Keep Your Eyes Open 2

Posted on November 26, 2017 by ehurst

It’s plain as day to anyone with half of a brain. The current system of government and economics in the US is completely dependent on a particular culture. That culture was derived from the Enlightenment. That culture must dominate the US population for this thing to work.

That cultural dominance is gone. The thing itself has been degraded by a tragic change in the education system, a change meant to turn out millions of docile and nearly ignorant workers, easily pacified by various entertainments and distractions. The culture, and thus the system, has been hollowed out. On top of that, there has been a massive influx of people who don’t share that dominant culture, along with a burgeoning alienation from the culture internally. Further, most of those who don’t belong to the previously dominant culture never will belong. Instead, these resident “foreigners” prey on the dominant culture and the system they reject.

The result is the disorder and violent chaos in cities like Chicago and Baltimore. So long as the current system remains in place, it is impossible to make adjustments necessary to restore and maintain social order. The resources for making the necessary changes are not there; it requires a different cultural base to handle these people who refuse to adapt. Further, it is absolutely impossible for the current economic system to continue working. Thus, we see it slowly grinding to a halt. Even if the catastrophic and impossible debt could be flushed out of the system, the cultural mismatch will prevent any significant economic recovery.

This train wreck cannot be stopped. It won’t be an apocalypse, but it will grind to a halt until the chaos forces changes, changes that are not possible with the current system of government. It means that the US government must be replaced, and in the process a break-up of the current union of states. It also means there will be some racial conflict and people driven out of some areas in an attempt to reduce the internal friction.

So much is just a matter of understanding human nature on a grand scale. It’s a waste of time to label any of this good or bad; it simply is the way things work. Mankind is fallen and some problems cannot possibly be fixed. One man’s utopian dream is another man’s nightmare, and it is simply impossible to change aggregate human behavior.

A part of the fallout from this breakdown will be the birth of the Network Civilization. There is a whole new generation of folks already stumbling into this nascent civilization. Already they have turned to the virtual world as the home of their souls. A handful of major tech companies will displace a whole range of functions currently associated with government. Government will become increasingly dependent on Big Tech, and increasingly unable to control these technology giants.

At the same time, I foresee a great deal of new conflicts with Big Tech trying to take control via growing individual human dependencies on technology. The current networking infrastructure will provide leverage for a control that many will find oppressive and painful. This tyranny will result in the rise of an independent internet of sorts, likely based on community mesh networking. Big Tech is already moving toward blatant censorship, and this is the first battle that must be won.

So far as anyone can predict right now, the only way to unplug the corporate and government owned wiring is with an enhanced form of ubiquitous wifi. All it really needs is overcoming the problem with long range linking; you should count on the technology to be there soon enough. Once there is a de facto internet independent of the ogres in Big Tech, the new Networked Civilization will take off.

As always, the point in sharing these things is to help you prepare for future opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We infiltrate and exploit the openings God makes for us.

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Sermon on the Mount 8

Posted on November 26, 2017 by ehurst

Justice for Enemies 5:43-48

Jesus isn’t really arguing with the Talmudic traditions here. He’s arguing with common Pharisaical behavior. It’s hard to find anything resembling “hate your enemies” except perhaps in the Qumran Scrolls, where the Qumran community taught something like that. But it isn’t hard to find Talmudic teachings that suggest Gentiles are to be treated as animals, not people. It’s kind of schizophrenic, because the Talmud has teachings that mention the righteous among Gentiles, but we know that there was a strong element of spite during Jesus’ day. This was extended to Jews who bought into the Roman tax-farming system — paying up front a certain flat fee to Roman officials for the legal right to collect that back with interest from their own people. Such tax collectors were treated as traitors.

What Moses actually said was that your enemies should receive equal justice. It’s commanded in several places, including that strong statement in Proverbs about shaming those who are abusive to you (25:21-22). It’s not a matter of “being nice” — it’s a matter of being just regarding human need. You can afford to be gracious to those who are tightwads with their mercy.

Thus, Jesus is using standard Hebrew hyperbole, interpreting how the Pharisees acted when He suggests His audience had been told to hate their enemies. It’s a valid rhetorical tool in Hebrew culture; He did that often enough that it shouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Matthew selects the Greek term agape, commonly implying kindness and compassion, a sacrificial love. The focus is on divine justice, the moral character of God that open hearts can discern in all of Creation.

Thus, He starts by pointing out a range of ways to climb above the petty hostility so typical of the human race. Don’t respond in kind; don’t let their hostility infect your soul. Be the strong one. That’s how genuine Children of God handle things. There’s that feudalism again; learn to act like someone who operates in the power of a great and mighty sheikh. Have you noticed that His divine provision doesn’t wait for someone to get right, but stands there established and waiting for souls to move toward it? Don’t take the abuse personally. They treat God that way, too.

Then Matthew translates Jesus’ words about compassion and giving that formal Hebrew greeting with the hugging and familial kiss on the cheek. In our Western cultural context it’s like shaking hands, for example. If you treat that like a special greeting in a closed society, you are no better than those tax-collecting “traitors.” Don’t do it like you are too stupid to discern who your enemies are, but do it like someone who is too strong to be pulled down. Shame them by your moral strength. Where divine justice reigns, people tend to change. If they act like a beast, pull them out of the mud pit, or help them rise under their heavy load of life.

Finally, Jesus pointedly says we should be of the same moral character and maturity as the Father. Would you like to restore the Covenant and welcome the Messiah? Create a home for Him in your life, a place that reminds Him of Heaven.

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Tolkien’s Bad Mythology

Posted on November 25, 2017 by ehurst

As a younger man, I was captivated by The Lord of the Rings and the fantasy world of Tolkien. The author began his work prior to WW1, but the bulk of it was published around the time I was born (which was 1956). It’s the kind of legendary stuff that remains popular even today, though it’s now less about the books and more about the movies and epic computer games.

To be honest, I now find the whole thing overly wrought, with too much detail and lacking coherence. There’s simply too much free form magic with no rules, no way to predict how a fresh branch of the tale will go. There are too many holes in the canon, and it’s too easy to sprout discontinuity when people try to add fresh material. I’m not fond of storytelling that invites the storyteller to be an arrogant smart-ass, throwing out curve-balls that no one can predict. You can’t be a nit-picking purist with Tolkien’s world. Thus, nobody notices much when the movies and games depart from the original story line.

But at least we can trace to some degree the underlying mythology. It’s obvious Tolkien was heavily influenced by European Medieval History and mythology, but wanted something not too far from English Christianity. Having lived through the horrors of WW1, he found industrial technology repulsive. Fair enough, since that first world war was a horrifying mismatch between primitive tactics and modern weapons. Troops were required to play by the rules and die in massive numbers. When smart people tried to introduce better tactics, they were treated worse than the enemies. So if the generals were determined to conduct war by their bogus fantasies, why should we not entertain ourselves with more human fantasies?

I’m not sure how conscious on intentional it was, but Tolkien’s work does a marvelous job of supporting the doctrine of the Fall. Despite the whole thing being a thinly disguised representation of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, he does get one thing right: No matter how hard and heroically you try, the Devil (AKA Sauron) will always come back again and again.

Oddly enough, the character of Sauron does a great job of warning us about the evils of scientism as a religion. The myth is that Sauron loved order and was rather patient about imposing his particular brand of order. He was exceedingly intelligent about what it would take to bring others under his control. It was all about the efficiency and effectiveness of things, and he could not imagine a better world than one that adhered to his sense of order and stability. This depicts quite nicely the world of globalist and imperialist dreams, ruled by a technocratic regime. But in Tolkien’s world, it just happens to include a certain amount of magic in place of technology.

So, on the one hand, you are supposed to absorb the virtue of heroism. On the other hand, it won’t make that much difference in the long-term outcomes. I suppose if you are really smart, you’ll see that it promotes moral virtue as an end in itself, simply because it is a part of goodness to oppose what is clearly evil. You’ll notice how it seems every manifestation of magical power carries a huge risk of evil, so that power is to be shunned by most. It’s almost a Luddite view of magic. It’s not a bad thing if a precious few specialists with immense moral strength can keep track of this knowledge, if for no other reason than to resist outbreaks of evil, but it’s best if we keep a lid on such knowledge. So Tolkien seems to pine for the days when math and technology were the domain of a very few wizards and priests and seldom used. The world is better and safer with only the power of heroism.

But if we break away from the Anglo-centric outlook, then it changes everything. Anglo-Saxon Christianity is a radical departure from the Bible. Scripture says the only real heroism is internal. That is, while you might spend some time swinging that sword against literal enemies, real heroes are much more concerned with fighting the enemies, Orcs and dragons inside their own souls. The one thing Tolkien gets right is identifying the temptation to compromise for the sake of some practical advantage. It’s better to die doing the right thing than to survive and bring evil to power. But then the Tolkien mythology stops there and doesn’t carry the image to its conclusion.

The Wraith Realm is not the sum total of what’s beyond death. This is the fatal flaw in European mythology: There is no sweet Heaven. There is no God directly active in His Creation from His bright courts above. There is no real motive for trying to be a good guy aside from a certain pride in leaving your name as a legend. Everything beyond death is dark and gloomy; the Other Realm is spooky and unpredictable.

The Bible says this realm is the big lie. It’s bathed in deception; it’s not ultimate reality at all. The whole point in digging into the moral powers of goodness is to catch glimpses of that sweet ultimate reality our God created in the first place. It helps us to tear away the veil of deception and see Eden. We must die to get there, but we get to sample it’s joys if we strive to defeat the deception within ourselves. And it’s altogether predictable, because the whole lore of moral power here is derived directly from moral power in Eden. Thus, our daily effort of life is peeling back the lies so we can discern the real truth of things. The mighty miracles here are simply the rather mundane reality in Eden.

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Bits and Pieces 28

Posted on November 24, 2017 by ehurst

The latest nasty tactic from websites is called session replay, wherein the website has one or more JScripts that record every keystroke and mouse movement. Granted, this has been possible for a long time; it’s the kind of data website UI designers use to figure out how to improve page layout. It answers the question of where people spend the most time with their eyes, and what they seem to be looking for. However, this has taken a somewhat more sinister turn lately, with major websites allowing third parties access to this info. Worst of all, the stream of mouse movements and keyboard typing can be sniffed in transit because it’s apparently unsecured. The presence of the script alone is enough to expose login passwords.

This is what I see with Links2.

This is why I love browsers that either control JScript or simply doesn’t use it at all. Granted, it makes some sites look funny, but it also reduces snooping. I spend most of my time surfing with Links2 in graphics mode. It doesn’t use JScript at all. This browser does require just a bit of savvy for set-up, but it’s quire rewarding.

I’ve adjusted my workout schedule a bit to accommodate what I imagine will best fit future needs. I now do my heavy workout in the park on Monday, followed by a long ride on Tuesday. Wednesday I do calisthenics with a moderate tension workout for my heart, then a longish fast-walk. Thursday is another long ride, followed by a repeat Friday of Wednesday, except I do high tension exercises for my muscles and a shorter but faster race-walk. Saturday I ride based on pure whim, just whatever appeals to me at the time. On top of this, each morning closely following wake-up I’ll do some kind of brief workout just to get the metabolism perking. That means doing just enough to break into a sweat.

I still wear a heavy brace for longer walks, even shopping, because it keeps me from needing to ice the knee afterward. The heavy brace presses directly around the patella in a sort of horseshoe shape on the bottom side, which is where the swelling shows up. I wear the light neoprene brace only for the Monday workouts, so that I can jump and run a little without the restriction of movement I get with the heavy brace.

We’ve been in this apartment for two years and it’s the first time I can recall being quite satisfied with a rental arrangement. We’ve had difficult neighbors along with the nice ones and the mix has been tolerable for the most part. The management has been among the most reasonable we’ve dealt with for a long time. Not perfect, mind you, but good enough for what we pay. We are thankful God led us here.

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Thanksgiving 2017

Posted on November 23, 2017 by ehurst

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. (Romans 14:5-6 NKJV)

I’m of the latter type. To me, it seems if you fail to sincerely celebrate the Lord on ordinary days, your special holiday celebrations are an abomination. As I noted yesterday, my prophetic engine is running 24/7, so it’s hard for me to see any day as special, except in terms of ritual. We are commanded to celebrate certain days, and I know they are all connected to the cycles in Creation, so I have no complaint with such things. But I get really tired of hearing prissy nonsense about how your morals are supposed to be different on holidays. It’s a highly objectionable feature of culturally middle-class American holiday celebrations.

On top of that, I know American History all too well to buy into the crap about Pilgrims and Indians, because 1621 was not the real first Thanksgiving. The first formal festal meal took place in the summer two years later. When I taught history in public school, I often ruffled a lot of feathers.

That said, I have no complaints on celebrating the ritual in my own way. We are hosting my son and his family this year, and my beloved literally enjoys the labor of cooking this feast. It’s something for which she is truly gifted and it blesses everyone who eats her food, because she honestly does it heart-led. The only draw-back is that I don’t get to take a long ride, which is what normally happens on Thursdays. I’ll get over it.

So they’ve just come in the door and it’s time to push away from this computer and do something familial.

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The Law of Networking

Posted on November 22, 2017 by ehurst

This is just a prophetic warning to folks who assuredly aren’t listening to God in the first place.

First, a basic principle: The virtual world is not the same as the real world. What works in the latter doesn’t necessarily transfer to the former. This isn’t just a matter of practicality; God is backing this up. If you try to force your meat-space ways into virtual space, it won’t just fail, it will incur God’s wrath. The virtual world isn’t special or holy in any sense, but it most certainly is different.

This has nothing to do with my underlying dislike for how the so-far necessary hardware to access the virtual world is harmful to our human welfare. I use the Internet and spend an awful lot of time messing with networking and computers, but I will be the first to tell you this thing will bring a whole new kind of suffering and sorrow. That’s just part of our fallen existence; I have to use what God provides. That’s another issue entirely. My point is that it is different and you should not imagine that God and His Biblical Law has nothing to say about it. The principles are different simply because of what is and is not possible.

What isn’t possible is dragging all the legacy functions and systems of government into the Networked Age. I’ve been keeping track of legislation and technology, and I assure you that whatever passes for regulation and law enforcement in meat space is not going to work on the Net. It hasn’t worked so far, but you’ll notice that has not deterred the evil of broken humans truculently trying to force it.

Blunt warning: The virtual world will destroy the current government of the United States (and eventually most other currently existing governments). Funny how the US government created the Internet and it’s going to come back and devour the system that gave it birth. The Internet has a life of its own; it now exists independently of any meat-space efforts to control it. Further, those who actually run the Internet in terms of breathing life into it (technology developers) will become increasingly dismissive of attempts to hijack and reign in this thing they love and in effect worship.

So when US law enforcement agencies insist on dragging their (largely incompetent) meat space tactics and strategies into the networked world, they are fighting God. What this will require is a whole new kind of agency that starts off with all the different assumptions necessary to function on the Net. And that, in turn, will require a wholly different kind of government system. It’s funny how the US government is so friendly to the growth of technology companies and so utterly incompetent in using their products. When the current system collapses, you will see the rise of a new technocracy that ignores a whole swathe of inapplicable assumptions from the old ways. This is coming, so look for it.

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God’s Reckoning and Support

Posted on November 22, 2017 by ehurst

You need two calendars.

Did you know we just passed through a New Moon? It was on the 18th. Most of us who passed through Western Christianity struggle with the lunar calendar. Yet it’s quite clear the Old Testament put quite a lot of emphasis on the lunar cycle. There were ritual observations of it. But it’s not a question of lunar versus solar calendars; both were tracked. A critical element of this was the provision of God:

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:14-15 MKJV)

In other words, it’s so you’ll know what to expect. So it’s on you to pay attention; otherwise you are the one who suffers. Your testimony of shalom depends on this.

On the one hand, you could reduce it down to established science and know that there are complex-yet-subtle effects on human existence. You already know about ocean tides, I’m sure. Mariners pay a lot of attention to the lunar cycle for that reason; it’s a matter of gravity. They also pay attention to the slight variation in the moon’s distance from the earth as it travels in an elliptic orbit. Gravity pulling from two directions will affect the tides and it will most certainly affect your body. Again, it can be quite subtle, but quite real.

For example, if women paid attention to it, they would find God blesses them in various ways regarding their menstrual cycles. And while it’s more subtle for men, our bodies do respond to the lunar cycle with variations in different kinds of energy and rest.

On the other hand, the Bible offers substantial warnings not to turn this into another religion, as if the sun, moon and stars were deities. Don’t worship the creature, but the Creator. And I note in passing that while the stellar cycles do signal something to us, it’s not because the stars have much of a direct effect like the sun and moon. Pay attention to the messengers, but don’t bow down to them.

I’ll be honest: I’m not really good with this stuff. I have a hard time paying attention to what time of day it is, much less all the other stuff going on. There’s a good reason for that — I have a very prominent internal prophetic regime — but it doesn’t change what God has done and what He demands of us. I wish we had a trustworthy source on this, because no one of us can do it all.

So this raises another major problem we have to face here in our virtual parish. In a real physical parish, we would have different folks with different divine callings who would contribute their gifts and blessings to the common welfare of the parish. It’s not as if we would issue swords of any kind with powers of enforcement, but that each member would contribute something useful, and others could take what they needed. We can emulate that to some degree in our virtual parish, but it’s not the same.

Still, if someone in our circle of members felt led to keep track of the lunar cycles and such with a respect to Biblical traditions, it would sure make life better for all of us. There is no good widget for this that I can install to the blog interface, and I don’t want to entangle this blog with someone else’s tracker schemes. But the point here is that if you have a specialty site or blog that can contribute to the common welfare of our parish, I’d love to know about it. That covers the whole range of things we need to pursue Biblical Law and shalom.

Final note: We aren’t slaves to what came before. The Old Testament is not directly binding in the sense of ritual law, but is indicative in the sense of parable. We need to discover the blessings and promises as they apply in our context with all the crap that belongs to our age. There is a lot of silly nonsense, and some quite legalistic, offered out there on the Net about this very issue of lunar calendaring. Learn, but follow your own heart.

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God’s Law Is Different 6

Posted on November 21, 2017 by ehurst

Throughout this series, I haven’t delved into the full details of anything. Instead, I’ve sought to mark out paths for your exploration. As always, I have full confidence that God can speak to your heart and guide your life where He wants you. Discussing His Law means nothing if it isn’t your own.

In this final part, I wanted to invoke a sense of vision. Can you see with your heart? Does it not show you that God intends to build a whole new community of faith? On the one hand, I am confident that what we have here is the fulfillment of what the word “church” is supposed to mean. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that if we use that term too much, outsiders will get the wrong idea. That’s why I use the term “virtual parish” for this blog. We will likely have to call it something other than “church,” maybe a lot of different terms in different places in the world. What matters is not branding like a franchise, but a genuine heart-led kind of faith.

The New Testament arose from little covenant families in their extended family households. The ideal is an extended household of blood-kinship, but it may take a generation or two to start seeing that. However, Biblical Law includes the provision that heart-led adoption of family is actually more binding than blood kinship. Still, we should hope to see a new generation of couples marrying in the heart-led way and raising families that way.

Have you ever tried to activate your heart sense around children? Especially with infants, it’s quite rare they don’t respond in some noticeable fashion. While the ideal is that we eventually develop an instinct for always being in the heart, for most of us Americans it means quite some years of trying to get used to that. But there are moments when it just comes over you, and other moments when you simply stop and take the time to give full conscious attention to it. Do that with children, anyone’s children. Learn to see the miracle of how they respond before their environment dampens what is entirely natural for us.

By now you should have already been doing that with the natural environment outside, so keep trying it with people close to you. Like everything in this life, the mightiest miracles take time. We are restoring Eden in our souls with this, so it’s what we are designed for, and shedding the false conditioning takes time. But it takes time for us and for others, as well. So make it a habit to turn inside yourself to the heart-led awareness with the people around you. While the initial reaction will be almost entirely inside yourself — the impulse to do for and with them things you might not have considered otherwise — it will surely change them, whether you get to see it or not. What matters is the miracle of how it will release things into your own soul.

Sooner or later, you can’t avoid building a community around this. That’s how God works. Like it or not, you will be the first elder. And as this community grows, it definitely needs an elder who knows the Law consciously, and is prepared to see God’s hand as He says it will work. That’s why we teach it in terms of law covenant: so you’ll consciously recognize it when you see it. The mind is designed to handle it on those terms. Biblical Law is a covenant of miracles.

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Technology and Future-proofing

Posted on November 21, 2017 by ehurst

Someone asked me to explain my prayer request for that expensive laptop. First, a link to the machine in question. Primary advantage: Nobody has to worry about whether Linux can be installed and run on this thing; it comes with Ubuntu. I will never use Windows again, that’s for sure.

Dell does offer other machines with Linux, some cheaper. This one is future-proof, in that it has some of the most advanced technology available. Even better, this model has a long history of working exceptionally well, highly reliable as testified by numerous Linux users. It’s about as light as they come, and the 13″ size is the perfect trade-off between portability and big enough to get things done. (My little 10″ netbook didn’t have enough screen real estate to be very useful, so it’s death didn’t make me cry.) This thing can run future versions of Linux for quite some years to come.

Look, I’m not trying to collect new and fancy toys. I was content with what I had and praying that the aging tower and my current laptop would keep working. But as I was praying also about how to keep this blog running another nine years, as Jay has enthused, the Lord said to me, “Ask Me for new hardware.” You don’t have to participate in this blessing, but I’m convinced God has some plans here. I took a look at Chromebooks, but they aren’t tuned to writers. So after rejecting that, I cast about for something that would fit my needs better, and the XPS 13 is what caught my eye. I’ll be funneling toward it all the donations I receive from my computer tech support ministry.

So once again: This is not a fund-raiser, just a prayer request. We have all the time in the world, but this speaks of things to come and how God will be at work in my life and on this blog.

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Happy Blog Birthday 9

Posted on November 20, 2017 by ehurst

FYI: Today marks nine years on this blog. Had enough, yet?

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