UNTIL THE HARVEST

The ant provides her meat in summer and gathers her food in harvest. (Prov 6:8)  To provide means she had taken forethought to make sure it is there, available for use.  It is there for use in the summer when no other crops are available, for they are growing.  There will be no food available until the crops get ripe for harvesting.  This means there have to be plans to store and ration some of last year’s harvest until the new harvest is ready; and so on for all harvests. 

We can not be sluggards but must be like the ant.  We must protect the seed for planting and protect the crops as they grow.  We must keep our harvest tools prepared.  We must understand there is a constant rate of consumption and a cyclic rate of planting/harvest.  We have to match these together properly.  We have to be actively aware and plan and be ever vigilant of efficiency and avoidance of waste.

FRUIT OF THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN

(Prov 5)
Many hard things will happen to the man that goes after the strange woman.

- Gives his honor to others.  If “honor” means his act of giving his respect and consideration to another, he has given it to a person who certainly does not deserve it.  He has directed his attention to a thief:  a thief who is not only stealing what the man should have been giving to some one else (i.e. wife, mother, sisters . . . ) but who herself is stealing from those who should have been close to her (i.e. husband, father, brothers).  He shows very poor judgment to give his honor to such a person.  If “honor” means the receiving of respect from others, he demonstrates he deserves none.  He is breaking a fundamental law of God:  one of the ten commandments.  He demonstrates poor character.

- Gives his years to the cruel.  His time spent with adultery will last longer than the act itself.  Even if the adultery remains hidden from other people it is open and plain before God.  It will always remain in the adulterer's memory:  either with a sense of regret or with a wish to commit more sin.  If the adultery is known he will live with the fruits of ruined relationships and perhaps a ruined reputation.  He will be seen as one who is not reliable.

- Strangers filled with his wealth.  His financial wealth is taken minimally by whatever it costs to spend time with the adulteress: hotels, meals, doctors’ bills, abortionists, etc.  He is risking the loss of what he may have built up in law suits and lawyer’s fees.  If he was married and gets divorced he may face the loss of joint holdings:  houses, lands, automobiles, bank accounts, etc.  But worse of all he will have lost the wealth of his reputation as a stable well grounded man.

- Labors are in the house of a stranger.

If he comes to his senses he will [v11]  ‘mourn at the last, when [his] flesh and thy body are consumed, [v12] and say, ‘How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; [v13] and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!  [v14] I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.’ “

You can also think of the “Adulterous Woman” in a figurative way rather than the literal way (as an actual flesh-and-blood human).  You can think of the right way of reasoning as God’s way; and the Adulterous Woman’s way as the World’s way.  You do not want to “honor” that which God says is not honorable, nor be honored by such.  You do not want to give your years to the cruel.  You do not want strangers filled with wealth which belongs to you.  Your labors belong in your own house, which God owns but allows you to use as if you own.  So stay away from the world’s way of thinking: the Adulterous Woman.

KEEPING THE MIND IN ONE PLACE

My mind easily wanders, straying from this thought to that, roaming down different rabbit trails.  Many things pass over the mind only to be replaced by other things, none getting developed too much.  It is like watching a train roll past that has many fascinating and beautiful cars.  There may be ugly cars too but it is best to ignore them if you can. 

Three things can keep the mind stayed:  writing (like this), a conversation with another and a book.  However I find my mind can easily wander while reading.  One thought brings up another which brings up another still.  It can wander while writing too, but not so much.  What I have written is right there in front of me to remind me where my thoughts were.  A conversation stays yet more focused because the other person has part of the control of it.  He can easily see if you have lost focus and call you to account.  But I find I can easily stray while someone is giving a speech as in the Sunday sermon or a TV broadcast.  Those mediums can establish no eye contact and no accountability and they will not stop to get your attention, rephrase or repeat.  A medium like Netflix is good because I can pause, backup and turn on the subtitles.

DEVICE DEMANDS

Information can come to our devices (Telephones, Laptops, etc.) from diverse places such at the Internet, email. or Facebook.  When we see the information we can use the device quickly to respond, almost a reflex, often without thinking too deeply.  The sources can be your family, friends, acquaintances, organizations we belong to, or some entity that wants to influence our thinking or to sell us something.  Some of these sources can be annoying or at their worst dangerous. Often they give you mandatory instructions.  One email I recently received had the header "Read it", "say Amen", “Forward”, “Tell all your friends”, etc.

These things are rude and inconsiderate.  Other examples are, "A MUST READ", "IMPORTANT".  Such instructions mean to me:  “I will not read it because it is insignificant.”

Some times the information can be advantageous as in the case of an emergency or an urgency.  Cases of urgency do require response.  The best course is to give some thought before responding.

Let’s face it:  many times the urgency is really not necessary, meaning it is not really urgent.  It just seems that way because of its appeal to respond right away. We feel the pressure to provide an instant reply as if the requester were talking face-to-face with us.  An instant response may lead us to say something careless, something ill-thought out.  We may regret the answer when given time and hindsight.

We have complete control over most of the time we are given.  Let us not be bullied by appeals through our devices masquerading as emergencies.

BULLIES

What are bullies?  They are people who try to get you to do , or think, something they want, knowing that you do not want that same thing.  The dictionary defines a bully as:  “A person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people”.

We might ask, “Is God a bully?”  God wants us to do (or not) some things we would rather not do (or would rather do).  The difference between God and bullies is that he created us and all the world around us.  He gets to set what is right and wrong, what is fair and what is unfair.  A bully did none of that.  A bully intrudes into your world with demands.  He did not create your world and has no right to make changes in it.

Sometimes a plane flies overhead.  Many times you can see it. But sometimes you can’t.  When you can hear one you know there is at least one person, the pilot, inside. Maybe there are more.  The plane’s sound has some sort of dominance in your life.  Is the plane’s pilot a bully?  In some way the pilot is infringing on your life when you did not ask for it.  However the pilot is not flying the plane for the purpose of infringing on your life or in any way to control you.  Most likely he does not even know you.  The pilot is not a bully; the bully would fly the plane for the purpose of annoying you.

What about the car playing loud booming music that is plainly heard in the cars driving about it.  Is the driver a bully?  I can’t imagine he does not know how loud it is and that all around him can hear it.  I believe he is making a statement to everyone although no one has requested it.  He is a bully.

WHAT DO YOUR GRAND PARENTS KNOW?

I think it would be worth it to ask the oldest relative you know, “did your Grand Father or Grand Mother tell you of any of their early childhood experiences?”  I told my children about how my Grand Father told me about the masts of the ocean-going sailing ships in Boston Harbor and how they looked like a forest of trees.  If they tell their children this (or if I tell my grand children this) those children - -  having eyes that see today, in 2018  - - will have seen, touched and talked to someone who has known, seen and touched someone (my grandfather) who has seen with their own eyes sights that took place in the late 1800’s  That is 150 years of eyes on this world.

We could ask people we meet with for lunch or dinner or in the church lobby the same question.  What interesting answers we would receive.  Did they experience time of great political change?  Scientific change?  Wartime change?  For example I could tell my Grandchildren about the Civil Rights march I participated in at Boston, Massachusetts with Martin Luther King.  I could tell them I have seen the beginning of space exploration and I saw the Challenger explode in the sky as I was walking to lunch.  I could tell them I lived at the tail end of World War II and during the Korean war.  I could tell them that I participated in the Vietnam War while in the Navy.  I could tell them that as a teenager computers took up a series of rooms and only governments and large companies could own them.

DUMP THE BAD ONES

I think sometimes of people who have been mean to me like Father xxx or K.H.   When I do this I hardly think of people who have been good to me like Mr. Toland or Mr. McManus from High School.  A good technique for the mind would be to put out the bad people and immediately replace the thought with the good people.

When I was first on board the USS Ponchatoula I was placed in the Engineering division as an Electrician Mate.  I was to stand watch in front of the ship’s generators.  The controls included some gauges, dials and levers.  I was to watch the gauges and turn this thing and flip that thing when it looked like things were going crazy.  No one told be what these things meant or how they worked so as a result, things went crazy.  When “things went crazy” it put the ship in danger of “losing the load” meaning all electrical power.  “Losing the Load” is a pretty serious condition. Because no one rally cared to explain the procedures and meanings of things to me to me I failed at that job. 

When I transferred up to the Operations division in the Radio Shack as a Radioman I was put on watch by the receivers and transmitters which had many more gauges, dials and switches, but the other radiomen were willing to tell me what they meant and how to use them.  Because the others cared I succeeded very well at that job.

Others have an effect on us.  We should try to center our thoughts on those have had a positive affect.

[[I have no idea if I have used the words “affect” and “effect” correctly]]

EXTENDED BRAINS - 2

I read a concept in a book about the brain which explained that other things are extensions of the brain.  For example writing extends the brain’s memory.  Telephones (via the ears) extends the brain’s hearing.  Television (via the eyes) extends the brain’s sight.  One might argue these things don’t extend the brain, they extend the sense (hearing, sight, etc.)  In any case these make the reach of the brain go beyond the physical space it occupies - - even to distant places and different times, even non-existent places and times.

The written word might be different because it doesn’t effect the brain until it is read.  Books are on the shelves of the library but my mind is not engaged by the content until I read them.  What about photographs, recordings, movies?  When we engage these are we in some way in the presence of another’s brain?

Is a picture of nerve cells transmitting a signal from one to the other comparable to brains of individuals passing along information from one to the other?  Perhaps a country is comparable to a brain, the various states or provenances exciting each other - - a collection of cells “exciting” one another.  How about a corporation, is it a brain?  Is the Earth a brain?

BOOK VS iPOD

When I use a book I have much more control over it than an iPhone.  It feels good when I hold it.  I can turn the pages forward and backward.  I have some sense in terms of “distance”, i.e. number of pages, paragraphs, sentences when I want to go back to a previous point.  When I look at it I know its contents will not have changed between the times I read from it. 

I can do the same stuff similarly on a computer or an iPad, but it’s cold and plastic.  It has advantages like bookmarking and searching but pieces of paper and a pen can do the same in a book. 

A book will not loose batters or power.  A book will not update itself.  A book in simple and does not have menus and functions you have to learn and remember just to use it.

A book does not beckon you away to something else like a software machine does:  you have to put the book down to go to something else, it’s not as easy as a mouse button and a menu.

When I am reading for pleasure I think I will stick with a book.

THE TREE AND ME

The tree is often used as an analogy for ancestry, as in a family tree.  Think of the trunk as yourself:  the ground level; and the roots as your ancestors:  basement level one, two, etc.  The branches are your descendants, your children and grandchildren; second floor, third floor, etc.

The problem with the analogy is that the roots under the trunk (you) grow unseen, ever spreading, ever larger.  There are your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents, and so on.  But it is impossible for the tree to represent humankind because the system can not increase forever.  At some point it must begin to shrink down to just two ancestors:  Adam and Eve.  Even the theory of evolution must start decreasing down to the original “evolved” humans or set of “evolved” humans.

I wonder what the mathematics behind all that process is?  Some factors would be:  average reproductive age, average life span, development of medical science, development of farming technology.

Another interesting view using a tree trunk to represent yourself is:  where I stand (ground level) I see many other trees.  They each have roots and branches.  At my children's’ level (first floor) they are trunks with roots (my wife and I) and branches (my grandchildren).  They can see many other trunks, each of those with roots and branches.

When we see other trunks like ourselves this is called a “generation”.

ON JOURNALING

Transcribing my old journal produces several things:

- - An exercise of the ego
- - A recollection of history
- - A re-opening of things learned or developed in the past.
- - A means of transmitting who I was and who I am to my family:
- Wife
- children
- daughters-in-law
- grandchildren
- - An exercise of writing, communication

I think the act of writing helps my think better.  It gives a feeling of some solidarity, somewhere to stick, somewhere to materialize and become visible.  It takes physical a form. 

In materializing what seemed wise in thought now looks foolish – OR – what seemed foolish now looks wise.

When I remember an event and write it down it becomes available to my family whereas I might never think of it in a conversation.  The conversation of a group goes as the group wants at the speed the group wants; it might be rude to run it the way I want.  It can be better thought out in a written form and it can have more detail written.  It can be better phrased.

ARGUMENT WITH AN EVOLUTIONIST

A few years ago (2014, in fact) I had an email discussion with a man who had changed his mind and decided to become an atheist.  He therefore adopted evolution as a world view.  I made the following points to him in a couple emails.  He never responded after email number two.

(Radioactive isotope half life proof of age.)  Why is it not possible for God to have created radioactive isotopes with a portion of their half lives already expended?  If he created the world he certainly could have done that.  G. Brent Dalrymple, an atheist advocate, and others can not create something from nothing.  Indeed, no man, or group of men can without using resources already in the creation.  No, not a single speck of dust.

The debate is about a difference between two worldviews  - - Creationist vs Evolutionist. Each must start by making basic assumptions.  They take these assumptions by faith.  One view takes the position that creation took place in six days, the other takes the view that creation is a process that has been on-going for billions of years.  It takes faith - assumptions - to hold to either view (perhaps much more faith to hold the evolutionist view).

Once you have the faith you can use whatever evidence you find to support your view, or abandon one view for the other.

I take the view that God created the world in six days to include the sedimentary layering of the Grand Canyon and the presence of radioactive isotopes that have apparently expended some portion of their half-lives.

Evidence is simply the presence of observable facts such as the half-life of isotopes or layering of geologic sediments.  The difference in world views determines what we do with the evidence.  What we do with that evidence requires assumptions and reasoning.  The reasoning part is easy,  it either stands up to the scrutiny of other (responsible and honest) peers,  or it doesn't. 

But,  try as you may,  there are always assumptions.  A good scientific paper lists the assumptions.  It then presents the evidence and draws conclusions about the evidence.  Some scientists have drawn the conclusion that isotopic half-life proves millions of years of evolution.  Other scientists do not accept the conclusion.

(The Scientific Method)  I understand what the Scientific Method is.  I never meant to imply that scientists do not work hard and they are not honest with their results.  I believe most evolutionists and creationists hold their beliefs sincerely,  though some from each camp have resorted to bickering and name-calling.

Man has free will and can decide to believe either the evolutionist or creationist view.  When pressed a person must eventually choose between:  “Did God create what we see and experience?” - - or - - “Is all part of natural processes that have no particular meaning?”

The creation is either old (trillions of years), or new (7000 to 8000 years).  Some scientists personally choose to believe that there is a God and that he is the creator of what we see and experience.  other scientists reject that notion.  At some point every scientist chose what group he/she would belong to, and he/she did it through faith.  They chose:  “I believe there is a creator” or they chose:  “I do not believe in a creator”.  This is why I say it's a matter of faith:  some choose to see the evidence as pointing to a creator and others do not.

As for transitional forms - -  evidence from the fossil record showing a transition from one species to another - - there are none.  To my knowledge there is no uncontested evidence of transitional forms.  The fossils show only discrete species and none that demonstrate a transition from one type to another.  Apes are always apes, and men are always men.  If evolution is true - - and the earth is millions of years old - - there should be lots of them.  They should be all through the fossil record.  They should be existent today.

Some might say, “the transitional form only exists for a short period before the more permanent form takes hold.”  On an evolutionary time scale this transition would be a sort of a “flash in the pan”.  Why do we not see “flashes in the pan” today?  We do not see them.  It takes faith to believe the “flash in the pan” exists.

THE HEARING VACUUM

My hearing has the affect of making me a person alone though amid a group of people.

HIGH VOLUME - - Oddly when the volume is high it grates on me rather than making it easier for me to hear.  It is difficult for me to to filter out what is noise and what is being sung or played or spoken.  This is true particularly if there is any reverberation, as being in a large room or when (as in church music) the audio man adds reverberation because he has a fondness for the affect.  When this happens in church I find myself in a fit of negativity.  I must endure it while all the others enjoy it.  If I can not endure I must stand outside until it ends.  The effect is to isolate me, to make me alone in the room, apart from the experience of the others.

IN A GROUP - - It’s the same way at a small group or with the family.  If I can not catch on to the subject, or make out what they are saying, I just have to wait until they are done and try to catch on to what comes next.  I am just taking up space.  I am not invisible because they can see me, I am physical because they can not pass through the space I am occupying, but otherwise I am just not there.  I have to wait until they are through.  They think I am participating but I am not.  They think I am having a similar experience as they, but I am not.  This is exacerbated when many are talking at once and I am not standing close to the talker or the talker is not talking directly to me.  Functionally I am alone in the room, all by myself, until the others get through.

THE COFFEE MAN

As I was sitting on the front porch one morning the man in the Coffee Truck drove by.  He had a lot of stops to make there being a lot of construction sites in the area at that time.  He had more to do than I because he was driving a route to sell the coffee.  He has to earn money, he had to make a schedule.  I don’t have to earn money because I have already spent decades earning money and had funded a retirement.

I could drive a coffee truck too.  I could either own one, or work for someone.  In a way it is easier to work for someone because he, not I, would have to responsibility of the ownership of the truck and the provisioning of the merchandise and all the ancillary expenses and responsibilities like insurance, registration, maintenance, proper business paperwork and taxes (for starters). 

If I worked for him he would put a demand on me to show up on a regular basis and he would be in trouble if I didn’t.   But I did not work for him.  I could have bought a coffee from him, but I didn’t.  I already had my coffee and the freedom to drink it.  I didn’t even make it, my wife did.

Like him, I once had work obligations and a schedule.  All that do have them have built this country.  Everything rests on the backs of the laborers, farmers, craftsmen, professionals . . .

Thank you Coffee Man.

PRESENT DAY WRONG DOERS

Since men are sinners we have been doing wrong for all of our existence. We look back to Adam’s son, Cain. He became angry that God did not value his sacrifice at the same (or greater) level than his brother Abel's. He was so enraged that he murdered Abel. Cane considered his works as a sacrifice, a sacrifice of works rather than blood. There was more labor in growing crops than raising animals. When he saw Abel's gift preferred before his own he became insanely jealous. Maybe he thought, “I have to plow, sow, reap, and transport this stuff. All Abel has to do is watch his sheep feed themselves and reproduce. God’s not fair; I worked and Abel skated. God should value me more than Abel.”

Are we in a figure murdering each other for jealousy over God’s gift to another and over the blessing of God for another? Are we troubling our own souls and spoiling the life of another?

The Moabites hired Balaam to curse the Israelites as they came to the Promised Land. But God prevented him from doing it, though he tried several different ways to get around the prohibition. He was doing this because he was being paid. He was seeking profit for doing some kind of spiritual work.

Do we seek riches in the doing of God's work? If not in money are we doing it to achieve some sort of advantage? We should do God's work because it is right. We should do God's work for God's profit, not our own. What are our real reasons for what we do in the church? Is it to worship God: or is it to “put our hands together” and jump up and down in some sort of hype?

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram sought to take the place of God's appointed men, Moses and Aaron. We forget that God positions the ones he wants to be leaders in the church. We should seek a church position to benefit God's work, not for self status. Are we seeking a position within the church body for the sake of our status?

TO GET OUT OF THE RAIN

Do you ever think of the easy life we have?

So you are standing there out in the woods while it’s raining.  You really do not like the idea of staying that way and would like shelter of some sort.  If you are going to have one it will take some thinking, materials and a schedule to build it. You will need some sort of plan in your mind of how it should be constructed.  You could build a lean-to using a tarp (if you had one), or of branches.  Whether or not you are aware of it you will have to schedule time to erect the shelter.  You should do it when you can, where you can and do it before it rains.

More permanence than a lean-to requires either a cave or a log cabin.  You must schedule again:  a time to locate a cave or to clear a site and gather trees.  Set aside hunting for now, find and gather the materials, then spend time building.

Want the convenience of more rooms?  You must schedule gathering yet more lumber, or stones, and set aside time for the construction.  Remember that time will include making a detailed construction plan and scheduling effort.  Arrange other activities, like food gathering around building the structure.

Want an inside bathroom?  Kitchen?  More planing, scheduling and gathering of materials required.  Have you thought of the tools you will need?

It’s nice to have other people around to grow our food, transport it to market, provide building materials and assemble it into housing, to generate and distribute electricity, to keep us safe from the few men who are criminally dangerous.

We rarely think of those things, or thank God for those things.  We should.

AVOIDING THE SANCTUARY

A few months ago I was sitting outside from a Saturday evening church service in the church’s cafe.  We were trying yet another new place.  I was using the cafe because I anticipated the music was going to be TOO LOUD.  Sure enough, it was.  Sitting out here the music, though softer, seemed loud enough to sing along with, the way it should have been inside.  The LOUD MUSIC in so many of these churches makes me want to avoid worship altogether.  I decided I would not enter the “sanctuary” for the sermon once the “music” stopped.

Does this have to do with my age?  Yet I see lots of people near my age sitting and listening in these places.  Is it just me and my particular set of ears?

Are the people (musicians[?]) behind the microphones subjected to the same levels of volume?  When these people reach my age will they have hearing difficulties similar to mine?

Out here even the voices seem TOO LOUD.  Are they really?

Whatever the case - - whether it’s them, or me - - I am clearly not of their group.

The voice that came out later, which I assumed to be the sermon speaker, seemed completely out of character with all that came before.  At the start it compared to Garison Keeler from “The Prairie Home Companion”.  But wait - - he picked up steam, like a train leaving a station.

FEET WASHING

Jesus set an example by washing the disciples’ feet. In those days it was necessary to have the servant wash your guests’ feet clean from all the horse and donkey poo they would get as a normal part of traveling from one place to another. The washing meant that the guest would not mess up your clean house. Our house must be kept clean. Imagine reclining at table in the ancient Roman fashion and smelling your neighbor’s dog-poo feet.

The significance is that Jesus cleaned the feet: his actions made them worthy of entering the house. Peter had to allow Jesus to wash his feet; he was not wanting the Lord to lower himself to the task. Similarly we have to be willing to allow our feet to be washed, to be helped to be better through others’ advice, aid, etc. And we must wash our brothers’ feet: be willing to help them. But before everything we must allow Jesus to wash out feet. If we go to someone’s house (and heaven is Jesus’ house) we must respect the wishes of the owner; it’s only polite.

GOING ONTO A SIDING

One day I wanted to write in my Journal.  I had the beginning of a thought about what I might write but as soon as I opened the Journal I became distracted by a place I with a paperclip. When I turned to a blank page I no longer remembered the subject.

I wonder how much I should worry about incidences like this.  Is it a sign that I am progressing into dementia?  Is it old age?  Is it merely a normal thing”

Every once and a while I will loose my train of thought.  I will start talking or writing about a subject, briefly think of something else, and then have a blank mind about the subject I started.  Often I can struggle back to it, but for a while it just doesn’t seem to be there - - an apparent blank space.  Sometimes I need someone to remind me.

Later that day a younger person said that the same thing happens to them.  Should this comfort me or are we both a little off?

I get irritated at the way “old folks” drive and react on the road. Though It surprises me when I realize that I am also an “old folk”. My night vision is not as good and my reactions are slower. Maybe I too drive slower than I used to. I once read that a sign of old age is that they no longer see speed limit signs to be challenges.

MAN VS WOMAN

One night Lizzie had an opportunity to speak at a Church about her book, SUBMISSION IS NOT SILENCE.  I was tasked to say something but I did not know what to speak.  I thought perhaps I should address how men should react to women.   As I remember I said something generally along these lines:

I believe men generally may be more direct and task oriented than women.  Many women do not seem as forceful in nature.  We as men must be careful not to over-express male characteristics so that we override women.  We risk making them feel abused and purposeless.  We can isolate ourselves from them and loose their constructive input.

The truth is that men need subtlety to temper their directness and they need to take thought of how the achievement of their tasks effect other relationships surrounding them.

Conversely, women need to keep the task in mind and not get lost in emotion and details.  They need to realize that sometimes people’s feelings have to take second place to the achievement of a goal.

To me it is obvious that men and women need each other, hence:

- - God saw it was not good for the man to be alone.
- - They shall be joined together and shall become one flesh.
- - Male and Female made he them, in the image of God made he them.

The way men think:
- - Marshaling
- - ordering
- - instructing
- - coaching
- - directing

The way women think:
- - relationships
- - Feelings of others
- - Comfort and beauty of the nest
- - Proper direction and nurture for the family

In the end we will take no earthly accomplishments out of this world:  no money, no status and no fame.  As we present ourselves in heaven we will carry with us only the relationships we have built.