Opus 2024-310: Lucy Lives

All I can do is shake my head and wonder when the Republican Party will wake up.

I refer a course to the now standard performance of the media moderators in political debates. The allusion is to the Charles Schulz comic strip, “Peanuts.  In at least an annual event, Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown to kick.  The first year as he came full speed to kick the ball she simply jerked it out of the way.  The second year she promised not to do it again.  She jerked it out of the way.  Then we have a steady progression of every year Charlie Brown acting like he has learned his lesson and refusing to kick the ball while Lucy cons him into it.

If you are over 25 you’ve probably seen this cartoon somewhere.  You would think that the Republicans had seen it.  Is it just hubris where they think they are so smart, they can overcome a stacked deck?  Debate after debate, we have “moderators who have promised to be fair and unbiased”.  Debate after debate, we have moderators jerk the football out of the way.  Debate after debate the Republicans fall for the same nonsense.

You saw it again a few nights ago.  Softball set ups to the Democrat candidate with no answer given to the question and lies layered upon lies.  No fact check for Tim Of the Bathroom Dispenser fame.  Then they turn to the Republican candidate, gave a long speech full of lies themselves, such as the overwhelming number of scientists saying that global warming is real, and then proceed to ask a question, which is totally different from what they ask the other side.  I thought the point was that one candidate would receive the question and have two minutes to answer, and then the other candidate would answer the same question for two minutes, and then you would go back to one minute responses.  Maybe I misunderstood the rules.  Maybe the rules were ignored.  Maybe the rules were just a football jerked out of the way.

It makes you believe that wisdom which says, “Republicans are the stupid party.”  Unfortunately, it is still the only alternative we have to the evil party.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-309: Expiration Date

Every once in a while my wife will see someone on the news or a video that is closing in on the hundred year mark.  Jimmy Carter has reached that benchmark.  They may be in their 90s, and she will say something to the effect that she doesn’t want to live that long.  We tend to look at people at that age through the lenses of our glasses.  We watched them tottering along.  They seem weak and out of control and maybe they are.  But again we tend to look at it through our experience and our desires.

How do they feel about it?  I’m guessing that it’s going to vary with each individual.  If they have invested there life wisely, and if God has blessed them in the right ways, then they are surrounded by grandchildren and great grandchildren and their oatmeal is done right.  In another words, life is good.  Just because you’re old and can’t move as fast doesn’t mean that you can’t move it all.  It may take you longer.  You may need help.  But you can still get where you want to go.

I think of cans of food that have expiration dates printed on them.  Sometimes that is an important date to consider.  Milk go bad quickly if not kept cold.  However, a can of beans may last for 10 or 15 years past when they say it’s going bad.  You never know until you open the can.  There may be some indicators, such as bending or bulging, but what do you do with a can that looks fine?  The same is true of our lives.

The Bible seems to say that 70 years is what we should expect.

(Psa 90:10 KJV)  The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

It says that if you’re strong you can count on 80 years.  It seems to me like there’s someplace where it mentions 120.  I believe Moses lived 130 years.

So what is your expiration date?  I have no idea what mine is.  One of the great things about getting to my age as I am already passed 70 year mark and as far as I know still cooking on all cylinders.  Do you cook on cylinders?  However you want to say it I’m still able to get up without help, dress myself, fix my meals, and do what shopping I need to do.  That’s what I call exciting living at this point

I’m not sure when my expiration date is.  I may be the last to know.  I am ready.  I hope you are too.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-308: Replacements

It is unsettling when you see history repeating itself.  That is double true when the history you are looking at involves tyranny and despotism.  

Turn you clock back to ancient Israel.  Look at the time when the Northern Kingdom was defeated and the first deportation occurred.

(2Ki 17:6 KJV)  In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom, Israel.  Assyria had a pattern for breaking and subduing conquered people.  This is the first part where they haul large parts of the population to locations far away.

The second step in the plan is what brings to mind our modern situation.

(2Ki 17:24 KJV)  And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.

Assyria imported large numbers of foreigners and settled them in the conquered territory.  The object was to water down the people that remained and destroy their culture so they would not be a problem.

Sound familiar?  The parallels to what the Biden/Harris administration is doing is frightening.  However you want to connect the dots the pattern always comes out “Destroy the Republic”.

It is possible that if enough people will vote in November they may not be able to steal the election again.  I also wish we could find out where these people live and stand in front of their houses wearing our MAGA hats and just stare at their front door.

Elections matter when there is an honest count.  Pray hard.  Stand up and speak.  Since our integrity does not allow us to vote often at least vote early.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-307: Pointless Prayer

I continue to struggle with some of the non-answers that I feel I’m getting to prayer.  Why did God not heal the young mother who is struggling with cancer?  I don’t have answers to that.  There are many questions like that but I will have to wait for answers and eternity.

Other situation’s I find where there might be no point in praying for people.  Is it going to do any good asking God to heal someone from a condition that they tend to make worse by their behaviors and activities?  Let me give you a silly example.

Let’s say that you have a child who keeps getting bitten by snakes.  I can pray for healing from the bite.  I can pray that the child will no longer be bitten by snakes.  Those are legitimate prayers.  Will God answer those prayers?  Not if the child in question continues with his habit of sticking a hand down into burrows he finds in the ground.  Let me ask you, what happens when you stick your hand down in a hole where a snake lives?  Can you expect God to shield you from such stupidity?

I often wonder if many of our prayers are simply not answered because the people we are praying for refuse to change their behavior.  Usually there is no way to find out so I will err on the safe side.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-306: Deadlines

Farmers live with a hard deadlines, they just don’t know what they are.  There comes a day when the snow falls.  There comes a day when the rain comes unexpectedly.  Those are hard deadlines embraced by mystery.

Being retired moves you into the world of vague deadlines.  The standard deadlines no longer apply.  You don’t have to get to work on time.  You usually don’t really even have to set an alarm.  You can stay up as late as you want.

The lack of technical deadlines does not mean that there are not limitations on what you can, and should do.  It’s called liberty.  Liberty involves responsibility, unlike the concept of freedom.  Dennis Prager makes this point in one of his speeches.  I wish I could quote him accurately, but I can’t, but I will give him a hat tip.  He is basically saying that the American philosophy involves liberty, not freedom, because he assigns duty and responsibility to one and license to the other.

The ultimate deadline, of course is death.  Right behind it is incapacitating illnesses.  A couple of us old fogies were sitting around, doing organ recitals, and in the process we started listing off all the ways that we could drop dead at our age.  You had to be there.  We were having a good time and had a good attitude.  We were full of hope in anticipation, because we believe that God‘s hand is upon us and our nation.  You can joke about things when you’re not really worried.  I guess you can joke about things because you’re worried.  The point is the ultimate deadline is not something we worry about because it is a comma, not a period.  OK, it might be a semicolon, but it’s still not the end of the sentence.  It implies some thing on the other side.

You also have gradual deadlines.  They sneak up on you like the proverbial frog in the water being heated on the stove.  What brings to mind is that my coffee is not as hot as it was when I sat down.  It gradually losers that temperature which holds it above the world around it and approaches entropy.  This is the kind of deadline that is talked about, and that quotation concerns, “There is a tide in the affairs of men...”  There is a perfect time to take the soufflé out of the oven.  There is a perfect time to make a lane change.  There are many events in life that have a perfect time.  We can miss the perfect time and still do OK.  It’s good that life is that way.  But there are still deadlines.

Enjoy the challenge.  Embrace the flexibility.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-305: The Need for Noise

As I was enjoying the peace of the predawn breezes an anomaly suddenly intruded.  It was somebody walking their dog down the street in front of me.  I say anomaly because they were wearing this strange vest flickering in various colors.  It was almost like a police car with the blue and the red and the white and such but these were more pastels, pink, violet, gray.  That was fine.  Dog and human made their way past me, did an about face and started back.  The light intruded, but the quiet was not disturbed.  Even the gentle urging toward the dog to stop sniffing and leaving body fluids was not intrusive.  Then I heard it.

She had her radio on.  Of course it could have been an MP3 player, and iPod, her phone, it could have been anything.  The point is it was a noise that did not fit in with the world as I was seeing it.  Eventually, they went on, and my world returned.

There are many things that disrupt our perfect worlds.  As the saying goes, “This too shall pass”.  So develop some patience.  Of course it’s easier when you’re retired and have the rest of the day to decide what you’re going to do.  Or you have the rest of the day to ignore what your wife has told you you have to do.  Either way.

It always amazes me how some people are afraid of the silence.  My parents used to take long drives, and I would venture to guess that they could go for hours without saying anything.  The presence of the other person was enough.  They enjoyed being with each.  They did not have to talk.  In my marriage it’s just the opposite.  If you’re not talking, it seems to imply you don’t care.  I care.  I don’t want to talk.  Silence does not scare me.

I thrive on being alone with my thoughts, because I am not really alone.  I have memories.  I have so many things that I have put into my mind over the years that I have many unresolved harmonies to mull over.  In addition to that, I have the teaching ability of the Holy Spirit to not only bring things to mind that I forgot about but also, I believe, create new thoughts and take me down new roads.  Many of the tangents I take I think of as the prodding of God, and not just me being bored.

So happy silence.  Enjoy the moment.  I’ll wait.  Quietly.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-304: The Fall of Texas

It’s that time of year. We don’t know if it will last a day or two, or a week or two. We are pretty sure that it won’t last beyond that but right now the evenings are cool, mornings are comfortable and the days seem to be somewhat reasonable.  That’s today.  I can’t guarantee tomorrow.

Welcome to fall in Texas.  I originally called this spring then realized I was six months off.

homo unius libri