4:12, #603: It's About Time

Well, I've not posted anything here since January 22nd, so I thought this rainy Saturday afternoon would be a good time to dump more useless information onto the rest of the world and good old Google gave me a starting point:

What would happen if you lost access to your Google Account tomorrow?

Well, I'd...
...revert back to my troglodyte, pre-Google self.
...go to the Library and look things up in the encyclopedia
...maybe imprecate about the way things work, but then would realize that it was 'working together for my good' so I should just shut up and see what God has for me next
...play my computer games on my computer instead of messing around with Glory of Rome on Facebook, assuming losing my Google Account would mess up Facebook too, given that everything's connected to everything and everybody on the Internet.
...continue to drink distilled water
...continue to read a chapter of the Bible with breakfast in the morning
...continue to belch, fart, pick, scratch, spit and smoke cigars...sometimes all at the same time
...drink a nice glass of wine or have a beer occasionally with supper
...read more books
...watch movies
ORRRRRR...
Maybe open a new Google Account?

4:11, #602: Tom Got a Bum Rap

I read a remark this morning from a devotional that put me to thinking. The writer's point was that Doubting Thomas missed out on the appearance of Jesus in John 20:24-5 because he was intentionally NOT at their meeting. He used this as an illustration that Christians should not forsake going to church because they could miss out on a 'blessed event' by their absence.

Well, I looked at the passage, John 20:24-25, "Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, 'We have seen the Lord.' So he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.'" Look at the way it's structured...Thomas showed up LATE...period!! It's not that he didn't show up at all! Maybe someone bumped his sundial and it was running late! Maybe his donkey had a flat foot! Maybe there was a multi-donkey pile up on one of the streets of Jerusalem, maybe at the corner of No and Where (thank you, Capt. Malcolm Reynolds of 'Serenity') and he had to stay to file an accident report!!

My point in this short rant is that guys using the Bible to make a point better make it properly or those who don't think too much of them and/or their Book will continue on in their negative thinking patterns or have them reinforced by the very ones trying to change them for the good.
Thus endeth the lesson for the day. By the way, going to church is a good idea...
Got exegesis?

4:10, #601: Roamin' Whilst Roman

The Facebook game, Glory of Rome, is my current interest in strategy games. The problem is that it's geared to folks who like to build up massive armies and then go trounce some smaller fry in the less than real world that's present. My problem is I like to fight in strategy games and I frequently take on an enemy I think I can beat and learn, somewhat to my dismay that I could not. That requires going back to square #1A or B and rebuilding my entire army. I think some game developer should give us a 10 or 20% option rather than 'Win or Annihilation!'...but, hey, that's my quirk! ;p

But, I guess I'm whining here as I'm letting the game build me some buildings and some troops even as I type. I guess you could say my homemade-in-Paint Troops/Buildings logo kind of sums up my view of life, borrowed from the diary of a Civil War soldier, I forget which side, or from Eleanor of Aquitaine in the movie, "Lion In Winter," when she says, "It's 1183 and we're all barbarians!" when the subject of their all having knives arises. In the Us vs. Them world view of ALL people groups on the planet, we really ARE somebody's 'barbarians.' All you have to do is find the opposite or at least opposing view of life to that which you particularly hold and you'll figure out to whom you're the horned-helmet-wearing-smelly-sword-wielder in this life.

Speaking of horned helmet wearers...you Born Agains out there reading this are the 'barbarians' to Satan and his hordes, so aptly given voice in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters...one of my current online reads. Paul, of Tarsus, Asia Minor and locked-up-in-a-Roman-prison fame, put it well when he said our battle is not against flesh and blood but against various levels of demonic warriors who agree wholeheartedly with their infernal Boss who 'prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Fortunately, 'greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world' Fellow Barbarians!!
Got Whole Armor of God? If you need a visual point of reference to Paul's text in Ephesians 6:10-20, check out the Wiki photo at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Roman_legion_ at_ attack.jpg]

4:9, #600: Patience

I think the fact that this is post #600 shows that patience is one of those things you might actually have even when you think you don't and show it over the course of time. In fact, for all you Born Agains out there reading this here dohicky, PLEASE DON'T EVER PRAY 'FOR PATIENCE!!!' You've already GOT it as part of the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." When you say, 'Lord give me patience' the actual translation of the mental email is...'please give me one or more of those trials James 1:2-4 talks about that will make me use the patience I've already got in a way that it'll mature me in the faith!!' For all you Bible scholars who passed through Camp Cornelius at one time or another, that would be my 'dynamic equivalent' translation in the Newly Annotated Sexton Bible, should I ever get around to getting one in print among all the various English translations.

Of course, then the question arises whether or not mine would actually be 'an English translation' or would it more accurately/linguistically be considered 'an American translation,' considering we're two peoples separated by the same language...or something like that, as I recall.

I'm including the public domain picture above as yet another good example of patience...in this class by artist Spitzweg. Click on that photo and check out the incredible detail in the whole thing. I've currently got it on my desktop since I think it's cool, and I have a feeling that it might show up in Whatever Happened to Ishmael? sometime down the road, once Old Pappy Ishmael hits land. Oh, and for those of you who may have clicked on the link to WHTI? and have not told me to 'abandon ship' with my noveling, tankewberrymuch. If you've thought about it...Stifle it, Edith! as Archie Bunker was wont to say on the TV show "All In the Family."

Oh, another good use of patience is playing 'Glory of Rome' on Facebook...man, it takes time to do stuff! But, hey, that gives us addictive personality gamers a chance to multitask with another blogging opportunity while waiting for our palace to be upgraded or a report to come back from our scouts telling us we'll get our butts kicked if we try and go up against whatever region's being scouted. Hey, that reminds me...if any of you Friends want to play the game...it's somewhat of a variant of Age of Empires combined with Heroes of Might and Magic...join the game and let me know so I can offer you a cohort-ship and make you a general of your very own legion!

Well, I'm hungry in the real world, so I'm off to the Grey Havens for something that's waiting for me in the fridge that will take NO patience to eat!
Got end of the year resolutions?

4:8, #599: Snow

Well, here it is, the first major snow fall of winter 2010-2011. It's shaping up to be a pip as it started out coming up the East coast with a curling motion that's turned it into a classic Nor'easter! Yippee, Skippee! By the way, the pic is from last year's 'snowicane.'

Since it's the first one, and I have the plow on the truck already and the truck down by the Grey Havens in position to begin plowing at the appropriate time, and since there is no pressure to get anything cleared away except perhaps Carriage House Hill...yes, WTSers of past days...the Student Center is now The Carriage House and Bookstore Hill is renamed, too, in my little part of the planet; SNOW is not currently a four-letter word. Get back to me towards mid-February and I might have a different opinion, but for now we're copacetic!

Speaking of that, I guess I'd better take a walk outside to change my position here at the computer where I've been composing more of What Ever Happened to Ishmael? and perhaps enjoy the joys of tobacco; which, fyi was 'created good' there in Genesis 1!!
Got a light?

4:7, #598: In Praise of Fat

Back in the 80s I was talking to a guy who was a diesel truck mechanic who dressed out around 300lbs. He told the story of working on a truck with the cab tilted forward while it was snowing and the truck was broken down on the road.

He didn't realize that the fuel pump kept pumping fuel over top of him from a broken fuel line and a spark ignited the fuel; which set him on fire for a time. Someone extinguished the fire, called the paramedics, and when the guy was stabilized in the hospital, the doctors told him the excess amount of fat he had actually had protected his internal organs from burning, saving his life.

He vowed never to worry about his weight again. He pointed out that the experience 'burned like Hell' and I pointed out to him that it probably did not, exactly, and shared the gospel with him. Don't know what happened from that, but added him to my on-going Salvation List.
Guess eternity will tell the tale of what came later...

4:6, #597: Names

Great, great grandmother must have had a premonition about her youngest child even while he was still floating around in the amniotic fluid of his first nine-month habitation. Our family Bible which has come down to me indicates that she was a staunch Calvinist who chose to attend a Presbyterian congregation her entire life after she had 'seen the light' as a young girl, as she was wont to say, according to the stories handed down through the years. She was also a prolific writer...which might explain from whence my proclivities come...and had carefully written comments and notes throughout the large volume she apparently read daily for more than 60 years.

There were all sorts of dates throughout the Old Book that indicate that she was in the habit of reading it from Genesis to Revelation about every 18 months or so; which is significant when we realize that Pappy Ishmael was born on the very day she read the story of Hagar's departure with her son of the same name. As I said, she believed her youngest was going to be a wild one even as she carried him, as many mothers down through the ages have anticipated behavior, both good and bad, of their yet unborn offspring. None of the relatives on either side of our clans had had the name of Ishmael and there were no financial supporters to flatter, so her choice of 'Ishmael' can only be explained by providence, fate, or perhaps the fact that she screamed the name repeatedly while pushing the baby out and prior to one of those incantations the doctor asked, "What will the child be named?"

In any event, Ishmael it was. Fortunately for him, he was born in an age when Biblical names were popular, so his 'brand' was not as heinous as that of Cain's. From what we can piece together, however, he would have adequately defended himself had the local New Yawkers of similar age chided him for his mother's choice of names under somewhat stressful circumstances. The question arises, of course, as to why great great grandfather did not alter the naming process; turns out he was thinking of the same name before the birth event and was delighted to hear his wife not only acquiesce, but advocate the name.

As William Cowper, whose works also adorned great great grandmother's shelves, so adequately wrote long before the blessed event, 'God moves in a mysterious way'...children to be born.