#237: Lin Chi the Puritan

I'm sitting here enjoying my "Feng Shui" album...ooops, cd...looking over my Facebook Profile while the Triumph, Mob Wars, and Might of Many applications move on to the next bit of stuff I need from them in order to go back to war in the virtual world. I clicked on the "What Chinese Philosopher Are You?" application to see what the other guys are like besides good old Lin Chi who I apparently resemble. (This is a guy who "lived during the Tang Dynasty and died in 866 AD. He formed the Linji school of Chán Buddhism. His method to help students attain enlightenment was to yell at them and strike them abruptly with a fly-swatter, so as to shock them into a religious experience.") Now, with that methodology, can you see why I call him a Puritan? Can you say Grumpy, Constipated Christian with a Dunking Stool?!!

Maybe his whole philosophy/theology was not Biblical (according to Wikipedia, Christianity has been around in China since at least the 7th century), but I remember the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians of his day in 1 Corinthians 4:21, "What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?" I guess Paul either didn't own a fly swatter or thought his charges needed a bit more disciplining seven centuries before Lin Chi. Or maybe under that gruff exterior, Old Lin Chi was a softy and only wanted to leave little welts on his students' carcasses?!!

As I was reading about the five other Chinese Philosophers I was tickled with the description of Lao Tzu, who is represented by 9% of those taking the quiz. (I'm in the 7% class...the most exclusive, naturally! ;P) It appears, "We don't know when he lived or died; the best accounts detail him being born after 62 years in the womb with a full beard." Poor Momma Tzu!! OUCH!!

One tang-ential thought...Did the Tang Dynasty invent a powdered orange drink that eventually became popular in America in 1959 and even moreso when NASA started giving it to its trainees in 1965...with or without hitting them with a fly swatter?!!
Happy Sunday!!

#236: Brutal Fight of the Ages

I'm currently reading The Leaders We Deserved by Alvin S. Felzenberg, a book rating U.S. Presidents' terms of office and came across an interesting quote from President Woodrow Wilson, an Evangelical Christian who was so affected by being born in Virginia in 1856 and going through the Civil War as a child that he was a peacenik long before the term came to be. It's ironic that his League of Nations notion which led to the United Nations will someday germinate in the One World Government of the Antichrist, methinks...but, hey, that's just my opinion!

Here's the quote. "In the period when Wilson was still struggling to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, he voiced fears that American entry into the conflict would take a severe toll on civil liberties at home. 'To fight you must be brutal and ruthless,' he told an editor, 'and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into every fiber of our national life...'"

Now, translate that into the every day Battle of the Ages Christians are involved in according to the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:10-20. It would appear to me after 28 years' involvement in the conflict that instead of being brutal towards rulers, powers, principalities, demons, world forces of darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places, and Satan himself through prayer against such individuals, Christians are much more preoccupied with beating up on each other; which means Satan can relax and laugh at us. This could be why there are so many passages in Scripture calling for unity, mutual "one anothering" for the good, and keeping alert to the fact that our battle is NOT against flesh and blood but against unseen forces that often appear as angels of light! Wake up, people...we're in THE most brutal war EVER!!
Got your armor of light on?

Source: Felzenberg, Alvin S. The Leaders We Deserved. Perseus Books Group, New York, 2008.

#235: The Band Theology

I'm sitting here enjoying some Vacating Time in the basement of Stonewalled Charismatic Presbyterian Church, listening to The Band, one of my favorite 60s bands, sing "The Weight." The chorus makes me think of 1 Peter 5:6, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you."

After telling us he "just pulled into Nazareth, feelin' about half past dead" (notice the reference to Christ's hometown), he tells how he is refused lodging when "he needs a place to rest his head." (Sound familiar to Joe and Mary's Xmas Tale?!!)
Well, the chorus then says, "Take a load off Fannie, take a load for free; Take a load off Fannie, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me." There's the trigger for this mental gunshot: You can put the load right on Me!! You folks out there who are weighted down with cares beyond all you can ask or think...hand them over to the Lord if you're already His. Or, if you're not, ask Him to take the even bigger load of sins you've accumulated while shuffling around on this mortal coil!!
'Nuff said...enjoy the upcoming weekend.

#234: Buckaroo Bonzai Theology

One of the all time cult classic Marvel Comic based movies, "Buckaroo Bonzai," has the line in it, "Remember, wherever you go...there you are!" I was thinking yesterday about this when I read one of the lines of one of the devotionals I use each day. The Biblical principle is "love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself." I've observed that it is absolutely impossible to love someone else if you don't love yourself very much. No matter where you go, you're always there to mess up the mixture of personal relationships.
Fortunately, you take the Holy Spirit with you if you're a Christian, so you can rely on His help to give you the raw materials to be able to both love yourself because He loved you first and then to translate that to whomever it is you're trying to get squared away with on a horizontal level.

Actually, if you look at the prescription, Jesus says to love God first...visualize me drawing a vertical stroke representing the upright member of the Cross in the air...which can lead you to love yourself because of your identity in Him...and then loving horizontally...here goes a second air-stroke representing the cross beam...your neighbor. If you try to have good interpersonal relationships without getting right with God in the first place, you're skunked...it's just that simple, as I say to Elfson and Archangel so frequently.

Well, my stomach's growling...
Got baloney sandwich?

#233: 1984

I spotted an interesting note at the top of today's entry of The One Year Book of Christian History that I peruse in my Inner Chamber daily. Exactly 24 years ago To The Day (thank you Frodo, for that phrase here at The End of All Things) I started praying for Revival of the American Church through Persecution, if necessary, with a subsequent Great Awakening among all the nations, tribes, and tongues found in our borders.
George Orwell's famous book, 1984, brought to our minds yet another example of Big Brother government and extrapolated what would occur. My research that concluded in God Caused the Civil War had an interesting twist in it. Author Mitchel Snay's Gospel of Disunion concluded that the spiritual split North/South over slavery in The Church had to occur first in order to bring about the political split of the Civil War. I've observed in my book that there are at least 37,000 independent, apparently Evangelical congregations with 10 million adherents, according to research from Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Well, that leads me to conclude that there will be a massive split up of the States into some feudal system OR in order to keep order, we'll develop into a totalitarian state that'll make Nazi Germany look like a picnic.
Just a thought.
Got votes in November?

#232: To Everything There Is A Season

You folks that have stumbled onto this site or intentionally decided to come here know that I am an observer of things of all sorts in a Sherlock/Mycroft Holmesian sort of way. Well, today's crap emails...I think calling them spam does a GREAT disservice to an ABSOLUTELY delicious canned product of my youth...spark some thoughts about what I'll call The Crap Email Year. Here's how it goes:

January to about April: The incoming material has to do with sex, your loved ones, and Viagra and all its associated products. (Preliminary and follow-up to National Procreation day, a.k.a. Valentine's Day.)

April to June: A handful of viagra ads (for summer fun, I suppose) and a proliferation of "Buy Your PhD" ads and the QVC wannabees of jewelry (I suppose for graduation gifts).

June to August: Vacation possiblities and naked Angelina Jolie and Others videos for your summer time entertainment possibilities, I suppose.

August to October: Vegas ripoffs, makeovers of all sorts (I guess so you can be El Spiffo for Fall Term), and a smattering more of watches and other sellable junk.

October to December: Another smattering of Viagra et al offerings (I guess they figure it's time to renew your prescription), some pre-Christmas odds and ends, and a TON of rolodex and other junk offers for the Silly Season, as Mel Gibson's character, Martin Riggs says in"Lethal Weapon."

Oh, for you not-Sherlock-Holmes-fans...Mycroft is his portly brother who is even more brilliant than old Sherlock but stays within a circumscribed area in London learning everything, knowing everything, and saving the British Government's Victorian Bacon behind the scenes! Yes, Yes... I actually read the ENTIRE Holmes 2-volume opus from beginning to end last year or the year before. It was elementary, my dear Watson!!
Got bookmarks?

#231: Ecclesiastes Allergy Alert

Here it is, almost the end of August, Labor Day Weekend before us and, as Solomon and The Byrds say, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven." It would appear that the Lord's purpose under Heaven for me today is to be loaded with histamines so I awake early wired to the hilt! This is not necessarily a bad thing, except for the sneezing that can be controlled with Allegra-D; which Doc says is hard on my fibrillating heart, but prayer based on Pv. 3:5-8/Ps. 91:11 on my behalf will counterbalance that affect.
Sooooo...

I began reading Ecclesiastes on my 22nd read-through of the Bible in 28 years and I had some questions the other morning and again today. Did Solomon keep his "vanity" in the bedroom with the chest of drawers and bureau? Should a bureau of foreign affairs (of which Solomon had many, based on the number of wives/concubines he had) be kept in the bedroom or placed in an administrative office?

Gotta go restart Firefox Update. Later.