#271: Reformation Replays

Here we are at Halloween/All Saints Day/Reformation Day...depending on your world life view. I checked my records and it's been since Post #4 since I mentioned this, so here we go again:

This morning's Horizontal Rainbow...you call it Sunrise...was REALLY great looking...way better than the photo to the left. Once again it reminded me on Satan's high holiday, taken captive by Martin Luther for his late October bulletin board postings, that God's not gonna flush us away like He did back at the Great Flood...something about which we can rejoice. However, "burn the sky and boil the sea" just played from the "Firefly" theme song on my computer... a concise description, in short, of the NEXT End of All Things.

I'm also of the opinion...actually not expressed anywhere on this here blog here so far...that, if Abraham (in the Book of Genesis) had lived in Philly and not Ur of the Chaldees, God would have pointed to the trees and said, "If you can count all those leaves, that's how many descendants you'll have" as part of the Covenant He made with Abe...Autumn and leaf gathering/mulching always brings this back to mind, so it's a replay for ME, if not for YOU! ;p

In regard to Luther's Nine To Five Theses...check out Post #267.

Oh, last Friday's post...#268...mentions the "Firefly quiz that never ends." Sadly, it did. For those who care...and for that matter, for those who don't...I am an Enlightened Master with 25,600 accumulated points in "Firefly" trivia. All comments about "getting a life" will need to be tempered with the reality that you're sitting there in front of your Twenty-first Century Boob Tube, i.e., your computer, READING THIS!! ;p

Well, in the providential coincidence of the Lord, I've just gotten called to actually WORK today... one of those Ephesians 2:10 good works for which I was chosen from before the foundation of the world...handy that!
TA! Enjoy the weekend.

#270: Scrat and Other Comedians

Simon Tam has a line in "Firefly" that is, "So THIS must be what going insane feels like." Well, I have just experienced a similar feeling.
Scrat...the squirrel-like rodent of the animated movie "Ice Age" is listed in the Facebook Pages gallery as "comedian."

Eddie Izzard, the high-larious (thank you, Jayne Cobb) British comedian is listed as "other business."

Red Dwarf, another piece of Anglo-Saxon comedic hilarity is also listed as "other business."

Then, there's the category, "other public figure," which includes Yeshua Ha'Mashiach (Jesus Christ), Jonathan Edwards, John Owens, J. Gresham Machen, A. W. Pink, and COOKIE MONSTER!! Snoopy also falls into this elite group of theologians!

Well, they did get Jeff Dunham, the champeen of ventriloquists, in the comedian category...I think I would quote his Micronesian Woozle, Peanut, in my exhortations to Facebook workers:

FOCUS!!

#269: Minute Madness

OK, this morning on Facebook I questioned the time span and veracity of a "New York Minute."

Why is the straight piece on the clock called a minute HAND...unless, of course, it's a Mickey Mouse
watch with one glued on the end of the Minute STICK.

Why do we say, "Wait a minute!"? Have you ever actually waited for 60 seconds afterward?!

Why is "minute" pronounced "min-utt" when it has to do with time and "my-noot" when it has to do with size?

Did you ever actually dance a "minute waltz" for 60 seconds?

Have you ever actually cooked a "minute steak" in that time? Or eaten one in 60 seconds?

Did you EVER get the job done when you said, "Gimme a minute?"

Got a minute?
Good.

#268: Friday Miscellany: Computer Canary

I've just spent the last 40 minutes messing with my computer so I can actually do some work here at Camp Cornelius. Lucky me...Windows installed some upgrade last night and Adobe Reader got me to upgrade this morning. The result: a computer that moves slower than I do in the morning when my aching old bones finally get moving! ;p I'm convinced that if God had designed humans the way we've designed computers, He'd have to kill us off and resurrect us innumerable times during the 70-80 years' average life we're given according to Scripture. Hmmm...that may or may not be an argument for or against reincarnation...or power naps!!

If I was a Geek of the First Order, I'd come up with software that would picture a dead canary on the computer screen to let the user know something is definitely wrong down here in the coal mines...for you non-historical types, that's how miners detected poisonous gases in the good old days. As long as the canary was alive they could stay in the mine...if it died, they knew carbon monoxide or other poisonous gases precluded their immediate removal...kinda like the opening of "Reign of Fire" with a bit less panache!

I've been taking the "Firefly" trivia quiz that never ends and have reached "Guru" status (that means 2,000 correct answers), so I'm thinking I need to find a used sitar on E-bay and learn a new skill...I could even play along with my "Feng Shui" album that's currently got me mentally medicated here in the bowels of The Big House (also known as the basement of Stonewalled Charismatic Presbyterian Church).

Oh, I'm sure you've heard this multiple times, but does anyone agree that the term "World Series" for a sport that is played in America and Japan (and the Japanese don't even get to try to get to The Series) is a BIT PRETENTIOUS?!! I just Googled "World Series origin" and learned WHY it's called that at http://www.roadsidephotos.com/baseball/name.htm..."more grandiose" is actually in the article!! ;p Dictionary.com makes me think the two words are closely related and I particularly like definition #4 for "grandiose": "Psychiatry. having an exaggerated belief in one's importance, sometimes reaching delusional proportions, and occurring as a common symptom of mental illnesses, as manic disorder." In any event: GO PHILLIES!!

Speaking of Feng Shui...which I haven't for several posts...the picture above shows the Grey Havens with the Lord's idea of how to alter the Feng Shui surrounding us in His own inimitable fashion. The camera work falls short of the real McCoy, but that's not surprising, considering I'm only made in His image, so I'm part of that "already, not yet" theology that's bandied about in the Hallowed Halls of Camp Cornelius!

HMMM...this time of year, should that be Hallow-eened Halls? Or does that pander too much to the pagans we're trying to get to see The Light of the World?

Can you tell I'm taking some Off Time? Have a good Week-end...or Next Week Start, depending on your world-view. Ah, "Lord of the Rings Music" makes me feel Hobbit-like in a post-Reformational Zen Buddhist sort of way...
Ta!

#267: Luther's Nine To Five Theses

Halloween's a-comin' and so's Reformation Day...Lots of folks have heard of Luther's Ninety Five Theses that started the Reformation back in 1517, but did you ever wonder what one might find in his Day-Timer?
Here's a guess from various historical evidence and wild eyed extrapolation from same:

9am...Drink beer, eat bratwurst and kraut, praise God.
10am...Castigate in writing everything Papal.
11am...Reduce castigations to only 95.
12 noon...Drink beer, eat bratwurst and kraut, praise God, flatulate towards Rome.
1pm...Choose among pet names for Frau..."Katie My Rib" seems best so far.
2pm...Check on prayers said from 5am to 9am, drink another beer.
(Note: hurled ink well at cloven hoofed Enemy while temporarily off guard.)
3pm...Resolve and make notes to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly before my God and belch copiously.
4pm...Figure out just why the Church Fathers allowed the Book of James in the canon.
5pm...Give Table Talk, drink beer, eat knockwurst, potatoes and kraut, praise God.
Got pumpkin carved to look like Old Marty?

#266: Adam and Eve Caused The Internet

I was sitting at the Grey Havens in my comfy chair, hosting an upper respiratory virus, feeling a bit like one of the lines in "Steel Magnolias," and reading What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe and had a minor epiphany again. Howe points out how the vast changes in transportation in America positively affected the literacy of Americans all over the land as reading materials were more available and how that changed the way people looked at politics on a larger rather than local scale.

It occurred to me that the insatiable longing for more and more information and "socializing" on the Internet that we experience here in 2008 is the logical extension, not necessarily conclusion, to Adam and Eve's taking the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so they could become like God, as Satan so deftly suggested. Think about it, you can research and "know" any subject, good and evil, in a multiplicity of websites...."God" gets 547,000,000 sites on Google, "Jesus" gets 212,000,000, "Satan" gets 42,100,000,and "sex" gets 732,000,000...why am I not surprised?!! (Tip of the hat to Iago in "Aladdin's Lamp.") People have certainly taken to heart (and other organs) the dictate to go forth and multiply.

Well, even though Algore claims to have invented it, I'm claiming Adam and Eve are responsible for it...EEEUUUUWWW, I'M CONFLICTED...AND A VICTIM!!!;P
Got nap calling?

#265: I've Found 666!

This morning I had an epiphany. I'm getting ready to go home sick, but thought I'd look at Facebook a bit first. Well, in the lower left hand corner was a phrase I've been seeing more and more:

"Waiting to connect to 74.201.93.24." Then I get the old "Try Again" deal that follows a variety of options that basically tell you there are too many people on Earth That Is. Well, I looked at the numbers and came up with this:

Forget "7"...4+2=6...forget "01"...9-3=6...2+4=6...Clearly a hidden Internet code that is no longer hidden for you lucky folks reading this! I'll probably be banned from Facebook now...hmmm, "all things together for the good..."

Got tea and toast?

#264: Flair

Well, I was at the Grey Havens digging seeds out of grapes when Archangel interrupted me to report messed up washers. That led to a stroll, which led to my office, which led to my computer, which led to gaming, which led to Flairing.......so I decided to post this.

Flair usually expresses something on your mind (given the benefit of the doubt). You all know how young'uns using "Awesome" to describe ANYTHING but God just irritates the daylights out of me; which would indicate that the inner darkness that is really dark takes precedence, and y'all don't want that! ;p
Well, I was browsing through the Most Popular category and came upon: "thanks for being so awesome" so my next question is, How do you send God some Flair? Hmmmm...guess I just did.

Another one is "Satan sucks...tell everybody." Well, they ain't a gonna listen, so you can pray them into the Kingdom in God's time and way!

Oh, speaking of Flair...I came across an interesting discussion the other day on the main deal of the thing. Seems one young girl who is a "Twilight" fan (a vampire story from what I can figure) is irritated by "all the Jesus stuff" on Flair; which prompted somewhere over 7,000 posts pro and con the subject. It looked to me as though most of it was high schoolers, so parents, you can see what some of them are up to when you're posting on Facebook.

Guess I'd better get back to the grapes...
Could THAT be a Flair?

#263: Bob Wants To Know

1. Why does toilet paper have to be "facial quality?" (I choose NOT to offer the obvious suggestion!)

2. Why is the Nobel Peace Prize named after the guy who invented dynamite?

3. Should a Ghandi War Prize be awarded to the most aggressive person in world politics each year?

4. How did the f-bomb ever become a swear word? Or, for that matter, how did ANY word become a swear word?

5. Howcome we have anti-Semitism but not anti-Latinism, since it was the Romans who actually nailed Jesus to the Cross? (Could it be the Romans are no more, so we cut other Latins some slack?)

6. If Christians want Jesus to return, and the appearance of the anti-Christ is a prelimary event, shouldn't they be praying for the worst case scenarios leading to the One World Government?!!

7. Will the anti-Christ get the Peace, Peace, But There Is No Peace Prize?

8. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, did he eat them at a pot luck dinner? Did he share? Did they give him gas?

9. Why do European-descended folks who eat saurkraut have a problem with kimchee?

10. When Bugs Bunny was singing "La Cucaracha" in various cartoons, did you know he was singing about cockroaches? Wanna know the lyrics? Go to Wikipedia for an interesting take, or:

The cockroach, the cockroach

Can't walk anymore

Because it doesn't have, because it's lacking

Marijuana to smoke

11. Have ANY of you seen a cockroach smoke marijuana?!! ;p (Have any of you passed a joint TO a cockroach, mayhaps?)

12. When Jesus is drinking of the fruit of the vine at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, will the Babdists be drinking grape juice?

13. Will there be Take Out there? Where would you go it there were? Would Al Fresco be outside, too?

Got questions of your own?

#262: John Deere Epiphanies

After 3 months' "warm-up" (i.e., summer) in producing local weather, the Lord has given us some Masterly produced days that have been perfect for tree pruning, firewood cutting, and John Deere mowing, so I've been thinking while pounding my spine on the Ole JD...

Clover in your lawn is like sin in your life...it silently dominates the whole shebang if you don't aggressively root it out and make sure the "good grass" grows. (Tip of the hat to Fr. Stephen's warning of about 22 years ago in one of our dirt person/farmer-chew-the-fat-conversations.)

When you're mowing under trees with low hanging limbs...DUCK!! Getting dang near knocked off the tractor by a limb is much like life's unforeseen school of hard knocks experiences that teach the best learned lessons ever. (cf. Hebrews 12:11)

Stay alert for nasty little holes in the ground that house yellow jackets or you'll get a small taste of what the Canaanites felt when God drove them out with hornets in the Book of Judges.

When stuff falls out of your coat pocket when you've been going back and forth over 7 acres of ground, simply say, "OK, Lord, you know where my glasses case is, show me!" Then take a casual walk, relying on Matthew 7:7 (ask...seek...find) and expect to find them! OH, and record the answer in your prayer journals, if you keep them, as I did last night.

Ride the Old John Deere "as unto the Lord, not as unto men" and you'll be "glorifying the Lord and enjoying Him now" in anticipation of the "forever" part of the Westminster Shorter Catechism's Answer #1.

Oh, Yeah...enjoy a good cigar in the process to appreciate one of those things that on the sixth day were declared VERY GOOD...tobacco! ;p
Got quiet time epiphanies of your own?

#261: October Revolutions, non-Bolshevik Style

Today's date in history has some interesting events recorded, the first in The One Year Book of Christian History (aint you bought your own copy yet?!!)...the rest from the Today In History website [http://www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi].

On Sunday, October 4, 1747 David Brainerd, American missionary to the Mohicans (did he ever meet Chingachgook's real life equal?), knew he was about to die. His not-to-be-father-in-law, Jonathan Edwards ended up writing The Life of Brainerd in 1749, changing the lives of John Wesley, Henry Martyn, William Carey, Robert Morrison, David Livingston, Andrew Murray, Jim Elliot, Robert Murray McCheyne, and Robert Murray Sexton. (Look these guys up if you don't know their stories.)

On October 4, 1535...back in the day for you young and old'uns...Miles Coverdale published his English version of the Bible...guess he read the Good Book cover(dale) to cover(dale)?

October 4, 1957 witnessed Sputnik's launching into space, inaugurating the Space Age that has led us where we are and will eventually lead us to terraform other planets when Earth That Was gets too crowded and our technology becomes that of "Firefly." (My bad...God's gonna have His smackdown on us before that.)

On October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI became the first Pope to visit the USofA EVER! Wonder if he had a beer and hot dog to celebrate? (It was a Monday, so he did not have to eat fish.)

October 4, 2008...DANGGIT, as Elfson would say, am I THAT old?!! Well, let's go make us a revolution and turn the world upside down as the early church did by looking like the Christ after whom we're named...loving justice, practicing mercy, and walking humbly before our God.

#260: Heavenly Draftees

I was reading Isaiah 43 while eating some Instant Oatmeal this morning and came across an interesting verse. Verse 10 says, "'You are My witnesses,' declares the LORD, 'And My servant whom I have chosen, in order that you may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me.'"

John 15:16 says, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you."

Where'd all the "free will" stuff I've had to tolerate over 28 years originate? Well, I think Paul would call it a "doctrine of demons" in 1 Timothy 4:1. Since none of us chose the moment of our conception, nor the two folks conceiving, nor the two dna chains being knit together, I often am baffled how we feel we walked into Heaven's Recruiting Station and enlisted...a FAR more important part of life than just getting here.
Well, it's time to celebrate the opening of Flannel Shirt Season and open some buildings.
Go ask your Father "whatever" (NOT said the way California Young'uns say it!!) and see what the answer's gonna be!

#259: Jesus, Spec Op of Heaven

Yeah, my gaming experiences here of late and some early morning thoughts came together to make these conclusions:

Did you ever say, "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?" That sums up the Biblical point of view of salvation...mankind was totally incapable of following the Law so Jesus came down and accomplished it Himself, opening the door for those who believe to benefit from his completed work.

Similarly, in war gamers' terminology, Jesus was a Spec Op (Special Operative for you uninitiated peaceniks) who was sent to earth on a rescue mission in Enemy territory to "pluck brands from the fire" as Zechariah 3:1-2 indicates. His mission was a complete success and has continuing, ongoing results that will bring people from every nation, tribe and tongue out of captivity.

Now for those of you who think I've dived off the deep end again or jumped from the helicopter with the Dragon pursuing me (check out "Reign of Fire" folks!!)...let me point you to some of the military imagery in Paul's writings. "Ours is not a battle against flesh and blood," "put on the whole armor of God," "our weapons are not of the flesh," "be a good soldier of Christ"...you get the idea. Well, I hear the virtual sound of gunfire and smell the smoke of Hell all around me, so pray for my new Friends to come to know the grace I do and be rescued by our Great Captain!!
Thanks.
Gunny Bob