Opus 2023-39: Foggy Days

I noticed that I was having a hard time praying.  It was not depression.  It was a lack of focus.  My mind would wander.  I would stare at the walls.  I could not think of anything to write about.  I finally realized it was happening and it was because I was sick, physically, not mentally.

It is amazing how our bodies and minds are connected.  We will do better if we put them together.  I really did need more naps and foggy mind time.  

Christian theologians debate the ways in which the mind and body work together.  Actually they have a third and fourth element, depending on what verse you are quoting.  I go with four based on,

(Mar 12:30 KJV)  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

The debate is not so much on how many but on whether they are a unity or separate.  I go with unity.  I don’t think you can really separate them even though they have different roles.  I think that is consistent with the resurrection we will have into some type of physical body.

So I am recovering a bit.  I look forward to the day when death and the grave get put in their places and we emerge with our incorruptible bodies.

See you there.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-038: Ode to Old: Goals

One of the data points I have seen repeated recently is that there has been a decline in life expectancy in the United States.  If my memory serves me, it is most pronounced in white men.  Since there are many factors involved in how long you live, it is not a statistic that worries me too much.  It could simply be a case of the hippie generation reaching the age when their early experiments with drugs and alcohol can no longer be denied.  It could be a genetic factor related to recent surges in immigration.  It could be a fluke.

Like many statistical announcements we need to keep in mind that the average over a large population has no real relevance to you as an individual.  If I live in a community of alcoholics and hear that the incidence of liver disease is skyrocketing I don’t worry for myself if I don’t drink.  I might put more into trying to influence my friends but the numbers are meaningless because of my life choices.

So how long should we expect to live?  One of the expressions that has been around for a long time is three-score and ten, or seventy years.  I don’t know if it is in other cultures but it is found in the Bible.  I have already achieved three-score and ten.  That seems to be the basic promise given for life span.  As one old gentleman said, “I am now living on borrowed time.”

The next is four-score.  It is found in the same verse as the 70.

(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.

I am not sure what is involved in this strength but I am already half way between 70 and 80.  If I make it to that we will go for 120.

(Gen 6:3 KJV)  And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

This last one was given during the time when people had been living hundreds of years.  I am not trying to announce promises or establish a doctrine of age but it is interesting.

My hope is that I will go the same way my dad went, in the middle of the night with no signs of stress.  And I am ready.  Any time, Lord.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-037: Can Electricity Do Gourmet?

I live in an all electric home.  One of my idle dreams is to have a gas stove like the one I was raised with.  It has always been an idle dream.  Now the Proregressives* are determined to turn it into the Impossible Dream.  Their hatred for us common folks is beyond comprehension.  They are like the self centered brats, the wannabes, that I had to deal with in middle school.  It wasn’t enough for them to write in a text book.  They always tried to find the newest and cleanest, one that would be worthy of their nihilism.  Like the traveling salesman who takes advantage of the farmer’s daughter, once sullied the victim is cast aside.

So what our wannabe overlords do is ask themselves, “What do the plebes enjoy?  What puts a smile on their face?  Someone said, “Ah.  Pumice wants a gas stove.  Let’s ban them.”

It is actually a more insidious attack than is understood at first glance.  I don’t have a gas stove.  I do have a gas grill out back.  What do I cook on that gas grill?  Tofu?  Bean sprouts?  Kale?  No.  I cook meat.  I will admit that if they took away my gas grill I could go to charcoal but are you foolish enough to think that won’t show up in the fine print in one of the 1,000 page bills passed by congress?

Silly Savage.

I guess the good part of this is that all the sheep that have worn masks because they government cared about them, think guns are a problem, believe all cultures are equal, can’t define a woman, etc., may finally wake up when they make them get a license for their gourmet Wolfgang Puck range.  Maybe there will be a revolt led by the You Tube Chefs.

One can only hope that their gas is more important to them than the First Ammendment.

*(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 2023-036: Box Rebellion

I don’t want to think outside the box.  It is like wanting to play outside the airplane or lifeboat.

Think about the “boxes” that make life possible.  Every cell in your body has a cell membrane.  It is what keeps you from becoming a bag of goo.  While we are on that, you skin is a box that keeps you from bleeding to death, turning into a bit of human jerky or eaten by every bug that happens by.  The non-conductive covering for electrical wires keeps you alive to enjoy the electricity that passes down them.  That is a box.  

I may need to make the box bigger or change its shape but I need to stay inside.

The limits to my box are established by the Bible.  
    I can see through to the outside.  I have a good idea what is outside the box.
    I see insanity and evil.
    I can ponder it, but only from the inside.
    Clear thinking can only be done inside the box.

So, thanks, but no thanks.  I will stay inside the box and explore the wonders of the universe from there.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-035: Headlines: Fund Raiser

Not the Bee had an interesting headline about Antifa burning down Atlanta.  The article was just a list of tweets, I think.  I am not sure since I don’t use Twitter.  

That was okay.  I didn’t want to read it anyway.  What I was looking for was a place to send a donation to Antifa.  Destroying a major Blue Blot is something I could get behind in theory.

Maybe when they get to Austin.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-034: Headlines: Get a Grip

I sometimes wonder if researchers or journalists every look at the big picture.  The article I looked at in Jewish World Review was perfect click bait.  It had to do with aging and grip strength.  I am getting old.  I am having a hard time picking up my granddaughter.  Of course, she is getting bigger but that can’t be the problem.

As I started looking through the article I came across this gem.

“A wealth of research already tells us that strength is good for us. People who lift weights are substantially less likely to develop heart disease, high blood pressure and many other chronic illnesses than those who skip resistance exercise.”

I do not have the data and I am a bit too lazy to try to generate it so I will pretend that I am a reporter for CNN and ask a question:  How many athletes in top shape have dropped dead or had serious physical issues this year?  What is the ratio of serious physical problems to athletes as compared to the general population?  I am guessing it is much higher.

I am also guessing that the factor that correlates best with lack of dying has to do with lack of vaccines rather than exercise.  I would also bet that the combination of lack of vaccines and presence of exercise would lead to fewer deaths.  I wonder what the determining variable would be.  I wonder if that article will ever be published.

I wonder if I will win a Nobel prize for literature.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-033: New Term: Lookening

Prayer.  I still struggle with the question of “Why?”  I stumbled across an article at Jewish World Review with one of those titles that are designed to be click bait, “Jews do not pray”.  Of course they do.  The point he was making was along the lines of my thinking.  

“If the Divine is all knowing then why am I telling Him my problems? He already knows them. If the Divine is all-good then why am I asking for Him to change my situation?”

His answer involved some sophistry and word games.  I did not concentrate on all of his reasoning.  It was enough that someone else was asking the question.

I pray.  I pray daily.  I doubt if I live up to the admonition of Paul in I Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing, but I talk to God a fair bit.  I even have lists of people and situations I cover.

One of the popular mantras I keep hearing is “Prayer changes things.”  I accept the thought but I am not sure I accept it the way it is usually intended.  One reason it raises my left eyebrow is that I can’t find that phrase in the Bible, as encouraging as it might be.

My current thinking is that prayer is primarily an activity that benefits us as we pray.  I rejected the shopping list type of prayer long ago.  I look at it more as a way of communicating which involves listening and pondering more than giving God a piece of my mind.  I find that as I offer up praise and thanksgiving it changes my perspective and calls to mind all the times I have had my trust in Him vindicated.  It reminds me of who He is.  

So I pray.  It is not a lecture series.  It is more along the line of Bible reading.  When I read the Bible I am not looking for proof texts, at least not usually.  I am looking while listening.  Maybe I can coin a word “lookening”.  God speaks to us and the most available way is through His written word.

Keep praying.  Keep reading.  Keep listening.  I hope to be there before you.

homo unius libri