Opus 2023-153: Compulsion

Are you OCD?  How do you know?

I just had a “eureka” moment which pointed toward “no”.

I try to keep two rolls of toilet paper on the toilet tank.  I don’t like to run out and today I mounted the second roll.  I know, TMI.  I remembered to get two more and put them in place as backup and in doing so I noticed something.  One roll was right side up and the other was upside down.  The key ingredient to this story is that I felt no inclination to make them both right side up.  If I were OCD I would have felt a compulsion.

More tips for other issues in life may come, or may not.  I feel under no compulsion.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-152: New Term: Gastrogressions

How about a restaurant built on the premise of avoiding gastronomical microagressions?  We would refuse to serve anything that caused anyone a sense of threat, tension or gas.

Let’s start with me.  I hate liver and onions.  It used to be that the simple smell of cooking liver would make me gag and want to vomit.  The first thing we would need to ban is liver.  Sticking with my family, my wife has issues that keep her from enjoying spicy food.  I cannot make chili at home because I might spill some cyan or chili powder and she would pay for it.  That rules out any food with exotic spices.

Nut allergies, shell fish allergies, soy allergies:  The list is endless.  If you have any questions about that then read the ingredient labels on just about anything you buy pre-packed.  From what I see on the warnings, about the only thing we are not allergic to are the chemical additives.  That may be because the chemical companies has big enough lobbying budgets to stay off the radar.  It might be that this new restaurant I am proposing could only offer additive soup and filler casseroles.  

A common sense solution would be to be careful and chose your table wisely.  I have not run into any misguided souls eating liver and onions in a restaurant in forty years.  When I was a young pastor I used to go to the dinner get togethers of the seniors and it seemed like the special was always liver and onions and they loved liver and onions.  I joked about it, tried to sit up wind and enjoyed the fellowship.  

The weakness in this is common sense.  People seem to be allergic to that also.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-151: The Hard Step

When Paul arrived in town and went to the Jews in the synagogues he found a group labeled by various translations with titles like “God-fearing” (4576) who were attracted to the moral teaching of God and to the person of God Himself yet they were not willing to pay the price involved in the law and circumcision.

(Act 13:43 NAS77) Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God.

Paul brought the message of Jesus that allowed them into the kingdom without observing the Law.

Today we have a similar group of people.  Some entire churches are made up of people who are attracted toward “something” in the gospel and yet are not willing to embrace the Jesus who is at the center.

There will be no apostle Paul coming to lower the bar for them.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-150: Symbolism

My mental tangent was chasing some of the recent things I had been reading about science and the Bible.  I had also been reading Psalms about God sending snow storms and such and reflecting on the different places it points out that He is holding the universe together.

That took me to thinking God could never be fit into a math formula.

Then I thought that might actually be the answer.  Physicists were known to make up symbols for their math.  Einstein came up with a triangle that had a value that worked.  He didn’t know what the value was, but it worked.  Why not have one for God.  It might be the compromise that the materialists could work with.

Actually it would not work with them.  Their basic foundation is that there is no God and just because their systems don’t work is no reason to consider something that conflicts with their priorities.  An example I came across was provided by some researchers trying to prove that something called “nonshared environmental variability” was key to differences in educational development.  When coming up with results that did not support the desired result the analysis they wrote, “Rather, we believe that the appropriate conclusion is that the causal mechanism underlying nonshared environmental variability is outcome remain unknown.” p. 259

Wouldn’t that be fun having a math symbol that represented the action of God?  You and I would not notice because they have so many symbols that are nonsense to the uninitiated but it would drive them crazy.

We might as well make math and science fun.  

Murray, Charles.  Human Diversity.  New York:  Twelve, 2020.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-149: Ode to Old: Decline Happens

We are all aware of the hypothetically Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”  To that genre of curses I would like to add, “May you be the sharpest tack in the box.”

The curse of being the sharpest tack on the board is only surpassed by the curse of thinking you are the sharpest.  If you are only slightly sharper or sharper in different areas you can still have a good conversation, but if there is a wide difference then talking becomes pointless.  I don’t confuse education, clothing or social class with being intelligent.  We still have lots of people around who did not go to college but have active brains and a grasp of what is going on.  They read, observe and reason, which is more than most intellectuals do.

What gets me on this “tack” is I am increasingly noticing the decline of people who are important to me.  Well read friends who once could quote from almost any book they had read or at least find the quote are having a hard time remembering if they read the book or not.  We all keep a good attitude and use good humor.  It is part of life but it is troubling.

It makes me wonder how far I am declining.  I notice there are certain words that I always have a mental block on.  Like so many things in life we see it in others before we see it in ourselves.  The battle continues.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-148: Word Power

We are being dragged down by a lack of imagination.

What is on my mind right now is the omnipresence of four letter words.  They have lost their shock value.  They never were really that funny.  The talking classes can’t seem to get beyond them.

I had a German teacher who attacked the problem by teaching us a good German word for cussing:  Kartofelvonkucken.  Granted, it had more than four letters, but if you say it with commitment it can sound very powerful.  With nods to my misspelling of the word, what it means is “potato pancakes.”

As a teacher I was a bit constrained in what I said but I still had moments.  I remember I always tried to find original ways to express my frustration.  I would at times get angry enough to say to the class, “Shut the expletive deleted up.”  Another one I used to use was defecation database.  I also would remind people when they apologized that the word they had used was not French but Anglo-Saxon.

The text books in middle school were in a steady decline as far as vocabulary goes.  I see the same process taking place in church.  Words that any 8th grader would know are often beyond the grasp of the teachers that are supposed to be setting the example.  We should be working to expand the variety available instead of dumbing everything down.

Become a paragon of perspicacity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2023-147: Why Go?

On Friday nights a group of old people from the church get together for dinner at a local restaurant.  I know I am old because I was invited to join them.  

Recently my wife has been on a mantra of, “Why do you go?”

The obvious reason is to get to know the people of the church.  You don’t know people if all you do is sit in the same room or row.  You may feel comfortable and accepted but a worship service is to focus on God, not to talk to each other.

Then there is a need for this isolationist introvert to get out and rub elbows with other human beings.  I am quite content to stay in my corner of the house.  I have little need for conversation.  At least I don’t feel like I need it, but I am also aware of the dangers of being isolated.  So I force myself to get up and get out.  Once I am in the presence of others I can have a good time but it is something I need to force because it is not my default.

One that occurred to me and generated this post was that I need to get to know people on a level that reminds me not to judge on superficial minutia.  It is easy to do and yet when we get to know people on the heart level we have a bit more mercy.  In some ways God is more critical than we are but I think in many ways He is more laid back, if you will accept that term.  It is because He can see into our hearts and minds.  He does not get distracted by all the superficial foibles we have that don’t reflect our inner reality.  

An example would be close relatives.  It is amazing how much lee way we are willing to give to people important to us.  We do it because we care and also because we know them.  We have a feel for what makes them tick.

When my wife ask me why I go I often don’t have an answer ready.  Maybe this will put the words in my mouth.

homo unius libri