Pictures of our escapades yesterday.

A fishing chair at the dock

The great dragon of Student Aid, the FAFSA, has now been vanquished.
It wasn't really that hard, in my case it was a pretty small dragon,
maybe closer to an iguana... Brandy lent me the sword of our 1040A
with which I slew the paltry beast, and it only took about five minutes.

It's funny how many things I procrastinate on because as soon as they come to
mind I immediately overwhelm myself with imaginations of difficulty, and then
when I finally buckle down to do it it's like it ain't no thang.

God make me a man of action please, it would save so much time.

Josh Garrels, everyone.
The best music I've heard since...Supertones maybe? It's really good. Words, music, worship, it's got it all. I downloaded "Jacaranda" from Itunes, and even though I could kick myself because Amazon has the download for less with higher-quality non-DRM mp3s, I don't regret buying the album at all. In fact, I can't stop listening to it!
I checked out his website & subscribed to his blog too, he seems like a really neat, really real guy overall. And a brother.

So, I highly recommend at least Jacaranda, and from what I've heard of it, "Lost Animals" too.

And Brandy just told me my nose is cold and wet like a dog. Not, mind you, like a dog's but like a dog. Since as we all know, dogs are perpetually wet.

Statistics is killing me! Well, at least it's hogging up my homework time. Lord willing, I'll continue to get good grades in it though. "West and the World" is as effortless as Western Civ. in HS, and Greek, well, I really need to devote more time to it. Especially as that's one of the main reasons I wanted to go to school.

Skipped out on a lot of homework time today, went running @ discovery park with TJ, who accused me of "going native" since I was doing a lot of jumping and sprinting-but it was so pristine and perfect out it just came natural.
Then I went out with Brandy & the kids to the Aquarium where I learned a lot about Octopi. Did you know they only live for 4 years tops? Then they spawn and die like salmon. Considering how intelligent they are I think that's sad.

Then we went to a park (yet another park) we live close to, yet have never been to before. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.

Sunlight, come my way
I'm stuck in winter
Spring seems an age away
and if there's something
yet to be dug
down in the heart of me
I'll need your rays to find it
to be seen and so to see

Rays like a song of birth and marriage,
of just war and victory
of shedding fear, embracing daring,
of great things yet to be
Something to call out the morning glories
Like one sitting on the seer's stone
lips parted like the morning's throne
telling panoramic stories.

A ray born in the center
in the doorway of all truth,
where the line that stretches through the earth
meets the line that leads to You.

From that crossroads where your back lay red
where the curse lay heavy on your head
before rising sunlike from an earthy bed
May what you bought fall on me.

Passive primate, pleasant man
enthroned on a swivel chair
a purse-lipped prophet
disassembling children
pressed into cans
with an academic air.

I've got to reset my vocabulary.
It seems like I've got into the bad habit of complaining again... And it's almost involuntary. I've been praying about it for the past couple of days, but I'm still making the same complaining statements at work. "get out while you can" (to guys whose shifts just got over) "not again" (when another call comes in) etc... And once you get used to saying something like that, it becomes automatic.

But God, I don't want it to be. I want to be thankful and have my speech be graceful, "Seasoned with salt". My prayer is for the Lord to instantly heal my vocab, but most likely He'll want me to cooperate by actually practice thinking about what I say before I say it as a first step. This will lead to awkward pauses in conversation, and will be uncomfortable. But if that's what it takes, then It's more than worth it.

I don't want to degenerate into a walking sarcastic complaint when I have the alternative by the Spirit of Jesus to speak "as speaking the oracles of God".

At some point I do plan on blogging again...once I get some breathing space between school and work.

I always thought my wedding ring looked like the Ring of Power.

'In the common tongue it reads "One Ring to Rule Them All. One Ring to Find Them. One Ring to Bring Them All and In The Darkness Bind Them." '

Missed or did a partial on 3 assignments in the past two weeks! I've got to crack down on myself.

I never heard a wage-based insult until I started working at a private (Christian[?]) college. A co-worker of mine was insulted between swear-words the other day with "you make $8/hour!" (we make considerably more). The inebriated speaker apparently thinks that making 8/hr is a reason to hang one's head in shame, probably because his daddy's patched his every boo-boo with a big fat check. The poor kid somehow equates wage with intelligence, character, or ability.

I pity the fool who thinks that this (wage=worth) is the case. I'm making close to twice what I've made at most of my previous jobs here, yet I don't think of myself as any more or less worthy to walk the earth because of it. It's a job that I enjoy and that I'm grateful for, and that's it.

How do these people live? Even more puzzling, how do they remain in the upper classes of society? By pure snob power?

Part of me longs to fulfill the proverb "Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence". Unfortunately, most institutions of learning have abandoned this effective teaching technique.

And so, I am left to apply the message of my last blog. Even though it wasn't even me being insulted.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::
On another note, the other day I had to go down the hall and confront the hispanic gangsta-guest-of-our-neighbors that's been ogling my wife when she does laundry. It's hard to warn people who don't speak English, but I think he got the idea.
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Well, I just got out of the night shift, and now need to write a paper on the difference between Romanesque and Gothic art for a class I have in two hours. Tuesdays are rough.

Unlike our pachydermous friends, we must forgive.
"bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." - Col 3:13.

Now there are a host of things I constantly remember when I meet certain people, things ranging from minor perceived slights ("complaints") to large onslaughts of nastiness, which I must decide what to do with.
Most of the time I hear the demonic audience in the colosseum of my will chanting "kill!" (or something less dramatic but still ill-tempered) and giving the thumbs down as I face/remember people and choose how to think about them. And then the Holy Spirit chimes in with verses like this one.

After reading it, I decided that God's being really generous here. It says "Forgive, as the Lord has forgiven you". However, I don't think I can. Not that I don't think I can forgive someone, I don't believe that God asks us to do things He doesn't give us the power to do. However, when Jesus forgave me, I was 100% in the wrong, and He was faultless of all transgression, against me or anyone else. I will never face that situation. No matter what trivial thing anyone's done against me (and honestly, I can't think of anyone that has done me a terrible wrong. People have done terrible wrong to my friends and family yes, but people seem to pretty much leave me alone in the "terrible wrong" department) I will never be 100% innocent when faced with the decision (and command) to forgive.

"Who has ever given to God, that He should repay him?" - Good question. I am perpetually in His debt, but he asks me to follow in his example of forgiveness, even though he forgave from the moral high ground, and the only people I'll ever have to forgive are transgressors like me.

Blades and Benjamins.

What is it with guys and knives?
(Or at least, with me and knives?)
Anyway, I finally bought the Becker "Campanion" that I've been looking at for the past week, after finding it on Amazon for half the normal price + free shipping. I was able to give away my last good camp knife to my cousin Aaron as a "going away to Basic" present. (It was the Ontario Spec Plus Quartermaster, a great knife all round, and I only used it once.) However, that left a knife vacuum in my heart, and as you know, coveting abhors a vacuum.
So after extensive research and comparison, I chose the Campanion. It's 1095 Hi-Carbon Chromium Vanadium steel. Tough stuff, and it's got high tensile strength and it keeps an edge (unlike stainless). A quarter of an inch thick, it can double as a hatchet or a prybar, but the blade is wide enough to allow for an edge geometry of a kitchen knife. This means that along with any bear slaying I may find necessary, it can also slice an apple. Life is sweet.
Some of the earliest human artifacts are knives. This is a Neandertal stone knife made some number of thousands of years ago (evolutionary timeline says it was much farther back) Here's a knife from the later clovis culture. What could be more useful? A Knife isn't just a tool, it's an archetype.

DOG POOP, OR CHICKEN BONES?

I don't agree with the Dog poop brownies theory. It states that watching/hearing/seeing something that contains sin is the same as eating brownies laced with dog poop. A good rendering of the story can be read here. If this was true, then we wouldn't eat pretty much anything due to the trace amounts of whatnot in it (Have you checked out what's allowed in our food recently?), and we wouldn't go outside for fear of seeing sin, and we wouldn't go to work for fear that our employer might be involved in something sinful, and if we got really picky we probably wouldn't read our bibles for fear that some transcription or translation error would shipwreck our faith.

I think the main thing the Dog Poop model of mental ingestion disregards is the faculty of discernment. So I would like to propose an alternate model, the "Chicken Bone" model of mental ingestion. most people, especially mature people, are capable of eating meat with bones out of it, and realizing that the bones wouldn't be too healthy to swallow, they learn to separate the meat from the bones and spit those naughty bones out. Some foods are so bony and bereft of meat that they aren't worth eating. Some people, for example children, are unable to safely remove the bones, and so we don't try to feed little kids, say, a bony fish. Anytime we eat something with bones, it requires a degree of care and alertness to make sure we don't choke on a bone. But as we do it it eventually becomes second nature. So, I would say, with the faculty of discernment as regards entertainment and art. Some of it's to full of "bones" to be worth the trouble, some of it wouldn't be safe for immature ingestion, and all of it requires something more than thoughtless absorption.

I don't know anybody as good as you
faithfulness and truth
your beauty is a solid thing, and sure
bringing grace to plain things
practical, pure.
all the things I despised
you show, and I now see they mean more.
I always loved the equations,
but you live by the sums.
The ideals I worshipped haven't lasted
some have chipped and some have shattered
no one can reach those crazy dreams
so it's good to wake up
when visions fail
and find you.

Watched Avatar a couple weeks ago.
I came out of it feeling like I haven't felt for a decade or so, that old feeling I used to get after reading a really good sci-fi or fantasy book. It's a mix of excitement and low-grade melancholy produced by the fact that the world we live in is much more boring than the one I'd just been immersed in. The melancholy wasn't near as bad as it used to be though, since I was thinking about the New Earth, and how likely there would be comparable landscapes in my future.

Heard some christians complaining about the "occult" or "new agey" themes in the film. I used to do the same thing (quickly criticize movie philosophies that I didn't think were "christian"). But I've found it slightly annoying this time around, partly because I think it's silly to expect pagans to make a "christian" movie, but mostly because I didn't see what was un-scriptural about most of the movie's themes. I think concern for creation should be a christian trait, and it's irritating when I see and hear christians ridiculing compassion for animals or conservationist actions that really are just good stewardship. I don't think it's christian at all to kill animals for fun, or to slash and burn, mine, or otherwise ruin swathes of earth for convenience's sake. I think a big theme in "Avatar" was a critique of destructive greed - covetousness. Scripture says covetousness is Idolatry.
If it wasn't for covetousness, there would be almost no abortions, since abortion rates are driven by a covetous desire for "reproductive freedom" and a unfettered lifestyle full of things and opportunities that a child would get in the way of, as well as the covetous desire of the abortion industry for the cash kickbacks of their dirty business. Covetousness is the root of most other sins, the Lord Jesus even said "be on your guard against all kinds of greed, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions". I think this is one of the biggest things christians need to hear today in wealthy countries like America. I know I need to keep hearing it. I have about 20 shirts, and more books than a third-world library. I have a computer that costs more than many people make in a year. It's too easy to buy stuff online that I don't need, it's too easy to feel like my life consists in the abundance of my new purchases.

I also think it's good for people to have their imaginations expanded, to see beautiful things. It's too easy to let the grind convince you that it's all there is, and to get too wrapped up in the trivialities of the here and now. So a sub-theme of biological pantheism doesn't really scare me. Especially when the pantheism functions more like theism, and the "god's" name is an phonetic anagram for Yahweh. It scared me to hear christians laughing about torturing animals, or talking about deforestation and strip mining like it's a scriptural mandate.

All that to say, I really liked the movie. It's the best story I've watched onscreen in a really long time, it ended just like I wanted it to, and it made me happy to live in the great state of Washington where we have a rainforest just a couple hours away!

Help

It's thick stuff, the everywhere
where everything's thick as clay
pressing these cookie-cutters in
makes shapes, but they don't stay.
Is there just one reason for anything?
it's a rare find, a thing that's plain
time and space are in french braids
and each question ends in a Hydra's head.
should we burn with every cut
while making shapes out of chaos?
and who decides if its form
is mountain, forest, mind?
most steps out of potential
are so anticlimactic
like a gaudy brand name
So dig deep, and find me.
I'd rather be born, than made.

With a whole world waiting would you lift away my fears
if I lost my place in hesitation washed away in falling years
all the people behind the faces that are fading in the rearview
has my climbing all been slipping and forgetting those I knew?
and the words, the words on fire, lying under piles of ashes
cold and grey can they be coaxed into a flame of life and passion?
Another life, another life, is what I find myself in asking
another life, a living fountain-to replace the life that's passing.

Just finished the better part of my finals, we'll see how I did. I know I got at least one question half wrong in Christian Formation, and in BIO I have a handful of ones that I had to guess on. But all as the Lord wills. It's over now, and "what I have written, I have written".
The final for Greek is in two days! I'm really happy with how much Greek we've learned in 1 quarter. Looking forward to more.

It's been a lot of fun, and It's hard to believe the first quarter is over already. I'm very much looking forward to having time off to play with the kids and Brandy, and to read non-assigned books, and to sleep from time to time. Brandy's been really great letting me sleep and study in preparation, we're both really pleasantly surprised with how do-able school/work/family has been so far.

I'm in the collegium right now, its swarming with students studying for or recuperating from finals.

On an interesting note, both my last section of Christian Formation and our pastor's study have been through the sermon on the mount. I've been reading through it a lot the past couple of weeks. One of the questions in Christian Formation was "Which of Jesus' teachings do you see the need to implement now"? I answered "Do not Judge" and Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness". It seems with all this time studying I have let my prayers lag more than usual, and as always it seems like I make up for my lack of real fellowship with Jesus with moralism and by attempting to appear more spiritual around friends and acquaintances. (using more christianese, commenting on the sinfulness of friends' activities). The odd thing is that I really do feel a desire to BE more "spiritual" (in the scriptural sense) but when it comes out so cold and awkward I'm pretty sure that it's not out of love for Jesus, but out of love for a godly facade. Lord, please help me.

Jesus, you're always helping me. Thank you that I can count on your grace and that your Spirit is really in me, please stir Him up and wake me up. I don't want to fall asleep.

Well, time to go home and take my contacts off!

"Pie in the sky when you die". It seems that a large chunk of Christendom is feeling the buises from these sticks and stones, and avoiding the idea of after-death promises of scripture in favor of the world's vision of "Pie right now, before you die."

Though, I don't see what's wrong with pie in the sky after you die. If you get pie right now, you end up with death - hardly satisfying. In the mocked Christian version, your life doesn't end with death, but has its final realization in "pie". I'd prefer to end with pie, rather than death, thank you.

I have a Kierkegaard book that I’ve read and forgotten the first couple chapters of. The title is apparently more intriguing to me then the innards, because unlike them, it has stuck. It reads: “Purity of the Heart is to Will One Thing”.
I’ve always been prone to what my mother called “manias” – single interests that would consume my thoughts from the moment I woke up to the moment I went back to sleep. When I was young they would change about once every two years or so. It was herpetology when I was 7, followed by aircraft, space travel and archery to name a few. In my early teens my obsessions included Celtic myths and bladesmithing, in my late teens it was the FBI and Marine Corps. Interrupting all these, if there was a girl I liked, she was my mania for as long as she was in the picture. For most of these manias I would read up on them until I had a good grasp of the subject. The girls? well, I never really knew what to do about that. Usually I would just act really awkward around them until they got uncomfortable enough to avoid me. Then there was God. God was always there too, but He was never the center really, never the thing that got my spine tingling as I contemplated Him.
Until, of course, the “hour I first believed.” (On a side note, it was only when my heart was obsessed with God that I was able to act normally enough around a girl I liked to have her stick around and eventually agree to marry me.)
It has been almost nine years since that hour. I know I don’t have the singleness of vision that I had at that intersection. There are so many ‘things’ in life, so many obligations and concerns, so much to be done and bought and had. As the accessory to these ‘things’, there is the worry that accompanies the possibility of their loss. Yet as I write this, it occurs to me that this list sounds really familiar. These concerns are the weeds that grew up alongside one of Jesus’ parable-plants and choked the life out of it, aren’t they? I pray for that singleness of desire Jesus spoke of, because the part of me that cares about facts holds that this unified vision is the only way I’ll bear “fruit” in the long run - The only way to invest in what really matters, and the only way I’ll see my God.
Jesus said those who do bear fruit He prunes. Last week I thought I lost my Kindle (Amazon’s ridiculously expensive e-book reader). Now, this was a very small branch, and I think I handled its loss fairly well, but the week before I got in trouble at work after missing 6 hours of meetings (though a scheduling mistake on my part). That’s a somewhat bigger branch since in the temporal view it’s my family’s livelihood at stake. I took that somewhat less well. Then there was the Lasik surgery I was scheduled for that I couldn’t get because my financing fell through. I’ve wanted Lasik for a decade. That was a medium size branch for me. At first I just got very frustrated with all these happenings, but as they kept on piling up, I had to resign myself to the fact that these things were not my gods. To obsess over them wasn’t worth it, and in fact, in the aftermath of my frieking out over them I realized that my obsession with them was dividing up my loyalties. I definitely wasn’t “willing one thing”.
Things do have a way of accumulating. If it’s not Lasik or some expensive techno-novelty, it’s a book, a friend, or who knows what else. Of course I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying these things, but the idolatry of focusing my will and desire on multiple objects does fly in the face of what the rational part of me believes. If there’s a way to lock-in one’s will to God and leave it there, I would like to know what it is. I guess that’s the point of the spiritual disciplines. Recently, it seems to be taking Divine discipline too. Maybe I’m wishing for something that doesn’t exist; some kind of spiritual autopilot button where I can punch in the course like the captain of a 747 and then kick up my feet and read a magazine - or whatever it is they do in the cockpit. But it seems that my will is a less expensive plane, the kind that the pilot has to constantly check instruments on and adjust for changing windspeed and direction to keep on course. Considering how much exhortation and correction there is in the New Testament, I’m guessing that’s the model my brothers and sisters are flying in too.

sails are slack today
perhaps the wind is higher
than the mast
or is it the slack hands
that have had their fill of rigging
and just want to hold a cup of coffee?
but the storms, they come,
though unseen
and split the unready ships in two
the sea below is hungry, waiting
the hands and arms need motivating
can't wait for the rain.

All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

I got a written reprimand from my boss for being late to those meetings last week, but he was very gracious about it and said he was sympathetic.
Then reading scripture at church I came across the part in Romans 11 where he quotes from the OT, "who has given a gift to Him, that He might be repaid?" This immediately was applied by the Spirit to my heart as a clarifying agent, since I had been whining and discontent-at least internally-about all of my misfortunes that week. I had gotten to the point where I wasn't frieking out, but I still felt as if my not frieking out somehow was something in my favor, and that I was really a decent guy to put up with all the Lord puts me through.

Which is a really bad attitude to have.
Especially seeing that I call Jesus Lord. It's a lot easier to give thanks in everything if you don't have wonderful plans for your own life that you expect to go off without a hitch. But He IS my Lord, and I want to delight to do His will - so may my plans be slaughtered like canaanites.

That's all about that though, It's over and I am done talking about it.

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Got to go to a lecture tonight, it was part of a series of lectures on Darwin & Darwinism put on @ School since it's the anniversary of Darwin's birth or death or something like that. This particular lecture was titled "GK Chesterton, a duel with Darwin." It turned out to be more theatre than lecture, as it was a G.K. Chesterton impersonator from Bloomington, MN who gave it. Overall it was pretty good, and I got to talk to the people who put it on. I had been impressed before that the school actually allowed one of the lectures in the series to be less than flattering to Darwinism, but lo and behold, it was co-sponsored by the Discovery Institute. So the school didn't actually put it on, per-se.
Next week I'll be going to the most rabid of NeoDarwinist's lectures, (one of our Bio. Faculty) who will be speaking on Human evolution, and how we're "closing up the gaps" in the fossil record.

Work's getting exciting again, lots of drunks and thieves, and drunken thieves!

Just wrapping up what turned out to be a trying week. First, via a scheduling mistake I missed about six hours worth of very important and expensive meetings on Tuesday (which I've gotten a letter of reprimand for), then being told on Wednesday I couldn't be financed for the Lasik appointment I was supposed to have Thursday, which was the biggest bummer because I've been looking forward to that particular appointment for about a month and been wearing glasses (no contacts) for about that long in preparation. I've rescheduled for February, so I can figure out what's going on with my credit & possibly save enough so I don't have to do the CareCredit thing. I have wanted to get Lasik for about a decade, so that was the biggest letdown. Then there was breaking my toe the day before missing the meetings on a dumbell the kids had hidden under a jacket in the dining room. I've also been tense because my second big Biology test which I took this friday. Still waiting for the results on that one.

Brandy can tell you I was very melodramatic about all this. Since Friday I think I've been able to rein it in a bit. I do want to curb the habit of telling people my problems, as it seems I'm always more eager to tell them then they are to listen-even if they ask-and It doesn't help much. The whole deal did help me realize that my stamina for disaster has gone way down. I managed to say "blessed be the name of the lord" but with a very sour face. I'd prefer to be to the point character-wisewhere I could honestly sing a worship song in similar circumstances.

Our microwave has developed a Zeus complex. The other day as Brandy was heating up some peas in a bowl it began throwing lightning around inside and making a loud snapping noise...not a good sign. So remembering a couple years ago in St. Paul when our then-microwave spontaneously combusted I had Brandy unplug it until we can figure out what's wrong or throw it away.
As a man once sung - "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone..." I had to heat up my cold coffee by dumping some boiling water into it. Just not the same.
Radioactive cube of convenience, why have you failed us?

And yet, Romans 8:28 is in full effect. Though He slay my microwave, yet will I trust Him.

Screwed up in a big way. I missed about six hours of meetings at work because I thought they were tomorrow and because I'd left my cell on "silent". I'm gonna get chewed out either way, but pray for me that nothing worse than that comes of it, and that my name won't top the shame list at work for the next six months.

I was thinking over some scripture related to my "Theological Research Paper" for my UFND class, and as I thought over 1 Cor. 11:7, I wondered for the hundredth time what it means that Man is the image & glory of God and Woman is the glory of Man. This part always confused me because elsewhere in scripture (primarily Gen.) it's clearly indicated that women are also made in God's image as part of the original Adam Then I thought how glory can mean the "best of" its object, the glory of something is that which shows it brightest and clearest. So, with that interpretation, the verse could mean that while humankind in general bears God's image in the fundamental sense; that man "plays the part" of God in the theatre of creation, while woman "plays the part" of "Mankind" in general. Which is interesting, since that would mean women are more human in role than men are - they are more like what humanity is meant to be in relation to God, whereas men are in role more like God - not a reason for pride I'm sure, since most men have no talent for the part, and never bothered to read the script. If my interpretation is true though, women should have a more innate understanding of what it means to be human, and men should find it easier to understand God.
If.

We've got our scripts
and given parts
what we are
and what we aren't
is a love-poem in a playwright's art
to make, and then to win our hearts.

taste and see
but I've heard taste is mostly smell
taste and smell and see
that the Lord is good
but don't stop there
with three out of five
taste and smell and see and hear
and while you're at it reach out to touch
and some say there's six
seven if you count reason.
But when reason collapses in exhaustion
It takes a little desperation
to crawl through the cross
til you feel the empty tomb.
Some stop at the bleeding man
between earth and sky
and cry like a magdalene.
Some stop to spit and make some fun
because they've wanted this divorce for a while.
A few will ask for the body
because if Good dies
they want to stay in its corner
and remember when it was still swinging.
And some will keep crying
and won't stop for angels
because the only thing they ever loved
is dead.
And those few will be the first to hear
'cause blood has the same PH as tears
And those few
with noses congested from crying,
will yell something like
rabbodhai!
when the cross gives way
to a Living Man.

The other day at the goodwill I finally broke down and got a copy of Luther's smaller catechism. I wanted it for a short reference to go over with the kids as a primer on Christian Doctrine, and I've looked through it multiple times over the years and have always considered it good & clear christian teaching. I remember when I was little at church we were heavy on story but not so much on doctrine-nothing was really well defined. So I figured I'd do them a favor, plus I was reading through Ephesians where he tells dads to raise their kids in the instruction and admonition of the Lord.
So anyways...
Today I slept until about 2pm and when I got up felt the need to do something edifying. So naturally I called Josiah and Jaelle over and pulled out the copy of Luther. It starts out with the ten commandments, and by the time we got to four I thought something wasn't right with the numbers, and then I realised, 'Ole brother Martin numbered the commandments like a Catholic! (Catholics blend out the "graven images" into the first, and it shifts the numbers down. They get #10 by splitting coveting into two: houses & the rest. Odd how houses get their own no-covet commandment and wives are stuck with donkeys.)But I figured the kids will forget the numbers anyway, and I can re-number them later. I wanted it for a guide more than anything, since I need something to go over all the basics, and I can embellish beyond that. By embellish, I don't mean make stuff up, but expand on.

Then Josiah asked why we should "fear" God (since Martin prefaces every commandment with the reason we should obey it-"fear and love of God"). That was a tough one to answer. I kept thinking about George MacDonald telling his childhood story of when he found out about hell, "predestination" etc..., and broke down crying, wondering how God could be more cruel than his earthly father, and how that thought eventually led to him becoming a Universalist. I didn't want to give Josiah that impression, so I tried to explain it by asking if he was scared of me, and he said no, and I said how about when I catch you doing something you're not supposed to, he said yeah, and we took it from there.
Then we all had a short fighing free-for-all, and I read a book with Enoch (who was listless and alone on the couch with a fever) until Brandy called us to the table for chicken soup.


Now I'm @ Work and my co-worker just found a giant dead rat at the entrance to the bertona modules. There are all kinds of wild (and not so wild) life around here. Yesternight I was checking Robbins and a large Opossum was at the south entry door. When I opened it, she just stared at me for a couple seconds before waddling off. 'possums always seem a little slow in the head.

I am soooooo very tired. So, I'll post a picture I took of a tree yesterday in Martin Square.

"Good idea, but I'm pooping right now" (Jaelle to Josiah as he's explaining his play plans to her through the bathroom door)

We are what we see
I want to look carefully
turn my head
and raise my eyes
fill my fingers
and I'll use these keys
to free some captive praise.
A provider of food and reasons
protector of peace
with sharp sword and strong hands
You take death like an old stuffed toy,
and shake it 'til I'm not afraid.
where has sin gone?
was it ever there?
Love stronger than
the pulse-stealing thing
Stand again in me

bold as a robot
I come for what I need
walking on my knees
the machine of me will be contrite
though without warmth in doing right.

There are black eels in my liver
ugly moths inside my brain
and pale worms all around
that make it hard to feel the pain

I come in front of this, your throne,
where feelings fail there's what I know
Dig out the awful things inside
there's nothing left I can deny

I would like to feel again
Warmth, and light, and even pain
So here I sit
I will submit
You're perfect, make me the same.

It's like a strong tide from an anti-moon
that leaves a dark stripe on the face of the sea
while the tentacled waves wrap around our feet
the cold grip numbs and we don't do what we should.

It has been the fifth conversation with a ministry leader who's asked you to lead a home fellowship and said they would call the people who would come - and they don't. After that happens three times, you ask if you can call them. By this time the list you're given has shrunk to 3, one of whom is the HF coordinator. Your name is finally on the HF list, but your wife's name's misspelled as a man's name. You talk to the families, and they say there must've been a mistake because 1. they were told they were in another HF, and 2. Your HF isn't on a day they signed up for. This is all very embarrassing. You ask the Ministry leader what's going on, they say they'll take care of it and call you. 2 weeks later, they ask you how the home fellowship's coming along (they never called). You say it's not. They ask if you will come to theirs. You say yes, with relief that it's over and with restrained annoyance that it's taken so long to come to this.

"You" is me. I am trying not to be annoyed. The only thing of comfort that came to mind is Joseph to his brothers: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good"

So if Joseph can say that to his brothers, who sold him & meant it for evil, then I how can I be angry @ a brother who didn't mean his unreliability and cluelessness for evil at all?

May God help me have an attitude like Joseph.

Josiah's sense of fashion has failed him.
(Those are camo pants.)

It's a beautiful autumn day out. The morning's at a perfect crisp, there are just enough clouds, the leaves are all in process, so much so that they look vibrant to me. And I'm partially colorblind. I mentioned to Brandy it's the kind of autumn day they write about in children's books. It made me remember the first autumn that I can recall. We were living in a house (my mom & dad don't even know which one it was when I ask them) in WA, and there were deciduous woods all around. There was an enormous sheep pen right next to the house full of enormous and very loud sheep. We played out in the leaves for a while, and when it was time to go inside, we kids spread out sleeping bags on the bedroom floor and started jumping on them. It was all fun and games until my little brother jumped bottom-first onto the head of a nail that was protruding from one of the floorboards under the sleeping bag.
When you're little, I think you're so empathetic that whenever someone you care about gets hurt you feel like you got hurt too. There are plenty of memories where my brother and sister and I are unsure what happened to who because we all think the tragedy happened to us - we all remember the pain and horror so vividly. The only reason I know it was my brother and not me was because my mom told me so.
But tragedies aside, that was the archetypal autumn day to me.
And it's funny how memories work, because there's a children's book that I faintly remember, the illustrations of which blend in with all my autumn memories. It had almost impressionist illustrations, and the final picture was of a mother and her little son walking hand in hand down a trail on a fall day with trees full of brightly colored leaves on either side.

Evil is a parasite
a crawling thing
that shuns the light
it finds the folds
in good's clean skin,
hooked claws take hold
long mouth goes in -
the dark and sickly feast begins.

Is there a bath
that burns the lice
heals the sores
and purifies?

Is it the blood
of blinding light
too sharp and hot
for the insect's bite?

Is it the blaze
of undying life
that flays that louse
like a burning knife?

Is it Christ, the Man
from who's face flees
earth and sky
and biting fleas?

Yes, and yes,
and yes. It is.

Got to listen to Richard Dawkins speak at U-Dub tonight. I admire him for his accent, humor, clarity, and what John Wesley would call "Plain Dealing".
Other than that, the crowd overall was somewhat scary. Between the guys behind me screaming and the guy in the pink t-shirt with the words "Get your laws off my reproductive freedom" standing up and clapping enthusiastically at the anti-creationists comments it was like being a black man at a klan rally. after the pre-game show of mocking creationists & christians in general and Kirk Cameron in particular (Kirk's coming to the UW soon) Richard Dawkins got to speak, reading from his new book "The Greatest Show On Earth" and answering questions afterward.
Some of the most interesting things he said were:
"Bishops and vicars who claim to believe in evolution yet who quote scriptures about adam and eve as if they existed without clarifying that they did not should let their yea be yea and their nay nay, lest they fall into condemnation"

The biggest puzzles of evolution are Sex, the sense of Consciousness, and

The best evidence for evolution is the phylogenetic tree and the distribution of species

He would prefer that Britain remain a christian nation, rather than the invasion [read Islamic] being completed as it has been in France.

He still celebrates Christmas, since he is a "cultural christian" in the same sense that his Jewish atheist friends still celebrate Hannukah etc.

I couldn't clap in good conscience at his readings, as I don't agree with his statements (Though I almost clapped for his exortation to the evolutionist Vicars) I did clap a little at the end for his clarity, honesty, and british accent.

And no, I was not convinced.

The last couple days have been packed with good.
Monday I outed myself as a theological conservative in class. We were reading through "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok and the class discussion had gone to why the really orthodox people were scared of "scientific" study of the Talmudic texts, and the conversation was headed towards why those crazy fundamentalists are scared of science. I pointed out that even Theologically conservative people like myself who believe in scriptural inerrancy don't have a problem with textual criticism, since all statements on inerrancy have to do with the autographs, not the manuscripts or translations, and text criticism is the attempt to get the reading most faithful to the autographs. The prof then said, Oh, so you would call yourself theologically conservative?

The next day I went to school (& got there on time, always a plus) where I started classes as normal. Had an easy time of it after christian formation in the Collegium, where I studied for the Bio lab that afternoon and went over greek conjugations and declensions to make sure I had them memorized. Listening to Supertones on my new Ipod with the earphones Brands got for me, and read up on my Miller Urey abiogenesis objections. Then came bio, where after a particularly dogmatic remark by the professor, (who is, by the way, a great teacher, and I can tell she loves biology, she reminds me of characters from the Madeleine L'engle books) regarding the origin of living cells and proteins via chemical evolution. So I raised my hand and asked how she reconciles a certain issue that even the rabid evolutionist author of our textbook admits is a challenge. We went back and forth for a bit, and then I said I didn't want to use any more of her lecture time up (which is true, she's nice and everyone needs to hear the lectures to get the info for exams). She thanked me and admitted that these are the sort of questions that keep her up at night. Then I heard someone behind me laughing, and thought, Oh, great, I'm "that" guy again. Just like in high school. But seriously, in this christian evangelical school no one once has said anything about the repeated dogmatic statements about chemical and biological evolution that have been made since the start of class. I'd say it makes up from one fifth to one third of each lecture. And no one's said anything! So I ask oblique questions to show that it's not cut and clean and to question their assumptions, just to keep my sanity and 'cause I can't stand to just let that sort of thing go. But I limit myself to one such question per class, and make sure I ask other relevant questions about non-evolutionary subject matter. But to my surprise, when we were doing an exercise sheet, the prof. came up and said that I ask such interesting questions and wanted to know if I could stop by her office after class (I couldn't, I have Greek right after). But I said I'd try in the next week.

Then after Bio lab later in the day, one guy from the Ukraine who was in my Lab group said, So, you seem really interested in those origin of life questions...
And I said, yes, I really am, but as you might have been able to tell, I'm not the biggest fan of chemical evolution.
He said, "neither am I, or Biological evolution either."
So then we got into it and I had a hard time getting back to the lab with all the talk about Ravi Zacharias and G.K. Chesterton and why evolution's (chemical evolution and common descent) is bunk. So we decided to be friends, and he said he was glad I'd asked questions in class since otherwise it would be as if the class was giving unanimous assent. Then after the lab we hung out waiting for our rides and he showed me all his quotes from various authors that he's got categorized in folders for research papers. I was impressed. He reminded me of a younger me, since I had to sit there for a while listening to him because he was just waiting for someone to come along that he could recite all his thoughts, quotes, favorite authors and apologetics to. It was a lot of fun and I thanked God for it.

Polycarbonate windows to twenty-twenty
even with insurance, they cost me plenty
Medical magic for my myopea
the key to a mole-eye's eye utopia
A tribute to my new spectacle pair-
now I can see, and my eyes can get air
I cannot live by contacts alone-
but glasses too - til I get Lasik done.

Thank God for school, but Mondays, oh Mondays, they are days of very little sleep.

A really nice side effect of being busy with school stuff is I don't have enough time to stare blankly at a computer screen or keep refreshing facebook hoping some interesting updates will appear.

I love my Greek class. My Christian Formation class is all right, and Bio's fun, until the professor starts telling us reductionist fairy-tales about chemical and biological evolution and how we don't really need God, but to her, that just makes God seem all the greater. *Barf* She & the textbook were going on about the Miller-Urey experiment and when I asked why that was the only example they used if there were others that hadn't been refuted as well as it was and she threw out a long name and said we could talk about it later. But I don't have a later. I have another class right after Bio. Sigh.

There's a study area for commuter students called the collegium that I've been spending a couple hours in between classes, it's heavenly. Big comfy chairs and it's all laid out like a faculty club like one might see at Oxford or something. Very relaxing when you're in between classes on no sleep listening to Beethoven's "Moonlight" which makes you feel academic and heavenly even when you're daydreaming.

And now, I must go and sleep-dream.

I was just forced to shoot a squirrel with a blowgun in self defense.
Even though I hate squirrels, I wouldn't normally think to plug a dart in one, but this squirrel was threatening my wife and children.
At first it was trying to get to the bird feeder that's directly outside of the sliding glass door, which is when Brandy started making shooing motions at it. It moved in closer. Then Brandy opened the door & threw some pebbles at it, and it moved away just far enough to dodge the rocks, then came back and kept lunging at her through the glass.
So I pulled down the dart gun, opened the sliding door, and the squirrel charged. It was about three feet from my face when I hit it in the arm. It ran off into the wild where it belongs shaking it's arm with the four inch dart hanging out of it.
And I don't feel guilty, not one bit.
Take that, nut rat.

Trying to get Enoch to say his "R"s. After hearing "Geen Cab" three or four times as he's looking through his animal book.
"Foug"
"No Enoch, fRRRog, it's fRRRRog."
"Foug"
"Say fRRRRRR."
"Fooooo"
"Nope, Say RRRRRRRR"
"Waaaauuugh"
"fRRRRRRR OOOOggg"
"Foug"
"Okay Enoch, Foug it is."

Venus woke up about the same time as me,
and in her small fire i could feel
the chilly air charged with beginnings.

You've told me the same thing since I was born
The coat you gave me knows my skin
it's the only thing I've ever worn
since I've been born again.

We're reading "Green" - the final book in Ted Dekker's "Circle" Trilogy(?). So far, so good. Also just finished listening to the Audio version of "Til We Have Faces". And about a fifth through N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope".

God willing I can finish a few more before school starts.

Regarding my last Blog.

It seems like when I come up against an apparent problem like the last one, or like a couple years ago with my questions about the apparent irreconcileability of the Gospel resurrection narratives, I have a problem. I tend to friek out a bit, and in my frieking out I transgress in a way that Job did not. I come very close to accusing God. I talked to Brandy about this, concerned because it doesn't seem right, and yet my upset-ness is the thing that drives me on for answers. And seeking and finding answers I am convinced is a good thing that pleases God.

Brandy said that the only thing that came to her mind was "Work out your Salvation in Fear and Trembling"; a passage from Philippians that I assumed I was familiar with. So I typed in "Fear Trembling" into the Biblegateway search engine, and the NT verses that came up all have to do with approaching God in one way or another (in one case approaching a servant of God). The Phil. verse in particular follows up this phrase with "Do everything without complaining or arguing"

So this, I believe, is my problem. I need to find a way to approach these things with fear and trembling, since in approaching them I approach God. Somehow I must maintain a strong desire for answers, but to avoid my flippant flirting with annoyance towards the LORD God almighty - who could squish me very righteously and easily, but has not yet.

So, I repent in dust and ashes and ask my God and Father to forgive me, and I ask for you, dear reader not to emulate my bad attitude of the past, and I ask finally for a more reverent heart to seek answers to future questions.

THE WORD OF GOD REGARDING HORRORS, PROMISES, AND RESURRECTION.

[Warning: This is a really long blog. Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to answer the question "why do the righteous suffer at all?". That question I believe can only be satisfactorily answered by the answer that Satisfied Job, seeing God's face. Explanation: throughout I use the words deliver, save, protect etc...in the plain sense scripture uses them most - physical deliverance, salvation, protection.]

Okay, what disturbed me most about Denise Amber Lee's story was that she had sincerely called out to God to protect her and he had not. The reason that bothered me most is because Scripture over and over again says that God's the defender of the orphan and widow, the helpless; Esp. Psalm 50 where God equates true worship as calling out to God in the day of trouble so He can rescue you and you can thank Him. Also it seemed to me in part false advertising that almost every story in the bible is about people asking God to save them in one way or another and then the follow up of God answering and saving them as if this is how it always goes- a misleading impression if, in fact, you can be a defenseless mother calling out to God as you're being dragged off, yet end up getting raped, shot and dumped in a ditch.

To this I found first of all that:

1. There are a lot of implied stories where God does not save the needy when they call on him, not even the needy righteous from torture, rape, and death.

Starting with Abel, who's blood cried out from the ground to God. Which implies he must have done some crying while his brother beat him to death - and yet God didn't see fit to intervene until Cain was walking off. But he did see fit to protect Cain from being killed.

Then Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice how frantic Lot is that the angels who he doesn't know are angels do NOT spend the night in the square. Could this be because they wouldn't have been the first defenseless travellers he'd seen that stopped to rest in the square only to be woken up by a city full of rapists who gang-raped and murdered them? It would seem so considering the LORD's aside to Abram, that the outcry against Sodom was very great and had reached him. Why had not God answered that outcry when it first went out, and prevented the rape and murder of those defenseless people?

In Exodus 2:23, it says "the people of Israel...cried out" it also says God heard and sent Moses, but how many of those who cried out died under the whip? How many mothers saw their children taken from them and chopped up or thrown into the nile to be eaten by the Egyptian's 'gods' (crocodiles) before God saw fit to send Moses?

In Jeremiah 26, a prophet named Uriah it is said prophesied the same things Jeremiah did, and the king sought to kill him, so he ran away (I presume afraid, and as a godly man, also asking God to save him like Elijah did when Jezebel was after him) to Egypt, was hunted down and dragged back before the king, who most likely mocked him before he was hacked to death with an edged weapon and dumped into a mass grave. As for Jeremiah? It doesn't say the Lord saved him from the same fate, but rather that he was buddies with an official so he got a get out of jail free card. (I'm not saying that the Lord's hand wasn't in this, just that Scripture doesn't say it was)

Job said "Behold, I cry out 'Violence!' and am not answered; I cry for help, but there is no justice" and "I Cry to you for help, and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me"

Zechariah 14 says that just days before the Second coming of Christ the Jews in Jerusalem will be defeated, ransacked, and all of their women raped (By nations that the LORD says he will gather there). Then after they're raped the Lord Jesus comes back to save them.

In 1 Sam 22 all the men, women, children and infants in Nob were killed with a sword by Saul's man Doeg the Edomite because they had helped David, God's anointed. It was a priest's city, devoted to the worship of God. I'm sure all of them called out to God for protection. And yet, of all who called, only one escaped. David heard about it, and didn't blame God, but blamed himself, since he knew Doeg was in Nob when he came and would tell Saul that the priests had helped him. David also wrote Psalm 52 about Doeg-it's worth a read.) However, this is the same David that wrote "I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his children begging bread." Richard Wurmbrand said he had seen the Righteous go insane under torture and their children eating out of the trash.

In 2nd Kings 15:16, Amos 1:13, 2 Kings 8:12, Israelite pregnant women are torn open by invaders. I have a hard time believing considering their heritage even as part of a backslidden country there was not a single one that called out to God for protection before they were torn open.

Habbakuk said: "O YHWH, how long shall I cry for help, and you shall not hear? Or I cry out to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?" - He said this of the land of Judah before the Babylonian Captivity, regarding the way the wicked surrounded the righteous and destroyed them in his neighborhood. Apparently he was frustrated that God didn't prevent this in response to his prayers. Then God tells him that in response he's sending the Babylonians to sack Judah. How many at the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians called out to God and were not answered? Those women being raped and murdered, and their children smashed? The writer of Psalm 137 writes: "blessed shall he be who repays you (Babylon) with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!"


ALL THIS TO SAY - Scripture does give record, albeit in a roundabout sort of way all through that there are many who cry out and yet are still raped, ripped open, tortured, or killed. This answers my first question :"why does scripture maintain in story and promise that God always answers and saves physically and immediately?" The answer is, Scripture doesn't, if you look closely.

SO THEN, WHY ARE ALL THOSE STORIES AND ASSURANCES EVEN THERE IN SCRIPTURE?!? - well, for that, I bring you...
AN INTERESTING NOTE ON HABAKKUK: When God told him how He would answer his prayer for justice, Habakkuk reminded himself of the way God saved Israel at the red sea from their enemies, and said that He would remember this, asking God to revive this kind of thing and in the midst of the years make it known. God had already told him that all of Israel would be crushed by Babylon in hideous ways, and in the face of this he still reminded himself of God's actions at the Red Sea. Then, he didn't put a pious smile on his face at the thought of what would happen to his people, He says: "I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us." - in fact, I recommend reading the last chapter of Habakkuk with the "question" in mind.
WITH THIS IN LIGHT, IT SEEMS THAT THE PAST ACCOUNTS AND ASSURANCES OF GOD'S SALVATION ARE MEANT (or at least used by Habakkuk) TO REASSURE FAITH EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR PRAYER FOR PROTECTION ISN'T GOING TO BE ANSWERED!

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Question #2: What then, about the apparent promises (Like Psalm 50)? And the stories? What's assuring about them if we have no guarantee that they have any bearing on reality? What of the GOD who cannot Lie?

For that, I turn to Hebrews.

In Hebrews 11, the "Hall of Faith", the first three quarters are those who saw the promise of deliverance in their life, those who "won" and were protected. The last bit, however, are those who were tortured, killed, harrassed and starved in faith. It says they were "commended for their faith" but that (note this) THEY DID NOT RECEIVE WHAT HAD BEEN PROMISED!.

Mind-boggling, isn't it? But why didn't they receive what had been promised? In their case I assume part of their promise was protection and health, salvation and safety, since "In Christ all promises are Yes and Amen" and these things are among the things promised to those people of faith. Yet as already stated, they didn't receive what had been promised. It says rather that "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." You might say "Something better?!? what could be better than God keeping his promise?!" But it seems that God considers that it's better that he keeps his promise later, at the resurrection of our bodies. (Made perfect is used throughout scripture of our state at the Resurrection, the "Regeneration of All Things" - when the righteous rise out of their graves to everlasting life and the wicked rise to everlasting destruction).

Also in Hebrews5:7-9, it sounds like Jesus' loud cries and tears during his life on earth were to God to save him from death, but his prayer was heard and answered retroactively in His resurrection, not by the prevention of His death.

So it seems that God considers all his promises to be retroactively answered at the resurrection, when we will receive indestructible physical bodies to house our purified souls in a union that fully reflects God.

With this theme the last verse of Psalm 17 makes sense of Psalm 50 in a way, in that David says he will be satisfied (in the context of a prayer of deliverance from the wicked) at the resurrection, awaking in God's likeness (NKJV translation) or awaking to see God's face (NIV, ESV)

ALSO - In 2 Timothy 2:13 (which I've never noticed before is In the context of hardship and suffering) it says: "If we are faithless, he remains faithful" implying that even if we're terrified and can't see or feel God with us as we're being brutalized or killed, God doesn't desert us.

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Third Issue. This one I didn't think about so much when I read Denise's story, but as I read scripture it kept on coming to the foreground.
Apparently, God holds us - Especially those of us in positions of authority - responsible to answer the cries of the helpless for protection and justice.It's not like God couldn't do it, but when the innocent are slaughtered, God blames the men in authority who should have prevented it. THIS Theme is all over the Psalms and Prophets, so I won't weary you with quotes.

As I read in Richard Wurmbrand's "If that were Christ, Would you Give Him Your Blanket" David wrote that he had never seen the righteous forsaken, or their children begging bread, however Wurmbrand said that was because there was a David on the throne who brought the kingdom of God to bear on the country's ills. Wurmbrand said he had seen the righteous tortured to death and screaming in agony, and seen their children eating out of the trash. He also pointed out that the idea that God won't allow his witness to die out in an area from persecution is false, as Islam conquered north africa and the near east, slaughtered and forced conversion of christians there, and thus christianity was wiped out of its former stronghold for a thousand years. - These things Wurmbrand, and scripture, call THOSE IN AUTHORITY, and CHRISTIANS to account for, as things preventable had those men who's responsibility it was had done their job correctly. In Denise Amber Lee's story there was a similar vein, the 911 dispatcher was suspended for negligence and some of the witnesses didn't do anything.

An example of this theme from the Lord Jesus Himself - The parable of the good samaritan doesn't say that the man on the way to Jericho was saved by God, but by a man, and in doing so, the man pleased God. It didn't say or indicate that God was going to supernaturally rescue the victim had the samaritan not passed by. And Jesus told this parable during a very unique time in history when the Son of God was on earth healing all who came to him. He told the scribe to go and do as the Samaritan in the story had done, indicating that even with Jesus on earth the defenseless still needed people to love them as themselves and deliver them from the wicked.

I have been critical of "Social Justice" causes before now, but not so much anymore. I just don't believe they can be empowered by God and sufficient apart from true faith in Jesus Christ.


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AS A FINAL NOTE, for those of you who have read this far.

The Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus says nothing of the great faith of Lazarus, but only that in his life he had bad things, and therefore was admitted into paradise. I hope this is the case with those who had no great chance to develop a relationship with God, but who were the victims of the wicked during their life on earth.


All this would not make me less crushed if anything like what happened to Denise happened to anyone I know, but at least I know there is a future, and I know that God isn't deceiving us with scripture.

I consider myself corrected, may God have mercy on me!

I have read & thought over scripture and I think I have an answer that at least helps me regarding my previous blog. I'll post it soon.

In the meantime though, here are some pictures from my 20 mile (round trip) hike into the Olympic Nat'l Rainforest. My blisters are healing nicely, thanks for asking.

I read tonight a very disturbing story on the news. It was about Amber Lee, a 21 year-old married mother of two who at a little after 2pm in the afternoon last year was abducted from her house by a plumber, driven to his house, raped, shot in the head, and buried in a shallow grave in his backyard. But that wasn't the most disturbing part to me. The most horrifying thing is that when she was being driven to her death at about 6pm, she got a hold of a cellphone in the car and called 911, and as the worthless 911 operator kept saying hello, she was heard in the background pleading with the man to let her go and saying "please God, please protect me!"

When I read that, I felt sick. I still feel sick. I kept thinking about Psalm 50, when God says "call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." I've thought about that psalm a lot in the past couple weeks, but how can I think of it now? Immediately I think "How God? How could you hear her begging to you to protect her in what was-if anything ever is-the day of trouble? But you didn't save her!"

Some of the most comforting words in scripture are where God is called the protector of widows and orphans, the defender of the defenseless. But she was defenseless! It's not as if she was defenseless and godless, she called specifically on God to protect her. There was no one else who could protect her, only God could protect her. But instead she was raped, taped up and shot.

I guess Jesus called out to God as He died, and asked why he was forsaken, and we can't say if he got an answer on the cross. But even so, He didn't beg God for protection - He chose to lay down his life. What about those who are terrified? Who beg God for protection? Who have no choice?

I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that I will be very, very careful saying to anyone "God will protect you" or telling them to claim psalm 91. Whatever those scriptures mean, It's obvious they don't mean that if you beg God to protect you, you won't get dragged out of your house away from your husband and kids to be raped and shot.

I Know God is there. I know He's real and that when it suits Him, He does protect those who beg. But I don't understand when He doesn't.

I am not righteous like Job, If God can rebuke Job he can certainly put me in the wrong. And what happened to Amber has not happened to me. I am just a man, and a sinful one. If something like what happened to her happened to me, I would not be able to call God to account for injustice. But the thing that sickens me is that a helpless and terrified woman can beg God to protect her, and be left to what horrors stalk the earth; while the majority of scripture seems to imply that this doesn't happen, that those who are afraid and call on the Lord are saved.

Maybe I'm wrong about Scripture. Maybe I've been reading it wrong. I'll search it to see - and I pray that God does put me in the wrong and show me that I'm a fool. It would be better.

If anybody's interested, Christianaudio.com is offering the audiobook MP3s for "Til We Have Faces" for about 11 bucks til the 31st of August, and "Green" the last of the circle (trilogy? it's #4) will be out in Sept. If you pre-order it now off Amazon or CBD, you get a lower price.

I was doing research on slaves and slavery in the early church, and while reading from the "Recognitions of Clement" an early church document from the 2nd century, I got sidetracked in a part where the author is refuting the then common concept, called "Genesis" (what stars you were born under) as a sort of fatalistic determining factor in your behavior & conduct.
The recognition struck me that there is a similar concept, the popular idea that something called not "genesis" but "genetics" determines your behavior, dragging your powerless will behind it inexorably into sins and perversion. I believe Clement's refutation stands for both beliefs, neither of which are supported by reason, science, or Scripture. After giving many examples of populations that have given up sinful customs and lifestyles upon the Gospel's introduction (as proof that people can change their behavior), he says:

"Since God is righteous, and since He Himself made the nature of men, how could it be that He should place genesis in opposition to us, which should compel us to sin, and then that He should punish us when we do sin? Whence it is certain that God punishes no sinner either in the present life or that to come, except because He knows that he could have conquered, but neglected victory."

Also reference 1 Cor 10:13.

Haiku Vs. Limerick.



My leaves drink the sun
veins bring life mixed with water
each fruit holds new seeds
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Each man's work is his gift to mankind
a gift woven with hands and with mind
mine's riddled with knots
it's horribly botched
'cause I weave like I'm numb and I'm blind.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
After I wrote this, I found out that haiku's aren't 5/7/5 syllables, they're 5/7/5 "moras" - which is a different subdivision of language, like a small syllable. I tried distinguishing moras, but it's beyond my ken.
So we'll consider these American style Haikus. We won the war anyway, right? And if they can put mayonnaise and corn on a roll and call it American, I think my imprecision can slide.

Fun with Haikus

Good Shepherd hold me
I know your name and your voice
help me to follow.

I have been near deaf
But your voice has not left me
And neither have you

Always my rising
you shake off the death of night
I will wake in You.

Time rolls on with iron tracks
like a bulldozer without a sense of art
mangled pasts stuck between its plates
this is what I feel from time to time
but when my lids are closed
and my eyes are open
I know Time is my chariot of fire
and the calm hand of God.

I have worked out @ the gym. For the first time in a couple months. Ran about 3 miles and then did some leg presses-which almost pressed out my meager stomach contents.
It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

I really really want to go hiking the Hoh trail. If I can't get TJ to go with me I'll go by myself, there's a mountain (called "Mount Olympus") and the blue glacier at the end of the ten mile trail. (The picture above, from Google is a view from the glacier.)
I've been talking about climbing Reinier for about a year now, but after looking into it, It looks way too expensive and complicated to reach the summit.

Tomorrow we're going down to my Aunt's place to visit with the cousins. One of them is asking me to appraise her boyfriend. I pray that I'm equal to the task.

Oh, and I got a new toy!


Well, this is all rather random, and I'm going to go to sleep now.

School starts in a little over a month.

We've been having a family church service Wednesday nights (the church we're going to now doesn't have a Wed. Night service). Brandy plays some worship songs, and I teach. I've been teaching through Colossians and I think it's been getting better because last night's service didn't put Josiah to sleep. Last week he succumbed. As did Brandy, almost.
Thank God for coffee. At least I enjoyed it (the teaching).

Today I visited the "Q Cafe", a christian coffeeshop a couple blocks off campus. It's owned by a church right next to it, and upon entering it reminded me quite a bit of "Sojourner's Cafe" the old coffeeshop in St. Paul. Some of my best memories are from that coffeeshop. Isn't it odd, one would think that a person's best "spiritual" memories should be in church or at a retreat, but the coffeeshop wins hands down.

Read an Oscar Wilde quote the other day, it goes: "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". It's an interesting quote, and seems to echo the sentiment of most people in that it focuses on the past of the saint, and the future of the sinner.

Why is it that conversion stories are the most interesting? It seems like in all the stories a character gets saved, or gets married, and then the curtain falls, 'cause 'it's over'. The main character may as well have died.

I don't think that's really the case for the saint. Maybe it's because a saint dies to his/her old life, and begins over again. Maybe because as far as the world's concerned, the saint it dead, and that brings in the finality. Now the only interesting thing about him is his past.

But they love stories of a sinner's future, too. At least most people do. It has suspense, climax, and drama.

Even the story of the prodigal son runs like that. The most boring character in it is the "older brother" - the saved guy. I wonder if his character would've been more interesting if he'd gone in search of his younger brother, and used his own inheritance to track him down through all the pigsties and brothels to bring him back. But would that even have been possible? If it were, wouldn't the Father himself have gone?

Unless it's like a Cain/Abel thing. "Am I my brother's keeper"? Cain asked that, and the answer's implied. God didn't stop Cain from killing Abel either. Ultimately, God is his children's keeper, but he seems to expect us to take up that role, and usually is pretty hands-off (at least observably).

So what would have happened? I think it would have been a good story. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said "As I am, so are you in this world".

I think that makes for a good storyline too.