Raca, Fool, Nietzche

Ok so they are saying that the Enoch story could mean justice already happens 

but to me it could still be the tip of the iceberg for Enoch

and I would say an interesting case to look at alongside that would be

Nebudchadnezzer who eventually did come around, didn't he?  

So does he not get the whole works and if so are we going to say

the justice was in his cow days

or are we going to say

the justice is in the recording of his cow days

and does the recording ever go away, and if so,

then wouldn't the word be the will and the will

include a recording and an unrecording?

That is probably why letters are not the same

as ink splotches although they can be

in the computer world

that might fade

if other machines take over,

like squirrels and rabbits.

But anyway I genuinely don't know

but think people need to figure it out real quick

because that is why a lot of people think

that meditation is the same as prayer

which I kind of say in the next post

but of course don't really believe.

An Off the Wall Devotional for Young People

Well everyone, some people lately have been sharing the lepsog with me.  What is the lepsog, you ask?  Well I will tell you. L-E-P-S-O-G. It is the opposite of the gospel. Basically it is when people say you can't be blessed because you did some kind of defining thing wrong or your particular combination of mistakes happens to be the exact code that unleashed all the evil into the world.  And that seems to be what has happened with some of my lifelong efforts to be productive. What else could account for this ongoing instablity and disability and threats to lose everything even before it is gained, always paying everyone a life savings to participate at all, with bad things magnified and good things completely ignored if not destroyed on purpose? Well some of us who have been patient with lepsog tactics like that have found that we can defeat that kind of evil by doing the unexpected, which is staying alive. So our lives are full of secret messages that can be read backwards for some good news. And some day, when people finally fight all the medusas who have ruined this world, it will just take some mirrors to set things right and access a great story to read about good people who did what they were supposed to.

cartoon from Rhymes With Orange

Trilogistic Chart of Innocence

 

books available on smashwords:

 

Prize Package 63 Link

prize package 63 

e-books on smashwords by Refried Bean

That We Would Be Called Children of God

Something on Judgement Day that I am not looking forward to is seeing snakes crawl out of my mom's soul in front of everyone, and seeing my dad's grief as he is confronted about his own role in her unrelented abuse of me and psychological dependence that she convinced herself was okay. All of us there at the dreaded day of reckoning will feel the same as we do now, totally unsurprised yet horrified as we sort through the video footage and narrative documentations of the life scenes that turn out to have black bats and rabid pterodactyls flying through each infested backdrop once the spiritual-filter is applied and the whole reality is apparent.  It will be literally dangerous to view the footage of my early years working at barnes and noble, with actual pythons and vipers emerging from the screens and snapping and lashing at all of us conferencing there at whatever Judgement Day location somehow exposes what people refused to deal with on earth. We will go through each segment of recorded evidence, dodging snakes with slitted eyes and giant fangs dripping with actual still-potent venom, probably re-biting and killing some of the friends and neighbors there with us who I thought were safe from additional Satanic attack. I will say, God, my sister already got stung by a jellyfish at the beach one time. I could hardly bear to see it. Can't that be enough?  But it wasn't enough on earth, so why would I expect it to ever be final later on. That is why as part of whatever group of Presbyterians I am assembled with in the horrifying haunted-wilderness-nightscape-welcome-center to eternity, I already know that I will have to rely on my prepared consolation of saying, "I knew we were wrong all along." My preserved doubt will be like the lemon jolly rancher I found in my pocket on the hike back down from Mt. Mitchell as a kid, which was too long of a hike anyway, just like our other trips through the mountains erroneously claimed by the Scotch-Irish, who found their way to South Carolina after becoming too proud that there were no more snakes in Ireland.

"All the Jews Will Be Saved"

Well, already another blog post after quite a doozie about purgatory. But I want to mention a Bible verse that I find very assuring and that is a verse that says "All the Jews will be saved." I forgot where it is in the Bible and I do not care about the context. I don't. I just simply believe it and have hope. But I also know that Jesus Christ is the only savior and the only authority who has essentially made it allowable for anyone to be considered Jewish if they want to. That is why the Old Testament is part of the Bible.  I also simultaneously believe that no one will be saved without faith in Christ.  Well that is where it gets confusing, because one of the great gifts from Judaism is the fact that the Jewish people kept their faith as it is for thousands of years and many have maintained loyalty to that without converting to Christianity. I think some of the answers to the apparent conundrums can be found in the way Jesus died with a sign over him that said King of the Jews.  His power to save his people no matter what they believe may have to do with that identity held on to until the end. The other thing I have to wonder is if some people will lose their Jewishness if they refuse to recognize their king.  Well I don't know, and presbyterian predestination theology might line up with the idea that they don't have to because he recognized them first, and catholic purgatory theology might suggest that of course they eventually will, and waiting until they actually see it is what keeps it real. Well way to go everyone, I might be Jewish myself but probably only got included in Israel as an after thought trailing from God's eternal being.

This is why I am a Catholic

Ok everyone, it seems that it is time to discuss the concept of Purgatory. Why do I sometimes believe in and make plans for purgatory? Presbyterians generally believe there is heaven, hell, and earth, which includes a strict and ordained time limit to experience saving faith in Jesus Christ, without whom no one will be saved from a just and thorough punishment for sin, possibly in a way that lasts for eternity.  I veer from some of these perspectives sometimes by suspecting either that a more final death as a punishment is possible, which would be like a type of annihilation, or that redemption is still possible beyond the grave. I have had to make room for those possibilities in my mind because of caring about hundreds of millions of other sinners who do not believe the same things that I do, and who often don't seem as bad as I am! How can I account for continuing problems in my own life after a definite faith in God, confirmed by now in many ways from the Holy Spirit, and especially how can I tolerate seeing millions of people I care about permanently, horrifically, and irrevocably choose what amounts to perpetual agony forever, all the while being told to alleviate suffering on earth as much as possible. What I most can't get around has to do with believing that death itself is probably not likely to be the automatic or even most common gateway to final righteousness for anyone. People do become clean and righteous in this world, which continues to be imperfect while we live out our lives, so how could anyone assume that what is right after death is automatically perfect, even if people immediately see Christ and are cleansed because of it?  Most people know they face a reckoning for sins in some way after dying, so who is to say that it will be a totally happy experience? The Bible actually says there will be tears, and maybe the fact that they call it Judgement Day instead of something like a Year of Jubilee means something in terms of the process and timing.  But God says a day is like a thousand years to him and a thousand years like a day. So I do not mean to make anyone lose their hope of immediate relief in any way, because the Bible does promise total eternal joy for all believers in Christ and not necessarily for anyone else at all.  However, as an evangelical with a severe scrupulosity OCD, I have found that occasionally embracing almost any belief from Catholicism, including the possibility of millions of years of purgatory, puts me in theology territory where I see a whole new world of justice and opportunity that makes me pray with hope and love for anyone. I am still a fundamentalist of many sorts, but I want to present this purgatory idea to help other people who are in constant torment caused by not really knowing what will actually happen to people in God's presence, which might be part of life now more than we realize. I do not suggest it as an alternative to trusting Christ alone, but while we experience earth and suffering for whatever reason, the concept of purgatory can be a useful mental health strategy to find middle ground that could very well turn out to be a true and obvious reality dearly bought for us by the greatest mediator ever, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to welcome any friend needing salvation.

eternal york t shirt

 Ok everyone here is the t shirt I made. Do you guys think I crossed any lines with it? I think it is a cool shirt and I am excited about wearing it sometimes. It is true I might start a club and then pass out tracts and communion sometimes in various locations. People might assume that would be unauthorized but I am not sure it would be. After this post I will probably go back to my normal worldly monk posts, though I might add in some bible opinions sometimes like commentary that is different from theology ideas or christian life strategies. if you have not read the bible much before I will tell you my favorite book which never gets old and that is the book of matthew. Most people say to read the book of John first but I like the sermon on the mount which is Matthew 5-7. Genesis is also awesome and Revelation which is freakishly similar to the point where I have wondered if the beginning of the world and even the big bang is in the future and it creates a time loop where everything starts over. People in Genesis live for about 700 years and what if that was from health advances in the year 3000. Isaac Asimov suggests a similar idea in his story called The Last Question but it was presented for fun as a story so he might not get in as much trouble as me. But I am not going to get in trouble at all because of Jesus Christ and that is why I go ahead and do some crazy stuff like make t shirts that possibly only I understand.

A very indulgent culture

Hi everyone, I hope you had a good Christmas.  I want to share an idea that might seem obviously wrong to a lot of people, but actually might be just what some people need. And the idea I have is that I think churches should just go ahead and start selling communion.  Probably for about a dollar until it makes people feel too bad to do it any more.  Some will read this as satire, but it is really the opposite extreme based on perceptions from a difficult path through experiencing people being mad and mean for no reason almost all the time.   I just think for a lot of people who don't know better, "communion for sale" would be close enough to accepting God's free gift of eternal life, and for the people who do know better, the disrespect of it would be the irresistible grace they need to be saved from further crimes against the religious people they so publicly have despised. Do I need to go on and on about theology and church history? Probably not. I am tired of trying to figure out what time period this really is, with people always wanting to play holocaust with real lives, or accuse everyone of being part of the confederacy if they call out northerners on their hypocrisy. And I think for churches who really are guilty of manipulating people and creating weird economies where everyone acts like salvation is free but then wants you to pay them back with the misguided admiration that they are really after, then selling communion could help them, too, by being the more honest expression of their intentions.

Bible Study

you can understand what is in romans without reading it. basically people have different value systems but everyone has messed up based on what they know is right. but when paul says you are only held accountable for what you know, he refers to "the" law and not "a" law. but i think “the law” could also include science and be broader so it is one law. but our knowledge is partial anyway so if people want to view it all as different belief systems they can to some extent but everyone has violated their own belief system.

 

but the question is, what if people have a belief system that is all bad. well wouldnt violating that be like saving faith. like they are bad but made a mistake and were accidentally good one time. well people say being good one time isn’t faith. it is just a random act of failing at the destruction you wanted to cause. so that is the doctrine of total depravity. if there was something that seemed good after all then the person finds out how to make it a loss by their final rejection that is like an ingratitude so bad that it would cancel that inconsistent moment anyway. that is my guess about it though really i would suspect that the mistake to be good would catch everything else on fire, destroying the evil and leaving only a saved soul who loves much because they have been forgiven much.

Things that make me feel cross

Ok everyone I have been reflecting on my faith experiences and remembering finally understanding the main thing I was tripping over about forgiveness of sins.  Basically in my mind when I thought of Jesus on the cross, I could only see the crucifixion and not the atonement.  So I could believe that the crucifixion happened for my sake, but I did not see the atonement that was also happening on the cross, which had to do with Jesus pleasing God on our behalf. The thing that was happening more than Jesus dying for me was that Jesus was pleasing God for me. So I could even take the cross out of it for a while and think okay, I was supposed to feed five thousand people and I only fed 287. But Jesus fed 5000 so things will be fine. God will say how many people did you feed. I will say 287. God will say, that is fine.  

I can see how people could then say, no, it was also his death. he had to die and it was both his life and death. And i agree, but I think it is a trap for people to accidentally put their faith and trust in Roman execution. That is really a problem that I think is more common than people know, and to try to live by it causes a crucifixion experience instead of a happy life pleasing God. But in heaven all of it will probably eventually turn to life and atonement for anyone who asks or believes at any time.

Combined Blog Posts

The first idea is something I figured out which is that if people want to be humble, one really good strategy instead of trying to feel bad about yourself is just to pay attention to what is true all the time.  You tell the truth and look for the truth and try to see things as they are and understand stuff.  It helps people be humble because the fact is that we have no reason to be arrogant.  So if instead of just trying not to be arrogant, you take an approach where you get to know people and love everyone, the humility happens more automatically.  And you actually sometimes end up feeling more positive about yourself in an acceptable way.

Okay the second idea is about the verse that says God hates dishonest scales.  It has to do with bad business practices which is something that abounds in our society. And the thing I have to say is if dishonest scales are bad, just think about how God feels about unfair algorithms and child trafficking. He is not happy with that. It is weird to me that some people don’t care if God likes them.

Ok the third thing has to do with mindfulness and Jesus being a carpenter.  He was making creations of wood and that is very temporary and present moment oriented. I think that is important.  But then he became a healer doing miracles in his community.  And the cross itself which was made out of wood took on some severe permanence in many ways.  But what does it all mean in terms of eternity?  Jesus gave people eternal life which to me is even further down the spectrum from rock and wood and more into a zone of water and spirit. But it also says Jesus is the rock where people can hide. So that is interesting.

Finally I will get into mental illness territory and say one more idea which has to do with the trinitarian nature of nature and important elements of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon.  To me those are the main three things. Hydrogen and Oxygen can be water or fire, and Carbon is the main element of life which is combustable as coal or can be like diamond material.  And the Bible talks about a crystal throne in heaven.  Well what if that crystal is carbon, and it refers to the human nature of Jesus Christ. So the crystal throne might refer to God’s heart which is happening all the time everywhere so we don’t wait until the book of revelation to be loved. Welcome to Kook Church Central, based on the love of God from the life of Jesus.

some links to some links

Hi everyone, there is a page I could not include in my recent book and I wanted to post it here. It is basically a list of links that have to do with the religious traditions I associate myself with:

here is a good sermon by martin luther king jr: https://www.ucc.org/sacred-conversation_dr-kings-last-sermon

mlk on youtube “love your enemies” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522wcqUlS0Y

poem by Robert Burns: http://www.robertburns.org/works/97.shtml

Emily Dickinson poem: https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/much-madness-is-divinest-sense-620/

Longmobile poem: http://shelsilverstein.yolasite.com/longmobile.php

facebook share during covid: https://www.facebook.com/ChristChurchGvl/videos/518997702093891/UzpfSTgyNTU5NzY5NjoxMDE1ODUxMDcyOTc1NzY5Nw/

CS Lewis ww2 radio talks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_Christianity

book- Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Mercies-Some-Thoughts-Faith/dp/0385496095

st francis prayer: https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis/

examples of holy fools: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Fool-for-Christ

a book about unorthodox theology: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9371/9371-h/9371-h.htm

marco rubio on twitter

revelation 17:14 They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.

new chart prayer

recent prayer

 Dear God, Please saturate the earth and sky with flip trip prayer chair crowd start wirings to supply a million prize package sequence start lines that also signal the eternal power station generators throughout fifty different time and space designation ideas to charge supply assignment program management coordination variators and begin a future reference loading coding operation simultaneous to a thousand other add on blessing pattern bestowal theme systems accumulating and diversifying according to any possible eligibility factor that creates a growing list of community based, story line inclusive, population finding exponential surprise attribution groups to receive eternal shipments for any requested person, society, or category affiliation. Please provide each access point or thousand choice option a million supply kits, nature boost resource fountains, never-ending intangible wave graph continuations with editable levels for fifteen thousand topics or factors to determine extension process and target noun over-interpreted list inclusion with fading or alternating boundaries and key access extra field other-stores to be gained and regained at any time according to hints and hunches from people or animals or comforting leadership authorized to allow and deliver joy fest hope explosive ration caravans into a modifiable generational historical accommodation bestowal.  Please identify all possible need based, surprise based, merit oriented, and related potential captain group networks and zap an invisible framework that records and amplifies all possible chain route life care with support potential and reversible problem chains that re-activate the seemingly skipped space block game supply droppers that can appear in any realm layer upon request or inkling plus reward component through type or consideration friends. Thank you for helping us and caring about people and animals and please restore any lost ground with eternal surprises for whole cultures needing hope and love and food.

hospital prayer

Favor

This blog post is just about something I am wondering.  Jesus told people to not favor people who dress in fine clothes. But recently I was helping out at a food place and some Muslim ladies dressed as princesses were in line. And I felt in my heart that it was okay to treat them kind of special based on their appearance. So here is the concept I wonder about.  If someone takes the trouble to dress like a princess, and other people don’t, then wouldn’t the wrong favoritism be more a matter of not recognizing the effort and specialness of the people who did something extra? Do you guys see what I am saying? I am saying if you really treat people the same, as Jesus said, then it would be right to acknowledge whatever greatness seems extra. And I think what I am saying is right, even though that command should not be compromised, even if it is taken literally, which might not even be the most extreme interpretation. Like you can say clothes have to do with anything in life we adorn ourselves with such as opportunities, associations, personalities, and even friends and family, which ultimately of course should not be seen as some kind of clothes or possessions.  But what I am saying is this concept is very deep and could be part of why sometimes justice seems easier said than done.

sunday post

     This meme to me is like going to church. I could just stare at it on a Sunday morning and be thankful for the imaginary animals all around me.  And in heaven at the taverns it will be so fun. I am going to be a teetotaler for no reason in heaven and sell soda to minors.

     I thought about reading Les Miserables during quarantine and decided not to but did notice something interesting about the first part of the book, which was the straightforward portrayal of a good bishop.  All of the drama in the book hinges on the bishop’s good deed of forgiving a thief and adding silver candlesticks to what was already stolen.  This symbolic act of kindness inspires goodness that becomes epic and lifelong.  In fact, it takes a thousand pages to tell the story, which I really just don’t feel like reading.  The musical will do the trick for me, I think, and I hope everyone gets to listen that that music and read the lyrics in a way similar that I was taught in high school. To make it a whole English unit, a class could read the story Babette’s Feast and bring food, which is what another teacher demonstrated in grad school later on.

    Anyway I thought I would mention the rare generosity of the bishop, which isn’t as rare as it is to find a positive Christian authority within literature now.  I guess there are reasons for what gets told and appreciated in books, and some of my favorites, like I Know This Much is True, and The Poisonwood Bible, actually are pretty representative of the modern negative views of some Christian religion.  But I think everyone will eventually get past that phase, and it will be interesting to see what resurrections happen with Christian characters in books.  I personally think there is a literary frontier to mix evangelical foibles with hyper-detailed modern humorous tell-all-possibly-even-inappropriate stuff that I somehow haven’t been able to bring myself to write yet. My feeling that some of it is beyond me could be some good news of future team work and a lot of writers on the horizon thinking of the stuff that can only be theirs to tell.

Soul Food

Well everyone, I don’t usually write about race. I prefer to express my appreciation for people in different ways.  But I think I will post this post about something I have been thinking about during quarantine days which is the idea of “soul food.” I am eating some peach ice cream right now and have been noticing that as I cook what is yummy and easiest to stock up on turns out to be food that is very southern. A lot of it is in the category that gets associated with African American “soul food” like cornbread, biscuits, grits, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, collards, shrimp, and creative variations on rice and beans. Besides noticing that it is some of the yummiest food I have ever eaten, it also makes me think about something I have organized my prayer life around which is the idea that a lot of things in life are a food of some sort, and I am usually just asking God to feed everyone all kinds of happy comforts when I pray.  I am talking about things like education, attention, exercise, love, talent, and almost anything else that can make life worthwhile.  And to me, one way of describing that would be as “soul food.”  But that term has already been used as a label for actual food.  And I just find that to be very profound and theological in a certain way.  It suggests kind of a spiritual integrity where what feeds the soul is actual food. Maybe people already knew this as the term became commonly used, but I think it really matches a lot of Jesus’s teaching in many ways.  Even though Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone, he also spent a lot of his time and miracles on feeding multitudes, and he explicitly told people to feed the hungry.  And as tempting as it is sometimes for people to aspire to provide things that are less tangible like teaching, philosophy, and a lot of religion, going ahead and zapping people with some real food is just funnily what could end up not only being one of the highest services but could also end up being the most lofty intellectual concept that is also fulfilled completely in physical reality as the most honest food and life there is.