Point 13, Draper Lake

Posted on January 13, 2020 by ehurst

It was almost cold today. During my ride the temperature ranged between 40-45° F, with a stiff southerly breeze around 20 MPH. It was also overcast and even just a bit hazy at times. I still managed to ride out to Point 13, the last time I have to deal with a “no wheels” policy for a while. But then, on both sides of this point, the old shore trail has been washed out at some point, so there’s not even an equestrian trail out here.

Because the point faces south, today the waves splashed pretty hard on the rocks there. I have pictures from a couple of years ago, but I don’t recall seeing this point at all. There is extensive flat rocky shelving here partly because of the erosion. You can see the bottom end of the sign marking this as Point 13, lying over in its side.

This is the view back to Point 12 from the west side of Point 13. It’s got a short bluff for quite some ways back. The eastern side of the point is thickly covered in trees right down to the water in most places. The remains of the old shore trail are nearly completely overgrown since there’s virtually no way to get to it across the washout. Even that wasn’t very picturesque.

Next up is the long trail out to the longest point on the lake.

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Law of Moses — Exodus 32

Posted on January 11, 2020 by ehurst

We take a break from study of the content of the Covenant and examine some historical context, in that the Covenant almost didn’t happen.

The story itself is familiar to most of us. Moses was communing with God on Mount Sinai while the nation below became impatient. For all they could tell, Moses went up in that cloud and died. His brother Aaron was recognized as the spokesman, while Moses himself seldom actually spoke in public. Again, get used to the idea that the narrative gives credit for actions to the people who commanded things, but didn’t literally put their hands to the work. Since Aaron was the recognized vocal agent and High Priest, they demanded that he come up with something they could recognize as a deity so they could get back on the march toward Canaan Land.

We can’t estimate how much gold Aaron received, but the symbolism of taking earrings is that the people agreed before hand to give their “ears” (obedient attention) to this deity. The idol probably wasn’t all that large, perhaps just visible if held aloft, and shiny because it was formed from freshly molten gold. Most likely it was cast by making a model of clay (thus, the engraving tool), and covering it with a thin layer of molten gold, which was then polished.

The idea typical for the Ancient Near East would not be worshiping the calf itself, but that the invisible deity would be riding on the calf, though we might think of it as a young bull as the image of strength. This was quite common among Semitic nations with Mesopotamian roots, and the phrasing of the declaration distinguishes their deity from the ones more common among Egyptians. “Our god defeated the Egyptian gods!” This is better than wallowing in Egyptian slavery, but not by much.

However, Aaron connected this symbol with Jehovah’s name, and defiled it with pagan rituals typically associated with the degrading cults of Canaan. They made offerings on their makeshift altar, then feasted and “got up to play.” This almost certainly refers to drunken nude dancing. This is what the text means by referring to making them a laughingstock before their enemies. Most nomadic Semite tribes would have been more sober in their worship rituals, and this made Israel appear to be no morally better than the folks in the Land of Canaan where they were supposed to root out corrupt religious practices. You can bet scouts from their enemies were around them, spying on all of this.

So God broke off this sweet communion with Moses and ordered him to stand aside while He destroys them. He would start fresh with the family of Moses and make a new tribe. Moses prayed on their behalf, noting that it was a little too late for that. After wiping out Egypt to deliver Israel, how would it look for the name of Jehovah if He made it seem like He lured them into the desert to destroy them? Yes, they were stiff-necked indeed, but that’s exactly the kind of problem revelation was supposed to solve. Moses implored God to keep His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God relented and Moses went down to clean up the mess. He bore two slabs of slate with detailed fine writing by God’s own finger on both sides. As they approached the camp, Joshua herd a racket that made him think there was a battle. Moses spoke in a prophetic verse that it was neither victory nor defeat that caused such a tumult, but fools partying in the desert. When they came down upon the scene, Moses couldn’t restrain himself. He shattered the two stone tablets to symbolize that they had already broken the covenant they had not yet officially received.

First he fussed with his brother, Aaron. The latter gave a lame excuse. Moses called for anyone who might have not yet caved into temptation. Of course, his own tribe was with him; they had not yet stripped naked and indulged in this orgy. The command they received is not easily translated into English. What it amounts to is sending armed men to execute people acting out the most egregious displays of immorality. Several thousand men were killed that way. They would have all been unarmed, since they were naked, and too drunk to resist.

Please don’t envision long steel swords flashing in afternoon sun. These would have been bronze weapons, not longer than a man’s forearm, a big dagger. That mixture of cooper and tin would have been too brittle for anything larger. The slaughter was a matter of grabbing a man, often by his beard, and stabbing his midriff. It would have been pretty messy.

When the armed Levites returned, Moses ordered everyone to observe sober mourning rituals as previously commanded in the ritual law. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t Jehovah they had been celebrating. The next day as they fasted and mourned, Moses returned to the clouds on the mountain and begged with God to spare the nation.

The Lord’s answer was quite pointed: Those who defy Him will receive their individual justice. The implication is that He would judge by what’s in their hearts, and the punishment would match the sin. He ordered Moses to take the lead again and expect to see an angelic presence, but that when God came to visit, it would mean wrath. They couldn’t afford to have God leading them in person on a regular basis. For some time after this incident, a portion of the people suffered various kinds of plagues.

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Points 11 & 12, Draper Lake

Posted on January 7, 2020 by ehurst

Yesterday I rode out to Draper Lake and visited Points 11 and 12. As I passed the road to Point 8 I spotted an OKC police cruiser sitting on the road, facing outward rather like a speed trap. As I rode past it occurred to me this was just a standard patrol, something that I hadn’t seen much in the past. Some distance beyond that on the bikeway was the turn for Point 11.

I rode out to the point and saw a rather new sign warning that this point was now under recovery, and no wheels were allowed. So I locked my bike to the sign, since no other suitable fixed object was close to the pavement. As I was doing so, that patrol cruiser rolled by slowly, then left. I strolled down the slope and took a couple of shots. This next one (above) shows how the natural bluff was washed out because of wheeled traffic running down to the water during times when it wasn’t nearly this high.

I can recall that this rock shelf (left) was above the water a couple of years ago. Indeed, there were several more like this around Point 11. But this point was never beautiful, and it has seen a lot of foot traffic and litter that never gets picked up.

After looking around a bit and noticing that the equestrian trail was now heavily overgrown, I left and came around to the Point 12. On the one hand, this point is much prettier. On the other hand, it suffered greatly from a very bad brush cutting a few years ago. A few trees were cut and thrown down on the shore.

The crew that did it failed to cut the underbrush off at ground level, leaving hard stubs in the ground, most of which have already sprouted again. Meanwhile, the rest are there to trip you up, or even threaten to poke through the soles of your shoes.

Here’s a man sitting on the rocky shore at Point 12. He had a large dog with him, running around and chasing a toy, quite non-threatening. The man threw it out into the water a couple of times, and the dog dutifully swam out to fetch it.

Here we can look back to Point 11. While it’s just barely visible in the far background, we have a lovely view along the western side of Point 12. If you look closely, you’ll see the dog lying in the deep grass.

If the details of the local map mean anything, then Points 8, 11, 12 and 13 along the north end here are under recovery protection. I’ll be visiting 13 next, so the point itself is no-wheels, but the old shore trail from there to the Point 14 is outside the recovery zone. I’m hoping the equestrian track there has seen recent use.

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A Persecution Hymn

Posted on January 6, 2020 by ehurst

You have probably participated in singing the song, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” Maybe the group you were in used the verse that goes:

The world behind me,
The Cross before me…

The song comes from the predominately Christian hill tribes in the far northeastern area of India, typically referred to as Garo. There were several waves of missionaries who went there. You can find several different stories about the origin of the song, and they are quite varied. So the actual composition is lost in legend, but the song reflects a resolve in the face of persecution, about which those Christians could tell us a thing or two.

Yet you know already in your heart that most people who mouth the words of that song have no real concept for what they are saying. Teenagers especially are at a time in their lives when a radical commitment to something beckons them. For them, it’s not a question of sincerity. It’s as real as anything else they know.

And it’s not as if they never experience any persecution for their faith. Our society has created a subtle system of rejection for genuine commitment to Christ. The problem is that a huge portion of American Christians have faced this, and the real danger is not their lack of commitment, but the vast layer of substitution for the genuine power of conviction. They aren’t taught conviction, but to work this all from their minds. Intellectual belief is substituted for conviction, and there is a heavy curriculum in apologetics to ensure it all sounds logical.

Between the Zionists and globalists, we are headed for a more overt persecution. People of genuine faith will be under pressure to compromise with the prevailing definition of “Christian” religion. Overt persecution always shakes loose the fakes. People who sing that song may not be truly rooted in the faith that generated those words, and it is they who will hold the institutions.

Radix Fidem doesn’t make you better than other folks, but it does tend to demand enough from you that fakery becomes difficult. Prepare your hearts for persecution, folks.

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Law of Moses — Exodus 31:12-18

Posted on January 4, 2020 by ehurst

We skip over the detailed description of the Tabernacle, priestly rituals and vestments, and related matters. They are a grand archaeological resource, helping us envision things, but not of any great essence in understanding the implications of Biblical Law as a whole.

To some degree, we might almost say the same thing about the Sabbath Observance. However, the symbolism here is more deeply woven into the very fabric of Creation itself. But before we dig into that, let us review critical statements Paul made regarding how we translate the Sabbath Law into the service of Christ:

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)

The whole chapter there is Paul warning against legalism, using the Law as a club to make others miserable. There is no virtue in that. He also warns against trusting in logic and reason, but emphasizes trusting your personal convictions.

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. (Romans 14:5)

Same story, but in more detail, Paul obliterates the legalistic position regarding Sabbath observance and other holy days, along with Kosher and similar matters. He uses the Greek word nous, translated as “mind,” but in this context meaning something akin to a sure knowledge of your own convictions.

Finally, in Hebrews 3-4, the author argues that the whole point behind the Sabbath was to symbolize the rest God promised, in that Sabbath is from the Hebrew root for “rest.” God created all things in six days and rested on the seventh, establishing the pattern for us. Israel never actually got to that rest, so the Son fulfilled the meaning of the Law for them, and for us. If we follow Him with a commitment from the heart, we cannot fail to enter God’s rest.

This is how we understand this passage in Exodus 31. It’s a divine privilege to take off one day in seven and still be assured that everything will be fine. Israel could give that day back to God and still prosper. They could devote that day to contemplation and renewal of their personal commitment to Jehovah as Lord. Meanwhile, they could bless the Lord by giving everyone else a break by making no material demands on them. Slow down and take care of your own personal needs that day.

The whole point of this passage is to emphasize that Israel must take this command very seriously. It’s a symbol of the Covenant itself and the promises to future generations. This is a call to trust the Lord to keep His promises, letting faith overrule the human logic based on fear and distrust.

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No Going Back

Posted on January 3, 2020 by ehurst

Sometimes I hit those moments when there is so little I can say. It’s not writer’s block. Something in me is at rest, as if some major task is finished. For at least a little while, there is nothing I can say, just stare at what was done and absorb it for what it is.

What I felt called to do for this past decade or so was to give people a way to talk about this kind of faith. I’ve tried to offer examples of words that will capture just enough of the essence of this Radix Fidem life, so that we can have a realistic hope that others can catch it. I’m sure I’ll be adding more to that body of expression, but I sense that it’s mostly done enough to make it work.

I have before me a fresh task, though. It’s building this into a way of faith and religion that stands firm with very little support. Those of us who have embraced the heart-led way are often quite alone in the real world. It’s not that other folks have no convictions, but their faith doesn’t draw them where mine does. I’m so far out there, I sometimes have wondered just who could my audience be in the first place.

It’s good to know that some of you have offered your fellowship, sharing your own experiences of walking through this world and hearing all Creation talk to your heart on that divine wavelength. It’s good to know that other folks can hear the call of Biblical Law in the New Testament stories of Christ. I know that I am most fortunate to have a wife who grasps this. How many of you have that one special person near you who walks the same path?

All my life, one church or another has been my social outlet. That ended about 15 years ago when I was made unwelcome at the last church where I actually had membership. I tried several others, but the door was never really open. They didn’t want me; they wanted something they imagined they could make of me. I gave up on that.

Right now I’m poking around in other kinds of human gatherings where I can be the man God called and not have to worry they’ll run me off. We’ll see where that goes. Perhaps I can stumble into something that will provide new experiences to share with you about how faith moves mountains.

Right now the theme remains: decentralized religion. We must each become the kind of person who can stand alone, and sometimes very quietly, while the world around us goes to Hell. Sometimes the very act of standing in faith itself is the loudest trumpet for the gospel message. It really depends on your calling and mission. Still, Radix Fidem points to something that will tend to isolate us from the mainstream. Be strong. This is not an insignificant calling.

However, I know that once anyone tastes the heart-led way of faith, there’s no going back. Let’s pray for each other.

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Red Pill Religion and Gamma Boys

Posted on January 2, 2020 by ehurst

I’ve talked about the men’s Red Pill movement and mentioned Gamma Boys a few times. Gammas are the guys with significant intelligence and talent, but raised poorly so that they feel entitled. They are socially damaged; they have a very poor connection with reality. They can do very useful stuff, but they can’t understand the world of people around them. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about such things, nor do I expend that many electrons posting about it. I embrace the whole concept as a partial reflection of Biblical Law, but God has other things for me to focus on.

However, I have recently run into some Gamma Boys of the mainstream churches. Not so much in personal encounters, but guys trying to persuade me to feature their ideas on my blog. And their ideas have nothing to do with Red Pill stuff, but religion itself. A primary annoyance has been the vast walls of text they try to post in my comments.

Keep in mind that “walls of text” is a specific term referring to vast wads of verbiage meant to convince, to sell something. Even when well written, you can tell someone is trying to push something down your throat. It uses some standard advertising verbal manipulation techniques (AKA propaganda). For heart-led people especially, you get alarm bells ringing when you start the read this stuff, for the underhanded approach, if not for the content.

It’s one thing to hold out an invitation for someone to explore ideas you are sharing. Radix Fidem is a path, not a destination. It’s another thing entirely to aim at trapping people by seeking to close off mental escape routes. Gammas routinely communicate in walls of text; they have no concept of cutting to the chase. Their whole game is not actual communications, but manipulation. They cannot imagine asking sharp questions to get people thinking. They don’t want you to think; they want control. They believe they are entitled to it, commissioned by God to seize it.

Their ideas aren’t from the heart, but from their own reasoning. Gammas tend to be spiteful and arrogant, as you would expect from mere intellect, but it seldom shows until you reject their overtures. They take it personally, as if you are rejecting them. They are all messiahs in their own minds. The mark of a mature spiritual person is not taking themselves too seriously, and handling with equanimity the interactions where their ideas aren’t received well.

While Gamma Boys will always manage to grab a few minds here and there, they never succeed at entering the mainstream. Thus, they run around trying to promote their ideas by posting big walls of text in the comments section of blogs and similar sites. They imagine their verbiage is somehow persuasive, or that at least it ought to be, because it was so enervating when they first dreamed it up in their own minds. They imagine that they are supreme debaters, vanquishing all resistance by the power of their minds, and you must be a loser if you can’t admire it.

There was a time I might have tried engaging them by answering their nonsense. You have to be discerning about such things. Not all of them start off with a huge long comment. I try to answer with, “This is what my convictions say.” If that gets a bad reaction, betraying a sense of entitlement, I cut them off, marking them in my minds as confirmed Gamma Boys. I pray for them, but delete any future comments without response, unless they start to turn in a good direction — it does happen with some. I know this because I was once one of them. But I’ve cut off quite a few over the past couple of years because they are too locked into their castles to listen.

This problem appears on a spectrum of disorder. It’s a tendency, not a single defined issue. There are lots of smart people out there seizing on some special logical angle, and with varying degrees of charisma, they can be persuasive. Maybe they attract a small crowd who become enthralled with their notions. We have a lot of deception out there that sprouts up like this. To heart-led people, it is clearly based merely on human talent, not the moral truth woven into the the fabric of Creation.

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Points 9 & 10, Draper Lake

Posted on January 1, 2020 by ehurst

Here is a satellite image of today’s adventure. The pale blue numbers mark the points. The pinkish numbers match the following images in numerical order. Noteworthy is that the first image was several miles away from the lake, so it’s not on the map.

The new camera was on duty today, and it appears to have been the right choice. On my ride out to Draper Lake along the Sooner Road corridor, I pass this tributary to Crutcho Creek. Something called my name about a scene to shoot and this is what I ended up with. Crutcho Creek is just about a quarter mile off to my right (east) and this tributary was pushed over to it’s current position to make way for the housing addition to the left.

Today’s target was Points 9 and 10. The former is where all the fanciest recreation facilities were placed. There was nothing to gain by traipsing along the trails to get out here. Once here, I went out on a fishing dock that juts far into the water. This shot is looking back north to Point 8, where I was Monday. The high lake level puts that grass out in the water.

This park area isn’t actually on Point 9, but sits on the western side. At the southern end of this parking area is a trail that runs off into the woods toward the actual point. Most of the way we have this Pampas grass, a type I believe is actually native to this part of Oklahoma. At any rate, I see plenty of it in the wild, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the equestrians riding out here who keep a trail cut through it. It gets awfully thick in places.

About halfway between the parking lot and the actual point is this spot where the shore is accessible. Today we had stiff southerly breezes so the lake had a good chop on it. This little open spot faces almost south, so the waves are clearly whipped up onto the shore. In the far background is the marina on Point 5.

Point 9 proper isn’t actually rocky, but very hard-packed clay. There are two tracks cut into the shore by water run-off. With today’s blustery conditions, the waves were splashing way up high on the shore. I really wanted to stand on the other side of this inlet, but that was pure thorns. Without a cutting tool I would not have gotten out there with my pant-legs intact.

Father around on the eastern side of the point, the shore offers a little more visual appeal. You can see where a small tree was undercut and fell into the lake. There were several more much larger trees behind me, but there way no way to get a good angle on them. The shore here has lots of thorny stuff that makes it hard to crawl around.

Point 9 is part of a very large ridge sticking out into the lake, split out on the end between Points 9 and 10. The shore trail on the way to Point 10 offers much lovelier shoreline with exposed rocks. This was shot with still a half-mile or so to go. You can see Point 9 in the background.

Point 10 itself is a low ridge split by a sandy trench that creates a natural boat ramp, but you could never get a vehicle out here, much less while towing a boat. This was actually pretty dramatic with the wind whipping in off the water and the waves splashing over a rocky bed that was just about water level. I couldn’t capture it with my camera because the water never dropped low enough to make it obvious. That lone Blackjack oak has almost all of its roots exposed by wave action.

After eating my lunch of sardines, I was able to get close to the eastern shore of the point in a couple of places. The rocky underlayer was bare in several places. It appears the lake bottom drops away quickly here, so you can bring a boat up very close to the shore. Where the stone base is lacking farther along the trail, the crews had to place a lot of rip-rap to prevent erosion cutting too deep into the shore line and threatening the trail.

Here the rocks return. The trail runs through the tall grass on this side of the treeline. As I made my way north along the shore back toward the main road, there were places where the horse traffic had churned the sand into soft bogs that made it hard to ride. There were several trees down across the trail. I intervened a couple of times to move things or to reduce the barrier to something more manageable. I even ran into a family with little kids walking the old shore trail. The man commented that it was quite rare to see a cyclist on the trail, but horses and riders were common.

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Time for an Underground Church

Posted on December 31, 2019 by ehurst

In some parts of the world, this is a bad time to belong to an organized Christian church. However, in all parts of the world, this is a bad time to have a gospel message restricted to what takes place within an organized church. It’s always a bad time to have a gospel message cloaked in specific branding with theology and terminology that belongs to an identity that can be targeted, but churches are under attack all over the world right now.

Very few governments are openly hostile to the gospel message, although China is in this case. Even then, it’s probably secondary to a much more practical matter of control. It’s not about the gospel, but the influence churches have over human behavior. Because “the church” in China borrows entirely too much from the culture and social biases of Western churches, it becomes a target for controls that fight those biases. It’s entirely possible to have a biblical worldview and offer very little provocation to just about any government that exists.

The power of the gospel to accomplish God’s glory cannot be confined to a creed or sectarian identity. It doesn’t belong to any human agency any more than God Himself does. The mythology that imagines religious organizations as somehow exempt from human political foibles is an especially serious hindrance to the gospel message. This would be a really good time for Chinese Christians to build a faith and practice that is not tied to something their government can target.

This is a really good time to develop all the habits and expectations of an underground church. That’s not precisely the purpose of Radix Fidem, but it is certainly native to our heart-led way. We aren’t building a sectarian identity, but a method and means of building your own religion that resists the intrusion of government control. Not in the sense of fighting back, but we resist in the sense that we focus on a way of faith that leaves nothing the government can seize and control.

Granted, there is a place for followers of Christ to resist a bad government, but not for any of the reasons commonly asserted. The means and methods should arise from one’s divine calling, not some kind of sectarian identity. We aren’t defending a team as if we compete with human government. The issue is defending the dominion God granted you to keep. Your convictions know how to do that as a means of shining divine glory into a dark world.

Don’t think the tribulations of Chinese Christians can’t happen in the West.

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Point 8, Draper Lake

Posted on December 30, 2019 by ehurst

Today was cool, ranging between 40&#176 and 46&#176 F, with a stiff westerly breeze. I dressed in long-sleeved layers and it worked okay, with just a tad bit of sweating on my back. Today’s destination was Point 8, for which there is a no-wheels policy over the entire point. So I stuck to the paved road to the parking lot. I locked my bike to a sign post and wandered freely on foot.

The pocket camera died halfway through my hiking around (Canon Coolpix S3100), so I switched to my cellphone. This is the same thing that happened to the other pocket camera I had several years ago (similar, S2600 model). The lens must extend in order to work properly, and the gears froze. I could hear it grinding, but it didn’t extend out of the main case. My new camera should arrive Thursday, so until then, I may try to lug the big camera around. I just need to remember it doesn’t shoot well facing the sun.

Point 8 faces south right alongside 7 and 9. There’s a bluff in the center, with a shallower slope off to the west, as this picture shows. Under the bluff is a narrow shelf part of the way, but not much to walk on with the water level so high. On the east side of the point is a narrow extension that juts out into the water, just visible in the background of the second image above. There is no trail out onto this extension, so you have to walk through thick underbrush to get out there.

I made my way out there and shot back toward the main point. The marker sign is just visible in this shot. That was so boaters could tell where they were way back in the old days. You could hunt ducks back then, but there aren’t any visible these days. We still have deer, but I believe hunting is generally forbidden these days. Sometime back a couple of decades, the conservationists got the upper hand in the City Council.

Out on that little shore extension the rock shelf emerges again. This was the only part I could capture with my cellphone. It was fun enough and the place is pretty, but I never got that tingle of natural vibe there. The place has too much human traffic to make much noise that I could hear with my heart.

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