2:173, #477: Mr. Lists

A guy who used to work with me nicknamed me Mr. Lists because I keep what some might consider an inordinate amount of information in the form of lists. I figure it's just an indication of my Concrete Sequential personality...or perhaps, since they're somewhat of a scattered collection, my Abstract Sequential tendencies. For instance...

There's the DaVinci File of all the paint colors used on all the rooms/halls of buildings on campus and when they were painted. It's a handy reference to decide if and when some place is due to be repainted and what color to use if a match is desired.

The Projects File let's me know when major things were done by year...I guess if I was REALLY a List Man I'd have an alphabetically arranged second list with which to compare, but I don't so it might take a bit longer to scroll through to the object for which I search. HOWEVER, the "Find" feature of Microsoft Word is a handy dandy little item that we List-ers find most convenient.

Two REALLY important lists are Movies Listed and Movies Sorted. With these two little babies I can quickly bring to conclusion...usually proving MY point of view...of how many times we've watched a particular movie and when we last watched it within a month's time. For the actual day, I've got pocket calendars with notes that substantiate reality to my side of the, shall we say, failure to completely agree.

I'm currently typing in 29 years' of hand written prayer journals, so my Salvation List is being constructed so I know the first time I wrote in when I prayed for a particular individual to come to saving faith. For instance, David Robinson of NBA Hall of Fame fame, came to faith one year to the day of when I used a picture in The Sporting News as a stimulus for praying for him...at least I think it was that precise...I still have to do some checking. Similarly, when Kathy Ireland was on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue with Elle McPherson and one other woman, I added all three of them to my List...Kathy's been saved for several years...not sure about the other two.

Lastly, I guess you could say that the prayer journals I've been keeping are my Ultimate List which now has 189,000 answers in its contents and will continue to rise in answer totals as my days of shuffling around on this mortal coil continue. The only gripe I have with the Lord, if you can call it that, is wondering why He hasn't quickened more of the individuals on my Salvation List up to this point. Of course, I defer to His timing, wisdom, and sovereign election on this one, so I can rest content in whatever circumstances I am...in a learning curve, that is!

Well, first thing on my Today To Do List is to open buildings and let my hvac mechanics in the Library to continue their project from yesterday, so...
Off I go!!

2:172, #476: Nutritional Nuggets

This morning my Opening Routine had some glitches, so here are some thoughts as a result:

When you Pooh Bears can't find the honey to put on your Quaker Instant Oatmeal, try Karo pancake syrup as a tasteful change of pace.

Why is it that fish oil pills stick to the inside of the bottle? And here's a comforting note from the bottle label: "Nature Made Fish Oil supply comes from deep ocean waters. Our fish oil is not supplied from farm raised fish. State of the art molecular distillation is used to remove PCBs and dioxins which guarantees purity and potency. Mercury undetectable." Does that last line mean that their equipment isn't working?!! AND...now we have somebody bragging about "free range fish" like the "free range chicken" ranchers?!! Sheesh...

It has been my contention that God invented corn and barley so we could eat Fritos and drink Yuengling!! And He "knit Arturo Fuente in his mother's womb" so we could smoke some good stogies to boot!! Oh? You didn't suspect that the Tabernacle Glory Cloud had something to do with God being a cigar smoker? Tsk...Tsk!!

Oh, Yeah...what kind of ecological disaster caused the Land of Canaan to be "a land flowing with milk and honey?"

2:171, #475: Signs

I was reading The Brute Facts this morning and came across a notice that read, in part, "Pizza and Viruses...Learn how to prevent computer viruses...Look for signs." Well, I wondered if there would be some kind of rash on the keyboard? Would a face pop on the screen with a thermometer that was registering 104 degrees? Would the screen develop cracking striations similar to those of the containment glass in the new version of "The Day The Earth Stood Still?" Would there be a red sky at morning for the computer sailor to take warning?

Then I thought as I read another add which read "For Sale: Sunbeam portable air conditioner..." that a Sunbeam, although it is light, comes from a source that generates heat, so that would seem counterproductive for an air conditioner, would it not?!!

As I walked from one building to another during my opening routine, I saw the sign, "Fire Zone: No Stopping or Standing by Order of Fire Marshal" and wondered if I was breaking some law by standing in front of it to read it and then to write down it's message for today's thoughts.

The leaves around Camp Cornelius are falling in spite of the going-up-to-80-something today temperature, so I guess that's a sign that Fall has fallen or is in the already-not-yet and is falling? And just how far does it fall, anyway?

Well, time to sign off...

2:170, #474: Altogether Evil

This is what Gandalf calls the Ring of Power when he's in the group session at Rivendell trying to decide just what's to be done with the ring. Well, being the good Calvinist I am, I'm ready to look into Leaf #1 of the old T.U.L.I.P. this morning...Total Depravity.

The bottom line is that WE are ALTOGETHER EVIL from birth according to Ephesians 2:1. In fact, being "dead in your trespasses and sins" might explain the need for deodorants, given that after three days we'd start decomposing and, as Loudon Wainwright's song, "Dead Skunk In the Middle of the Road" suggests, we'd be "stinkin' to high, high heaven." What I can't figure out is why anyone would operate from the position that people are basically good.

Think about a crying baby...its first cry is from some complete stranger slapping it after it's been forcibly ejected from the almost perfect environment. The second is either to manipulate Mom to host out the old feeding device OR to clean up the mess at the other end from having supped to the full earlier on.

THEN there's the Terrible Twos!! Just which person has had to sit their toddler down and actually teach him/her to be bad?!! NADA UNO, I'd say.

And for those of you who "train up a child in the way he should go so that in his old age he does not depart from it," do you notice how the teenage years are not necessarily covered in that promise? One Christian comedian says teens are God's way of letting parents understand creating someone in their image who then completely denies their existence. I think he might have a point.

And it just happens that "evil" in English is "live" spelled backwards, so "live evil" is the basic description of what we do as natural men and women. It's a good thing God decided to elect some of us and put His Spirit within us or we'd be entirely hopeless. Oh, and speaking of that, I've a theory that God saves a lot of covenant kids early on specifically because He knows how bad they'd be if He didn't!!

Well, odds and ends call...the good news in Christ is that we are a NEW creation...
Got ALTOGETHER HOLY??!!

2:169,#473: Ponderisms Explained

The other day I got an email called "Ponderisms," some of which I had to answer, so here goes:

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll pull those dangly things and drink whatever comes out? Bob Murphy, author of Murphy's Law

If Jimmy cracks corn and nobody cares, why is there a song about him? Because the corn cracked was used to make whiskey and the natural outcome of drinking it was the song.

Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if he's going to look anyway? He's getting some of that corn whiskey to bolster his courage to continue to do his job.

If quizzes are quizzical, then what are tests? Pap tests, given the last question.

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from? The slimy stuff left in diapers collected by some guy drinking corn whiskey who flunked out of OB-GYN school.

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup? Actually, they get it faster than literate people because they just go ahead and eat it!!

I thought about another one at 4:40am the other morning...When Miss Muffet was scared by Spidey, did she go way away to weigh her whey? NO WAY!!

Got Ponderings That Need Answers? WRITE!!

2:168, #472: Creation vs. Evolution

This morning my body alarm went off at 4:34am and my brain laid rubber, smoked its tires, and headed on down the road of Thoughts Near the Edge. Did you ever wonder if the Creationists and Evolutionists have ever given serious thought to the question of whether it was Adam or Eve who passed on the "ghetto booty" to us or whether the one celled amoeba had a lump that eventually developed into said gluttial musculature?!!

What exactly is it in the joining of the gene pool down through the generations that has given some relatively small Caucasian women that particular anatomical caboose? Just WHY exactly would selectivity select those particular strains in the DNA? Or, perhaps, as Psalm 2 says, "He who sits in the heavens laughs...?"

As I've posited before...can't remember where and ain't in the mood to check...probably Facebook...howcome Evolutionists don't think we came from the doG (that would be God, backwards, which seems to indicate our fallen state)...we men think primarily about food, sleep, sex, and play much like our canines and our ladies have certain verbal and personality traits which receive the name from the technical definition of a female dog under AKC derivations?? Rhymes with "itch" for those of you who aren't following me and my cloud of mental dust.

Just exactly at what stage did Mom's get eyes in the back of their heads? And do they work the way a sheep dog's eyes apparently do through its copious bangs?

Last question...Where's my evolved third arm so I can drink my coffee at the same time I'm typing with both hands?

2:167, #471: Yggdrasil

I've just spent an interesting 1/2 hour reading through a bunch of Norse mythology after Googling my favorite word for the old fashioned "dictionary game" where you present a word with several definitions and folks have to guess what it is. Back in my high school days, "yggdrasil" struck my fancy and probably won me a round or two of the game, if I ever got around to playing it.

Well, today, I learned that Yggdrasil is the giant ash tree that links and shelters all the worlds. Essentially it connects and holds heaven/hell/earth together. All kinds of cool and twisted stuff goes on in Norse mythology, but there are some parallels to Biblical truth in the whole mythological hoohah. For instance, Ragnarok is the Norse equivalent of Armageddon, but here the gods get destroyed, some get reborn, some not...the bottom line is the end of the cosmos as it now is. A new world arises from the sea in this version, not a new heaven and earth from God as it will be in reality. However, some guy named Surt with a flaming sword is supposed to scorch everything...parallel to the heavens and earth being destroyed by fire this time around in the Bible.

One good parallel...wickedness and evil no longer exist in the new creation. It's kind of sketchy about any place of eternal punishment, however. Guess the Vikings got squeamish on this issue in spite of all their blood and guts theology. Leave it to Christians to introduce the Truth to the world, including "vessels of wrath created for destruction!"
Got reservation for your room in the Heavenly Mansion of John 14:2?

2:166, #470 Just Some Questions

If the Mayans were so smart to calculate the end of the world, according to popular sources, howcome they missed their own extinction? Maybe they were just too busy doing the math for Armageddon? Or maybe they didn't have Bruce Willis and his oil rig wildcats to protect them the way the planet does in "Armegeddon?" Or maybe they were busy trying to learn, "OLA, SENOR?!!"

Does anybody wish, like I do that JUST ONCE a reporter would not say, "Reporting LIVE from such and such a place" but would say, "Reporting DEAD?" I wonder if he/she would get canned for saying that? And would it be canned laughter?

If during the Cold War there was a Hotline to the Kremlin, during a hot war would it be called a Coldline? And if they held a really nasty conversation, would it be called a Cold Sore?

If you call Suicide Hotline and they hang up, could you say the "line's gone dead?!!"

With the current hubbub about incandescent vs. fluorescent lights, should we start hunting whales again and switch back to oil lamps? Or should some sci-fi guy figure out how old motor oil could be incorporated into indoor lighting?

Got bright ideas?

2:165, #469: God Was a Sexton

Here it is Labor Day in America when most everyone is not laboring...at least for their employers. I wonder just what per cent of the work force still is doing its job? Anyway, yesterday I finished reading Deuteronomy and realized that God was a Sexton. Yepper...Deuteronomy 34:5-6 says, "So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day." Good old Dictionary.com includes as the definition of sexton (I supplied the capital for obvious connections) as "an official of a church charged with taking care of the edifice and its contents...and sometimes with burying the dead."

So, in one of His pre-Incarnate theophanies, the Lord took up His shovel, dug a hole, and put Ole Moses "in the cold, cold groun..." (I'm listening to the Irish part of "Mansions of the Lord"...now it's "How Can I Keep From Singing?") I guess it makes sense that my past history includes working at Northwood Cemetery, current at Westminster Seminary, and the apparent history of the English side of my family is that it goes back to the days of the Black Death when it's said that "it came to London, started at Westminster, and there were not enough sextons to bury the bodies" in some website I can no longer find. Well here at Westminster Seminary, I've gotten to bury some dead birds and a couple of ground hogs Old Hudson Hawk kacked...and I don't tell people where they're buried, either!!
Got shovel?

2:164, #468: Stone Walls and Grass

These are the two primary projects on my mind these days here at Camp Cornelius. The photo shows some of my handy work on the Grey Havens, as well as the new chin whiskers I'm sporting since I decided to connect the Fu Manchu and create a Van Dyke on my face. Facial Hair Feng Shui turns out to be considerably hotter this way, but tolerable...must be some pressure point or something in the middle of the chin that sparks the difference. In any event, I spend Monday and Tuesdays pretty much removing old mortar with a pneumatic hammer and then putting mortar back between solid stones, filling in fairly large cavities behind stones, and even placing some small stones in areas that wind have eroded on the mica schist that was used at the Grey Havens back in 1917 when it was built.

Grass this year is phenomenal...two more days a week are pretty much dedicated to cutting roughly 10 acres that could really be cut twice a week, given the current growing rate. It's an interesting contrast, at least for me, to summer of 1986 when it was so dry that I did not mow at all from end of June to mid-September, so I and another guy rebuilt the stonewalls at the Church Road entrance shown in the left hand picture.

The other thing that is phenomenal is the way my garden is producing. We at the Havens are enjoying fresh lettuce, radishes, cukes, zuchs, tomatoes of 3 varieties, onions, parsley, and cilantro and have been able to farm out lots to the locals on campus...give and it will be given, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, poured over into your lap.

Well, on that note...got salad dressing?