This is a matter of understanding Law as the character of reality.
In other words, we never view Biblical Law as a restriction we have to put up, as if reality was going to allow something that Law keeps away from us. It may seem that you can fight the Law on this, but in the end, it will fail. For us, Biblical Law is reality; it’s simply the way things are.
There is very little clear statement as most people might think of it, but Biblical Law leaves us with a firm conclusion after everything else has been tried and failed. The truth is there in terms of a priori assumptions; you can’t get there unless you start in the right place. It should be obvious, but it’s all rooted in a radically different cultural orientation. In this case, we can affirm that the radical departure from the default is the problem, and our culture is at fault here.
People can change, but the range of possible change is limited. Thus, some things are simply burned into fallen human nature. The Lord shows via human history that some things aren’t going to change much even with the full redemption He offers in this life. The burden is upon us to seek out and embrace what He wants to do, not make up some wild nonsense and ascribe it to Him. Just because you can imagine it doesn’t mean God works that way. You cannot trust your reason to discern whatever it is God might be willing to do; He reveals it only in the heart.
So there are some things you have to accept from the hand of God. This requires a heart-led conviction that what He does is always good and right by definition. If you aren’t held in the grip of that truth, you never will get it. You’ll always suffer that burning sense that God is cheating you out of something until you understand that you are the one who’s messed up, not God. This whole thing cannot work without the conviction; it won’t work as an intellectual exercise. You have to know Him personally in your heart, not via some artificial edifice of taught theology.
A certain level of racism is burned into human nature. It’s there; you have to deal with it. Calling it “evil” and demanding people change is pure folly, not least because it’s just a false denial that you aren’t somewhat racist. If we take it for what it is — a natural human tendency — and try to understand how it’s supposed to work, we have some hope of making life on this earth tolerable. Any other course of action, any other theoretical approach, is doomed to failure.
God’s Law presumes a tribal instinct. We are supposed to cling together for stability and prosperity in clannish ways. It’s the fundamental feudal nature of Creation itself; if we fight it, we will lose. The only sensible hope is to work with it as established and immutable fact. Any imaginary efficiency and improvement is just a lie. Human relations must of necessity include a certain amount of tribalism, so let’s stop wasting resources and effort on fighting it. Let’s take it for what it is, a gift from God for our best benefit. You’ll notice it keeps coming back to the social stability called shalom — often translated as “peace.”
The path to peace, as in harmonious and beneficial living, takes into account the necessity of a somewhat tribal social structure and feudal living. Whatever you propose against such a thing is the real ignorance and evil in this world.
Point 10 is the other half of the previous adventure. Each of these long points of land has a ridge, and this one had a real high point with quite a view from the trail. I took the ridgeline trail out to the point, then came around the shore trail on the east side back to the main road.
Once I made my way down to the point, I stood out on the very tip and caught this image of the water washing upon the foot of the rocks. I couldn’t capture the multiple high rocky spots just beneath the surface, but you would need to cautious boating up to this point.
This was the view up the eastern side from the point. The shore has numerous insets. Sadly, at some point in the past a bunch of concrete rubble was dumped here.
Farther up along the shore trail was another large inset. You can just imagine the sound of the water washing up on the shore all along here. The wind was southerly, driving the water pretty hard. The red sandstone shelves are readily visible in the water.
On the eastern side of the point is a very deep cove where Point 11 is hidden. Thus, the view just across to the next nearest point is 12. We’ll be getting a closer view of that one this next week, if all goes well for me and the weather here.
This is another shot along the same shoreline using my phone. It’s not too bad. The shore trail was ridable about half the time, between pulverized sandy spots from equestrian traffic, and then lots of dead fall. I removed some of the smaller stuff, but there were huge trees downed by beaver along the way. It was a whale of a workout.