Same Basic Idea
Peg, AKA Mr. Mollo's Mom, says her budgie Shelley is not doing well. It may be hard to believe, but those little eight-dollar birds that weigh an ounce are actually very smart, and people become attached to them.
So put Shelley on your prayer list. Look, do it. How long can it take to heal a bird that size?
Also, her friend's pug has leukemia and is receiving chemo.
Further assignments will be released as it becomes necessary.
Make a Note
Via Sondra K.: it turns out Linda SOG's non-malignant brain tumor has come back. Put her on prayer blast for me, okay?
Again!
First off, a personal message. A reader sent me an email about his great-grandfather, a Jew who came to believe Jesus was the Messiah. This gentleman came from a family of rabbis, and he studied with the intention of becoming a rabbi, but his belief in Jesus put an end to all that. And as a result, he endured a lot of persecution from his family. His sister went so far as to pay to have him killed. I found the story remarkable, but I was not able to say so, because all my efforts to reply to the email failed. Some technical problem. I wanted this reader to know I did not ignore his email.
I was startled by the degree of antipathy this man's belief evoked. If the story is true, his family must have been enraged to such a degree that they violated their own beliefs in order to punish him. There is no way a rabbinical court would back that kind of response. Even I know that.
Second, I see there is another sensational news item, purporting to prove Christianity is a hoax. We see these things from time to time. In the end, they generally serve only to prove the dishonesty or ignorance of the perpetrators. Remember James Cameron, making the ridiculous claim that he had found Jesus's bones? That theory stood up for what? Two days? And what about The Da Vinci Code? Remember how it turned out to be full of outright fabrications? I never did understand that mess. If I recall correctly, the author admitted it was a work of fiction, yet sincerely hoped it would advance his bizarre pagan beliefs, which were reflected in the book.
Now we're told that the concept of a suffering Messiah existed before Jesus, and that evidence has been found, in the form of an ancient stone with a story written on it. Congratulations, opponents of Christianity. You have confirmed what Christians have said for millennia. The concept of a suffering Messiah is very old, and we see it in the Psalms and the prophets. That the notion should appear in an old work of fiction means absolutely nothing.
It's surprising how little non-Christians know about the faith. Even scholarly religious Jews can be disappointing; some of the people encouraged by the discovery of this stone are Jews. It makes sense, however. Christians believe the Old Testament is divinely inspired, so we feel comfortable studying Jewish texts and asking questions of religious Jews. On the other hand, Jews consider Christianity a dangerous form of idolatry, worse than Islam. So you can't expect them to inquire into it as deeply.
Apart from that, they have an interest in disproving the validity of Christianity, so it would be unrealistic to expect them to be free from bias, regardless of how good their intentions are. You wouldn't expect the Pope to say kind things about Mormonism, would you?
A year from now, this story will be dead, like all the others. Christianity will remain alive.
Non-Christians don't realize that faith isn't based purely on the Bible or on social pressure. It's also based on personal revelation, including, in many cases, supernatural experiences. A Christian's faith is like a building with many bases. Chip away at one, and it still stands on the others.
This object was found in the region of the Dead Sea, and opponents of Christianity are citing that as evidence that it pre-existed Jesus, as did the Dead Sea Scrolls. Funny thing...you can't carbon-date a stone the way you can a scroll. When you date writing found on a stone, you have to guess. Wonder why the story doesn't mention that. This thing could have been carved twenty years ago by a scholar with a warped sense of humor. Christianity has many millions of enemies, and archaeology and paleontology have a long history of hoaxes. Remember Piltdown Man?
In fact, the story says they don't really know where the stone was found. The Dead Sea claim is just a guess.
Yeah, okay.
Even James Cameron did better than that.
Third, it's the Christian Sabbath, and once again, I am learning what keeping the Sabbath is like. This week, I'm learning how it feels to need the Sabbath. Lately, I've felt caught up in worldly concerns. I have felt as though I were being pulled away from religion, and it has been frustrating. I needed a day to devote to renewal, and now it's here. Wish me luck.
You Can't Help Others Without Helping Yourself
Got several things to talk about today.
First of all, let me apologize to all the people who have patiently tried to make me part of their Facebook and Myspace experiences. I just can't seem to get into social networking. I don't get it. Maybe there is something wrong with me. I will log in today and try to catch up.
Second, someone emailed and asked about good gun shops in the Miami area. I can't recommend any of the local places all that highly. I've bought guns at Garcia's National Gun, and they've given me good prices and competent service, and I have nothing critical to say about them, but I wouldn't say the experiences were inspiring. Bass Pro Shops has a store in Miami, and the gun area is pathetic, probably due to the yankees who still exert a disproportionate influence here. Their Hollywood store, however, is much better. I think I'd consider going there, if I needed advice or smithing as well as a good price.
Third, happy Fourth of July! Enjoy your burgers and don't even mention Cinco de Mayo.
Fourth, I saw an interesting guy on Fox News today. He's some kind of shrink. He was talking about the heartbreaking Brooke Bennett story. This young girl was apparently lured into the hands of murdering perverts by another girl who is only fourteen. And that girl had stated that she wanted to see Brooke suffer.
Megyn Kelly asked the shrink how a girl that young could have that attitude, and the shrink said that people from abusive environments learn to shut off their feelings in order to avoid feeling pain. Then later on, the same trick prevents them from empathizing with the pain of others.
I had never heard it put that way before. I had heard the phrase "cycle of abuse," but it always seemed like a platitude. Now I see how it could make sense.
I had a miserable childhood, and I learned to put off feeling things that upset me. I've written about this before. After I became an adult, I realized I was not responding properly when I was presented with the suffering of others. For example, I remember watching footage of Nazi concentration camps. I disapproved of what I saw, but I didn't think of each person--each body in the mass graves--as a human being with a name and relatives and a history and so on. I thought maybe television and movies had desensitized me. That was probably true, but I now wonder if the defense mechanisms I used as a kid were also to blame.
When I realized I wasn't feeling the distress a healthy person should feel, I started making a point of trying to think more deeply about other people's suffering. Today, for example, if I'm watching the History Channel and I see that old concentration camp footage, I look at the faces and I wonder about the lives of these dead individuals. I wonder if they were married. Whether they had kids. What their achievements had been. And what I feel is much more appropriate. The other day I saw a show about the B-29, and they showed footage of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs going off. I thought about the people burning under those clouds, and the fact that the gas was partly composed of human beings.
It's a better way to live. Not as comfortable, maybe, but more likely to lead to constructive thoughts and actions. I find it helpful as I try to improve myself. For example, many times in my writing, I've said things that were unbelievably stupid and seemingly cruel, and I've been trying to pick up on these things as they appear, instead of being bitten in the ass by them later.
I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I knew of a way other people could protect themselves from becoming jaded and insensitive. Charity. I think this is one reason God demands that Jews and Christians give money to charity and take care of the needy. It's not just to help others. It helps the giver as well. When you decide to give, and you start looking around for a good opportunity, you will find yourself presented with a burdensome smorgasbord of human misery. Babies with worms. Jews trapped in Muslim countries. Girls forced into prostitution. The list is virtually endless. And when you try to decide where to send your aid on a given day, you can't help but feel empathy for the people you try to help.
If you, too, feel as though you've become calcified from movies and television and Internet rage, and maybe from the bad things that have been done to you during your life, consider charity as a way to heal yourself. You might try the links on the left side of my blog. World Vision and the IFCJ are especially good; they will present you with specific opportunities that may touch you in special ways. You might buy a family a few chickens or help a Jew leave a squalid camp in Ethiopia.
The Internet is making all of us less sensitive and civil. Maybe charity can help you fight back.
Final note: Russ Emerson put up a review of my book, Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man - The World's Unhealthiest Cookbook. Thanks, Russ. Your loyalty means a lot to me. Hope the physical therapy is going well.
You Think You Have Enemies?
I continue to work on the New Testament today, in The Complete Jewish Bible, with accompanying commentary. I just got up to the stoning of Stephen. I don't like calling him "Saint Stephen," because I think the whole "saint" thing is a bad mistake. Anyway, my father (who claims to be a Druid) says I was named after various Stephens in his family. My mother told me the Bible's Stephen was the inspiration. I suppose it's flattering to be named after a martyr, but the choice doesn't scream "good luck."
I almost wish they had gone with "v" instead of "ph." As I have noted before, one constant reminder that people are becoming more and more ignorant is that increasingly, people pronounce my name "Stephan" and even argue with me about it. It's terrible, seeing what liberals have done to education. How can you make it to the age of ten without noticing all the famous Stephens? And what does this say about people's knowledge of the Bible? I guess I'll worry even more when people lose the ability to pronounce "Moses" and "Jesus." If you're young, you may think Americans have always been stupid, but that's not true. I remember a time when a lot of us were not total ignoramuses.
I learned interesting stuff about stoning. Somewhere the Talmud describes it. The defendant was taken to a place from which the fall was twice the height of a man, and then he was shoved off. If he landed face-down, they turned him over. Then the first witness dropped a big rock on his chest. After that, the stoning was carried out by others present, I think. So it wasn't a Life of Brian affair, where women in false beards threw pebbles.
I had always assumed that one virtue of stoning was that no single individual bore the responsibility. But if a witness has to be the first to harm the defendant, that's not true. It makes a lot of sense to force a witness to drop the first rock. It would tend to discourage lying cowards who are willing to accuse but prefer that dupes do the dirty work. In other words, it might make the bearing of false witness less likely.
A peculiar thing about stoning is that the Jews have been reluctant to do it. For example, I have been told they didn't obey the order to stone homosexuals. One of the commandments says your eye is not to pity those who are to be stoned; you're supposed to do what the written law says. I don't know how they came to the conclusion that it wasn't necessary to go through with stonings. I haven't read the Talmud. I know they didn't make the decision lightly. Jewish law, like civil law, should never be taken at face value.
The Muslims, of course, see it differently. Stonings, beheadings, mutilation without anaesthetic...Muslims are very sincere and fastidious about observing their obligation to do these things.
I also learned that a man named Daniel Zion saved most of Bulgaria's Jews from Hitler. He was a Messianic Jew, too. He was a religious scholar and a rabbi before he decided Jesus was the Messiah. In fact he was the chief rabbi of Bulgaria, and he retained that position even after confessing his faith to another rabbi. He never considered himself "Christian," however. I guess he's a thorn in the side of those who say no Jew with a religious education can go Messianic. Anyway, he helped about 45,000 people escape the camps, so he must have been quite a man. I found a page about him. I can't vouch for it, but I have no reason to think it's not factually correct.
He ran a synagogue in Israel after the war, but his status was not recognized by Israel's rabbinical court, which took away his credentials.
Interesting man. Flogged by the Nazis for his Jewishess. Stripped of the title "rabbi" by a Jewish court, for his belief in Jesus. They gave it to him coming and going.
Good Monday Topics
First item today: TC sent me a link to a story about Christianity in China. The Chinese have repressed Christianity, going so far as to commit widespread atrocities. But it looks like it hasn't worked. It never does. About five percent of the Chinese people are Christians. That's a lot, in a nation five times the size of the US. And their numbers are growing.
More exciting: the Chinese churches teach the power of the Holy Spirit. That's extremely important. A lot of the older churches behave almost as though the Holy Spirit were an embarrassment, and that is what has torn the heart out of them and made them so disappointing to believers.
On a personal note, I was struck by the realization that once again, God was answering my own prayers, on a giant scale. The evangelization of places like China is something I include on my prayer list regularly. Looking at this story, it occurred to me that God must be guiding millions upon millions of Christians to pray for the same things, because over and over, I see my global-scale prayers answered. I don't think God looks down and says, "Steve wants to save China, so I better do it." I think He must be guiding huge numbers of people to pray for big-ticket items, like change in China, and answers to our energy problems, and victory over militant Islam.
Why mention it? Because it might encourage people to pray for things they think are too big for God to grant. Don't assume you're the only one on the job.
I've been very pessimistic about China. On the whole, China is our enemy. And if China ever has enough wealth and power to cause us real problems, we'll be in big trouble. It represents a fourth of the world's population. You don't want an enemy that big, with a sound economy propelling it. The rise of Christianity in China is very encouraging, because it could lead to better relations and a profitable alliance. At the very least, it will weaken China's efforts to harm us.
On the gun front, I got a comment from someone putting down the M1 carbine. As if to confirm what I said this weekend about the dangers of criticizing other people's guns, people are firing back! They're seriously annoyed! The commenter compared the M1 to a .22 rifle and essentially described it as worthless.
I'm not stupid; I know the M1 carbine isn't a battle rifle. But it looks like it would be tremendous fun to shoot. It has a cartridge big enough to be considered a real rifle round, making it more fun than a .22, and it should be much more pleasant to shoot than a K31 or M1 Garand or Moisin Nagant or Mauser.
I don't know, but my guess is, it would be an easy and fairly inexpensive reload. And each gun has history. Some have been through World War Two AND Arab-Israeli conflicts, on the proper side.
If I get one, I want a Rock-Ola, an IBM, or maybe a National Postal Meter. Simply because those are funny names to put on a gun.
Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that joining the Garand Collectors' Association would enable me to buy Civilian Marksmanship Program surplus rifles. In a comment, a reader says he thinks a carry permit will get me in the door, with no club affiliation. If I read the CMP's site correctly, this is not true. To buy their guns, you have to prove you're actively involved in marksmanship, and they'll accept a carry permit as evidence. But you still have to join an affiliated organization. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm still debating the purchase of a Golani, which is a Century Arms parts-bin copy of the Israeli Galil. As I understand it, this is basically an AK with some real improvements. The big knocks are a. parts gun, and b. heavy. I like the idea of buying Israeli products, even if they're assembled somewhere else. I like the idea of a military-style rifle with cheaper, lighter ammunition than the stuff I'm used to. And I think the gun will appreciate, simply because they're not available often. But it's not a real Galil.
Last note on guns: pray that the Supreme Court will get it right and expand our Second Amendment rights to the greatest extent possible, without alarming Congress to the point where they can get a majority and amend the Constitution. I have to tell you, there is nothing like the sensation of walking around in stores and malls with a loaded gun. This is the power the framers wanted us to feel. Let's not let effete wimps and hippies on our coasts take it away from us. I hope everyone at the BATF and the Brady Center has indigestion for the coming month.
Speaking of the BATF, I'm holding my breath until I get the go-ahead to cruffle. Once that happens, look out.
Once again, I apologize for falling behind on email. I'll try to fix it up today. I have been distracted by BS, but things have cleared up.
Bother me Tomorrow
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA it's the Sabbath. Every time I call Sunday the Sabbath, I cringe, expecting wise guys to post pointless corrections in the comments. Still, for me, it's the Sabbath. And I reiterate: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Why "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"?
Every week, since I started setting Sundays aside for God, I have had some sort of revelation about the nature of the Sabbath, or the rewards or consequences of keeping it. And this week, payoff is a renewed understanding that the Sabbath is a sanctuary. On the Sabbath, you escape your problems. The busted pool pump, the sidewalk that needs to be repaired, the emails that should be answered...they will all have to wait. I refuse to even think about it. And I count on God to prevent me from suffering because of my sanctioned procrastination. Somehow, He will work it out. The Sabbath is His idea, not mine. I'll worry about His concerns today, and He can do the same for me.
For the last two weekends, I've been unable to do a full-blown Sunday observance. First there was Father's Day. Someone explain why we let the retail industry force Sunday holidays on us, knowing it will interfere with worship and rest. After that, there were horrendous plumbing problems that could not be ignored. This weekend, things are back to normal. I'm safe again. I can take the day off! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
In addition to plodding through the New Testament in The Complete Jewish Bible, with commentary, I've been reading the books of Samuel and Judges. Unfortunately, there is no companion commentary. And it's pretty confusing. Generally when you read the Bible, it makes sense. You can see the point of each story. That seems less true in these books. The people seem much more worldly and corrupt and aimless than the folks in much of the rest of the Bible.
Some parts, like the history of Saul and David and Solomon, are not hard to understand. But other parts seem to have an almost random nature. The Jews and Fundamentalists tell us that isn't true, however. Every letter in the original Hebrew is supposed to have a meaning and a purpose. I take it on faith that they're right, and I read it and assume there will be some benefit eventually.
I can report one benefit. I got to talk to my Dad about it. He's extremely hostile to Christianity, and to religion in general. But he and I ended up having a conversation about these books during this period, and he was surprisingly willing to listen. That was great. You never know when you're going to plant a seed.
I think any reasonable person who sat and listened to an explanation of the Pentateuch and the New Testament and maybe the Psalms would eventually have to agree that all these books are connected, and that when read in pari materia, they are convincing proof of the existence of God. But you can't bind and gag people and make them listen. When it comes to religion, listening is not nearly as popular as talking. I try to think about that when other people talk and expect me to listen, but I often fail to live up to my own ideals.
Here's a pleasant piece of news. The weather has brightened up. I spend time reading the Bible on Sunday, obviously, and I very much prefer to do it outdoors. There is something about outdoor air that indoor air ordinarily can't match. The weather has been terrible all week, and I figured today I would be stuck on the couch. But it's sunny and not all that terribly humid for Miami. Maybe I'll manage to spend a few hours outside.
"Tough"
Condi Rice is upset because Israel is building new housing in the eastern section of Jerusalem, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE JEWISH NATION.
What nerve they have. After all, isn't the land sacred to Muslims, too? I mean, a Koran verse refers to an imaginary mosque--a mosque in a dream--which kind of, sort of, in some feeble way, could be said to resemble the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which DID NOT EXIST UNTIL LONG AFTER MOHAMMED DIED.
Never mind David and Solomon and the other JEWISH kings of Israel and Judah who ruled in Jerusalem for centuries.
The Dome of the Rock was established on the site of a Christian church, which itself was built on the Temple Mount. The Muslims put a mosque there for the purpose of humiliating Jews and Christians, much as they sealed Jerusalem's Golden Gate and placed a cemetery just outside it. They sealed the gate to prevent the Messiah from fulfilling prophecy by entering through it, and the cemetery was intended to prevent the Messiah and Elijah (who must precede Him) from approaching the gate. The theory is that the Messiah and Elijah are both cohens and can't legally enter a cemetery. Oh, yeah. That will work.
The Road Map to Peace is a Road Map to Appeasement. It's a remarkable invention: a map which helps people get more lost. It's worthless and offensive. Condi is smart, and I'm sure she has good intentions, but even the Secretary of State has to defer to God.
I can't wait for the day when the Jew-hating con artists are back on their own soil, and their poisonous arguments are no longer taken seriously by anyone. And I truly look forward to seeing that mosque demolished and scraped off the Temple Mount.
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I respectfully request that people quit putting the term "raghead" in comments.
Here's Another One for History's Dung Heap
Here is an appropriate Sabbath topic: Iran's delightful president has repeatedly stated his intention to destroy Israel, and the MSM does a very poor job of covering it. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has put up a page of Mr. Ahmadinejad's threats, and if you haven't read them, I suggest you take a look.
The Book of Enoch says people from Iran will be annihilated one day, as they approach Jerusalem. It's not clear how much, if any, of this work should be considered scripture, but you don't have to be a prophet to predict that Israel and Iran are going to have a confrontation.
When do You Give Up?
Let's have your opinions on a religious issue.
Imagine you know someone whose behavior is truly vile. Let's say this is someone who has had ample--even exceptional--opportunity to turn to God. And you keep this person in your prayers for years. And it doesn't seem to help, probably because free will is a barrier even God will not breach.
The Apostle Paul referred to abandoning unrepentant people to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. It sounds like he meant he gave up praying for them, in order that they might suffer and be motivated to change. Does that make sense? Do you ever give up praying? Maybe it's okay to stop, because prayer takes time, and you can overload yourself, and time from which one person will not profit can be given to another person who will change. It just seems a little odd, refraining from praying for someone, in order to help them. And helping was part of Paul's motivation.
As a Christian, you want to see miserable, hate-filled people change. And Jesus encouraged people to be persistent in prayer. But eventually, you want to move on!
It seems to me that the danger of giving up on a hateful and unpleasant person is that you may be depriving that person of the help of the only human being who cares at all. People like that live in loneliness, darkness, complete cynicism, bitterness, spite, and envy. Other people can't stand them and feel contempt for them. They remove them from their lives. Seems to me that a person like that is better off being the subject of prayers uttered purely out of obligation than no prayers at all.
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I guess I should have read up before asking. It looks like Paul was referring to driving people out of churches. One example was a Christian who had a sexual relationship with his father's wife. This person presumably had to be cut loose for the good of the church, where he had somehow managed to find approval and encouragement. And I think Paul was talking about an official act, performed by the assembled church.
Maybe an individual should never completely give up, although I can certainly understand expelling God-hating, continually offensive people from your life.
Starts Tonight
Here is more proof that I need to find a church. Tonight will be Shavuot, AKA Pentecost, and I didn't even know it. I forgot all about it. Fortunately, Aaron reminded me.
Catholics believe Pentecost was on May 11. But the correct dates for Jewish holidays are determined by the Jewish calendar, and the Jews say Shavuot starts tonight. It's the Festival of the First Fruits. In Israel, Jews bring out newly born sheep and calves and also items of produce. Christians believe "first fruits" refers to the mass baptism of the Holy Spirit, which descended on the assembled disciples on this day. If memory serves, the disciples themselves were considered the first fruits of Jesus's harvest. Which makes sense, since He referred to Himself as a seed that went into the ground in order to produce much grain (John 12:24).
This is arguably a more important day than Easter. Easter brought salvation to the Gentiles, but if I understand scripture correctly, Gentiles ignorant of God's existence were in no danger of condemnation. Pentecost, however, made it possible for every human being to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, on demand. Something that used to be reserved for people like Jeremiah and Daniel became available to all of us. On this day, God made the existence of a race of prophets possible.
And of course, we've forgotten all about it, focusing instead on salvation. Jesus clearly wanted every person to experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He told Nicodemus we had to be reborn of water and the spirit, if we wanted to enter the Kingdom of God. In other words, if we wanted to live in, and exert, God's power here on earth. This is the most hateful thing you can mention to people still ruled by the prince of this world, and it's the thing misguided church leaders have worked the hardest to conceal. It's probably the thing which is most likely to get you martyred.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, but you're interested, find yourself a pentecostal or charismatic church and ask about the baptism. I believe the usual procedure is for people who already have it to lay hands on you.
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Aaron points out that the biggest significance of Shavuot in the Jewish calendar is that it was the date on which the Torah was given to the Jews.
And of course, Christians believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is what the Old Testament refers to when it says God will write the Torah on men's hearts.
Not that I would suggest that there is a connection or anything.
Popular Stuff
I'm getting a lot of input RE hummus.
Once I added the tahini Jonathan recommended, the hummus improved. But I didn't realize until today how much it had improved. It's really very good. Better than store hummus. I didn't expect that.
He says fresh hummus is best. I should email him about that. I'm wondering if he's talking about the style they serve in kibbutz dining halls. Call me a traitor, but the best food in Israel (unless things have changed) is Arab food. It was worth getting dysentery for; I can tell you from experience. The falafel they sold in Afula was beyond description. I used to look forward to getting off the kibbutz just so I could have food made by Arabs. The hummus they had in our dining hall wasn't spicy. I can see how a mild hummus like that would be better on the first day, but it seems like my hummus is getting better. And it's loaded with garlic and cumin and hot sauce. Highly seasoned foods tend to improve in the fridge.
Last year, I located a lady in Trinidad for the purpose of obtaining obscure peppers. I hooked her up with a pepper forum, and she ended up supplying a lot of people in the US with Trinidad Scorpion and 7 Pot pepper seeds. Last week, out of the blue, she sent me seeds for yellow 7 Pot peppers, which I had never heard of. They're usually red. That was nice of her. I better get them growing.
I'm thinking about peppers because of that and because of the hummus. My habanero gold bush has already produced a second crop of huge peppers, and I need to do something with them. I'm thinking that the next time I make hummus, I should toss a minced habanero in there. Hot peppers are supposed to have health benefits, such as decimating digestive-tract cancers. And this week I learned that hummus can neutralize a tremendous amount of pepper heat. So by eating hummus regularly, it should be possible to get a decent dose of hot peppers without burning holes in my gullet.
Cayennes would surely be better, though. It still irks me to know that peppers from Home Depot taste better than most of my exotics.
People are telling me to add butter beans to make the hummus creamier. As I recall, the better recipes I had in Israel were very creamy, but here in the US, it all seems a little grainy. I'm not sure. I don't really care, though.
Today is the sabbath, and every week, the sabbath teaches me something new. This week I am coming to appreciate the pleasure of having the sabbath rescue me from something I don't want to do.
Yesterday I slaved in the garage, trying to organize things and repair my workbench. It was a long, sweaty ordeal. Were today not Sunday, I'd have to go back in there and get back to it. Hey, I'm not lazy. I'm just pious. No, really.
Heh heh. That worked out pretty good.
As good as a kibbutz-style breakfast is with pita, it would be way better with hot naan or poori. But those breads are so greasy it would be like eating a stack of pancakes.
The Usual
Someone asked me for my hummus recipe. I'll tell you what I've got so far.
Yesterday I glanced at some online recipes. You can probably guess how much I trust them. I did my own thing. I wrote about the results, and I inquired about tahini, which I had not yet added to the recipe. Johnathan said tahini was essential, so this morning I added some, and it did the trick. It adds a peculiar bitterness you can't get from lemon juice or vinegar. He was absolutely right.
The results are good enough to post, but you may be able to do a lot better. I think I'm going to add more garlic next time. The reason this is worth posting isn't that the recipe is so great. It's that prepared hummus is obscenely expensive, and this stuff is nearly free.
INGREDIENTS
2 (around 14 oz. each, I guess) cans garbanzo beans, drained
juice of 2 lemons--buy 3 just in case
1 tsp. cumin
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. tahini (not prepared sauce)
1/2 tsp. paprika
I also added a ton of Crystal hot sauce, which I can still barely taste. I'll bet I added a quarter of a cup.
Toss this stuff into a food processor and blend until it looks like hummus. Save the water from the canned beans until the end, and add it judiciously if you have to. The mixture may be dry. I'll bet cooking your own beans would make it better.
If I had it to do over again, I think I'd omit the Crystal and toss in part of a habanero, or maybe--better--three or four fresh cayennes. I don't know if the paprika serves any purpose. It's just ground-up red peppers. It's a nice thing to dust on the top of a mound of hummus, with a little olive oil and a couple of black olives, before you serve it.
Johnathan says hummus should be fresh. He knows more about it than I do. My plan is to make it once a week and eat it for five days. If it's not as good as fresh, I'll survive. It sure beats oatmeal. I think he also said the cumin was not standard, but I like it.
Here is what I had for breakfast today. I cut a quarter of a big sweet red pepper in strips. Did the same with an entire carrot and a quarter of a big cucumber. Meant to add a tomato, but I forgot. I put three globs on my plate: sour cream, cottage cheese, and hummus. Added two boiled eggs. I tossed a big whole-wheat pita on it and made myself an iced tea. This is pretty much what I used to eat for breakfast and dinner on the kibbutz, except that they served white toast. I think it's better than oatmeal, which is carb soup. And it's better than the five eggs I used to eat, because it's lower in cholesterol, for which my gall bladder will hopefully thank me. You don't really need a fork. That's what the pita is for.
I find that if I eat too much pita with the meal, I feel bad afterward. Damn carbs.
I'm thinking I should slice up carrots, cucumbers, and peppers every Sunday night and cram them in spoilage-resistant containers for the rest of the week. That will give me a good head start and make breakfast easier. They have new chemical-impregnated containers you can buy, which are supposed to keep vegetables fresher.
I don't use low-fat dairy stuff. It's disgusting.
It may sound crazy, me eating vegetables. A lot of people don't know how much Southerners love vegetables, whether cooked or fresh. My mother used to make forty-mile round trips to Homestead, Florida, just to get tomatoes and onions and corn. I remember watching a prosecuting attorney up in Kentucky, telling my grandfather about his home-canned collard greens. You would have thought he was talking about canned diamonds. Southerners get as excited about good vegetables as Yankees do about great desserts. Very strange.
You know what I miss? Falafel. The falafel they make in Afula, Israel is worth handing the country over to the Arabs for. Nearly. But it's a huge pain to make. I think I made it too hard by using way too much oil. I'll bet I could come up with a recipe that would stomp restaurant falafel, but I'd still be unable to duplicate the giant assortment of condiments falafel joints in Israel use. Oh, man. Falafel with ground-up habaneros in it? Are you kidding me? That would rock.
In other news, I got my Caldwell HAMMR machine rest put together. Sort of. This is like a Ransom rest, only cheaper. It must be fairly good; some magazine writers admit they use it. It turns out you have to attach a piece of wood to the bottom of it, and then you clamp the wood to your shooting bench. Oh, no. Oh, woe is me. Work. The thing I dread. Oh, well. I get a chance to fire up the table saw. I have an old piece of plywood (sign from my realtor days) that I plan to use. What's the best way to seal up the edges of a piece of 3/4" plywood so splinters don't shed?
I don't know yet whether Trail Glades will let me use this thing. I plan to set it up and start shooting, and they can raise hell if they want.
In addition to gluttony, I am trying to get a grip on laziness these days. I feel like it's sneaking up on me. I should be somewhat more active than I am. There are things I've been putting off. I used to have this idea that refraining from sinning all that much was all I had to do to be a good Christian, but now I realize you have to be conscious of all of your weaknesses, and you have to try to overcome them
I read from the book of Luke last night, in The Complete Jewish Bible. The editor says the Acts of the Apostles follows from Luke as though it were a second volume. I didn't know that.
One of the interesting ideas in the commentary is that we are too hard on the Pharisees. The editor, David Stern, believes that scriptural criticisms leveled at the Pharisees are aimed at specific groups and individuals, not the Pharisees as a whole. And that makes sense, because the Bible says some of them supported Jesus. One of them gave Jesus his own tomb. And supposedly, they were reformers, and Jesus may have been associated with them. I think things like this concern Stern, because Jewish behavior in the New Testament has been used as an excuse for anti-Semitism and the ridiculous "replacement theology."
I don't really worry about it, because I don't think I was put here to punish people who offend God.
Hope I remember how to use that saw.
Too Much Tofu?
Before you run off and enjoy your weekend, let me inform you: Val Prieto has gout. So say a prayer for him.
It's a total mystery, how this could happen to a guy who cooks entire pigs.
I say it's time to sue Anheuser-Busch.
Remember Those who Suffered
Reader Pam reminded me via email that today is D-Day. It's odd that I wasn't thinking about it already, because Marv, Maynard and I watched a couple of documentaries about it last night, and they made a deep impression on me.
It's peculiar; the farther you are from God, the more cable and the Internet seem to be tools of the enemy. The closer you get, the more they become assets that help you grow. I tend to think of the web as a devastating, unstoppable, pervasive tidal wave of porn, sexual perversion, cruelty, youth worship, and arrogance. But it's also making the word of God available to more people than were ever reached by other means. Similarly, cable TV is full of good things, if you can figure out how to work a DVR.
What I'm leading up to here is the Military Channel. I believe the greatest thing a person can do is to give his life for God, but after that comes giving your life--or the integrity of your body--for your others. And that's what soldiers do as a condition of their employment. They are the finest, most worthy people among us, which is why it makes my blood boil when I see pampered, ignorant, rebellious, immature people insult them. But like most people, I don't do much of anything for the military, and I don't think about their sacrifices nearly as often as I should. And the Military Channel is a great tool for refreshing your gratitude and restoring your perspective.
I've reached the point where I now longer watch any network TV. I can't name a sitcom currently in production. I have never seen more than one or two minutes of American Idol. Thank God, literally, I have managed to find better things to allow to enter my mind. It's not that I have discipline; that ought to be obvious to anyone who reads this blog. It just happened. If you're still watching the video equivalent of Skittles and Froot Loops, you might consider making an effort to root through your schedule for improving things to record.
If what I have learned about D-Day is correct, many of the troops who made the initial landings suffered for days even before the attack. They were seasick and miserable. Surely they lost sleep. And their accommodations were pretty bad to begin with. After days of nausea and fatigue, they were ordered onto the beaches, where they were chewed to pieces.
Oddly, yesterday the pre-attack misery made a bigger impression on me than the slaughter. Maybe that's because I've heard about the landing itself all my life, or because it's easier for me to understand the things that happened outside of battle. Thinking about these boys confined on rocking ships, with only machine gun fire and mines to look forward to upon release, I realized how spoiled we are. Or at least how spoiled I am. If I miss an hour of sleep, I feel cheated. If I spend half a day without air conditioning, it's a catastrophe. I have to wonder how a person like me would hold up in the belly of a ship waiting to sail for Normandy. To some people, the scary thing about war is the possibility of physical harm. To me, the scariest thing is the possibility that I would let everyone else down. I am impressed beyond words by the courage and toughness of men who slogged out of landing craft and planes and gliders, into the face of Germany's deadliest fortifications.
Excessive violence in the media is generally a bad thing. But I believe we should be more honest in our depictions and coverage of war. Because until we see what it's really like, we don't appreciate the sacrifice. It's odd; when you see footage of Iwo Jima and the Normandy invasion, you see bodies, but you don't see the horrors veterans talk about. You never see a severed head or a set of intestines stretched out on the ground, far from a body. Maybe censors withheld the most frightening footage in order to avoid harming public morale. Our soldiers saw things like that, and they still had to plod forward and fight. And we paid them very little, and when they came home, we forgot they existed, and we didn't even set up decent hospitals for them.
They went through that so people like me could live in a country where life is so good, it seems to make sense to complain about things like four-dollar gasoline.
The sad thing is, instead of remaining grateful and humble, we have become degenerate and proud. We don't respect the people who bought us our freedom. We don't respect the moral principles laid down by the God who established this country and gave us prosperity. If we keep sliding downward, we are eventually going to pay. Four-dollar gas, expensive food, a weak dollar, and foreign wars are almost certainly just the warning shots.
Here is something I came across yesterday, from The Complete Jewish Bible:
Be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today. Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them, and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold, and everything else you own, you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting Adonai your God--who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; who led you through the vast and fearsome desert, with its poisonous snakes, scorpions and waterless, thirsty ground; who brought water out of flint rock for you; who fed you in the desert with man, unknown to your ancestors; all the while humbling and testing you in order to do you good in the end--you will think to yourself, 'My own power and the strength of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.' No, you are to remember Adonai your God, because it is he who is giving you the power to get wealth, in order to confirm his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as is happening even today. If you forget Adonai your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish. You will perish just like the nations that Adonai is causing to perish ahead of you, because you will not have heeded the voice of Adonai your God.
That was directed to Israel (Deuteronomy 8:11-20), but the same principles apply to everyone. One of the worst things that can happen to you is to succeed in life without realizing you owe it to God.
In the past, when I wondered why other nations were so poor and weak compared to America, I used to put too much emphasis on our work ethic and our dedication to education. And our capitalist system. The truth is, there are countries where people work and study harder than we do, and where capitalism exists (or used to exist), yet which have historically fared very badly. The real difference between us and them is that we have been blessed. And no matter how smart we are or how hard we work, that blessing can be revoked. Right now, we are probably seeing the beginning of that revocation, or at least the threat of it. It happened to England, and it can happen to us. If we continue insulting the power that put us at the forefront of the world's nations, we are going to sink back into the pack and lose the things that make us special. Once that happens, you might as well move to Mexico or India.
The same arrogance and selfishness that make us forget God make us forget the sacrifices of others who have established us. Like our parents. And like the men who fought for us on D-Day and in a thousand other battles. That is what I have gleaned from thinking about this. I am trying to do better, and I hope that if you have been as remiss as I have, you will try, too.
Forgot
I guess I'm a giant idiot. I forgot to tell everyone that June 2 was Jerusalem Day. It's the day when Jews celebrate the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem, much of which had been off-limits to Jews since the 1948 attack by Israel's relentless, savage, and unprincipled enemies. I assume the date is solar, not lunar.
I'm not sure why they celebrate, since they give back every piece of God-given land their enemies force them to conquer. They gave much of Jerusalem back. Sooner or later, though, the world will have a better Jerusalem Day to celebrate, because the entire Holy City will be controlled by the Jews. And so will Israel--the real Israel, not the little sliver we call "Israel" today. And it will stay that way.
In a related matter, Ed Koch reveals a mind worthy of a good yeshiva, as he explains why it is stupid and completely backward to accuse John Hagee of anti-Semitism.
Hagee thinks God played a part in the Holocaust. Perhaps he's wrong. But either way, why do people get upset every time a preacher says God may have been involved in something resembling punishment?
Read the Bible before you react without thinking. The Babylonian captivity, the Egyptian captivity, the siege of Jerusalem, numerous failures in battle, famine and plagues in Egypt...the Bible says God caused or allowed these things. Where is it written that He has changed?
And before you claim that ended with the Old Testament, ask yourself when the last temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and who predicted it.
Hagee thinks the Holocaust ultimately had a purpose. Is it somehow better to believe it was absolutely meaningless?
One of the big tactics enemies of religion use is the denial that God could do or consciously allow anything that would cause anyone pain. One goal: it helps them deny that sin exists. It excuses all human behavior and contributes to touchy-feely moral relativism. And the worst thing is, many issue this denial from pulpits, while claiming to be Christians.
I don't think Hagee claims the Holocaust was punishment. But I think people are trying to twist his words and make it look as if he were blaming the Jews for their pain. Not all misfortune is punishment. I'm sure John Hagee knows that. The Egyptian exile was not a punishment, for example.
It irritates me, seeing people try to drive a wedge between Jews and their most powerful allies, American conservative Christians. But it doesn't surprise me. To the enemy, we are a dangerous combination. The slanders tend to suggest that the threat has been recognized.
If only more Jews understood. I still can't believe there are American Jews who think the anti-Semitic left will protect them from the Israel-loving right.
Be Gracious, if You Can
Hope everyone will take a minute to say a prayer for Ted Kennedy, who is under the knife right now having a brain tumor removed.
Taking a Break From Resting
I don't know if anyone paid attention when I recommended The Complete Jewish Bible and its accompanying volume, The Jewish New Testament Commentary--wow, it just occurred to me that the name of that book is going to make a lot of people upset--but in case anyone did, I have great news. The commentary picks up speed once you get through Matthew. I thought I would take a month to get through the first New Testament book, but it didn't take quite that long, and I finished the second book in an hour or two.
To my Jewish friends who hate my use of the term "Messianic Jew," let me point out that you have an unexpected bedfellow. Sort of. Dr. David Stern, compiler of these volumes, has a real problem with terms that sound too Christian. So he has taken pains to cleanse the Bible of words that would irritate Jewish readers. For example, he refers to the cross as an "execution stake." That will make the Mormons happy, I guess. It's kind of annoying, seeing familiar passages disguised by this kind of editing. But I know his heart is in the right place.
I grew up surrounded by Jews, so I tend to forget that they are, as the Bible says, "separate." Reading this book helps me understand how separate they really feel. I didn't understand their horror of Christianity until recently. No wonder they vote for Christian-baiting Democrats. No wonder they supported godless Joe Stalin, back in the USSR. I suppose anyone who believes in Jesus seems like a threat.
It's not a rational attitude, though. While there are plenty of Christian anti-Semites, I am fairly sure that the bulk of the last century's anti-Semitic behavior was carried out by socialists, Nazis, and Muslims. Who also despise the Christian church. The Inquisition was quite some time ago. And leftism is becoming more anti-Semitic by the year. If you don't trust all Christians, you're smart. If you distrust every Christian, you're not thinking.
I have had a pleasant day so far. I read sixty chapters of Enoch, in addition to working on the Gospels. The book of Enoch existed before Jesus lived, and to a Christian eye, it's all about the Messiah. I hope one day it turns out to be legitimate.
It talks about the Medes and the Parthians attacking Israel and being wiped out near Jerusalem. "Medes and Parthians" means "Iranians." I checked. Interesting. Also, disturbing. One would hope that the present Iran/Israel friction could be resolved. Assuming Enoch can be taken seriously, I hope it's referring to some future conflict, and not something that is already upon us.
Today I thought about the second, and most powerful, purpose of the New Covenant. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is the thing that poses the biggest threat to the god of this world, so naturally, it's the thing that has been attacked and ridiculed and minimized the most. Salvation, salvation, salvation. That's all we hear. But that's only one piece of the gift, and in this lifetime, it is by far the smaller piece.
The Holy Spirit is what gives you power, and it's what improves your character and enables you to conquer sin. And it doesn't just happen automatically, regardless of what your church teaches; the baptism is an event separate from the event of receiving salvation. It's available to anyone, and we're supposed to have it, but not every believer gets it, and that's the way the enemy wants it. You can be saved but weak and ineffectual in this life, and that's how most Christians are. Jesus worked miracles and spoke prophetically and so on, and the Holy Spirit is what enabled Him to do it, and when He left, we were expected to receive it and continue His work.
I thought about it in connection with the improvements I've made in my own behavior and attitudes. I'm not dense; I have been aware that these things were caused by God. But today it really hit me, just how little credit I can take. I have been able to do some very good things lately, which were harder to do in the past. Or which I just chose not to do. And I know the change is not because I worked hard or read the Bible or got serious. It was the action of God inside me. Maybe I can take credit for a tiny little seed of desire, but that's about it. Without God, I would have been happy to stay as I was ("happy" may be the wrong word), and I might well have given up and assimilated, taking on the entire moral view of godless people, instead of a limited version.
This is the wild thing about the Holy Spirit. It enables you conduct yourself better. And then God gives you credit, as if you did it on your own. So when people talk about the generosity of God, they don't begin to do it justice.
That being said, it's kind of a bummer, realizing how not-special you are.
Interesting thing to look for: in the Bible, the number seven often symbolizes the Holy Spirit. I think this is why the menorah in the holy of holies had seven lamps. I believe "menorah" is the wrong term for this particular lampstand, but I am too lazy to look up the proper term. Oil also symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and what do you burn in a menorah?
I better quit before I start sounding like a gematria nut.
Keep me Out of This Scrap
Jewish friends are unhappy because I keep using the term "Messianic Jew." My response? It's not appropriate for me to get involved in this battle. It's among Jews. Or between Jews and...whatever you want to call the others. And on the Internet, it would be crazy to use an obscure PC term ("RC"? "Religiously Correct"?) that won't get attention from Google users. I guess I could call them "Deluded Followers of Yeshu the False Messiah," but no one using Google would ever know I was writing about them.
Yes, I know about "Yeshu" and what it means. It's hard to keep a thing like that secret.
I call Jehovah's Witnesses "Jehovah's Witnesses," even though I don't think they've witnessed anything except a gigantic fraud. I don't think this nomenclature thing is a major issue. I'm not using the term "Messianic Jew" because I want to suggest that these people are still Jews. I am pretty sure I haven't gotten into that argument. I use the term because it's efficient.
In response to a comment, I pointed out that Israel's Law of Return rejects Messianic Jews. Atheists and agnostics? Fine. An Orthodox rabbi who keeps the law for 50 years, decides Jesus is the Messiah, and then continues observing? No sale.
As most people probably know, the Nazis exterminated Messianic Jews. They had a more liberal definition of "Jew" than Israel's Ministry of the Interior. And when future persecution arises, you can bet the Nazi definition, or something similar, will be applied. Which means we could conceivably end up with an S.S. St. Louis situation, in which Israel turns away refugees persecuted for their perceived Jewishness. Weird.
I can see drawing a religious distinction, but the civil distinction seems likely to end in tragedy. I'm sure it has, already. Israel has probably rejected a few people who went on to suffer greatly because they couldn't get in.
Anyway, it's not up to me; it's not my party. I wouldn't try to tell the rabbis what to do, and I don't have a voice in what happens in Israel, nor should I or any other Gentile. But you are going to have to put up with "Messianic Jews" on this blog. Out of respect, I gave way on "C.E." and "B.C.E.", but I am not going to type something odd like "Ex-Jews for Jesus" every time I refer to these people. That's too much to ask.
Here's a question that occurs to me. Will the Jews ever accept any Messiah, universally? The nature of faith is peculiar; you can believe--or refuse to believe--almost anything. People think faith is more closely tied to logic than it really is. The truth is, your beliefs are shaped by your desires. If the Messiah comes, and the thousand-year Messianic Age begins, will everyone believe, or will there be holdouts? My money is on the second option. I think that if the Messiah came tomorrow, a big percentage of Jews and Christians would refuse to believe it. That's just how people are.
Right now, there is a big conflict between mainstream Orthodox Jews and a group of people who think the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, is the Messiah. He's dead, and there has been no resurrection. But they still hope. Their beliefs seem crazy to most Jews and nearly all Christians, but I can't help feeling some sympathy. It can be very hard to figure out what's true and what isn't. I'm sure these folks are doing their best. Anyone can make a mistake. Even a mistake that seems incredible to others.
I believe the best proof that people believe what they want is that so many people have supernatural experiences and then ignore them. I can't do that. If something happened, it happened. I can't make it go away by pretending otherwise. But I believe most people can do that. I'll bet there are people who will read this blog post, who have seen something miraculous and then gone on as if nothing had happened. And my opinion is consistent with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar.
This must be one reason we see so few miracles. If you won't believe without a miracle, a miracle probably won't help, because your problem is that you prefer not to believe. Isn't that the big lesson of Exodus? Those people saw miracles every day, yet they still had problems with idolatry and lack of faith. You would think one month of manna would resolve a person's doubts for life.
I read some interesting stuff the other day. I checked out Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's site. He's a Messianic clergyman. I believe his mother was a Gentile, and he was raised Orthodox, and then he came to believe Jesus was the Messiah. He has a number of articles posted. Some discuss Satan and demons.
Unlike most Jews and Christians, he rejects the notion that angels are asexual. He believes they can reproduce with human women, and that this is what happened prior to the flood. The idea is this: these beings wanted to taint the bloodline of the Messiah, so they impregnated human women and gave rise to a crop of superhuman beings with unnatural abilities. And the behavior of these beings was disgusting, and they infected mankind with their pride and debauchery, and the flood was necessary to exterminate them.
He says the Jews who created the Septuagint used the Greek term for "Titans" to describe the offspring of the angels. This is translated "giants" in English. But the Titans were figures in Greek mythology. Fruchtenberg says the translators were trying to find a term to describe a race fathered by immortals. He says the Titans were regarded as half human and half god, and I can't find anything to substantiate that. But the Greek gods did breed with humans.
I found this interesting, because it dovetails with the notion that the apocryphal book of Enoch is legitimate scripture. It appears that it was referred to approvingly in the book of Jude, so you can't discount it out of hand.
Enoch lived before the flood. He was so righteous, he was assumed into heaven. According to Aaron, the Jews suspect that God assumed him because He feared Enoch was about to commit his first sin.
The book of Enoch is supposedly Enoch's first-person narrative of his experiences in heaven. There are two parts to the book. One part, frankly, seems nutty. For example, it says lightning bolts are stored somewhere in heaven, which is not exactly credible. But the other part of the book makes a good deal of sense. My suspicion is that the bad part was grafted onto the good part and ought to be discarded.
Enoch says fallen angels came down on Mt. Hermon--the snow-capped mountain at Israel's northern border--and proceeded to impregnate women and teach men things like metalworking, agriculture, and astrology. I can't remember all of it. I may re-read it today. But it seems very consistent with Dr. Fruchtenberg's notions. The book is also full of prophetic material concerning the end of the world. If the book is legitimate, that's exciting, because prophecy is extremely confusing, and new input would certainly be helpful. Especially if it comports with what we already have before us.
For a long time, I have thought that Mt. Hermon had special significance. I wrote about this a while back. The Banias is at its base. This is an ancient center of pagan worship. The "Ban" comes from "Pan," who is the physical model for our goat-like conception of Satan. Caesarea Philippi, which was associated with idolatry, was built near the Banias. And it's where Jesus first claimed to be the Messiah. It's where his ministry really got going. It's the place where he told Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan." I suspect that beginning his ministry there was a deliberate insult to the god of this world, just as the plagues of Egypt were intended to humiliate that nation's "gods."
The Jordan, which has so many symbolic meanings, starts on and around Hermon and runs the length of Israel. Pagans used to pollute it at one of its sources, throwing sacrifices into the water at the Banias. Is it just me, or are those acts sort of reminiscent of the attempt to pollute the human bloodline? Years ago, I came to believe that in the Bible, the water of the Jordan symbolizes humanity.
If you're not religious, it sounds crazy. If you are, it's better than Art Bell.
Dr. Fruchtenbaum believes all angels are male. I disagree. In chapter 5, Zechariah mentions female angels. I have another reason to disagree, but I won't go into it.
Have a good Sunday.
Try as I May
Before I get started, I have something totally irrelevant to share with you. I think I have come up with the name by which Al Gore will be known throughout the centuries. "Pope Prius I." Let's get started on those mugs and T-shirts.
With that behind me, let me say that I was moved by the comments I got on last night's post, in which I noted that my religious posts were being blamed for a fall in traffic. You can see what I wrote about it. I pointed out that there were other factors at work, and that I wasn't planning to make any changes. I figured heathens would pop up and tell me what a repressive, backward creep I was. But readers, including non-Christians, were surprisingly supportive.
Reader Kim said: "I almost feel like you are minstering to me. And it gives me so much to think about. God is using your gift with words to spread His word."
It feels great to think I might have done something positive here. I can assure everyone, I am not qualified to be a minister, but I know even ordinary Christians can be of use simply by relating their experiences. If you're getting anything out of what I write, fantastic.
Km says: "I'm happy that you're finding greater peace. And I enjoy watching the journey unfold."
That's an exemplary comment. I often get comments in which people complain that I don't do what makes them happy; here is someone who put my welfare first. If you want to know how good your friends are, it's pretty simple. The more they put your needs ahead of their own and encourage you to improve yourself, the truer they are. I've found that friends who consistently take from me and push me to regress eventually have to be set free.
Dan from Madison says: "I can't speak much to you about your religion. What I can say is that you should tell everyone to pound sand if they don't like your blog."
Can't argue with that. I have often wondered what "pound sand" really means, but I don't want to explore the topic at the moment.
Aaron says: "Living with someone is a real test on whether you're walking the walk in private. And it's a constant opportunity to do kindness. Doing your own dishes can be fine, but relieving a spouse of a chore can be a beautiful act. Less opportunity for that kind of stuff when solo."
Absolutely true. Religious Jews are collectors and disseminators of wisdom, and Aaron is no exception. About Aaron, Ed Bonderenka says: "What Aaron said: wow. How beautifully put. Your choice of friends (who will be friend to you) reflects on you. Aaron reflects well."
I could not agree more.
Rightisright says: "I enjoy your gun and cooking posts. I mostly skip over the religious ones. I had the Bible shoved down my throat as a young'un and no longer have a taste for it. That said, I believe most people who identify themselves as Christian are decent, productive citizens."
Tolerance for Christianity! Completely unfashionable! But I'll take it.
Keith says: "I will never understand people who try to tell others what to write about."
Yeah, imagine getting up in the morning and trying to figure out what to write, in order to make your readers happy. Where is the fun in that? It sounds horrible. Although now that I think about it, I know some bloggers who do that and nothing else.
Another Kim says: "I can identify with your reminiscences on past posts or blogs. I regret things I've said, emailed and posted. You, graciously, let some go."
I can beat that. I've also forgotten them. Not because I'm gracious. Because I forget EVERYTHING.
Jim says:
"Onward Christian Soldier, Steve.God, Guns and the Grill. (well, the whole kitchen n' kaboodle, m'kay?)
I'm in for all of it, to be perfectly blunt. You just keep writing, and I'll just keep reading.
And enjoying, more with each post."
Wow, Jim, thanks. Jim is from Texas. Can you tell?
Groverat says: "I, for one, or FWIW, enjoy your blog. You have written some extremely insightful stuff lately. and your comment: "so I don't worry about pleasing customers" ---- just remember, in this life we should be playing to an audience of one, and that is God."
Thank you for the encouragement.
Mike LaRoche says: "For what it's worth, I enjoy reading your thoughts on religion. I've fallen away from my own faith (Catholic) over the past dozen years or so, but the points you bring up in your religion posts have made me think about what I may have been missing during that time."
"For what it's worth"? It's worth a lot, from where I sit. Here's my "for what it's worth": it seems to me that daily, consistent prayer drives the process and takes much of the difficulty out of it.
Anthony says: "Though I find some of the technical aspects about reloading a total bore, I enjoy your enthusiasm about God and firearms. Especially, since I'm a yank living in England - where firearms, and in some circles God, are in short supply."
Oh, man. England. Are they as backslidden as the rest of Europe? The technical stuff about reloading is somewhat boring to me, too, and I'm the one writing it. But I get much-needed information that way.
Brian says: "Just some feedback: I visit your site every day because you're a good writer! I skim the gun stuff. That's not one of my interests now. I am not a Christian but I enjoy reading your thoughts on religion."
If you hear about religion from the right person, in the right way, it shouldn't be unpleasant. Many a non-believer has missed his chance because he got the message in the wrong way or from the wrong person. Such as a conquistador seated on his chest.
Josh R says: "I for one have always read your blog as a "guilty pleasure" I am glad you have turned the corner and tidied up a bit."
Working on it.
Electro-Dude says: "what keeps me coming back is the hope that one day I'll once more be able to read about stupid people being eaten by alligators. Those were the golden years my friend, and a category of writing that you made your own."
Yes, I believe I invented the genre.
J. West says:
1. It's your blog.
2. Been reading you for a long time.
3. You generally write well, which is interesting in itself.
4. Look forward to reading you one, two years from now.
Thanks. Hope I still have something to say.
Ryan says:
I have my shares of struggles attempting to learn from past mistakes and all but there is true blessing in reading about someone else's journey. I appreciate that you will present some jewel that I've never considered. And I offer my sincere thanks for that.I steadfast in my conviction that the Lord will always be there for me, and it continues that I am able to enjoy proper discernment. That said, I know that the reason I originally found your site so long ago was the twisted humor of Nigerian spammers and decadent recipes but the true blessing is finding that someone else struggles just as I do.
Lately I have found myself hoping that questionable stuff I wrote in the past would give me an audience before which to reform and write things that were more useful. Maybe it's happening.
That's about it.
I keep finding good stuff in The Complete Jewish Bible and The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary. I can't recommend this stuff highly enough. If you want something that will make Bible study new and interesting to you, this is it. In fact, even backslidden Christians might enjoy it, just for the history.
I wanted to write about something I saw in there the other day, but I can't find it. It was about the end times, and how we would venerate youth and have no respect for the old. Has that come true, or what? First rock and roll drove a permanent wedge between the generations. And the misguided Sixties tainted two generations. Now technology is pushing older people out of the mainstream of society. The older you are, the less likely you are to understand technology, and the less competent you seem.
There are few things more perverse or damaging or sinful than disrespect for the old and disproportionate respect for the young. The young know almost nothing. They are full of ideas which seem brilliant to them, but which are actually dangerous, evil, and stupid. When the ideas of the young take precedence, you end up with scenarios like Cambodia under Pol Pot. Things like empathy and patience lose all their value. People are seen as objects. The old find themselves abandoning their hard-won maturity and emulating their ignorant, unseasoned juniors. Cruelty abounds. Maybe that's why the Internet is so cruel. It's slanted toward the young.
I wish I could find the reference I'm thinking of. It said something about people in that time having faces like dogs. I thought that was funny, because for the last ten years or so, we have been coping with an epidemic of creepy, convict-style chin beards. They really do make men look like dogs.
Why is it that I'm the only one who has written about our increasing willingness to take fashion cues from prison inmates? Doesn't anyone else see it? The black tattoos, the chin beards, the shaved heads. Classic convict style. We are emulating the biggest losers in society. Seems like a mistake to me. People have a tendency to become what they imitate.
My impression is that our current youth-worship fad is unprecedented in western history. Am I wrong? I can't think of a time when so much unwarranted deference was given to flaky, half-baked children.
Reader Susan H. sent a link a while back. I haven't explored it very well, but it will be of interest to Christians who want to know more about their religion's Jewish roots. It goes to a site operated by a rabbi named Fruchtenbaum.
Aaron doesn't like this stuff too much. But it's not like there are a lot of sources to choose from. If you're Christian, and you want to learn about the Jewish nature of Christianity, you either go to Messianic Jews or you do without.
Hope some of this proves to be of use.
Blog Traffic is What Really Matters
Got a comment today implying my traffic is slumping solely because I write about religion. Not because I write about guns. That's not true. People complain about the gun posts. Almost no one complains about the religious posts, but I guess that's because it's a touchy thing to criticize, and because most people don't want to look like they have a problem with God.
Traffic is down for a number of other reasons, too. For one thing, I have cleaned up the blog to some extent. That's not popular on the Internet. Let's face it; the Internet is filthy and cruel, and that accounts for a big part of its popularity.
How many of us, twenty years ago, would have expected a day would come when words like "goatse" and "tubgirl" would instantly bring familiar images to mind? Nobody could have seen that coming. The Internet has provided a wealth of information, and it's a boon to commerce, but it's also our collective id. Thanks to the Internet, movies of women having sex with dogs and horses are only a credit-card transaction away. The same can be said of kiddie porn or whatever other disgusting entertainment turns you on. Ogrish. Liveleak videos of American GIs being blown apart by snipers. You name it; it's out there.
We are getting very mean and gross in this country. And the Internet is one reason. Thanks to anonymity and distance, we can say things about people we would ordinarily never dream of saying. Traditional wisdom says that if you can vent your anger harmlessly, you'll reduce the level of anger you carry during the day. I think that's completely wrong. It gets you used to expressing anger, so you do it more often.
Back when I was running Huffington's Toast, I was criticized by my guest writers because I tried to keep things relatively tame. Some of them wanted to pull out all the stops. I didn't want to be responsible for a site like that. And I felt like I was showing restraint. But in retrospect, I see I wasn't restrained enough. That applies to most of my history as a blogger, not just the Huffington's Toast era. Even though I thought I was pulling punches, I published stuff that I now realize went too far. I didn't do the world a favor by putting that material before the public.
I read something disturbing the other day. It's funny, how you can think you're a knowledgeable Christian and then read something in the Bible that takes you by surprise. Somewhere in Matthew, Jesus said people would pay for all their careless utterances. And elsewhere, Paul says not to indulge in filthy talk. I have a pretty serious track record to worry about. I don't want to make it worse.
These days, many conservatives on the web work very hard to remind people that they're hip. They use bad language to excess. They make it clear they don't believe in God. They endorse modern morality, which is to say, the absence of morality. They hide behind cheap, convenient tolerance, trying to turn moral spinelessness into a virtue. I don't want to get caught up in that, any more than I already have. I don't smoke dope. I think sex outside of marriage is stupid. I would love to see pornography outlawed. I pray every day, and I don't really care who knows it. I believe in Satan and demons, just like Jesus did. And I think the urge to be cool is a symptom of severe, crippling immaturity. In fact, I'm completely certain of it. I am trying to grow up a little. It would be nice to see the idea catch on. Maybe it is. I know a few people who seem to be way ahead of me.
I guess I put people off. A lot of people feel extremely uneasy when they hear someone talk about God. I don't. I know I did in the past, but it was a long time ago, and my memory of the sensation is not good, and I don't empathize very well with people who still have the feeling. It's peculiar that it makes people uncomfortable. Why is that? If He created us and wants to make us part of a beautiful plan, shouldn't the natural thing be to feel drawn to religion? I remember being uncomfortable around preachers and other religious people, but I can't remember why I felt that way.
I've been moving in this direction for a year or two, and I feel better and better as I make progress. When God takes too small a role in my life, I tend to feel like a kid who ate an entire box of chocolates by himself. I do things that I hope will bring me peace and pleasure and so on, but they're always a little off, somehow. And they usually have a price, the way liquor has a hangover. I tend to feel sated but somehow indebted. When you do the things a Christian does, it's different. You get better satisfaction, with no aftertaste. The godless life leaves me feeling crusty and tired and grimy, like I need a shower and a clean bed. Living in a more spiritual way leaves me feeling clean and free and nourished. It's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't been there, but I suppose many other Christians will know instantly what I mean. It's not really a sacrifice, and it doesn't produce a dry, ascetic, puritanical existence. It's very pleasant. Not something you should feel uncomfortable about.
I think typical Christians think of religion this way: they avoid facing it head-on, the way you would avoid making eye contact with a bum, because they're terrified that if they get involved, they'll have to give up all the fun in their lives. The casual sex. The drunkenness. The porn. The selfishness and materialism. They figure they'll enjoy all this stuff and then count on forgiveness. I've felt that way. But it says a lot about your respect for God, doesn't it? You think He's smart enough to save you from hell, but not competent to guide your life. If you live like that, you end up leading a pretty meaningless life, and you also miss out on the best aspects of being a living Christian.
Maybe I'll completely ruin my traffic. I don't care. I make damn near nothing off of this site, and it's not a business, so I don't worry about pleasing customers. I think the most likely thing is that I'll drive off people who were drawn to my worst traits, and I'll attract people who are more positive. And like I've said before, we are all going to die, SOON, so why should I care about people think of me during my brief time on earth? I am more than halfway done with life, and the years pass faster and faster. Before I know it, it will be over, and what will it matter that people who didn't know what I knew thought I wasn't cool?
I haven't told the whole story. My life has improved tremendously. I have more freedom, and I have power behind me. It's not hard to live this way, and it's completely worth it. I hope I don't give up, the way I did sixteen or seventeen years ago. I've even become more open to the idea of marriage, largely because two people can help each other stay on the path.
Read this blog, or don't. I feel like I'm on the right track.
Obama Season!
When Mike is in town, discipline goes out the window. I eat too much. I forget to water my plants. And yesterday, I didn't spend nearly enough time acknowledging God. On the plus side, Mike and I had a long and productive conversation about our beliefs. That was worth a lot.
I got behind on my blogging, too, which is sad, because Hillary Clinton apparently threatened to shoot Barack Obama. Do I have my facts wrong? Details have never been my thing.
I think now we know what she really wants to do to staffers who look her in the eye when she passes. On the up side, it looks like she is making a twisted sort of progress with regard to her views on gun control.
We can't let this woman become President. Her staff hung condoms on the White House Christmas tree. Condoms! OUR tree! If we're going to elect a person like that, why don't we just paint big bullseyes on our roofs, along with the words "Plague and earthquake here, please"?
People tell me God doesn't punish people like that any more. He doesn't? Oooooookay. I guess the long list of hideous, incurable, behavior-related diseases is just an incredible set of coincidences. Cervical cancer, lung cancer, cirrhosis, morbid obesity, diabetes, hepatitis C, herpes...coincidence after coincidence.
I have been told AIDS isn't a plague. If AIDS doesn't qualify, someone tell me what does. If AIDS isn't a plague, then the word "plague" should be removed from the dictionary, because it is impossible for any disease to make the cut.
Not only is AIDS a plague; it's a laser-guided plague with very limited collateral damage. You have to be pretty unlucky to get it without doing something immoral. It's not like smallpox or the bubonic plague, which don't discriminate on the basis of morality.
Some people say the "fear" part of "God-fearing" actually refers to a warm, fuzzy feeling. Maybe so, but I am trying to cultivate a healthy fear of judgment. I think this is one of my big deficiencies. There was nothing warm or fuzzy about what happened to Jezebel or the prophets Elisha fried alive or the people of Sodom. I am not anxi