.
The physical parameters of social life can easily be delineated as non-human Geography, Demography of more than one, and Pathways of communication. Admittedly this limits our scope to that which is quantifiable by the five senses and generally verifiable through test and sample.
The reason for characterizing Geography here as non human is to avoid the confusion which might follow from the etymologically studied application of the word which reveals its true characteristic as an ‘overriding through sifter’, an umbrella word which also has more specific meanings and exclusionary applications. So to use the more exclusionary application and specifically meaning those attributes in the physical condition of life which, although they may include aspects modified by man, do not here include the writings and other recorded musings of men other than as they have been manifested directly and substantially on the canvass we often refer to as Mother Nature. In other words the section of the list concerning the needs in life as individuals become social includes human earth writings larger than Rushmore or Stone Mountain, and perhaps larger than Aswan Dam and the Dust Bowl and smog. An inclusive but not comprehensive rendering of the list: Astronomy, Topography, Meteorology and Geology seems fairly complete and at least example enough to indicate the area of community influence which is underlying all, though in many respects, especially as ‘the world grows smaller’ diminishing in its obvious direct influence but without which there is void.

More on Demographics of more than one, and Pathways of communication
later

RobeFRe

theo

2005-03-08T23:27:00.000-06:00

RobeFRe said in response to a comment 'God of Person before God of group?'at Theo

most always by record as read

Adam
Enoch
Abraham
Moses
Samuel
Daniel
Mary
Matthew
The Samaritan Woman

All these had personal relationships with God who then sometimes used them to minister to the group.
Since the veil was wrent in two the relationship seems meant to be even more intensely personal again. I would say God of Person then God of Group. The role of group being fluid as to the individual need for relationship with God.
The organized group being unwieldy by size and need for tradition would generally be able to maintain the record of truth over time in better stead than the individual. But I am sure that this is not my blogspot, so I relinquish the floor for the purpose of a heightened personal, individual as well as group, relationship with God.

Spirit above, spirits within and spirits without

2005-03-08T14:12:00.000-06:00

As we move from the physical through the intellect into the Spiritual, a universal question becomes evident–Why?. Why do we exist? Why do we continue? Why do we change? Why do we seemingly quit? Why do we not continue? Why do we suffer?
Inspiration is the key to beginnings. Begin, begoing?, begone. Why start? Why not stay? Why did we not stay? Because we were moved to move! Motivation, so many words to describe this precept, encourages us to change. To change position. To change placement. To change perspective. Inspiration as a key opens the door to understanding the source of ongoingness. Remembering that a rabbit sometimes goes on by being very still and quiet. Inspiration is a progenitor of instinct and concept. Many things we consider concepts were actually given to us, inspired in us from outside of us. Inspiration grabs us by the nape of the neck and points us in the direction we need, like blinders on the head of a draft animal it focuses us, it gives us our escape. Why are we not more inspired? Perhaps our vision of ourselves has disjointed that ability to see outside our box, to hear from beyond our self.
Concept, our vision of our self, is more an ongoing assimilation of outward conditions with and into the inward processes that make us distinctly our self. It is an important operand in the formula of life. This Concept is something which, though affected by outside forces, is a mentality wholly our own as individuals. It is our own as a part and parcel of inalienable rights, responsibilities and consequences. We make our bed, we read our life, scribble the borders, and crib our speech. But we do not live in a vacuum. Concept is derived from our experience. Concept, from the early years of dependance upon parentage, where it is very similar to its inspirational source, and through the sliding scale toward maturity--trial, rebellion, serendipity, and adaption--becomes personal. It is that thing which most ably describes who we think we are and thus who we are. It determines what we think is important and what we expect. What we expect is determined by whether we are continually looking inward or striving to see beyond our horizon. If our concept is valid then our interaction flourishes.
Vision describes that ability to discern and focus upon the significant influence. Although our vision helps determine our direction, timing and interaction. A part of our vision must appreciate our inner talents, limitations, and potentials. With experience, training, and a concept that is developed with vision in mind, vision improves, experiences become more in accordance with expectation, and inspiration can be more readily assimilated into the process of conception.
These three, inspiration, concept and vision, while similar and often interchangeable in usage, must, as the precepts described here, be independent, yet unavoidably synergistic to one another. This enables the self to be centered yet outgoing while resilient concerning the elliptic influence of living within earthly constraints.

RobeFRe

How I imit God

2005-03-05T23:32:00.000-06:00

To start with a usable typo in the title can be a serendipitous rush. But why should'nt I tackle both the question of how I imitate God and how I limit God, both of which may precourse how I emit God and so the thing gets rolling. I was making the usual rounds, checking my lists, you know, when I stumbled upon the
Saecula
titled 'The Holy Father'. Anastasia, the author wonders in print why she dislikes Calvin and loves Foucalt. I, not knowing much of Foucalt, and limited Calvin other than by religious exerience in a Southern Baptist Church, think anyone, Calvin, Foucalt,or else, trying to limit God, is working very hard at making a god they can easily imitate and therefrom something they are familiar with, and so I see that perhaps both Foucalt and Calvin are the same in ways we have very little method of proofing much less proving.

First, God is not a something I can define completely and is independent of that which I define Him by, other than as He has made known to me and I have realized tested by the similar recounts of countless others and His immaculate Word. On the other hand God is more than I will ever recall and has never allowed me to be completely cognizant of His toal essence. I believe this is in part the lesson of the Garden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. While we can never know His intent in placing that tree there, we can surmise that perhaps He intended to take that fruit, much as my grandfather would take an apple, when I was young, and peel it, slice it into small pieces, and feed me just enough to sate a hunger and leave me a desire, a curiosity, to consider more a viable alternative. Having not allowed me to overstuff myself on sweet juicy pulp, or to choke myself on tough untenable skin, the experience was pleasant and an edifice to all concerned.

In further support for this supposition is that, assuming the fruit was tasty, surely Adam and Eve overindulged upon its unfamiliar savor and substance, accumulating discomfort rather than satisfaction, which manifests itself today in reflexive preventive effort, as the tendency of the church to resist scientific facts and adversely to adhere to superstition.

It is dangerous to determine that God is no more than what I know or might know, and it is likewise dangerous to assume that any and thereby all description of God is healthy. In the Garden, Eve was sincere but wrong in saying that to touch was to die, for surely Adam was to care for that tree as well as any other. Satan on the other hand though misleading was correct to say 'surely you will not die', if we assume he means that God will provide an out(but will you take it?).

The question of foreknowledge--predestination--is one best answered with scripture such as 1 Peter 1:2 while tempering that edge with the very story we used in the beginning. God is bigger than my complaint, He is able to overcome my objection, but how? Jonah was desperate, he called out to God for help and God responded. Was Jonah coerced into obedience? Suffice it to say he was convinced otherwise than he first decided. But what of Israel the nation? Over and over and over and again God was faithful and forgiving while His people were sinful.

As an individual I have my will but if I give up my will then I have made a choice. By giving up will I continue to make choices but in accepting God's Will then my choices are made for me and that Divine Will becomes my will and so I have the Free Will but then where is choice? My choice should be made already but if I make a bad choice, I must return to Divine Will in order to draw closer,again, to God. Bad choices are what separate us from the Divine Will, so forgiveness, through the sprinkling of Jesus' blood, is the only thing which allows us into to the Divine Relationship.

Now as to the elect, the chosen of God known from before the foundation of the Earth by God, how is it that God has said we must go therefore into all the earth teaching them whatsoever He has taught us and Baptising them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost? He is sovereign and while determined that all be given the opportunity to reunite with Him, He is not deterministic, he gives us the opportunituy to ignore Him,

While we will find some seeming already in tune with God and having knowledge of Him and needing perhaops only to confess His Name and be baptised, there are many who are in much ignorance of Him and yet quite acquainted with evil and that way, so that it is through prayer and discipleship and example that we become able to demonstrate and tell that which God would have these outsiders know that they might have the opportunity to become in right fellowship and relationship with God.

Life Actuation

2005-02-25T12:51:00.000-06:00

Mental dexterity defined as the processes involved in decision making necessary to accomplish a minimal material survival, assuming the base human experience, allows a detailed consideration at a later time of matters of esoteric intellect. For now, though, the most observable characteristics of the mind, the decisions action as a group, tends to cloak the operation and function of the first and second characteristics of the mind, those of perception and thinking. While even this most evident characteristic requires action to display itself, without the measured action of the first two, its effectiveness is limited and burdensome rather than liberating in scope. The effect of each upon the next in turn, and of the last result upon the next first observation, reveals a procedural ellipsoidal of arriving at a point by having been somewhere else useful, relevant and comparable. It is elliptical rather than cyclical by the law of deformation in material application: the growth, learning and progress of experience, internal changes, retractions and expansions from resultant adaptation and the eternal propensity of life to change its perspective, either actively or passively, while remaining generally focused upon a center. Body follows Mind follows Spirit.

Community Life is not to gather mess

2005-02-23T01:26:00.000-06:00

So I have been looking around at the discussions by prospective and erstwhile PhD and D ‘whatever’ candidates; noting that many debatable points are raised yet very little meat is fed at the troughs. I find myself wondering what difference does it make that Hellenism influences the world today from a point so far in antiquity that one has to wonder if the Greeks could have been that shallow as to think that a rose by any other name could be other than a rose. One thing I rant about here is that the Greek’s typology misleads us all into the misunderstanding that love is anything other than that divine auspice which God has granted usward and in no wise is it anything other than that. Love is not lust, Love is not fleeting, Love is not without commitment. To the contrary, love is that thing which we take from God as if we starved and then cannot help but give it away as though we will never hunger again. The Greeks mislead us by claiming that this love or that love , love is something we share, the way we share it becomes the true descriptive and defining angle to use in explaining how we love. The object, then, is a major determinant in whether we use physical expression, and what sort of physical expression, as we relate our love for another to that other. This perspective lends itself to a less confusing understanding of relationships than trying to decide what kind of love we have for another.

The other moaning I have heard, is from those who surely know better, but delve into banal slighting of Brothers in Arms with Christ, whose only sin in the particular matter seems to be that they don't split hairs over motivation, but rather apply nuance to active onslaught against the wiles of the principalities of darkness manifested in our common and social structure(s).

Community life is to gether ness

2005-02-15T02:25:00.000-06:00

Being together. Is that community? If there is togetherness then there is a relationship amongst units. Another implication of community is life. Living is being is life. And implicit in the word community is individual, a single unit. At the basis of living is a single life communing with at least one other single life. Community then is one communing with others. What is it that one commune? Basic to being is life, basic to life is an individual. But that individual is thwarted without community. The first need of life is parentage. An individual must both have parents and be a parent to fulfill the basic law of life. After life is established in an individual, then the who of parentage steps back in favor of the what of parenting. Birds, hens especially, begin to nest. Plants and many insects begin to store food as quickly as possible. The bounty of the Earth becomes evident. This relationship between living thing and place sets the tone and example for the order of all that follows. The one brought forth the other, the other maintains the former. It is a given that if one wants to be a helper, then he must find a way to help others. The former helps by providing, the other helps by pruning. The helped then must get something that they want, otherwise the helper becomes nuisance rather than help. The first need being life, then an understanding of life is helpful. So, to think straightforwardly, we begin simply: that is to say we look for the basic understanding through the barest example-the individual life. When the individual is observed to unveil his needs then we find legacy, consumption, assimilation, expulsion, security and ownership.

Evangelism Evangelicalism and intran sigencis ticality

2005-02-08T13:27:00.000-06:00

Rather, lead me to that Peaceful River than the precipice of perplexity whereby if I stumble I might grab at thee by the nape and take us two(or more) down to town in a hurry!

Evangelism as opposed to evangelicalism, I suppose... is it too much to find it in Matt 28:19-22 as an inspiration into, rather than a condensation of, brain chemistry. Who could love the enemy and yet strive and encourage toward sanctity. Through inspiration we can! In terms of the human application of ideal to manifestation, how could what has come before be so complete as to need no improvement toward ideal(umbrella to idea)? If what a recent brain condenses(ideation) is to be complete then it cannot negate all, and seldom much, that has come before it. That which was, leading AND yielding to, that which is to be. Leaving us in the...midst...to be the fallable caretakers of The unkeepable Gift which overides our cursed unavoidable legacy. Now evangelicalism, be it the heavy reliance upon such things as tracts, the Roman Road, le lingue d'hier et au jour'd'hui(ou seul d'hier?), and action and attendance standards which do condense the message of scripture(gospel) into an analogy of a convert's relationship to The Saviour(sanctification) and tends to make known(evangelic) that convert's conversion's incept(intent required?).

Surely, as people enveloped within a precept of regenerative life as gifted toward us, we can work toward the betterment of society and the realization of eternal fellowship with the Father in unity simultaneously and consequentially, using such tools and techniques as become known to us when we find and have need of them, with blessing from and for our fellow letters of The Envelope.

2005-02-04T01:58:00.000-06:00

out of order chaos

2005-01-31T13:48:00.000-06:00

Life, having established itself in, as and through patterns, unveils itself to us as a very strict maestro. It is with very little frequency and much less success or sustenance that the anamolic occurence manifests itself. The frequency of the 'beneficial successful anamoly' as opposed to the 'detrimental successful anamoly' might be assumed to be somewhat greater, but is for, this writer, at this writing at least unexplored. Needless to say, 'sometimes a great notion'! God the author of order and provider of need-satisfaction must have seen the inevitability and neccesstiy of the carroom, out of left field, spontaneous, off the cuff, with no word of fair warning, 'what a pleasant surprise' happening; and in that foresight provided for the acclimatization of the same into the world's order and condition. To respond nonjudgementally with an air of rigidity and shock or horror to the out of the norm is to predicate the absence of that refreshing random kindness with and by which we can be and are so often encouraged.

RobeFRe

2005-01-29T15:36:00.000-06:00

weakend looms

2005-01-28T13:30:00.000-06:00

Having read another blog's post or two in the interim I realize that posting everyday is indicative of lots of time or enthusiasm for the post as well as fertive notions for the posting. As one able and knowledgeable writer has stated, it may be that leadership is the captain of endeavour, in the common sense, rather than inspiration. But let me unveil slightly that that thought has come from an apparent Anglican American considering jumping ship to the Catholic and wondering about, Nay! near disparaging Luther's desire for literacy amongst the laity. Poor protestant pretenders, have we no basis?
Listing Wants Outline Progress Report indicates a progression to nearly one third completion, with the beginning of the first of the remaining two thirds to begin soon. And most of the hard part behind.

Needs
Life
Individual
c. Spiritual
1c a 1 1)Inspiration
1c a 1 2)Concept
1c a 1 3)Vision

Sustenance
Individual
c. Spiritual
1c b 1 1)Nurture
1c b 1 2)Health
1c b 1 3)Security

Expanding Horizons Through Listing and Drifting or Listing and Intending in the beginagain refrain

2005-01-20T01:40:00.000-06:00

I have been trying to unnerstan why some folks are so given to limiting their vision of themselves to only the things which might be, rather than considering the things which were and how they have helped and hindered them in their travels to this point in time and place. Now obviously, they are just fooling themselves and mostly noone else when they try to convince us that the only thing that matters is that which hasn't happened or even perhaps is only just now unraveling before us, so, "I am waiting to see what happens," doesn't get very far, and really can't operate as an accurate description of what is or isn't going on, because all things seem to have some sort of linkage through the 'degrees of separation' or is it now called 'everything theory?' or 'string elementals?'. So while horizon analysis gives us the simplest and quickkest set of contingencies in any one persons experience it becomes bulky and awkward by shere degreed division when applied to the part of the horizon that is behind us(for I wonder if it is really there when I or someone is not looking at it) and even moreso when that above us or below us becomes a factor of the sitchiation. So the word horizon becomes somewhat ambiguous when applied to the well rounded life. If we consider that even the actual shape of the horizon afront of us is somewhat curved down and away--something of a slider eh?, then perhaps horizon is a workable term. But the same condition might be better described as the 'arc of our vision'. That is not bad if there is no immediate obstruction to the 'line of sight'. Then vista comes into mind, for surely a vista is a horizon which might have an arc of vision and include obstruction both far and near and yet include and describe a depth of encounter. The vista! Enough listing and drifting, we go listin and intending next...

2005-01-16T22:27:00.000-06:00

Blessed are the hongry for they shall be filled Luke 6:21

2005-01-16T03:36:00.000-06:00

New Pan of hot steaming Sourdough rolls

New Pan of Sourdough Rolls

2005-01-16T03:06:00.000-06:00

Ding Dong the witch is dead! We have moved a new pastor into his brand new house just yesterday evening. The hope and excitement was tremendous, palpable, cuttable with a knife. We are going to go again to the well and we are going to draw til we bloat. A man of letters even. A baccalaureate and a masters and a PHDiv or something great. We are going to slaughter the fatted calf and bake bread and you know the rest...! Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise him all ye creatures here below. Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost! AAAHHHHMMMehhhnnn

2005-01-13T01:49:00.000-06:00

Peas in the New Year

2005-01-13T01:42:00.000-06:00

Peas in the New Year

Grandma, what big eyelashes you have!

2005-01-12T01:57:00.000-06:00

a response to a blog post titled 'The end is nigh' @ here and referencing a post at

here

Some cogitatin' might be the correct proposition here. That is of course in my best Tom Hanks voice from his professorial role in the 'Ladykillers'. But I do have to wonder if the instrument(s) played in the Harbinger blog are not some what antiquated of their own concept or is it conceipt? revealing my own inept? belief that God has 'a priori' claim to things such as precepts(are those propositions?). You know, "In the beginning God..." then everything else. Now I would have to agree that I have very little cognizance of what that I do not know, but then, that smacks of Yogi Berraism. It's also a bit like saying, "If the tree falls and no one hears...." If, he is saying that all is false that my mind does not encounter and assimilate, (by which methinks I am somewhat liberal with the standard applied), then what need have I, or anyone, of even education much less inspiration, and where does that lead? Why not come out of the shadow, rather than relish the dark?

maybe some more later

Bloodless Ecosystems

2005-01-07T17:22:00.000-06:00

What are You Doing Here?
Reflections on Clomp Expansion

Sometimes we refer to something as God‚Äôs sense of humor. Dogs reveal that fairly well. Some men buy Pit Bulls. Then they seem to intend on making believers of all of us that the breed is a horrible mistake. Others take one of the same breed and enable it to demonstrate the capacity of that breed to be kind and gentle and loving as no other breed seems capable. Then other men, or is it their wives, buy Chihuahuas or miniature toy teacup Poodles or Pekinese and expect us to understand their love.... I play with a Labrador. He responds to a multi syllabic name. Ambrosius. If you say it just right it is the sound he makes when he talks. Brosie has many nicknames. He always knew the game fetch, instinct, I guess, but he is getting better at it(intelligence?). He carries big rocks around and then barks at them for hours when they drop. Did it bite him on the lip? Did it get tired of going and jump off and now refuses to continue? Is it supposed to grow wings and fly? Ambrose knows birds. He knows that the geese are supposed to stop by and visit, he invites them and the ducks to do so, emphatically. He loves the grackles because they do. They go for romps together. Ambrosie should have been a greyhound, he has a big backyard, sometimes, legs churning, he resembles a Dust Devil as he motors from one end to the other. Before I had a fence I had an Afghan/Whippet, Sirrococo, Sara, running was never so smooth and easy. And fast. She is still chasing that last rabbit, that last rabbit is still running to get away. It was an amazing sight to watch, rabbit in the lead, hound ever gaining, rabbit stops then darts a turn and light-footed hound, tongue lolling, scrambles uncharacteristically to regain the momentum. Grace on paws. On and on and on, minutes become segments of time, the rabbit was Grandaddy Jack, he was savvy and crafty, father of many, seemingly involved as the hound by the game, finally, abruptly, they lay down together, to Rest, in the bar ditch, next to the road, you know. They loved to run, I‚Äôm sure they still are. Now I have a fence.

But before Ambrose, the fence, and the rabbit fetcher, and others, was BB. Beatrice Brandywine A German Shepherd of Royal Dutch lineage. Five Pages of Royal Dutch Lineage. Big, long, tail swooping the ground, head held in a neck protecting swag. Regal. I think she spoke High Deutch. Her owner gave her to me when she was about a year and a half old. She kept lumbering the wrong way off, and ended up at the KOA quite often, on her wrong way back to him, her previous owner. Or maybe she was just free now and going away in a direction we didn‚Äôt recognize as viable. Finally, the previous owner stopped by and put her on the only leash Momma had, that skinny little wimpy, braided plastic Chihuahua leash, and walked BB to the corners of our present yard, they were alone, at each corner, Larry was standing there, that funny looking leash drooping between them as she sat at his feet, to the side of course, minutes became segments of time, they returned, and she would never leave the grounds again unless Momma took her, or she dutifully followed the tractor, I could not drag her away, I could call but she did not come, she would follow the tractor and stay with it during Dad‚Äôs coffee, until Dad returned, I could feed her and brush her but....She loved her new home. Used the many cats for pillows at night, preeners at sabbatical and warmers in the winter. Remember that image-Dogs and Cats at Peace. Not so Scruffy. Scruffy thinned the cat population like snapping flies out of the air. I was glad to see him go to his real home with my sister. She thinks dogs and cats are supposed to fight. She and I are kinda like dogs and cats. I‚Äôll talk about Mutt some other time. And Spot and Snowball and Bullet and Verinne.

The thing that got this post started was the statement of a principle within the paper I was reading in Compton‚Äôs Encyclopedia about Ecological Principles. Environmental influences on the life pattern. Consider the Dogs and Cats at peace image from above. The scientists of this article suggest that there are three kinds of members of a community--Producers-Consumers-Decomposers. The writers posit, if there are no consumers, here defined as carnivores and herbivores, the biosphere will continue indefinitely however adaptively with just producers and decomposers.

Now obviously it becomes difficult for even a scientist to hypothesize about conditions for which there is little or no empirical evidence, but I wonder if we can twist the implication of this principle just a bit and consider the Biblical story of creation and re-creation imaged in Genesis where God said that all animals would use plants for meat. Then, waiting until Noah had landed the Ark in safety to state that now animals could be used for mealtime repast by man and animals for the first time. Not that animals had not substituted for meat before, but it is that then is when He first said it was okay to dine on flesh. Is the inspiration of the stated image in Revelation of the Lamb at rest with the Lion, the source of Isaiah‚Äôs Bear and goat, Wolf and lamb, Viper and Children, found in a prehistory as well as in revelation of the time to come? How should these thoughts, loosely configured from the Written Word of God, effect a philosopher‚Äôs attitude toward philosophy? How do they reflect the direction scientific endeavor will follow? If life systems(communities) reflect the physical parameters in which they are found, as influenced by competition and suitability, and disturbance and recovery, do we, as higher intellects also reflect the mental environment in which we live. If so, at what point and does the mind then embrace the spiritual affectation of its physical existence as something other than a pre-existing physical or otherwise conditioned(result of nature) response to the bowl in which we reside?

I am wondering why science seems, here, only to be able to posit that life could continue without animal influence and tacitly to imply that without plants(producers) or microbes(decomposers) life will not continue. All this, when science is continually working, though not so much by intent, to support many of the precepts found in the Bible. Would there be some method by which to measure the portent of a change in the menu of all carnivores as to exclude flesh and adapt vegetation. Would this so systemize competition as to allow the Lion and Lamb to Rest in Peace?

Pass the Peas Please?!

Environmental Clomp(cluster) Factors or Population Count Variations in Community Development Size Descriptions

2005-01-05T21:47:00.001-06:00

Environment is one of those words I like to throw about much like a rag. 'Is that a dust rag?' you ask. 'Well...' 'a wash rag?' 'uhhm...' 'What then?!' If I use it to dust it is a dust rag, if I use it to wash it is a wash rag and if I use it to quilt then it is something else entirely. Environment is an umbrella type word that covers other smaller meanings of itself. I am sure there is a word which describes that more scientifically or technically than does umbrella but umbrella will have to do for now. Overriding through sifter? Nyehh...umbrella will have to do. Umbrella is not such a bad word--it covers us when it is raining or bright and hot, then helps us as we walk along needing something to lean on, and if a bad dog or miscreant perchance by with malice then we have a ready fender or is it fender off-er. So environment is somewhat like that in that it has various meanings and applications depending upon the perspective of the sayer of the word. Another word of the same ilk in this vein is community. I had not realized how intricate, and at the same time simple, a word community was until someone caused me to explore its definition(s). I had not considered that, as a part of community, communication can be between just two persons and at the same time must always be between at least two persons in order to be community as well as effective communication. On the other end, when population growth is unrestrained community begins to approach unmeasurable quantities, and communication largely becomes difficult to find as the majority comes across noisy and cluttered and static, rather than as comradery and fellowship and personableness. The overriding factor, though, is that even in places of excessive population, one finds that there remains the elements of community found in a subset of that larger sparsley and tersely communicating population. So quickly here, have I run into difficulty with the idea of a comprehensive community in a large scale population center that it is evident that some sort of modifier(s) must be developed to define community that is non family and non friendly though not antagonistic, but matter of fact, agnostic and self serving in its communication and facade. Is it community to merely communicate without the feeling of belonging we often associate with the phrase 'sense of community'? And yet, when the Boston Red Sox win the Series how many tens of millions feel that very illusive and fleeting sense of community we all so desire as to launch ourselves into the countryside and into diverse and even sordid activities to replace it into our lives?

2005-01-05T21:24:00.000-06:00

Pretty eh?