Opus 2026-385: Keep Walking

Do you have the discipline to keep walking?  This came to mind today as I was carrying a load of laundry toward the bedroom and the microwave beeper went off.  The first thought that came to my mind was, “I need to go take care of that.”  Common sense kicked in, and I kept walking.  That was the catalyst for the thought.

Have you ever had the experience where you will be on your way to do something, think of something else you should be doing, turn around head back to your starting point, realize this is silly, turn around and go on your way again, think “No I need to do this while I’m thinking about it”, turn around…  You get the picture.  This happens to me every once in a while.  I find that I need to develop the discipline to finish one task before I start another.  It is so easy to get distracted.

My wife loves to distract me.  I can be in the process of making oatmeal in the morning and she will ask me to do something.  What she wants is no big deal . It only takes a moment.  In the moment, I forget what’s going on and before I know it the oatmeal is sticking to the bottom of the pan.  That’s what happens if I’m lucky.  If I really drift off, then we have major cleaning issues.

So I need to learn to keep walking.  Usually the house is not burning down no matter how frantic my wife sounds.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-386: Reminders: #6, Go Ahead, Say It

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

I need to once again write on the fact that people are either ignorant, stupid, or evil. 

I was listening to a presentation by Dr. Robert Malone as he tried to explain the “benighted” atmosphere of much of our culture.  He confessed that he wanted to use the word “evil” but did not want to get into the religious aspects of the problem.  He then proceeded to explain all of the destructive deceit that was involved in the Covid crisis and other thrusts of the deep state into our liberties.  He came up with three things and managed to make it all sound like some kind of benign mistake.  His concern for the problem was valid.  His analysis was insipid.

Lets take as an example the work of a famous economist, who shall go unnamed, but who writes for the New York Times.  I have not followed much of what he has said but what I have read shows that he is usually wrong and always wrong in a way that attacks Donald Trump.  For people like him, and there are many, I would say that we have three choices.  They can be ignorant.  For some reason they do not have any facts that are correct.  They could find the facts but it doesn’t happen.  This does not apply to our economist.

This person could be stupid.  Sometimes people are so deficient in intelligence that they cannot connect even simple dots.  Reality is mystery and they do not have the ability to do better.  Again, I would say that such a things does not apply.

The final choice is that they are evil.  They deliberately lie and deceive for their own advantage, knowing that what they do will damage, even kill, people who have done them no wrong.  There is no moral justification for their actions.  The only excuse is they can get away with it.

This quality applies to our economist.  It also applies to most people in the various legacy media outlets.  It applies to a large number of politicians and most educators.

You may not feel comfortable using the title of “evil”.  Okay.  How about “depraved”, “nasty” or “savage”?  I am sure you can come up with a word if you try.

I will go with evil.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-202: Patterns

I’m thinking about how useful patterns are.  You can call them rituals, habits, even ruts.  This came to mind as I was going into the house from sitting on the porch in the early morning.  One of the first things I do when I go through the door it’s turn around and lock it.  It started as a conscious choice, now it is a pattern.

When I wake up, I say, “Good morning, Lord.”
When I sit down with my coffee, I look at the sky and remind myself of the Creator.
When I go out the door, I reflexively pat my left pocket to see if there are keys there.
If I use the restroom, I reflexively put down the lid.
After using the restroom, I reflexively wash my hands.
Breakfast is a routine so I don’t forget my medication

Think about patterns that are instilled in you as a child.  Your parents kept hammering away until certain things were driven out of your system.

Stop picking your nose.
Get your elbows off the table.
What is the magic word?

Some patterns are almost universal, or should be. Others may be unique to me.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-181: Who Defines Whom?

Anytime you read theology or commentaries you come across big words that people like to throw out.  This morning I’ve been thinking about the immutability of God and the sovereignty of God.  I could add to the list I’m sure.  I think you get the idea though.  The key point I am making is that these are words that we make up or develop in order to try and grasp truths that are beyond our comprehension.

On one side that is healthy.  We look at something we don’t understand and try to find ways to grasp it.  Perhaps it requires a different angle.  Perhaps it requires a deeper dig.  Perhaps it needs more meditation and contemplation to get closer to what the actual truth is.  This is at the root of the scientific method which is given its foundation in the character of the God of the Bible.  It also has its place in the areas of study that deal in deeper truth than science can touch.

One side of that is sick and manipulative.  There are people who like to make a big words because they can then throw around their jargon and confuse the issue.  When I was teaching, I ran into this all the time in education.  They love their jargon.  They love to make up words.  They love to take old words and put new meaning on them that no one would suspect.  They love to change the meaning without telling you.  I expect that in a discipline that is so rooted in pagan values.  I watch it dread in a discussion of the Bible and theology.

Take the idea of immutability. What it really means is unmutable.  And what that means to most people is unchanging.  There is a very real sense in which God is unchanging.  There’s also a sense in which a rock is unchanging.  The two are not the same although the Bible does refer to God as a rock.  God is unchanging in His character, which would be defined in such phrases as, “God is love”.  It does not mean that God is not capable of responding to the free will choices of human beings.

God does not change the physical laws He laid down when He created the universe.   Gravity does not go away.  If He has a need for a miracle, He’s quite capable of stepping outside those laws, but I personally believe that most miracles are worked by God emphasizing different aspects of the laws of nature, and bring you about what looks like to us a miracle.  He does change His response to human beings based upon the free will choices that we make.  I love reading about Moses talking to God and supposedly convincing Him to change his mind.  We see numerous cases of this in the Bible, where God responds differently based on different situations.

Does that mean that God is fickle?  Is God capricious?  Heaven forbid.  It means that part of God’s character is a reflection of personhood.  He is not made up of blind equations and mindless formulas.  We may not understand the nuances but rest assured that they exist.  If a theologian tells you that God is unchanging then ask yourself, “Why does the Bible have Him repenting of making man?”  

Do your own homework.  Accept the words of “scholars” as the opinions of someone who has more knowledge than you do but not necessarily more wisdom or better ethics.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-322: Click Bait: Skeptics Needed

Your personal You Tube algorithm does not show you the same things that it shows me, but one of the headlines I’ve seen several times regards revival in Iran.  One of them even had a picture of an empty mosque, and I had a headline that talked about millions of Iranians coming to Christ.

Something to chat about?  The beginning of world wide revival?  Just another bit of Clickbait?

The problem is, we will not know for years because of the difficulty of knowing the truth.  Sadly, that seems to apply even to those who are on the side of angel’s.  They like to see what they want to see, to exaggerate and distorted to fulfill their fantasies.  Are millions of Iranians coming to Christ?  It is certainly possible.  Such revivals have happened in the past.  Such revivals will probably happen again.  The problem is the people telling about it are often more concerned about getting followers to their channel then they are conveying the glory of God.

Call me a cynic.  In reality, again I remind you, I am not a cynic but a skeptic.  I believe things like this are possible but I don’t believe that the people trying to get me to follow them are necessarily being totally honest.  

I will wait.  I will listen.  Other than praying for my brothers and sisters in Christ who live in places like Iran there is a little I can do.  What I can do is make sure that I don’t send a check to people who are simply living off the gullibility of the decent people of the world.  There are too many needs that I really know about being genuine for me to waste my resources that way.

I will not make a habit of listening to what they have to say.  I might make an occasional exception but when I do I rarely finish.  I have books lining my shelves that need to be addressed.  I have serious podcasts that need to be listened to.  I have posts to write and people to call on the phone.  I don’t have time to spend listening to people talk around the barn and then never come close to the door.

I will be glad to add them to my bucket list but it is a big bucket and a long way to the bottom.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-003: On the Street: Dog Collars

As I approached the turn-about point on my daily walk one of the dogs on the corner came through the fence and after me.  I wasn’t really threatened.  It was a small dog and not super aggressive, and I had a nice walking stick with a heavy head.  But I worried about the dog becoming road mush, so I went up to the door on my way back and had a talk with the owner.

In our discussion he pointed out that several of his dogs had huge collars, big balloon type things around their neck.  He said that was to keep them from going through the fence.  He was aware of the problem and I assume he will deal with it.  Since I have no emotional attachment to the dog that is good enough for me.  And I will always have my walking stick.

My thoughts went to what the Apostle Paul called his thorn in the flesh.  I am sure that the dogs felt that way about their clown collars.  Could it be that a thorn in the flesh given by God is really a collar to keep us from going places we’re too stupid to avoid?  No, I am not implying that you are stupid.  I am stating that you probably do things that are stupid.  Make whatever application you want.  I know it applies to my life but I may be the only one.

May your thorns be gentle enough to bear and sharp enough to get your attention.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-142: American Babylon

I was reading Jeremiah 51 and almost had my mind go into neutral during a description of the wrath of God coming down on Babylon.  I have read this kind of proclamation before.  Although I consider myself a realist and was recently called a cynic, I am not into doom and gloom.  I tend to read prophetic announcements and then go on to things that I think make a difference.

That is not the norm for some Christians.  We often hear about how Babylon is the Roman Catholic church and the EU is the 10 horned beast.  One consistent thing mentioned literally is the fact that Babylon destroyed Israel.  Eventually Babylon was destroyed for what they did to God’s people.

The modern left is all in to desert modern Israel.  You even have a lot of American Jews who are not willing to support it.  If the United States ever hangs Israel out to dry, will we become Babylon?  Will all of these terrible calamities descend on us?  Read these verses,

(Gen 12:1-3 KJV)  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-308: Plugged in Brains

The division in our world views is not faith verses reason but opinions based on emotion as opposed to facts.  Facts and faith go just fine together but basing our life on the stories we hear or the stories we can tell is dangerous.

We all have emotions.  That is good.  Those emotions are based on our experiences.  That is natural.  The trap is that our experiences are usually seen through our myopic self-centeredness rather than the cold rational light of truth.  For years I could not stand the thought of peanut butter.  I wasn’t born that way.  The rejection was based on an experience I can still remember.  We were on a car trip when I was very young.  We had pulled over because someone was hungry.  My mother gave me peanut butter on saltine crackers with nothing to drink.  It was a horrible experience that marked me for decades.  Eventually, for a reason I can’t remember, I tried peanut butter again and found my emotional reaction was wrong.  Too often in life we don’t have those moments of enlightenment.

We are assaulted by a plethora of manipulative messages.  We are so inundated with emotional images that we tend to bypass our brains and go straight to our feelings.  You can trace it through books like Michael Crichton’s State of Fear.  He points out how the elites manipulated our fear of Communism, which was a legitimate concern, to support what Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex.  Crichton’s point was that with the fall of the Iron Curtain the elites needed a new source of terror.  He said they settled on the environment and thus we had the beginnings of the Global Warming panic.  Of course it was first the Global Cooling panic but why look at factual detail when you have a mass of sheep waiting to be led over the cliff.  The latest panic of course is the China Virus.

On most of these fear focuses all that you need to do is put your emotions on hold, turn on your brain and do a little investigating.  There are many people who would be considered intelligent who cannot do that.  Pick a topic pushed by the Proregressives* and consider the facts.  It can be evolution, gender, climate, health, guns or now the danger of free speech.

As a Christian who believes seriously I am not afraid of honest facts, real science or my fellow man.  I plan to keep my brain plugged in.  Join me.

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

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-246: Reminders: #5, No They Don’t Have Good Intentions

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

The news media lies to us on a regular basis.  The Government spies on us, ignores the rioting by anarchists, arrests people invited into the capital building and keeps them in solitary confinement for what is a misdemeanor at worst, the monopolies in social media censor anything that might be construed as pro-American and the beat goes on.  I am getting used to this insanity.  What I am not getting used to is the people of good will who say stupid things like, “They mean well.”

I am sorry, that is not an option.  When people at the CDC deliberately change the way deaths are reported and inflate the statistics repeatedly to back a leftist agenda, it is not just trying to help us.  I have said it before, I am saying it again.  You have three choices.  They are one of three things, or maybe all three.  Time to revisit the three choices about the left:  Ignorant, Evil, or Stupid.

I think it is clear they are not ignorant.  They see the data.  They know the facts.  They need to know what is true to lie so consistently.  

They may be stupid.  In our current climate of affirmative action and cancel culture it is possible to get a degree from what used to be prestigious universities and not be sure which foot the shoe goes on.  As a former teacher I can testify to the lack of intelligence in many of the college graduates.  When I got into teaching you were required to pass an examination called the CBEST.  It consisted of writing an essay, doing math problems with only a few as advanced as algebra and answer questions about something you just read.  Any 10th grade student should be able to pass it.  I think most of my 8th graders could have done so.  Twenty percent of the college graduates who took the test failed.  So yes, it could be that they are stupid, after all people still watch CNN.

I personally think it is the third choice.  They are evil.  They have sold their souls to the devil.  I know they don’t think of it that way but how do you explain things like the journalist who went to the Soviet Union while Stalin was starving the Ukrainians and came back praising the system?  How do you explain the publishing industry that gave him awards for his awesome journalism?  How do you explain thousands of people totally violating their oaths, the law and the trust of their fellow Americans to steal an election for Joe Biden and another group who claim there is no evidence of fraud?  How do you explain judges who say it is acceptable for young children to surgically and chemically alter their bodies when they aren’t old enough to buy a beer?  It isn’t ignorance.  It isn’t stupid.  It is evil.

So get over it.  They are not nice people who have different ideas.  They are evil people making evil choices.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-219: Reminders: #4: Immortal Quotes: Taxes

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”  It looks like this was originally a statement made by Daniel Webster in arguing against the taxation and repeated by Chief Justice John Marshall in approving the law.  I originally wrote about this ten years ago but felt I needed to address it again.

This principle was always presented as one of the reasons that churches were tax exempt.  If churches could be taxed then the government could bring them down and violate the First Amendment.  We probably should have understood that it applies to the individual citizen also.  

The reason for runaway taxes is not the profligate habits of the ruling classes.  It might have been in ancient times but there is much more wealth today.  The reason is the entitlement attitude of the masses.  There comes a point where the masses who produce nothing will expect more than the workers can produce.  What you start doing is eating your seed corn.

Seed corn is a concept we have forgotten today.  Before the modern hybrids were common the farmer would set aside enough grain after the harvest to be able to plant the crops next year.  It did not matter how bad things got, you did not eat your seed grain.  If you ate it there would be no harvest the following year and you would starve.  If you read your Bible you will find other instructions, even though it is not a manual on farming.  The land must be allowed to lie fallow.  You only passed through to cut the grain one time.  You plowed in the fall to aerate the soil.  There are probably other things mentioned that I am to citified to see.

When you have high taxes that suck away the seed grain from the producers, the production falls the next year.  When those working see the slothful being provided for at the expense of the workers, they have less inclination to work so hard next time.

And the ramp only runs one way.

The goal of the Proregressives is to destroy the productivity of the free market.  Taxes are an effective tool for doing that.  Keep in mind that they think because they are the elite that they will get plenty because they deserve it.  The ones who will be destroyed are you and me.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-123: Reminders: #3, Blind Spots

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

It happened again last week.  Someone quoted II Chronicles 7:14 and left out the most important part, the part no one wants to remember.

(2Ch 7:14 KJV) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Guess which phrase is usually overlooked:  “Turn from your wicked ways”.

Up until that little statement most people can be on board.  We find the idea of being God’s people and being called by His name as potentially beneficial.  If you think about the bloodiest wars, such as the American Civil War, both sides seem to think God is on their side.  It is possible to humble ourselves without actually doing so.  Again, we can feel good about that.  Most people pray even if they don’t know the difference between prayer, thinking good thoughts and cursing.  They can even seek God’s face because most people’s conception of God is pagan and is based on a mirror image.

The following promises are all good.  God will hear us.  God will forgive.  God will heal.  Who could have any problem with that, accept the part about us being sinners needing forgiveness.

The problem is with the in-between, the sandwich filling, the turning.  Turning means change.  Change is inconvenient.  Change makes demands if we do it the way the verse implies.  A word that brings it home is “repent”.  Do a quick run down of the Ten Commandments and ask yourself which ones you are up to date with.

America is at a cross-road.  In a sense that is nothing new.  Each generation needs to make the decision of whether they are going to turn from their wicked ways or go for same-o same-o.  In the past we have had enough people turn that we have not come apart at the seams.  The turning has to take place one at a time.  No one can do it for anyone else.  God will be the one to decide if He just honors us as individuals or as a people.

Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-095: Reminders: #2, Why Me?

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

Again I ask, “Why me?”

The country has been hit by a blast of Arctic air.  People have lost power and water.  I hear of one man who froze to death.  Millions have been struggling because the agencies tasked with preparation were asleep on the job.  I keep reading about all of the suffering.  It is real.

And I read about it in the warmth of a home that never lost power.  I read about it with a total time without water of about 23 hours.  I lost internet for an evening.  I had two pipes freeze.  The one that could have caused the most damage thawed out with no apparent damage.  The one over the garage doors blew out and spewed a lot of water.  No plumber would come.  The kid next door helped us get it under control.  

In the midst of all this my son left his in-town apartment because of the rolling black outs.  He works on line and could not do his job with the undependable power.  We had the joy of having him stay with us.  It was a win-win.  Yesterday we were able to open our home to some friends of his.  They came, did their laundry, had a hot meal and carted of six cases of bottled water.  We had the joy of being able to share and only felt bad that we had not known their problems earlier.

So again I say, “Why me?”  Why in the midst of a widespread disaster have me and mine been able to only suffer minor inconvenience?  Does God love us more than others?  I find that hard to believe.  I would like to think it is because we are more righteous but I know us better than to do more than laugh at the concept.

Why me?  I don’t know but I am thankful to be so blessed and pray that your suffering will end soon.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-078: Reminders: #1, A Bit of Philosophy

There are certain topics I have written about.  They are worth repeating.  I need to revisit them to refresh my memory and enhance my thinking.  Others need to be reminded.  There is a constant bombardment of ideas that clutter our minds.

Deconstruction is philosophy.  We have a hammer on the knee reaction to the idea of philosophy.  We tend to think it is only for eggheads.  That is a comforting thought but we live in a world that is decomposing because of the destructive philosophies that are running people’s lives.  Deconstruction is one of those.

If you think of deconstruction as what happens when they steal you car and break it down to sell the parts you have an idea of the effect of this school of thought.  It has a goal of stealing your culture and selling it off at your loss and their gain.

Deconstruction says there is no set meaning to words.  Words mean different things to different people.  Words are a product of your background and backgrounds vary from person to person.  Thus you can have no fixed meaning for anything.  This is how they can come up with such intellectually bankrupt labels as “multiracial whiteness”.  It means what they want it to mean, this week but maybe not the next.

As in most insidious ideas, there is a grain of truth.  When you talk about music you may have Beethoven in mind and your neighbor may have Tupac.  By a loose definition they are both music.  As we have been exploring the restaurants of Texas and trying to find good Mexican food we find that one man’s tostada is another man’s tortilla chips.  We met a Mexican restaurant owner who claimed his guacamole was hot.  He said, “I am Mexican.  I know hot.”  It was rather mild to us.  Sometimes it is the difference between a cultured pearl and a “real” pearl.  Real pearls develop when a grain of sand gets into an oyster and starts to irritate it.  It coats the sand with the iridescent material that we think is beautiful.  Cultured pearls develop when an oyster in a tank has a grain of sand inserted by a human with the goal of irritating the beast to the same result.

Surrounding many grains of truth are insidious applications.  That is where the deconstructionists come in.  They use a grain of truth to distort every standard and principle that society has developed for cohesion and turn them into tools for their own personal use.  Thus you come up with the chart that was displayed at the Smithsonian Institute showing “white privilege”.  They took building blocks of Western culture that lead to prosperity and success and re-labeled them as aspects of racism.  So being on time becomes an  element of white supremacy.  The scientific method is not an effective system of investigation but a racist thought pattern.  In the sub comments I noticed that it is a mark of white racism to be polite.

This is at the heart of the Living Constitution.  It doesn’t mean what it says.  It means what those in power want it to mean.  I could go on.  At some time in the future I may hit it again.  

I hope you get the idea.  They seek to destroy you and your country.

homo unius libri