Opus 2025-447: Judge Not

I got to thinking about one of the promises that Jesus gave to the disciples,

Matthew 19:28 (KJV) And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

This sounds really glorious at first.  Who wouldn’t want to be the one sitting on the bench and making the judgments?  Then I got to thinking about what it meant to be a judge of Israel.  Go back and read over the book of Judges.  Look at I Samuel and see what he had to go through.  Now ask yourself, “Is this really something I would want to do?”

It’s a part of our carnal nature to think of the glory of being in charge, but the real issue would be having to deal with a bunch of pesky, belligerent, selfish tribesmen.  I’m not sure that would be such a wonderful way to spend eternity, or the thousand years if you’re into the millennium.  I find myself wondering also if this is the end times and people are supposed to be redeemed at that point, what is there to judge?  Won’t we just get along?

This might give us some insight into eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-446: Headlines: Infiltration

Have you seen the report that ICE arrested a superintendent of schools in Iowa?  It seems that he was not only an illegal alien but had some previous brushes with the law.  How do you get to a position of influence like that with a criminal record?

We need to wake up and realize how deeply the America Haters have penetrated our culture.  It isn’t just the talking heads of cable news or the morons who repeat DNC talking points in the press.  It isn’t just college professors and gender affirming middle school teachers.  They are everywhere.

Keep your eyes open and your baloney meters on high.  Admit that there is evil in the world and we need to recognize it, call it out and resist it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-445: Thank You Very Much

I listened to two different presentations this past week and I noticed something in both of them that seemed to be consistent with my opinion about the speakers.  They kept saying, “Thank you very much for that answer.”

I’m sure they thought they sounded very sincere, but to me it was pretty obvious that they were like a Southerner saying, “Well, bless your heart.”  If you don’t get out much you need to realize that when a Southerner says that to you, what is really being said is, “How can anybody be that stupid?”  As these speakers would say, “Thank you very much,” anyone with a bit of discernment could tell that they were saying, “How can anybody be that stupid?”   They were also doing a vicarious eye roll.

One of my favorite jokes was a tale that had no point.  You would tell it to see who would laugh at anything.  We might also set up an algorithm that noted how often some people tap on click bait using the words “extreme”, “destroys” and “ultimate”.  That is not a complete list.  I would imagine that such a list already exists and the info is forwarded to people trying to sell you an extension on your car’s warrantee and Nigerian princes.

A simple litmus test for us today would be to see who still functions on the principle “Orange Man Bad” or repeats that Rush Limbaugh was mean spirited.  If that is the level of their discernment then you might not even want to hire them to mow your lawn.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-444: An Agent of Grace

This morning I was reading in Psalms and reveling in how the author was rejoicing in his God.  I also rejoice in my God.  It’s the same God.  He would’ve been confused by my talk about grace and how superior it was to the old covenant of the law.  You see to him the law was in reality a covenant of grace.

We have this idea, possibly because of Paul, that the law was terrible burden upon people. Really?  Being told not to lie, steal, fornicate, and covet is a terrible burden?  Cut me a break.  What you were looking at in the law is an owners manual on your new Lexus.  It’s instructions on how to make sure that you never have to make that phone call for a tow truck.

If you buy a new Lexus and you ignore the instructions given in the Owner’s Manual, your car is going to break down.  If you ignored the instructions, they may not fix it for free, but they will be willing to give you roadside service and tow you to a mechanic.  If the engine seizes up because you didn’t check or change the oil, whose fault is that?  You see the warranty information was there to give you carefree driving.  Even if they replaced your Lexus every time the engine froze, you would still end up being stranded out in the middle of the desert.

The instruction manual is there for your protection.  When you follow it, life is much better than when you ignore it.  Such is the law.  When people follow the guidelines given in the law of God, their lives are better, their children grow up and get jobs, their neighborhoods are more secure.  That’s where the United States was until recently.  Remember how you used to never lock your house?  Granted, most people didn’t actually believe in the God of the Bible, but they followed His rules and it worked.

As a Christian, I am not under the law.  I am under grace.  For the most part, I still tend to follow the law because God has a reason for the things that He expects of us.  Am I saved because of that?  No.  I am saved because of my faith in Jesus Christ.  However, the instruction manual is still in the glove compartment.  I can still check it to see how often I need to change my oil or if I need to rotate my tires.  I think of it as an agent of grace.  It’s something that God has given us to make life better . It is not a shackle.  It is a guard rail.

Ignore it at your own peril.  Remember the tow truck may take hours to get to you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-443: What Does It Mean?

What does it mean to be sacrilegious?

I think the answer might depend on whether you have a sense of humor or not.  I know many people who don’t appreciate my idea of humor.  I know many others that do.  For some it’s just that they have a different idea of the absurd.  For some others, they just have no sense of humor.  Things that might have an entire room full of people giggling and guffawing would just leave them sitting there wondering what was wrong with everyone else.  You don’t believe people are that way?  We had a math teacher on our team who was a wonderful person, but she had no sense of humor.  We would often have to stop rolling on the floor and look at her and say, “Joke, Irene, joke.”  She would smile, nod her head and laugh judiciously.

I hope God has a good sense of humor.  My sense is He does.  As the old line goes if He didn’t have a sense of humor, He wouldn’t have created me.  Or look at the platypus.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-442: The Pauline Fallacy

History has produced a long list of names that we remember.

History has also produced a long list of names that we never heard of.

Which list has made the biggest difference?

The one that I have thought about recently is the apostle Paul.  He is glorified as being the apostle to the Gentiles.  People think of him being a great teacher and evangelist.  He was.  He changed the world or at least pushed it in the right direction.  He was not the greatest influence, though, in the spread of Christianity through Europe.  Paul’s greatest contribution was not his evangelism, but his writing.  If we went through and added up all the people that Paul was responsible for witnessing to you would get a couple thousand.  If we went through and added up all the people who came to know the truth of God through his writings you would have multiplied millions, possibly billions.

Paul is remembered for his writings, but they don’t bring as much sparkle as the idea of going into a new town and spreading the gospel.  In the enthusiasm of the apostle Paul, what we often overlook is that he was just one voice and could only be in one place.  We often miss that the gospel went before him.  It amuses me reading the first chapter of the letter to the Romans.  Paul is excited about going to Rome because he wants to preach there.  What we often miss is that there was already a strong church in Rome and Paul had never even crossed the city limits.  The gospel went before him.  The gospel was spread by hundreds and thousands of little Paul’s who weren’t even thinking about being great evangelist.  They were just spreading the good news.  Paul with small potatoes compared to their combined effect.

A modern example might be Billy Graham.  I remember attending one of his crusades in Los Angeles.  The Colosseum had thousands of people listening to his preaching.  His sermons were broadcast on TV and radio.  Millions heard him.  People get impressed.  I think, though that he would say that the greatest force in evangelism with the people going to work every day and living out their Christian lives in front of others.  They did more by simply witnessing and talking about Jesus that he could ever do with all of his multimedia presentations.

Think of Jesus himself.  He never left the Jewish areas of the world.  He talked only to Jews for the most part.  He was murdered after three years of ministry.  Of course, He had advantages that none of us have.  He was the eternal, incarnate, son of God.  He has already been resurrected and had the contacts to send the Holy Spirit.  And yet, in spite of that He told His disciples that they would do bigger things that He had done.

We are still mourning the loss of Charlie Kirk.  He was one in a billion.  He was a unique servant of Almighty God.  He was taken from us too early.  But when he was speaking to those crowds of students and having such a great effect, don’t forget all the conversations that we’re going on in the dorm rooms and around the dinner tables, and in places that you would never think about it.  He was spreading salt.  Salt was doing his work under the power of the Holy Spirit and under the many individuals who are being faithful.

Think of yourself as being a Paul Junior, a Charlie Junior, a disciple of Jesus.  You will talk to people that none of them could ever come close to.  Don’t fall for the Pauline Fallacy.  We need our apostles.  Even more we need faithful salt.  That is where you and I come in.

Be salty.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-441: Busy, Busy

On my other blog, I was writing a devotional based on the following verse,

Psalm 104:30 (KJV) Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

When I shut down my iPad and went back to meditation and thinking about God, my mind turned again to the creativity of God.  I’m thinking that creativity may be another one of His attributes.  And looking at the verse in Psalms, it came to me that His creating power is not over.

I’m guessing that God is still creating new species.  I seriously doubt that He is doing it through the process of evolution except for the fact that any change I guess could be called evolutionary. God doesn’t mean it the way the pagans do.  I’m guessing that most of His creativity takes place either on the level of insects or tiny animals or else out in the jungle someplace where no human being sees it.  God is constantly working miracles, but He does them in the vagueness of mystery. One of the things about mysteries is that we will often not know until it’s too late to really appreciate it.

I got to thinking about how each and every human being that is conceived in the womb becomes a new creation.  In some way, God digs down deep in the multiple choices of DNA and genetic qualities and comes up with a unique, original human being.  God has not given up His creative power.  I would venture a guest that the constant joy of creating new human beings takes a lot of His enthusiasm for creativity.  I’m not sure how much He has left for creating new species.

Environmentalist worry about how cutting down the rainforest may be be destroying life-saving medication’s and natural cures for disease.  I guess it’s possible.  My suggestion would be they would never be discovered, even if we didn’t cut down the forest.  My other suggestion would be that in spite of cutting down the forest, God is quite capable of creating new bugs or buds that will provide these miracle drugs.

If it’s this exciting now, I wonder how God’s creativity will be applied in eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-440: Firsts: Chain Saw

I have trees that need dead wood cut out.  My bow saw isn’t up to the task with my old muscles involved.  So I finally bought a chain saw.  

Given my mechanical ability I went for an electric and got one with a chord.  It is amazing how quick it goes through the wood.  I now have to work on caution.  I really don’t want to lose a body part at this stage of the game.  I also don’t need a big branch swinging around and breaking some bones, not to mention my pride.

If I suddenly disappear it may be something more painful than death.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-439: You’re Not Old Enough

My granddaughter had met me out on the porch and we got to discussing the sunrise.  As I was trying to explain to her the dynamics of the Earth rotating and us seeing the sun rising, it became more visible.  First there was the upper curve.  Then the clouds closed and opened the window and suddenly we were looking at the bottom slice.  I came up against the problem explaining to her how we were on a planet rotating at about 1000 miles an hour and traveling through space around the sun, even faster than that while she felt she was sitting still.  It is a good question.

I thought of all kinds of illustrations and applications.  To me they seem to make sense, and I’m sure you would agree.  At the same time I could see her eyes glazing over and her mind going into neutral and her mouth wanting to say, “Sure, Grandpa.”

Someday she’ll be able to understand.  One of the things that adults forget is that there is a development in the thought process that comes with maturity.  I remember when I was placed in an experimental math class in seventh grade.  I was supposed to have great math ability or at least math aptitude.  It was probably true, however, I was not mentally mature enough to grasp certain things.  I can remember going home literally crying because I could not understand variables.  How could X be worth seven but also be worth 21?  My brain could not wrap itself around it.  And then one day there was an epiphany.  I don’t know why but suddenly it made sense.  I was on my way.

I also wasn’t ready until the moment of that epiphany.  Children are like that.  We need to understand it.  No matter how clever you are, they are not ready.  It’s not an insult to say you’ll understand when you’re older.  It’s a statement of fact.  I’m sure it frustrates the child and makes them doubt your sincerity.  That does not change the truth.

We see this in so many areas of our lives.  When I look at things in the Bible that I’m having trouble grasping, I need to remember that it’s very possible that even at my age, my mind is not mature enough to grasp the complexities and the relationships.  Some things like the trinity and the incarnation would fall in that category.  Some such as the resurrection are so glorious that we can’t comprehend.  In addition to that, there are every day events such as the murder of Charlie Kirk, where we keep asking ourselves, “Why?”

There are answers to the big questions and the mysteries of life.  We may not be able to grasp them.  We may lack vital information.  It may be just that our mental hand/eye coordination is not ready yet.  Be patient.  You’ll understand when you grow up.  Or when you are resurrected.

And don’t give me any of that, “Sure, Grandpa” nonsense.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-438: Diversity Applied

When I walked into the room that was reserved for our group dinner I noticed there were only two people there, Joy and Larry.  I sat down and very quickly the waitress brought in the iced tea that she asked me about as I walked across the dining room.  She commented that she hadn’t noticed Joy and Larry come in.  I’m not sure the exact sequence of events, but she went and brought them water and as she was leaving, Joy said to her, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.  Neither could the waitress at first.  Then the waitress smiled and walked back over.  Joy stood up and gave her a big hug.  It was a wonderful warm moment.  It was the kind of expression of human compassion and caring that exhibits ways in which we as believers can witness to our world.

I don’t know where the waitress is spiritually.  I’m not a hugger.  I wouldn’t go hugging waitresses anyway if I were.  I don’t think my wife would approve.  But it was a moment of spontaneous love expressed to someone others might look down on as a servant.

I trust that our presence in that room is touching people with the fact that we love Jesus and that Jesus loves them.  They may not know the words.  They may not even know the name as anything but a curse.  But they do know that there’s something about us.

Live joyfully.  Be aware that you influence people even when you’re not aware of it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-437: Passengers Don’t Need GPS

I get very frustrated at times not knowing what’s down the road.  You would think by my age I would have learned to stop fretting over things I have no control over.  I think part of being created an image of God is that we want to take charge of things and to make decisions.  At least we want to know what the decisions are and what the options are.  We want to know why the decisions were made.  When you’re in the backseat, you don’t have that opportunity.

When you’re sitting in the back and the seat in front of you has a headrest, it’s a very good chance that you can’t even see the choices that are ahead.  There’s no way which you would know which is the right route.  You have to trust the driver.  If you are the driver, you might have a GPS, you might have been there before, you might have checked out a paper map.  You might have a wife giving you instructions.  But if you’re in the backseat, all you can do is look out the window and listen.

That’s kind of like what it is living by faith.  Often in life, we are not in the driver seat.  I guess in reality you would say we never are really in the driver seat.  I remember the semi humorous line that somebody submitted to the title, “God Is My Co-Pilot”.  The correct statement should’ve been that God is the pilot and I am the passenger.

Relax.  God will give you the information you need when you need it.  Think of an actually reliable GPS.  I don’t mean the ones that tell you to go right 10 feet past the intersection.  I’m talking about the GPS that tells you well ahead of time to get over in the right lane and get ready to turn right.

I almost wish that God could give us a little loudspeaker on our shoulders, which would tell us every once in a while in that phrase that someone came up with, “I’ve got this.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-436: Catalog of Fear

There are at least four different types of fear that are common in our lives:

Fear as awe or reference.
Fear as being startled.
Fear as concern.
Fear as craven panic

The first fear is that which we see in the Bible as it relates to a fear of God.  It is based on the idea of God’s awesomeness and how we should have reverence for Him.  It also is sometimes used as an adjective to express the dynamic depth of God‘s creative ability.  We see this in Psalms.

(Psa 139:14 KJV)  I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

This is the kind of fear I felt for my father.  It is healthy and necessary.

Then there is the fear that we have when a scorpion drops off the curtain onto your arm while you’re naked in the shower.  Or the times when my grandchildren are able to sneak up on me and make me jump and squeal.  There is at least a moment of panic and sometimes a total blitzkrieg of screaming yelling and shaking.

There is the fear which is just in a general sense, concern.  What comes to mind here is the speech that FDR made where he said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  

And of course, the last one is that fear that makes us into petrified patriots.  It is that fear that the government is going to come and get us.  It’s a fear of the mysterious “they”.  It is that fear which acts like a regulator on our accelerator pedal or like the self driving cars that will suddenly hit the brakes for what look like no reason and throw you toward the windshield.  It is a consuming and controlling fear.

What instigated this was my wife quoting a talking head who said something that I’ve said many times, that our fear of AI is vastly overblown.  That’s my paraphrase, I did not actually hear him say whatever he said.  Should we be afraid of AI?  Not of AI itself, what we need to be afraid of are the programmers and developers who are guiding AI and telling it what to do.  If you remember the Isaac Asimov science fiction novels about robots this will resonate.  There were the four laws of robotics and I think the first one was that you should not do anything to harm a human being.  If our developers and our programmers do not start with that foundation, then there is no telling where some of this stuff could go.

We have lived with this reality all our lives.  It applies to any new technology from atomic energy to VHS.  They all have the potential for good or evil.  Atomic energy can give us pollution free power or destruction.  The VHS, which had such promise for education and enrichment became the avenue of pornography.  The fear needs to be focused on the human element.

So fear God, get prepared to be startled by events, be concerned about those events, and fear the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.  And don’t forget to lock your doors.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-435: He Doesn’t Come for the Tea

I continue to meditate and contemplate the concept of prayer.  As I believe I said before, I do not understand the common understanding of what prayer is all about.  I remember seeing my thoughts expressed in an article online written by a Jewish author for the Jewish press.  He may have been a rabbi.  His basic point was if God knows everything and is all powerful then what is the point of telling Him what we want in prayer?  He already knows.  He already has the ability to do something about it.  Why do we waste His time with our grocery list?

That’s what I call much of the prayers I hear and the time spent in prayer:  grocery list intercession.  We have a long list of requests and we lay them out.  In our Wednesday night service and then Sunday school people will share their requests.  The person in charge will write them down.  If everything goes perfectly, the leader of our prayer team will make a note of them and send them out to us in an email.  It’s all very well meaning and supportive.  And we have a good time in prayer.  It serves to help us communicate with God and each other.  However, I wonder if we don’t understand that God heard it when we told the pastor, He saw it when the pastor wrote it down, He was listening when further information was asked for.  So what is the point of going through it all again?

As I sit on the porch in the dark, I am doing what I consider to be prayer.  I’m sitting.  I am listening.  I might do some speaking.  I contemplate on the attributes of God.  I think about different Bible verses where God has interacted with people or made statements.  In the process I get a better feel of what God wants me to know for the day.  God is there with me.  I have no doubt about that.  I don’t believe, though that He came with an expectation of little sandwiches, tea and gossip.  I think He came to interact with one of His believers, one of His children.  I don’t think He wants to hear about my opinions about how my neighbors are raising their children.  He doesn’t want to hear all the social things that are on my mind.  He wants to deal with me on eternal matters.

The journey continues.  The questions continue.  What’s vitally important is that I continue to listen because I know God is speaking.  I will drink my coffee, but He doesn’t need any. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-434: Woe Is Me

We often hear talking heads lamenting the violence in America.  We see charts with a lot of numbers that look bad for us.  Most of this is illusion by the media and the elites to control us and keep us in a state of fear.  They are designed to make us feel like America is a failed state.

I have also seen the chart that removes the blue, Democrat hell-holes called cities from the equation and that moves us from one of the most dangerous to one of the most safe.  It is quite a demographic illusion we live in.  I was also looking at some click-bait about a murder.  I only look at the bait, not the story.  It seems a regular feature.  If you read it you find out that the perpetrator is often a multiple offender who will again be let out on the streets by our blue, Democrat demons called judges.  

In reality it would be easy to make our pits of despair into islands of hope.  Enforce the law.  Punish the perpetrators.  Lock them up and put the key where it can’t be found by left wing minions.  The idea of an island in the Everglades surrounded by alligators is a good model.  While they are locked up take away the TV, gyms, A/C and any other privileges that make life endurable.  Make it so they don’t want to go back.  Make it so that working a menial job is more attractive than spending your life in a small cell.

Some people would call the results a miracle.  In reality it is simply common sense, cause and effect and civilization.

homo unius libris

Opus 2025-433: Full Court Press

I was marveling at the way in which God can deal with human beings who are each individual creatures.  I guess statistically you may be able to find someone in the world that is almost identical to you, but in reality it’s not going to happen.  We each look at things differently.  We have different values.  We have different priorities.  You get the idea.

And yet God deals with all of us in a way that is just and righteous.  It may not be fair, but it is just and righteous.  How does that work?

As I was pondering this, I got to thinking about the game of basketball.  Basketball has rules.  The rules are the same for both teams.  The equipment is the same for both teams.  Both nets are the same height on the ground.  The time allowed is the same for both teams.  Now I accept the fact that you may have a referee that is not having a good day, but they are supposed to be the same for both teams.

Now think about the UCLA full court press introduced by John Wooden.  I marvel at watching how in his first national championship with a bunch of guys who are really too short to be playing that level of basketball win it all walking away.  It was awesome.  It was coaching.

When I was in high school we had a church basketball team and we had a young guy who came in and taught us to use the full court press.  We ate them up.  We were 17 wins and one loss that year and the one loss was in triple overtime against a team that had three players who were starters in the freshman team at our college the next year.  Opposing them were a bunch of us non-basketball stars.  We had a guy who was good on baseball and I believe one who ran track, but they were the only genuine athletes in the group and they were not tall or great basketball players.

What made the difference?  Coaching.  Knowing how to make things work in a way that brought us to victory.  That’s how God works with us with our differences.  He coaches us in a unique way.  He knows us as individuals.  He knows our strengths and weaknesses.  He knows our environment.

And he gives us the benefit of a spiritual full court press.  Of course, it only works if we listen to what He tells us and play the game the way He teaches us.

Play ball.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-432: A Timely Reminder

I’m reading one of CS Lewis’s books, Surprised by Joy.  I’m enjoying myself.  It is deep enough to make me think and well written enough that I don’t get bogged down.

Every once in a while when I’m reading something like this it comes to me that I am nowhere near as clever as I sometimes think I am.  I accept the fact that I am at the top end of mediocre.  My son keeps repeating the George Carlin point that half of the population is below average. When you think of average is being an IQ of 100 and not being capable of any advanced thought or analysis then being in the top half is not as impressive as you might think it is.

I enjoy writing.  I enjoy reading.  I keep living in the illusion that I have something to say.  It’s when I’m reading someone who just flows like C.S. Lewis does or Jordan Peterson, I realize that as much as I’m above average, I am still far from the upper part of the curve.

It’s humbling.  It’s also challenging.  There is still the quest to make the most of what I have to work with.  One of the things that modifies my thinking is that I believe that I’m still alive at 77 years because God has something for me to do.  It’s not some impossible dream like Don Quixote had.  It’s not building a perpetual motion machine.  It’s not finding the lost cord.  It’s simply that there are probably some gaps in the world that I can stick my finger in.

And I intend to continue sticking in my finger.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-431: I Knew That

God knows everything. That’s such a simple statement, but it is so complicated in its application that it loses it meaning.  One of the philosophical statements is that God knows every possible outcome of every possible decision down to eternity.  That is mind-boggling and totally useless.

I was wondering in one of my flights of fantasy if God ever read any of my posts and nodded his head saying, “I never thought of that.”  What an absurd question.  I’m sure that in a sense God knew what I was going to write before it even entered my mind, but then we enter into the issue of free will, and that statement that we were created in the image of God, how does all that work out?

In trying to understand how God can know everything and not just be mental mush I’m afraid I have to go to the human predicament.  If I said to you, there are 26 letters in the alphabet, you would probably answer, “I knew that.”  That answer becomes relatively humorous in certain stories because the person obviously didn’t know that and wasn’t thinking about it.

I believe that you probably knew there were 26 letters in the alphabet.  My next question would be when was the last time you thought about that?  That question doesn’t apply to people who have preschoolers or young children who are trying to learn their alphabet.  For you, this would be a daily occurrence.  For most of us it’s tucked away in a file cabinet of our mind readily accessible, foundational, and something that we actually have embraced.  We still don’t think about it on a regular basis.  We don’t ponder on the mystery of, “Why 26 letters?”  Other alphabets have different numbers of letters.  We don’t glory in those differences or try to figure out the philosophical reasons for it.  We just file away the knowledge and read our books based upon that truth.

I think it must be with God in the same way.  Yes He knows everything.  But He has much of it filed away in places He can access if He needs it, but it’s not really cluttering up His day.

I am sure that God knows everything.  I would qualify that by saying that He knows everything that He wants to know.  I would qualify that by saying all of it is not at the front of His mind.  Sure, He has a glorious filing system and perfect, instant recall.  That’s why He can look at something we say or do and nod His head and say, “Interesting thought.”  Of course He may just shake His head and wonder if we had a bad pizza last night.  But then He knows that too.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-430: On the Street: Sign Me Up

As I was driving toward home a truck going the other direction caught my attention.  On the side it said, “A Native American Woman Owned Company”.  That is saying a mouth full.  I am not sure why I am supposed to care about that.  Does it mean you need a reservation?  Does it mean they are always late but well dressed?  I am not sure what the company did but they got my attention.

I was wondering if Bruce, aka Caitlyn, Jenner who was born in America and is thus a native American could join their board?  So many questions; so little information.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-429: In the Image of Bug

This morning, my mind went to a meme that I saw attacking artificial sweeteners.  It showed a picture of something which I couldn’t identify with a group of bugs, walking around it and not touching it.  The written portion pointed out that ants and bees, and a long list of other creatures would not touch this particular artificial sweetener.  I think their point was because the ants didn’t eat it, we probably shouldn’t put it in our bodies.

I’m sure that if I could think for a while, I could come up with all kinds of things that I might eat that ant wouldn’t.  Conversely, I vaguely in the back of my mind, remember watching a video of a group of ants, hauling the carcass of another dead bug towards their tunnels.  Am I supposed to take that picture as suggesting I need to eat more dead bugs that I find laying on the ground?

How often do we see things that are represented as facts and connected to other facts and acting like they actually had something to do with each other?  I think it’s an overwhelming habit we have.  We see it in the climate change advocates.  Drought is a result of climate change.  Floods are result of climate change.  Heat waves are the result of climate change.  Blizzards are a result of climate change.  What’s key here is they change their terminology from global warming, and global cooling to climate change.  I remember a line that I believe Dick Cheney threw out one time after describing dramatically this climate change and saying it’s called “winter”.

Don’t get too excited about all of the people telling you that everything is going to kill you.  My understanding is we’re going to die eventually anyway.  The side effects of the medicine they want you to take might be more serious than the side effects of your artificial sweetener.  We can’t get the data.  We just have to use the common sense that was built into our bodies.

Which brings me to my point.  We are created in the image of God, not in the image of bug.  We are certainly not created in the image of contemporary science.  Bugs don’t care what we think, they just want to bite us.  Science doesn’t care much about us as long as they get paid for coming up with the opinions that they are told to express.  Our God gave us free will and we are free to make choices based on what our minds and the Holy Spirit tell us is right.

Make sure you are channeling the right image.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-428: God’s Favorite Artist

If God were to visit an art museum, I wonder which room or style of art He would spend most of His time considering?  I know I would want to go to the Remington displays and enjoy the action packed presentation.  I would spend absolutely no time with Picasso.

I think God would enjoy Picasso more than Remington.  I’m using Picasso as an example because he’s the only name that comes to mind for that genre of artwork, the kind which looks like the artist was having a bad dream and did a good job of portraying it.  Impressionistic?  I don’t know.  But I know what I like.  I’m just guessing that what God would like.

I got started down this road thinking about how we were created in the image of God.  That took me to thinking of the statue of David and some of the bronze works that I’ve seen in pictures.  Does that marble statue actually represent David?  Not even close.  It is impossible to take the complexity and details of a human being and carve them in stone.  In the same way, it would be impossible to draw a picture of God who is spirit using physical mediums.

That’s when you have art, or what is called art by the specialist, that looks like somebody took a pile of tinker toys, gummy bears, and melted Legos, and threw them at the canvas.  You might come close to representing the mystery of God.  Your picture would make no sense to someone thinking logically but might strike a cord in someone who is just going for the gestalt experience.

I know God is not an old man with a flowing beard sitting on an ornate throne.  I know that no picture I’ve ever seen even comes close to representing God yet I recognize what the artist is attempting to do.  I can actually get a closer idea of what God is like by reading what the Bible has to say about Jesus.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder someone said.  The image of God is in the soul of the individual.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-427: The Wisdom of Democracy

If you have not studied history much it seemed like just a clever meme:

“Democrats have reached the ‘murder your political opponents’ stage of democracy.”

The sad reality is that the slogan is an accurate summary of democracy.  It is one of the reasons why the Founding Fathers clearly stated that they did not want to establish a democracy.

Greece is loudly touted as the source of democracy and that is generally true.  What is not added is the fact that those democracies eventually deteriorated into tyranny.  Several times in the history of Athens the democracy voted to execute successful military leaders because they made some people mad.  Eventually things tended to get so chaotic that there was either a revolt by the oligarchy or a takeover by a strong man.  

Goodby democracy.

You may have noticed all the calls for democracy by the left wing.  That is because they know that the mob is easy to manipulate with fake news.  I don’t know if you have seen the meme that shows Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Lion gathered around a fire made of the Scarecrow.  They took a vote.  The majority spoke.

Do not pray for democracy.  Pray for the representative republic with checks and balances that the Founding Fathers set up.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-426: Click Bait: We Are All Going to Die

I was only able to read the first part of the headline, but it was truly frightening.  I think we have now reached the point where we know there’s no chance of living to a healthy old age.  The target today was baking soda.  As I said, I could only read the first part of the click bait, but it was clear that they were going to do an expose on the benefits and the dangers of baking soda .

You realize if they take away your baking soda, you lose your chocolate chip cookies?  I’m not enough of a chef to know what else is involved, but it would really drastically change our lives.  Add that the fact that baking soda has been used, I would guess, for centuries if not millennia and the human race seems to have survived.  Not so anymore.  Now some agency or government entity or Talking Heads Internet Guru has decided that they need to look into the dangers of baking soda.

I would say the next target may be water, but there are enough people who are already paranoid and driven to bottled water that I think we’ve already arrived.

Stay tuned.  Your water will kill you.  The air you breathe will kill you.  Too much salt will kill you.  Eggs will kill you.  Coffee will kill you.  Now you can add baking soda to the list.

When will they claim that reading blog posts is deadly?

In memoriam. 

homo unius libri 

Opus 2025-425: Higher than the Angels?

If my memory serves me correctly, the book of Hebrews says that we were created higher than the Angels.  I could have that backwards, it doesn’t matter.  At least it doesn’t matter to me.  It may matter to the angels....I checked and I did have it backwards.

Which brings me to my thought.  When God created man in His own image, the implication is that this was a unique step.  It made me wonder if He had created the angels in His image.  I don’t see any reference to that.  It got me to thinking about the differences between us and the angels.

Angels by definition are powerful creatures.  They will be a large part of the heavenly host in the final battle.  I like the picture that Rose is Rose has of the guardian angel when he puts on his armor.  He is a fearsome and awesome creature.  He has power.  He can move between heaven and earth.  I’d have to look and see all the different things that Angels do, but are they created in the image of God?

There’s a part of me that would like to think so.  I am so grateful for what I considered to be my guardian angel that I want the best for him.  At the same time, I can’t make it a statement of fact, unless I have some scripture to back it up.

I think that humans are unique in the fact that we are created in the image of God.  Since I believe that angels rejoice in the presence of God and know what joy is and what worship is I can’t say that image is all there is.  Perhaps there’s a different word used in the angels’ language about their nature.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-424: Election 2026: Elon Visionary

Did you ever stop to ask yourself if Elon Musk had the right idea but just went about it wrong?  I’m talking here regarding the click bait about him starting a new political party.  Was he just pulling a Trump troll?  Was he just seeing what kind of reactions he could get out of the media and the Trump haters?  Was he serious?

Like so many things he comes up with he is a couple steps ahead of everyone else.  Not being a political animal it’s possible that he was sincere, but didn’t realize it would not go far.  That doesn’t mean the idea is bad.  Keep in mind that the Federalist Party died out because it lost touch with the American people.  It was replaced by the Whig party.  That party died out for the same reason and was replaced by the Republicans.  The Republicans ran on the platform of free men, free land, and I believe free silver.  They got the first two.  They did away with slavery and they passed the Homestead act.

From the actions that we are seeing in the Republican Party it may be time to replace them.  It seems that the Republican Party is currently playing games in Congress to keep the president from appointing people during recess.  It seems like the Rinos are going overboard trying to block the things that we elected Trump to do.  It may be time for them to go.

I don’t see a Musk party, but I do see the possibilities of a MAGA party.  At the risk of sounding like I’ve turned my brain off and gone into socialist mode, I would say that the coming midterm elections should have only one litmus test for people who love this country.  That litmus test is “Do they support Donald Trump?”  I’m not calling for long-term, eternal, devotion to the Messiah of American politics.  I’m calling for an attempt to turn this country back towards an actual representative republic.  We need to get rid of the professionals and get people who love America and want to make it great.

We differ on different things.  I am not 100% supportive of everything Donald Trump wants to do.  I still think he spends too much.  I still remember that he pushed the vaccine at the beginning.  I could probably come up with other issues.  But he loves America and we need that.  I would suggest that this midterm be a MAGA event and that when we get to the next presidential election, we elect someone who is MAGA and possibly even start a MAGA party.

Radical change like this does not happen from the top down.  It starts by electing people to city councils, state offices, Congress, and anything else below the president.  When you have enough representation to show your serious, then you go for the big ticket.

ThInk MAGA.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-423: Article of Faith

I don’t know if you remember your junior high school English well enough to know the difference, but there is a major difference between the definite article and the indefinite article.  A definite article is the word “the”.  When you say “the” house you are specifically indicating one location.  When you say “a” house, you are talking about a genre of construction.

What brings this up was a sound bite.  I was walking through a room that had a bunch of Talking Heads discussing the speech by Erika Kirk.  Someone mentioned the obvious influence of a higher power in her demeanor and in the things she said.  I didn’t stay to follow it.  I don’t really like Talking Heads .  I listened to her speak because I wanted to hear what she said.  I don’t listen to the Talking Heads because I wanted to hear what she said, not how they interpreted it.  It is much better for my blood pressure.

And this phrase that I heard “a higher power” is a good example of the kind of nonsense that we hear from Talking Heads, who are awash in their mediocrity, political correctness, and editors.  It was not “a” higher power that was recognized and moving.  It was “the” higher power.  We’re not talking about the many spirits that the pagan world looked at as causing trees and animals to do what they do.  What Erika was talking about and responding to was the one and only God of the universe.  He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and you can just keep on down the list of attributes.  That is whom she was referring to, not some vague force that moves above the clouds.

She would use the definite article not the indefinite one.  Know the difference.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-422: The Wall

I was sitting speculating on the place of additives and preservatives in our food and how the gurus of health are telling us that we need to avoid them or we will die.  OK, that may be a little too dramatic, but you know the things you’re hearing.  We’re used to science going back and forth on whether eggs are good for you, whether coffee will stunt your growth, whether vitamin D will cause Alzheimer’s and other exciting theories.  Most of them are pretty much groundless and are pushed for a commercial reward.

But I was wondering if when God created man and develop the immune system that we have if there isn’t a residual way of dealing with these additives that is hidden below the surface, waiting to come out.  Buried deep in the sections of DNA previously thought of as junk there might be an enzyme that will use an unpronounceable additive to cure cancer.

I think I’ve written about that before, but that took me to another thought.  When you look at the controversy between evolution and creation and consider the way in which scientist who are believers have been trying to hide behind the concept of design in the universe, I wonder if this is a wall that science is starting to run into that they will not be able to get beyond until they open their minds to reality.

When doing research on the Big Bang theory for a sermon on Genesis 1:1, it became clear that this theory was resisted by scientist mainly because it seemed to indicate a designer, a prime mover, the existence of God.  Several are on record as saying that’s why they resisted it.  There are other instances where the theoretically objective field of science has been held back because the scientist didn’t want to embrace ideas that might point toward a supreme being.

So I wonder if an areas in biology and physics the scholars are going to have to run into reality before they can move beyond the wall.  Are there concepts that they cannot approach unless they are open to all possibilities?

My memory goes back to a science fiction story I read years ago in which someone was in a jail cell demanding to be let out.  He kept throwing himself against the door.  It would not give.  He literally rattled his cage.  No matter how hard he pushed the door wouldn’t open.  The story went on, but the climax was when someone came and told him he could leave anytime he wanted to and they simply pushed the gate open and walked in because it wasn’t really locked.  The problem was it just opened one way and the story ends with the prisoner again, throwing himself against the door and refusing to pull.

What kind of doors that are standing ready to be opened is science ignoring because of the potential, not the proof, but the potential, that it might indicate there is design in the universe?

The science is settled.  So is the Titanic and its not going anywhere. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-421: The Big Sneeze

I sometimes think God keeps me around just to see what kind of ridiculous connections I make in my semiconscious mind.

This morning out on the porch, I found myself having the need to sneeze.  It was a resounding effort, followed by aftershocks.  My mind entered sacrilegious mode, and I asked myself, “I wonder if God ever sneezes?”  When we come across anthropomorphism of God, we hear about His hands and His feet and such.  When the creativity really gets going, we talks about God‘s feathers.  So maybe it’s not sacreligious to wonder if God has a nose and sneezes.

I know this is ridiculous.  Somehow, I think that God could clear his cosmic nasal passages a better way.  I also don’t really believe that God has a nose or need to sneeze, just to be clear.  This is just the way my mind works in the dark morning.  Sometimes it works that way in the light of day.

That took me to wondering about the Big Bang.  Wouldn’t it be amusing to get up into heaven and find out that the Big Bang really happened, but it was just God sneezing.  Think about how the matter of the universe was supposed to have spread faster than the speed of light.  Think of how all the laws of physics have to be pretty much defy in order for the Big Bang to happen.

Don’t bother following me on Facebook.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-420: Sugar Coated Evil

I had a conversation recently with a very nice lady.  She seemed to be gentle and kind and wanting the best for everyone.  She was soft spoken and I’m sure that she could have given you a good presentation on how we should love our enemies and how God is love and so forth.

She was what I am calling sugar coated evil.

The issue that got us going was homosexuality.  She had a friend, possibly just an acquaintance, who had been to seminary and was giving her some song and dance about how the Old Testament was geared for those days and had nothing to do with us today.  She had several examples, but the one that stood out to me was the condemnation of homosexuality in the Old Testament.  She seemed totally unaware that Paul also addressed this in the book of Romans.  She mentioned how Jesus never talked about it.  She was listening to this seminary graduate.

All I could really tell her that she could hear was, “You’ve been lied to.”  I don’t know if she heard even that.  I don’t know if she understood what I was saying.  I’m relatively sure she didn’t accept it.  I turned to Romans and read verses in chapter one where Paul is very specific about homosexual behavior.  I told her that in some of the list of actions that will keep us out of heaven he also addresses it.  The only answer she had was that if they were born that way, and God made them that way, then it can’t be wrong.

I pointed out to her that God made me also and I’m certainly not perfect.

We ran out of time, but I see this kind of thinking going on when we deal with Islam.  Islam is not a religion of peace.  There may be some uninformed Muslims whom we would consider moderate, but generally speaking they probably don’t have any idea what the Quran says.  I who cannot read Arabic and have no indication of what it actually says, can read in the different translations that it is not a religion of peace.  And yet we have all these people who want to believe that it’s just a few radicals that are causing the problem.

I would say that they are “sugar coated evil”.

People like to act like they know what they’re talking about but they are generally lazy and don’t want to be confronted by what makes him uncomfortable.  I have yet to meet anyone who has read the Quran.  It is readily available in many translations and can be read in your spare time.  I read mine on a month of vacation in preparation to have to teach it in seventh grade history.  It didn’t keep me from doing anything I wanted to do on vacation.  The same is true of such things as the Communist Manifesto.  The information is available, but people are too comfortable to access it.

Beware of the sugar coating.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-419: AM and PM

I am not talking about time but Times:  Ante Muerte and Post Muerte.  Although I would not put the murder of Charlie Kirk on the level of the battles of Hastings or Tours, it is going to make a difference.

I am still surprised that I don’t feel rage over the phlegm in the face this represents.  I may feel a bit of anger but my predominate emotion is sadness.  I have a great sadness for his family and what they have lost.  That is enough to demand blood.  I also have a great sadness for the fools who think that the destruction of America will bring in days of dancing in the sprinklers and riding unicorns.  It won’t.  It will bring back the Dark Ages with a vengeance.  What these twinkies don’t understand is that when they are no longer useful idiots the Marxist overlords will send them to the Gulag.  If they are lucky they will just be shot.  They will not be living in the villas on the hill separated from the smelly rabble.  They will become the midden of Marxism.

In a sense I am not sorry for Charlie.  As a believer I know that he has moved on into eternity and God is probably explaining the plan to him.  We have questions, and rightfully so, but we also have faith and confidence in the big picture.  I think that if Charlie could sit down with us now he would be the least surprised at his death.  I think he knew it was inevitable.  I remember listening to one of his meetings at a college as he explained to one of his antagonists that he received death threats all the time.  I think he said there had been two attempts on his life.  He may have hoped God would spare him but he knew there was a target painted on his chest at every rally.  He still continued to serve God and America by going out in joy.

Keep in mind that the goal of terrorism is to get people to stop living their lives and huddle in fear.  They would love it if we were afraid to go out in public.  They would rejoice if we wanted the government to do something.  Pardon the conspiracy theorist in me but I am not sure that the deep state wasn’t involved in this some way.  Those are wins for evil.

What would cause celestial fist bumps from Charlie is if we go out more boldly, stand taller and speak up more powerfully.  If you need a tutorial on how to do that, go watch some of his interactions on college campuses.  I would always express to people how amazed I was at his courtesy and ability to be polite to people who were obviously deficient in truth and ability.  If we need a motto for the morning I would suggest,

(1Pe 3:14-7 NAS77) But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

Go in grace and peace.  Keep in mind that our hope is not in Charlie but in the Jesus that Charlie served.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-418: Embrace the Epithet

I have written about the philosophy of deconstructionism a few times.  The thing that affects us most is the way in which the Progressive* left has been redefining words based on the theory that words actually have no specific meaning, they depend entirely on context. While there is a grain of truth in the the big problem is that it is the liberals who decide what the context is, not the actual facts of the case.

One example of this is the taking of the verb hate and coming up with a noun hater.  I would accept the fact that the idea of being a hater was available to previous generations, but it didn’t become a pejorative term to be cast at anyone who disagreed with you.

It may be time for the good people of the world to embrace the epithet. Contrary to what a lot of well meaning, good hearted people want to believe, there are some things that deserve hating.  In fact, they demand hating.  In fact, God demands that we hate them.  Consider the following verse,

Proverbs 8:13 (NASB95) “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.

Evil exist.  It may take many forms.  One of the most obvious is what you see going on in Europe, where gangs of Muslim men roam around and rape anyone who looks available.  There is no punishment.  There is no condemnation.  They feel very righteous because they look upon anyone who’s not Muslim as being subhuman.  Women are even lower than that.  If you cannot define this as evil then you’re moral compass has been dropped and the needle is stuck in one direction.  It doesn’t matter which way you pointed it’s not gonna tell you what is true and righteous.

So if someone calls you a hater, embrace it.  It may be that they are speaking the truth.  It may be that you are doing what God wants you to do and that you are hating evil.  By the way, this is not the only verse in the Bible that reinforces this idea.

*(Liberals, educators, cultural Marxists, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, fascists (I repeat myself), elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-417: The Attribute of Variety

Is variety an attribute of God?  My initial, and probably final, suspicion is no.  Variety would go directly opposed to the attribute of immutability.  And yet I wonder.

God created us in His image.  That’s established.  The Bible very clearly says so.  The big question has always been “What does that mean?”  As I think about how some people never laugh at my jokes and how some people never get the points I’m making in a discussion, I think about how we have different ways of looking at the world.  We have variety.

I’m not establishing a doctrine here.  I’m just speculating.  The fact that each and every one of us human beings is different could some way reflect on being created in the image of God.  God’s character does not change.  And yet as He doesn’t change, He responds differently to different people.  He shows variety in His relationships.  I have this deep feeling that His actions are consistent with his character and His values, but that isn’t always clear to us.  We don’t always see how that works.  The same way that we don’t understand each other means that we may never understand God.

That is satisfactory.  As I’ve said, another context, if we could understand Him, He would not be God.

So rejoice in your individuality.  It’s probably a good thing that you can’t find anybody who agrees with you.  That may be one reason why God tells us to love and doesn’t tell us to make other people love us.  It’s probably why we are called to serve and not to look for servants.  That’s why we are admonished to listen instead of talking.

I would guess I would have to say that variety is an attribute of humanity and just a distant shadow of the variety that is present in the character of God.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-416: Need a Hug?

There’s a big difference between being accepted a hug and being hugged.  One reflects a commitment involving listening, understanding, enduring relationships, and the other simply expresses a momentary emotion of support or just social expectation.

I’m not a big hugger.  I’m quite willing to hug my family and have been known to chase my grandchildren across the house with arms stretched wide as they run away squealing.  All that is wonderful.  I do not however by nature, throw my arms wide when I see someone.  That’s not how I greet.  Because I am a pleaser, cough, cough, I am willing to go through the process of hugging if that’s what somebody needs.  I will often ask them, just to clarify, “Are you a hugger?”  Usually, they will say yes.  And so I graciously condescend to hug them back.

God is both a hugger and an acceptor.  Of course there are times when He refuses to do either one.  He hugs when we just need a momentary touch of encouragement.  He accepts when we have those long conversations and I’m looking for the right word or trying to express something from deep inside me.  He saves judgment for the great white throne.  Because He accepts as a general attitude for His children, I am quite confident in opening my heart my mind when I’m with Him.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-415: Dimensions

The Bible talks about heaven and hell.  I find myself wondering how much of those concepts we can understand.  That sense of wonder expands to us understanding or grasping God in His expanse and Jesus as deity.  What will it be like in their presence.  Honestly, I don’t think we can comprehend it now.

We as human beings are locked into the four dimensions.  I have no trouble comprehending four dimensions that we can understand:  Length, width, height, and time.  I was thinking about how we as human beings are locked into our sense of spatial reality which involves those dimensions.  Scientist and mathematicians talk about additional dimensions.  I really can’t remember the last number I heard, but it was far beyond me.  Those dimensions can only be grasped in the human mind in terms of mathematical formulas or laws of physics.  They have no relationship to our senses or our awareness.

Will we be locked into this box in eternity?  Will God forever limit our abilities to comprehend, or at least know that we don’t comprehend?  I think of Genesis 1:1 where God created the heavens and the Earth.  We are having a hard time, understanding the Earth and all of the complexity involved in it, how can we understand heaven?

If God adapts us in the resurrection in such a way that we can comprehend some of these additional dimensions, will we still be human beings?  We still think of ourselves as individuals?  We don’t believe that we’re going to be absorbed into Nirvana or the Force.  We believe we will retain our individuality.  What does that look like when we are removed from the limitations of our corporal bodies?

So many questions. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-414: Animism Is Alive and Well

If you know what animism is you probably are looking at me as if I’ve lost my marbles or considering moving on to reading something else.  If you don’t know, what animism is, you may be feeling the same way, but let me give a brief explanation.

Animism is a belief in primitive cultures of the existence of spirits in almost every object you see.  If you were an animist you assume that every rock has a little god or spirit and every tree the same.  I have heard stories, I don’t know if they’re true, that American Indians would thank the deer for giving up his life so they could eat.  I can think of people apologizing to trees when they cut them down to make lumber.

You might think we’re beyond that but the superstitions of animism reside with us at all times.  They are still alive and well.  Have you ever knocked on wood?  Do you avoid black cats?  Have you ever worried after you broke a mirror about the potential for bad luck?  When you were a child, did you ever chant, “Step on a crack, your break your mother‘s back; step on a line you break your mother spine”?  These things are still with us.  They are a residue of animism.

Now let me really stick my finger into it.  People who talk to their pets are practicing animism.  It’s amazing some of the great conversations people have with a cat or a dog.  Some might even have those conversations with a hamster or with a plant growing in the kitchen window.  They would deny it, but I believe they think that these objects actually are aware of what they’re saying.  I will talk to the cat when it’s here and my wife is gone.  I don’t talk to it thinking it understands me.  I talk to it because I think it enjoys the sound of human voices, and it brings a sense of peace to the animal.  I wouldn’t talk to a plant thinking it understood.  I would talk to a plant thinking that it rejoiced in the carbon dioxide I was exhaling.

But some people actually think that their cat understands them.  No, I’m not talking about simple understanding of words like “outside” or “eat”.  I’m talking about asking the cat if his bed is comfortable or if the room is too hot.  I’m talking about sharing your recent romantic struggles with your dog.

So yes, animism is still with us.  I don’t know if that’s a big problem for us.  I don’t know how seriously our primitive ancestors took it.  But it is alive and well

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-413: Publishing Deadline

When old people keep telling you the same stories over and over again you need to understand that this is not repetition.  This is editing for publication.  Each time they tell the story it gets better.

Appreciate their efforts to improve, or should I say our efforts.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-412: So That’s What It’s Like

In thinking and researching on the topic of heaven and hell and wondering what is involved in the afterlife my mind came to what it will be like when this old body gets resurrected.  Paul uses terms like corruptible and incorruptible to describe the difference.  He compares the mortal with the immortal.  He doesn’t go into a lot of detail.  About all we have specifically would be to look at Jesus when He was resurrected and the things that he did at that point.  I think Jesus could’ve done most of those things before He was resurrected, but He didn’t.  He confined himself to a normal human body for the most part.

It occurred to me that the greatest benefit of eternity and its body for me is not the body itself, but the mind.  I confess that I am not racked by pain like so many people are.  I don’t have the disabilities that I see around me so often.  I’m getting old and stiff, but I am not crippled.  I rejoice in that and I am thankful every morning as well as often during the day.  Having said that I’ve never been athletic, and although I’ve had my fantasies of being a famous basketball star and such never really believed that would be part of my life.  So I don’t see eternity in terms of being able to leap tall buildings with a single bound or stop a speeding locomotive.  I see eternity is being able to think clearly, remember facts and research deeply into reality.

Have you had those times when you know there’s a verse that you want but you can’t think of how it goes.  Sometimes it’s so bad you can’t even remember one specific word.  You try them in your software and nothing comes up.  You try variations you find nothing.  Eventually, you might stumble across it and realize that you forgot to put the words in the plural or you had it spelled wrong, or all kinds of things.  For me eternity will be having a memory that doesn’t play games.  I won’t need to access software.  I might have the entire scripture memorized.  I can’t comprehend.  I look forward to the day when I can wake up, look around me, be totally aware, and say, “So this is what it’s like to be alive.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-411: Ode to Old: Carpal Tunnel Thinking

I have not suffered from this physical handicap.  I have not lost the use of my hands, but my wife has gone through it on both arms.  I’m not aware of the recent research.  I’m not aware of all of the nuances.  In the back of my mind, there is the theory that the condition is brought on by repetitive motion.  The best example would be someone who is a professional typist or secretary, who is moving his arms and hands in a certain way again and again and again and over time things develop problems.

Going with that thought I wonder if some of our thinking is crippled by the same type of actions and habits.  Where our minds work in the same path day after day, with no variation or flexibility, I wonder if we don’t lose the ability to think gracefully and freely.  When my wife was at her worst, she was still able to do the basic tasks that were necessary.  I don’t know how much pain that really involved or whether it was just a stiffness.  It kept her from doing her best.

If the theory is correct that a major problem is repetitive motion, and we apply that to our mental ability, then it would say that we need to find ways to exercise our minds in new ways.  I’m not calling for different values or even different opinions, but I am calling for us to read more widely, to listen more attentively, and work on our reasoning skills as we interact with people from other backgrounds and philosophies.

I’m reaching that age when people start to decline not only physically but mentally.  I see it in friends.  I saw it watching a video when a reputable scholar who has written many books and still can think outside the box was having a hard time completing sentences or finishing a thought.

It happens.

Someone once said that one way to keep your mind active is to develop new skills.  Start learning a new musical instrument.  Learn to type if you never have.  Anything that requires you to stretch can keep your mind flexible according to that theory.

I’m willing to go with that until something better comes along.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-410: Pepperoni Thoughts

It’s amazing where thinking about the attributes of God can take you.  As I was trying to decide whether grace was an attribute of God or the action that comes out of another attribute of God, I stumbled across mercy.  Is mercy an attribute of God?  Maybe we would express it as merciful?  I don’t know, but someday I will.

That made me think about having a resurrected mind and the abilities that that would offer me to understand the things of God.  Then add to that being in the presence of God and having His glory and His holiness shining upon me with a free mind.  I wondered what it would be like with a resurrection mind to come across a great truth that I’ve never thought of before.  And my thought was that perhaps it would be like that first time that I tasted pepperoni pizza.

Can our minds have taste buds?  It seems kind of strange, but we’ve all had times, I hope, where the glory of God has touched us briefly.  I can remember times when the glory of the world around me and God’s nature have seemed to penetrate the dense barrier of my ability to think.  I can remember a few times when I, a non-Pentecostal, have had shouting spells.  It makes me wonder if I will have constant shouting spells as I sit around the throne shouting, “Hallelujah”.

It’s all beyond my comprehension, but then so is eternity.  If it were comprehensible to me a mere human, it wouldn’t be graced with God’s eternal nature.

So much to enjoy now.  So much to look forward to.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-409: Reverse the Thorn

Paul had a thorn in the flesh.  It was a handicap to keep him humble.  If what he got is humility then without the thorn it would have been a sight to behold.

I’m wondering if we can use the same principle but turn it around.  Could we be thorns in the flesh to try and bring people to spiritual growth.  I think of a friend being a thorn in the flesh to the pastors he had to work with.  The man needed someone to keep him on edge, to ask him the hard questions and face him with reality.

It could be that many of us have that role.  It doesn’t have to be aggressive.  In fact I would recommend a gentle and courteous demeanor.  When he presents some juicy heresy act mystified and ask him for his references.  Pretend like it is your memory problem not his theology.  

Of course if you have a personality like Paul you might mention him next time you write a letter to the church in Galatia.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-408: Banana Economics

When I go to the grocery store at this present time, it seems like the only fruit that I’m willing to pay for is bananas. I think I had the choice of the basic banana at $.54 a pound or I could get what I assumed were organic bananas for $.78 a pound.  I went for the cheaper brand.  It was my choice. It was my money.

As I was thinking about bananas I started thinking about how they are grown and delivered.  My son gave me a long dissertation recently on the dynamics of bananas reaching the shelf.  It was rather interesting.  I got to thinking about the first steps of banana production.  Bananas grow in tropical climates.  I don’t know how much care the plants take, but somewhere in the chain there are human beings out caring for the trees, cutting the fruit off and preparing it for shipment.  None of those things are done in air-conditioned warehouses.  All of them require someone who is desperate enough to feed himself and his family that they will go out and work in an atmosphere that we would find repugnant.

They have no choice.  I’m just guessing here, but I would also assume that they do not have air-conditioning in their homes.  It’s possible that they don’t have running water and flush toilet toilets.  In some areas there might just be one or two electrical outlets.  These assumptions are based on stereotypes, but they work for my point.  You can adjust them as you need to.

The point is that these human beings who are also created in the image of God, just like me and you, do not have available to them the option of air conditioning.  I would guess they don’t even have the option of food unless they get themselves out of bed, go out the door and show up at these sweaty jobs.  Does the world owe them air conditioning?  Does the world owe them gourmet food?  Should everyone have a microwave?

Now bring that concept home to the United States.  I keep hearing about all these young people living in their parents basement.  I tried to think of anybody I knew that had able-bodied young adults living in their basement and in my circle I couldn’t find anyone.  I did think of one person at church who has a grandson and his wife living in an RV behind her house, which is somewhat similar.  If mommy and daddy are happy and Junior is happy and no one cares about the future of the next generation, then I have no real input.

But that’s not the picture I get.  I get a picture of parents that are very frustrated with their children living in the basement and playing video games all day.  I have a solution.

First of all you need to cut off the air conditioning in that part of the house.  Air conditioning is not a requirement for life.  It may be a requirement for comfort, but it is not a requirement for life.  Secondly, and this might take some technological savvy, turn off their Wi-Fi.  This may involve simply changing the passwords.  Next put a lock on the refrigerator and all the cabinets so that they can’t raid the kitchen when they’re hungry.  If you’re really compassionate, you might put a supply of peanut butter, crackers, and a glass of water at the top of the stairs.  If you really want them to get motivated, don’t even do that.  Stop cleaning their room for them.  Stop doing their laundry for them.  In a short phrase, encourage them to move out.

Their next step might be to move in with some friends or into someone else’s basement, but eventually that will run out of people willing to support them.  The day will come when they have a choice of going out and getting a menial job and sweating in the sun or starving to death.  If they choose to starve to death, then some of the money you saved by kicking them out of the basement can be used for a nice funeral.  It’s their choice.  Everywhere I look there are people looking for help, wanting to hire people.

If all they can find his minimum wage work, so be it.  At that point, if they are moving forward and showing responsibility, parents might extend a carefully measured helping hand.  Don’t give the air conditioning, but at least give them enough to encourage them to keep working.

It’s a long way from the bananas of Central America to the Wi-Fi in your basement.  As I said, I don’t know anyone like this or have it in my circle of family and friends.  I could be doing nothing but extending a stereotype.  At the same time, someone has to harvest my bananas.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-407: Data Processing

I find myself listening to more and more podcasts and watching more videos.  This kind of surprised me when I realized it was happening.  I’ve always avoided them because it takes so long to listen to something that has commercials, long introductions, and people who think they are funny not being so funny.

I think one of the things that is driving me to this desperation is the lack of integrity in the news media and the Clickbait.  I find it somewhat amusing reading the headlines of the different YouTube videos.  I automatically eliminate anything that has extreme adjectives such as “the funniest”, “the ultimate”,  “This will make you laugh out loud” or “Charlie Kirk destroys….”

What I find myself looking for are actual interviews between two people who can put two thoughts together and listen to another person who has a third thought.  Even then you need to be careful because often times it’s someone else parsing what was said, and trying to convince you of their point of view.

The same principal applies in my reading.  I find that I’m less and less willing to take someone’s word that they are quoting accurately.  Many of the great truths that are being quoted are readily available if we want to take the time to read the primary sources.  This is obviously demanding and time-consuming.  I think it’s necessary.  Where am I going to find the time?  I have no idea.  Can I stay awake long enough to finish a boring passage that actually bears some truth?  I have failed many times.

But I continue on the quest for accurate information and hopefully some foundations that will get me to truth.  The only source that I have no doubts about at this point is the Bible and even there I often will question the translation and compare what different versions have said in order to get it the truth.  Commentaries are just some guys opinions.  Sermons are the theoretically inspired interpretations of theoretically born again individuals.

In all things ask questions.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-406: What If?

What if Israel had accepted Jesus as their Messiah?

How would the story have been modified?  Would He still have needed to die?

I’m thinking that certain elements were necessary in order for Jesus to be the perfect Lamb of God and to be the Messiah that was promised.  His death was necessary because the perfect Lamb of God had to die as the perfect sacrifice.  It was also necessary because the resurrection was to be the final promise of God’s salvation.

How would this have worked out?

I’m guessing that if the Jews had responded in the way God intended then the Romans would’ve still gone ahead and executed Jesus on some other charge.  They had no place for a rival king.  This of course would create a scene similar to the upper room after the crucifixion, but it would be broader and farther reaching.  And then, of course, when His resurrection took place, we don’t know how that would play out, but I have this feeling that there would be this awesome time of evangelism as the story and the claim of the Messiah spread to Jews, all around the world, and because God is the God of all people the transition to the Gentiles would also take place.

Talk about a wild and crazy theory.  I think I have too much time on my hands.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-405: Another Chance

Last week at our midweek Bible study, we were looking at Jeremiah 9.  In the discussion, the pastor, using the KJV, quickly went through verse seven and made a few comments about God, melting people, and seem to imply that the point here was God being wrathful.

Here is the verse and the King James,

Jeremiah 9:7 (KJV) Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

Sounds serious, and it is.  Then I looked over at the NASB and saw this,

Jeremiah 9:7 (NASB95) Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, I will refine them and assay them; For what else can I do, because of the daughter of My people?

Notice the terms being used here come from the mining industry.  First you have “refine”.  That is the second step after smelting in which you remove the impurities or dross.  That tells me that God had not given up on these people and is going to give them one more shot at coming clean.  He’s going to put them on trial.  He’s going to make life difficult.  He’s going to do whatever it takes to give them a chance to repent.

Then it says He is going to “try” them in the KJV, which becomes “assay” in the NASB.  This is more of the trial were they actually weighed and see how pure they are.

Either way, I see here sandwiched in the middle between promises of retribution and punishment a chance for recovery.

God is in the business of redemption, not punishment.  Because He is holy, and He is a God of wrath and will not be messed with.  There comes a time when He is forced to go with violence and punishment.  He shows incredible patience before He actually brings down the hammer.

We should rejoice in His patience and not see how far we can push it.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-404: Philosophical Foods

I just finished off a loaf of Ezekiel bread.  Someone had shared with me about how in Ezekiel 4:9 there is a recipe given for bread and a modern company had duplicated it and was now marketing it.  Interesting concept.  I read the label, check the ingredients,  bought one just out of interest.  It was a philosophical purchase, or maybe theological.  No one told me it was great tasting.  No one sat me down and looked at the nutritional balance.  It was just an interesting concept that came out of the Bible.

I wonder how much of our food is based on philosophy rather than taste or nutrition.  I have a German bread that I am now making my main stay.  I didn’t start eating it because of the nutrition, I started eating it because I remembered enjoying the heavy breads in Europe, 40 years ago.  I was rewarded because it was a good tasting, heavy bread and I enjoyed that.  After getting it, I checked the ingredients and nutrition and it came up with five stars.  No additives, no preservatives yet long shelf life, no wheat, no sugar.  In addition to that, it has a good amount of fiber and protein.  What is not to like?  But it was not a philosophical purchase.  The nutrition and ingredients were simply a by product of my purchase.

I keep hearing people tell me how non-iceberg lettuce is supposed to be good for you.  I watched a brief bit of a recipe video.  I turned it off and went on with my quest for the Holy Grail when he started harvesting kale from his garden to make a salad.  He almost got delirious talking about how good this would taste.  I’m sorry.  I have experienced kale.  Good taste is not something I would associate with it.  It is, though, philosophically on solid ground because it’s not what us peasants eat and enjoy in the sense of iceberg lettuce.  The same thing it’s found in the other obnoxious weeds that are harvested and called lettuce.

You can extend this into almost any area of your food chain.  Are you eating it because it tastes good and then evaluating the nutrition or are you simply looking for the numbers that your cultural gurus tell you are necessary?  There are certain things which mystify me.  I’m told to drink more water but drinking coffee doesn’t count.  Now I ask you, what is the main ingredient in a cup of coffee?  I would say water.  What is the difference between drinking a bottle of water and taking a tablet of caffeine and just drinking coffee?  I’m sure some scientist or doctor could tell me in detail all the differences. The question I would have would be, “Is this actual scientific data based on genuine research or is it philosophical nutrition?”

In a day and age where weather and science have joined the ranks of fake news, it’s often hard to know which way to go.  I intend to relax, enjoy what I’m eating, but not ignore the potential for issues.

Bon Appétit.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-403: New Laws: Tripping Hazard

I’ve noticed during our prayer request time at church that there are a lot of people who are tripping and falling and breaking things.  It can be a simple in and out check up with a few bandages and x-rays down to long range plans for healing.  It’s a serious problem.

I think it may be time for the federal government to step in and start regulating tripping hazards.  The one that brings this to mind in my case is our cat.  My wife is out of town and I am having to deal with the little beast.  As long as he leaves me alone we get along fine.  The problem. if you have a cat you know, is that he will come up and act like he wants affection, and when you start petting him, the claws come out and you end up with bloody trails down your arm. So I feed him, let him outside, and basically ignore him.

The problem under discussion is that he seems to have a genuine desire to bring me down.  When I let him come in the house, he follows me around, winding around my feet and getting in the way.  Even when he wants me to let him outside and I start toward the door, he keeps stopping right in front of me and turning around to see if I’m following.  He is a disaster waiting to happen.

My proposal is a federal regulation requiring all cats to be tagged with a warning label stating that they are a tripping hazard.  If we could develop the technology, it might be a good idea to mount a loudspeaker on their back and when anyone gets close enough to face disaster, it lets off an alarm or an announcement, “Back off, buster!”

My proposal is not trying to butt into your life.  It’s just that I want you to be safe.  I care about your health.  If I can find a sponsor in the federal government, I will then be able to say, “ I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”  If I do it right I am sure I can generate a nice, hefty salary for myself.  And I especially will be on the lookout for those of you who resist the sensitivity and loving care that your government wants to offer you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-402: Dynamic Immutability

Last week I preached on the great “I am” statement of God in Exodus 3:14.  At one point I touched on the attributes of God and in that particular passage, the attribute is the fact that he exists.  It is a powerful reality if we embrace it.

When thinking about the attributes of God, one that comes up from a theological perspective is that God is immutable.  I have a problem with the theological approach to it because often people who approach it that way tend to create in their mind a static God.  They claim that God does not change, which is scriptural.  The question is, what do you mean by change?

It is absurd to the point of being absurd to say that God is changeless.  Just look at the emotional expressions that we get.  We see the wrath of God.  We see the patience of God.  Those are two different emotional states that are not consistent with how some people describe immutability.  God changes while His basic character does not.

One of the reasons that He must change is that He’s dealing with us.  He made us in His image and as I’ve said many times that involves us having free will.  Setting aside all of the discussion of being inside time and outside time along with eternity and infinity and just get down to it.  We seem to have free will.  We make decisions.  We are responsible for those decisions.  Because of that, God cannot be static, He must be dynamic.

So wrap your mind around it, God changes in his unchangeability.  Surely that’s not harder for you to accept then the idea of one God and three persons. Or is it three persons in one God?

The lessons we learn in eternity are going to be fascinating.

homo unius libri