Psalm 130

Posted on May 6, 2017 by ehurst

Our greatest difficulty in reading the Psalms is that we struggle to enter the Hebrew mind. This short piece sounds so much like David for its depth of passion, but there were others who caught the same fire for the Lord. In this short piece, we can catch a glimpse of that same path of devotion.

This song begins with recognition of our fallen nature. We live in the depths of delusion and sin; it is our natural state. But we were not made for this, and we know it instinctively, so we seek redemption, some small measure of restoration. From the depths of our cursed existence, we cry out to Jehovah. His court alone has jurisdiction for this sorrow. There is no other help, so we call to Him alone.

Should it be that God preserves the record of our failures, there would be no hope. No one but God is holy by nature. Yet in His holiness, forgiveness is also His nature. He blots out the record of our sins. The logic here is simple: If none are pardoned, then there is no one to give Him glory on the earth. For His divine justice to be apparent, for His fame and repute to live on the earth, there must be those who have been delivered by His justice and live to sing His praises.

The concept of “wait” in Hebrew here is binding together, of me wrapping my whole existence and welfare in His desires for me. What He reveals to me is life itself; His divine moral character is the fabric of existence. What He reveals is reality. Thus, there is no higher priority. Standing watch at night can be long and lonely, cold and exhausting, but a guard’s investment in relief at the dawn cannot compare to my depth of desire to know what God wants for me next.

And this passionate personal experience is not mine alone; it is the nature of our calling and covenant as the people of Jehovah. So the psalmist calls on his nation to join him in trusting Jehovah alone as the sole source of mercy. The Lord has more than enough redemption to cover every soul that calls on His name. Regardless how great our failures, He’s there to redeem it all.

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On Divine Feminine Nature

Posted on May 6, 2017 by ehurst

There’s a lot of noise about whether God has a feminine side. It came up again in some offline discussion around here and my thoughts are noncommittal.

First, there is some ambivalence about how the ancients approached this question. There is a vast array of ancient pagan reasoning that has bubbled up into modern thinking on it, and as you might expect, it’s read back into the Bible. As near as I can tell, there’s nothing to denigrate feminine nature in itself, but there has always been a big problem with making a feminine deity that is based on fallen awareness. But it’s the same with shaping an image of God from a fallen masculine viewpoint. The big deal with the cultic Baal and Asherah worship was that all of the doctrine arises from fallen awareness; it’s contrary to revelation. Whatever it is you associate with deity has to come from a higher source. Don’t dispute what’s revealed.

Second, I’ve made much of how you must find your own comfort zone. Theology is not revealed from heaven; it’s the individual mind’s response to revelation. Theology is propositional. God’s truth is not propositional but personal. Truth is Person, not intellectual content. Your mind will operate in terms of structure and content, so the trick is to teach your mind to obey conviction, because conviction is the part of our souls where God’s Person speaks to us.

So: If your theology reflects a feminine element that is too fallen, you will be barking up the wrong tree. It will be the Forbidden Fruit, not the Tree of Life. A critical element in the narrative of the Fall is Eve making a decision that was outside her purview. It symbolizes all kinds of improper elevation of a woman’s approach to things. Adam failing to stop her represents an improper elevation of the masculine approach. It’s not a question of equality if “equal” means interchangeable. There’s a reason for Scripture uniformly condemning females in the priesthood; it’s not their proper role.

I’m not going to tell you that you can’t imagine the Holy Spirit as somehow feminine. It seems to me manifestly obvious that this is proper in some ways, but I call to your attention how the Holy Spirit does not receive glory, but always shines glory back on Christ. Whether you want to use the feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit is up to you; just note that most translations in English do not. Also not that in classical English, as with biblical languages, the masculine is the default; it is inclusive of both genders. The context should make obvious whether it’s pointedly masculine or inclusive. I don’t buy into the current politically correct trend of “fixing” this linguistic gender bias. At the same time, I’m not telling you that you have to do it my way. Don’t assume I am make no place for the feminine.

As it is, I’m not strictly trinitarian in the first place, not in the sense of Western theological traditions. I think the tradition makes too much of propositional reasoning and misses the point. I also reject the Unitarian teaching, too, with a whole range of other ideas. The Holy Spirit is for me more a role than a distinct separate Person. I maintain that the truth escapes human intellectual grasp, so it’s fuzzy. I refuse to nail it down to anyone’s logical satisfaction. That’s the same with the question as to whether and how God might have a feminine nature. You have to settle that question in your own mind, and there’s no doubt your cultural background will play a part.

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The Courier 07

Posted on May 6, 2017 by ehurst

Barry had troubled dreams of earth turned into a gray, smoking landscape of craters, devoid of life.

While it filled him with a resolve to act, he couldn’t find anything he might do that satisfied that inner demand. Maybe it would show itself when the time came. But this morning he faced the unpleasant prospect of the VIPs returning for an early breakfast in the company executive dining room while the chopper was being readied for flight over on the airfield. They were dressed for the rugged outdoors and carried coats. Something very evil was going to happen today.

It left him feeling almost helpless when they boarded the bus and rode off to their chopper. He watched from across the way as the blades began spinning up. The bus pulled up on the taxi apron near where the big helicopter was running. The VIPs emerged clinging to their loose clothing and boarded the luxurious craft. A few minutes later it rose and headed out toward the pipeline.

Franklin had his own concerns. He, too, had a sense of foreboding, despite the currently relaxed atmosphere. For reasons no one bothered to explain, the troops had been extra busy the past two days with intensely aggressive patrols, ranging out more than twenty kilometers on either side of the pipeline. Bess had suggested it was to improve security before the VIPs arrived. It really bothered him that everyone in uniform seemed so subservient and compliant about it. Bess had given him a digest of the radio traffic between the commanders, and you would think it was the Coalition supreme headquarters that was coming to visit. Had this evil man bought them, too?

Between Bess and his tactical scanner, there was precious little moving out there where his crawler team had been working. They were just going through the motions. Franklin could have taken a holiday and it would have made no difference. It occurred to him it felt like some kind of seduction, but more complicated than that. He let his feelings rise where he could see them clearly. It was an odd mixture of frustration and embarrassment with a creeping laziness. While he seldom let such feelings get in the way of taking his job seriously, it helped to be aware of this toxic stew. It made him feel like someone was trying to set him up, preparing him for playing as a sucker.

Bess broke into his reverie to alert him to the presence of the VIP chopper over the pipeline route. It was approaching for the simple reason that Franklin’s team was currently out on the far end just beyond the preparatory digging crews and their massive earth-moving machinery. Their ostensible assignment had been to prevent rebels from setting mines in the area or otherwise hindering the work. The contractors had just brought out the first few components of a boring machine that would cut a tunnel under the mountains within sight of where Franklin’s team was camping.

Of course, the VIP chopper was escorted by several gunbirds. Looking around again, Franklin suddenly realized that about the only place they could set such a bird down was practically in his lap. His nest wasn’t that far from the camp, up on a rise that gave him a grand view of the area. Up here in the mountains, the clouds were a little thick and it was cooler than the areas his team had covered in recent weeks. But Bess told him that VIP chopper had all kinds of navigational aids that made a lot of noise across the radio spectrum. In that sense, Bess could “see” the chopper with great precision.

Then Franklin’s tactical sensor sounded an alarm and the display indicated the chopper was going to land. That’s why they had sent Barry out with the disks, to add the VIP chopper’s signature to his “don’t-shoot” registry. The flight plans were not published as distinct plans, but on an as-needed basis, and the chopper was following one of them today. So whatever it was these VIPs were doing, it involved seeing this camp and the terrain during the early process of laying the pipeline. Franklin normally took it in stride when anyone important came into his zone of fire, but this whole thing put him on edge. That man was aboard the chopper and he was up to no good.

Was this the enemy that his internal alarm system had been buzzing about in his sleep, making him tense since before he awoke this morning?

The big, noisy bird buzzed right over his head before it spun around and settled quickly and gracefully on the only landing spot around. The gunbirds rose back up into the sky and took up overwatch in the vicinity. The artificial wind disturbed his camouflage cover, but it didn’t blow off. It was designed to withstand truly terrifying storm winds.

To his surprise, the engines were actually shut down. It was audible in the way the turbine engines dropped in pitch below the roar and into a descending whine. A large male figure hopped onto the ground, followed by two older women and a smaller, older man. The rest apparently decided to stay on the bird; Franklin could see their heads through the windows on the side as they looked out. Franklin ran through a mental estimate and realized that it was wholly unlikely they had lighted anywhere else on the way out this far. It was still mid-morning.

Those who got out were welcomed by the tech crew. They had gotten the warning, too, and moved out one of the crawlers for a demonstration. There was a couple of easy fake targets well away from anything that was important, so Franklin settled himself to watch the show. He seldom got to see the crawlers fire their pulse cannons, since the machines did all their work at night. Even during that battle that had gotten so much attention, he didn’t have time to watch them fire.

The frumpy man spoke to Joe and, to Franklin’s dismay, he pointed toward the sniper’s nest. The man left the group and began picking his way up the slope toward him.

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The Courier 06

Posted on May 5, 2017 by ehurst

Barry had delightful stay with Franklin.

It was the first time he had met someone face-to-face who understood his connection to nature. Franklin wasn’t so intense as Barry, but sensed the same things on a lesser scale. They chatted about their shared experience as members of the Shepherd’s Household way late into the night.

The next morning, as he was packing his gear, Bess announced that the seals were blown on the right front shock. There was no way to repair it out there. It was ridable, but it meant sticking to the roads and moving slowly where the pavement was rough. Barry called his actual supervisor to report the situation, and was instructed to do pretty much what he had already decided.

It was a bit clumsy to Franklin, but Barry couldn’t resist hugging the elder sniper and thanking him again.

A thousand things went through his mind on the long ride back. But as he drew closer to the base, his thoughts were dominated by the presence of the VIPs. Most of all, it was the unsettling man who appeared nothing more than a personal assistant to Mister Big. To his relief, when he checked in at the base, he found the VIPs had taken a mini tour of the local sights. They had managed to find limos for rent locally — with complementary military security escorts, of course. A major feature of their tour included several archaeological monuments from the ancient past. Only in the past few months had it become safe enough for that kind of tourism, given the turmoil the country had been through. It would be a few days until they returned from their pampered stay in the most expensive hotels. During that time a fancy chopper arrived, apparently another accommodation owned by Mister Big. It was hauled out of the back of a cargo plane, then unfolded and tested.

Between fixing the bike and some lightweight errands, Barry was able to stay out the big boss’s way. The man was constantly keeping track of what the VIPs needed and it was clear he would be glad when this ordeal was over. But when Barry’s new phone arrive, the big boss gave him the third degree. Barry figured it was just a matter of venting at someone who couldn’t push back, so he took it in stride. He was assured the phone would not betray its nature to anyone Barry didn’t want to know about it. It remained dead when the boss looked it over. Barry said he would have to charge it overnight before he could use it. As he had hoped, the boss never mentioned it again.

Meanwhile, Barry went out to one of his quiet places out near one corner of the base fence-line. First he held up his old phone. Ned had told him to hold the new one next to the old for a minute or two and it would copy everything automatically. The new device’s screen lit up and was blank for a few moments. Then it said, Ready. He watched it a little longer as nothing seemed to happen.

Suddenly it spoke to him. “Hi, Barry. My name is Torrie.” It sounded just like some girl he knew back home, with that same southern twang.

He grinned, then started laughing out loud. “Girl, looks like you have me figured out already.”

“Well, not just yet, but I’m working on it,” Torrie assured him.

Barry never lost awareness that this was just a computer with AI. Still, it amused him to talk to it just like he did everything else in his world. Only, instead of sometimes a subtle response that might register deep in his soul, Torrie talked back audibly. This actually helped remind him that the phone was not a part of his mystical world, just a tool to get things done.

And what a tool it was! Torrie made herself at home in his world, scanning everything and telling him things he could not have known any other way. He wasn’t blind to the implications of this capability and made it a point to hang around the office a good bit so that, whatever it was Torrie’s AI did snooping on the company’s computers, it got a good chance to make the most of it.

That first evening, after most of the routine activity had shut down for the night, Barry walked out under a cluster of trees and sat on the ground. He pulled Torrie out and was about to engage in more of his inane chatter when she reported that the VIPs were not what they appeared. Mister Big was using a false name, which actually belonged to the frumpy assistant. Ned had assembled a slide-show with narrative she read off to him. The real Mister Big had become camera shy right before going to college. He managed to miss out on all the typical sittings and left no face. That he kept to himself and avoided most social events only made him more invisible at the university. However, his name did appear associated with at least two elite secret societies.

Those societies had been officially disbanded during the years of crisis that saw the international banking system come apart. It also saw several national governments change, and even some borders, and things were only now beginning to stabilize in Western countries. Of course, the big multi-national companies managed to survive, and partly in thanks to a group of investors that included Mister Big. By the time his face started showing again, it was the one everyone saw attached to that name today.

So obviously Mister Big was a fake who kept an assistant that followed him everywhere, the man who was the real Mister Big. The faker got all the fame and fun, while the real guy actually ran things from behind the scenes. The slide show didn’t go into too much background, but noted that this man had invested in all kinds of companies, and was rumored to pass out a lot of bribes through false front companies. Just for good measure, AI discovered that the ladies’ investment club was another front, and the trio in his entourage were actually relatives. The man was fake in every way. Over the past few days, Ned’s AI had dug deep and found that Mister Big had been tracking carefully the weakest links in the current alliance between Coalition governments and the big corporations that were involved in the pipeline. This whole thing must have seemed to him his one best chance to exploit instability.

This man was using leverage from stock ownership on the companies, and bribes in government, with an eye to grabbing some obscene amount of power. And in the process he had betrayed an utter contempt for human life — “life” by any definition. The unassuming old nerd was a demonic thug.

Barry was silent for awhile. Then he asked Torrie if this awful man was equally contemptuous about natural resources.

She didn’t respond right away, then said, “Looks like he would be just fine turning the whole world into a radioactive swamp, given his investments and things he has sponsored.”

That settled matters for Barry. At the cost of his own life, that man had go. He couldn’t bring himself to think of killing in that sense, but this had to be stopped. He phoned up Franklin and asked if he had seen the same information. Franklin had caught it earlier in the day, and agreed they should work together with Ned to do something. He asked Barry to keep him up to date with the VIPs movements, even if he had no idea yet what they could do.

Barry concluded with, “We got some serious praying to do.”

“Amen,” Franklin agreed.

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Behind My Fiction

Posted on May 4, 2017 by ehurst

Call it what it is.

People need health care. There is no way in Hell the US economy can support what the people could use, so the only question is how much is “enough” to be worth the trouble. The issue with Obamacare is not a question of health care, but was always meant to plunder the nation for the sake of Big Healthcare (which includes Big Pharma). The term “health care management” refers to an added layer of bureaucracy that gouges the price and scrapes off a big chunk of the money passing through its hands. Big Healthcare designed and wrote Obamacare; it’s sucking healthy people dry to pay for a medical welfare program. Don’t get bogged down in the alleged moral questions here helping the needy: It’s too big of a drain on the economy and it was failing as soon as it was signed into law.

This works about the same as Big Defense. It’s always been a huge drain on the economy; the productivity of human economic activity is absorbed by massively expensive boondoggles that profit only a thin slice of our nation’s population. The whole thing becomes outrageously expensive, with prices further inflated by the artificially high demand. Further, the actual quality of what you get for all that money is frankly very low in broad terms. Again, it has nothing to do with alleged moral questions of whether our military money is doing anything useful. It’s true of Obamacare and Defense both. The problem is our economy is going broke because the drain is too big and the economy is stumbling under the load.

Whatever you may think of him, I’m convinced Putin got this part correct:

In the West, voters cannot change policies through elections, because the ruling elites control whoever is elected. Elections give the appearance of democracy, but voting does not change the policies that favor war and the elites. Therefore, the will of the people is impotent.

People are experiencing that they and their votes have no influence on the conduct of affairs of the country. This makes them afraid, frustrated, and angry, a combination of emotions that is dangerous to the ruling elite, who in response organize the powers of the state against the people, while urging them with propaganda to support more wars.

I find it highly unlikely we’ll do anything much in North Korea. I believe it’s a distraction from the real plans. I feel certain we’ll invade Syria and I’ll try to paint a picture of why.

1. One original issue that got us involved was two competing gas pipeline proposals, both supposed to run across Syria. The one favored by the US could run north from Jordan up through Deir Ezzor and into Turkey. Compare that with the tactical situation on the ground right now. The US bombing of the Syrian enclave in Deir Ezzor and helping ISIS shows the intent to seize the whole corridor, because ISIS will deal — it’s supported and funded by the US. Assad rejected that pipeline in part because of his alliance with Russia. It’s not merely the Russian gas company’s profits at stake here. This is part of a much bigger problem Russia has with attempts by the US to isolate her.

2. The other issue at stake is Israel’s interest in breaking up Syria: Oil under the Golan Heights. Of course, we know that Israel has a much broader interest in supporting Sunnis at the expense of any majority Shiite government (Syria, Iran, parts of Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, etc.). This business of the Sunni-Shiite conflict is bigger than most Westerners comprehend, but the Sunnis generally will deal with Israel, while the Shiites generally will not. ISIS and al-Qaeda are Sunni extremists. You cannot simply ignore the Zionist agenda if you want to understand this mess. Israel is who drew up the plans for destabilizing Syria a decade ago, and the US pretty much followed those plans.

My point is that the US economy won’t support this our involvement. Something’s going to break and it could happen any day now. It could be the smallest thing that sets it off. To be honest, I’m frankly expecting a computer-related disaster to be the kick-off. Think about all the things government and big business do that require the Internet, and then imagine that something disrupts that networking. It would precipitate a crisis that is just waiting to burst open and spill out.

I still insist it won’t be Armageddon, but the plutocrats would like us to believe it is because it will be for them. The manipulation and abuse have pushed the “little people” to the brink. The frustration with Trump’s betrayal is starting to boil, but the people who feel the most pain aren’t the rioting type. When crisis hits they will demand sensible action, and they won’t compromise much. Nobody can predict how much, but there will be bloodshed, in part because the plutocrats are so freaking stupid about it.

Meanwhile, the rioting types harassing the majority will exacerbate things and get themselves shot. Most of them have been hired, and they don’t know/don’t care that they are being used to protect the status quo. But they aren’t a big enough problem to prevent a broad right-wing uprising that will remain mostly peaceful.

Once again: The main point about Trump’s election was never what he said he would do. It’s what his administration will permit in terms of keeping a peaceful uprising possible. His flaccid performance will ensure it’s not necessary to slaughter a bunch of Feds to change things. Don’t expect the world to be a better place; do expect major changes.

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The Courier 05

Posted on May 4, 2017 by ehurst

“Yessss!” It included a positive recommendation for Barry from his elder. He quickly ordered a duplicate of Franklin’s phone and requested a slightly different AI profile, something matching Barry’s age and background. This time they found an even faster courier service, piggybacking on one used by the senate committee.

Ned wasn’t even dressed yet before he looked at the picture and AI’s collation with other photos already on record. Then AI indicated that something was amiss regarding one figure, because even with full access to facial recognition records, he was still a complete cipher.

Ned felt a chill. AI indicated the records for the supposed big shot came to a dead end just a few years back. His biography was there, but it was missing too many essential indicators, as if the man had a fake ID. He existed, but there simply weren’t enough reference photos during most of his adult life. AI suggested they had been scrubbed. All those normal candid photos at the big events that men like this attended, news clippings, etc. — all missing. The guy was supposed to have gone to school right here in town. Where were the yearbooks? Eventually AI dredged up a copy from the municipal library. Most every book had been scanned and was available online. The pictured showed a younger version of the same handsome guy, but it was iffy.

AI then said the photo of the page had been modified. “That’s what you get when you digitize all your paper records,” Ned muttered. Where was that school?

It had been closed just a year or so after Mister Big had graduated. The buildings still stood on a fenced lot. AI said the city had issued a permit for demolition, but it wasn’t resubmitted by any contractors. Most likely it was down to contract disputes with unions; that stuff could hang up in lawsuits for years, even decades. Maybe Ned could find the building and take a look around.

He found the campus alright. It was overgrown, strewn with trash and the high fence had signs warning about trespassing. There were no guards in sight, and after strolling around the property taking pictures with his phone, AI displayed the message that the surveillance cameras appeared to be unmonitored during daylight hours, but recording nonetheless. Great; with the police patrols gliding by twice while he was in the area, jumping the fence in broad daylight was out of the question. It was solid all the way around. And part of the reason the place was condemned was because the subterranean service lines had collapsed way back when, so he couldn’t even sneak in through the sewers.

AI then informed him the cameras could be hijacked for just a few moments if tried to enter at night. That was it, then. He headed back to his apartment and worked on other projects until dark.

He was pleased to find the skies were overcast, but not too pleased with the light rain when he came back that night. He noticed that the school’s old playground had been divided off long ago as a local park. This allowed him some cover because there were bushes along the fence between the playground and the closest wall of the main building. He waited until AI said the coast was clear, then sprang up and over the top with a quick flip. Landing in a cold puddle wasn’t fun at all.

He held his phone in front of him for a dim display that showed him how to avoid the trash and debris from years of decay and abuse by vagrants. A side door hung open, but the inside doorway was boarded up. He had expected that and pulled out a small nail-pulling bar from inside his coat. It was a little clumsy with gloved hands, but following AI’s guidance, he got just one corner to flex enough to let him slide inside. The best part of this was that his phone worked better than a flashlight, showing him where everything was as if in broad daylight. Where to start?

The old library was down at the other end of the building. He had to dodge some old furniture and other junk to get there. For two long hours he poured over the books still on the shelves and those on the floor. Between his searching hands and AI’s scan, nothing like a yearbook was in there. None of the loose papers offered any help. He sat down for just a few minutes in the one chair still standing and intact. Was this a waste of time?

He steeled himself and rose once more to search the rest of the building. He was just about to crawl back out under the corner of the plywood sheet when he spotted a decent sized supply room. One one shelf up high was an old stack of posters no one had touched. Ned flipped through them, slightly amused at what should have been a nostalgic collection of bulletin board art. About a third of the way down was a larger sheet folded in half. He dutifully set the stack on the floor and unfolded this larger piece of card stock.

At the top was emblazoned “SGA.” Ned muttered the phrase “student government association.” Below this headline was a series of firmly pasted photos of members of various clubs and organizations that year. In the dim light, Ned made out that it was the year Mister Big was supposed to have graduated. He decided he couldn’t wait. Allowing his smartphone just a small dim glow, he perused the pictures. Near the bottom — was that the investment club? This male dominated group posed with props that suggested old-timey trading floor boys, one holding what appeared to be an ancient stock-ticker.

One of the faces made Ned think it was the younger version of the dumpy nerd in that picture Franklin had sent. Ned’s heart raced. Damn the risks; he turned up the light enough to see. That was him! And the name in the caption matched Mister Big.

AI’s alarm went off; there was guard company car outside trying to unlock the gate to the campus. Folding the post on the fly, Ned almost ran to the stairwell, picking his way up the steps as quickly as he could. The landing split and ran back on both sides toward a long hallway matching the one on the first floor. Stuffing his phone inside the pocket under his arm, he hustled back along the hallway in the direction of the playground side. The one room on the front side was solidly boarded up on all the windows. Sprinting across the hall, he found another room with just one window that still had glass in it, and without any plywood. Of course, it was stuck fast even against his nailbar. The downstairs front door was rattling, so he squeezed the nailbar in his fist with just a tiny bit of sharp end poking out. Placing it against bottom window pane, he bumped the fist with his other hand. It took a couple of tries, but the glass spidered out and fell onto the roof below with only a little bit of noise.

Ned shoved the rest of the glass out, backed up and then dove straight through the opening. He somersaulted to a landing and rolled to his feet. The guards were calling out inside the building as he sprinted across the roof toward the fence. He slowed and realized he hadn’t tried such a long jump from that height. The landing would be hard.

He threw the nailbar ahead of him, then vaulted out across the gap. The trick on a vault like this is to tuck and roll just before hitting the ground. It would lessen the impact and give him a chance to roll his body on the ground. He just cleared the fence, but caught the left toe on a fixture atop an upright pole holding the wire. It put his landing just enough out of kilter to spoil the timing. Instead of a clean landing straight ahead, he was tilted to one side. He still managed to roll on impact, but it was cockeyed.

Ned got up and his right leg didn’t want to work. It wasn’t broken, he believed, but it hurt a lot to use it. He realized his right elbow and shoulder also hurt because he had instinctively tucked his arms in when he knew he hadn’t cleared the fence. All he could do was hobble away as quickly as possible. His device had survived and he used it to find the nailbar, which was just a couple of meters away. Hobbling across the unlit park, he cut through some bushes. Still favoring his right leg, he dodged the pool of light from a street lamp and turned up an alleyway that he knew should be open on the other end. It was here that AI notified him via the earplug that his right shin was cracked and would require treatment. Everything else was just bruises.

Limping more carefully now, he crossed the next street he came to. There was some sports bar at the corner, so he hobbled in that direction. Then he had an idea. Something he almost never did; he had AI call him a cab. He found a space outside the bar that seemed just perfectly made for resting his backside against a ledge without actually sitting down. It allowed him to take the weight off his bad leg. When the taxi finally arrived a half-hour later, there was still no sign of any pursuit from the direction of the school. Climbing in, he used his cell phone to transmit payment up front for fare to his own building, then pulled out the big poster he had folded up and gazed at the pictures while the driver headed the car down the street.

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Worship Video 03

Posted on May 3, 2017 by ehurst

Took a hike today and stopped to add another “Worship Anywhere” video:

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The Courier 04

Posted on May 3, 2017 by ehurst

Franklin took the disk; Barry’s job was done. He could stay here for the night and return to base tomorrow. Still, Franklin invited him to follow. He said something to one of the maintenance techs, then ducked into a smaller tent next to a Hummer. He offered Barry a seat on the cot and pulled out a netbook. Holding up the disk he asked, “I suppose you have no idea what’s on here?”

Barry shook his head and grinned. “Not my job to know.”

Franklin inserted the DVD into the drive tray on his netbook. Then he pulled out a cell phone and held it close to the netbook. He offered no explanation, but made no effort to hinder Barry watching. After a few minutes, the cell phone spoke in a gentle feminine voice. “The disk contains flight plans and aircraft signatures for helicopters to prevent accidental targeting.”

That made perfect sense to Barry; the VIPs were going to be flown out into the field to see the work first hand. And since Franklin’s team got one, it probably meant the VIPs were coming out to see them. He said as much, then pulled out his own cell phone and showed Franklin the image he captured that morning through the window blinds.

Pointing to the picture, he said, “That guy gives me the willies. You know what I mean?”

Franklin nodded. He had already felt a faint chill in his own soul just glancing at the picture. “I’m still learning from the elder’s writings, but there are some people in this world who just mean trouble for everyone. Whaddaya think, Bess?”

The cell phone quietly displayed the face of the obvious big shot, showing his name and associations as the head of some investment conglomeration. The two women were former models, while the other three represented a private investment club. The last guy was unknown. That didn’t help their sense of foreboding.

Barry rubbed his short hair. “Man, I sure could use a cell phone as smart as that one.”

Franklin snapped his fingers. “Hey, maybe I can help you with that. I received this as a gift from some of our brothers back home. You’ll have to get hold of them about it, but they told me they were praying they could find someone in the family who worked close to HQ.”

“That would be me,” Barry chuckled. “There ain’t no more family anywhere around that base or I would know.”

“Have you played any of the Shepherd games?”

“Nah,” Barry drawled. “I get on the forum when I can and I love those photographs people share.”

Franklin looked at his cell phone. “Bess, what’s the best way to get a message to Ned? Can we send it through the elder himself, maybe?”

The sweet feminine voice answered, “The elder’s site is hosted on one of Ned’s servers. Is that easy enough?”

They both had a good laugh at that. Franklin looked at Barry. “Pull out your cell phone, Bud.”

Barry complied. To his surprise, the screen automatically displayed the site and took him to a page for urgent messages. Barry’s eyes widened. “I never knew that was there.”

“You never needed it until now,” Franklin said.

As Barry was about to pull up the on-screen keyboard, it quickly typed itself into the message field in terse language asking to contact Ned to offer assistance. It was submitted automatically, too. Barry turned to Franklin and pointed at Bess. “Man, does she always take care of things like that?”

“She’s a good ol’ girl,” Franklin said, nodding his head.

“Tell ’em I want a girlfriend like that. That gal back at the base would eat me alive if I didn’t turn to stone whenever she’s around.”

They chatted for awhile as darkness fell.

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The Hard Workout

Posted on May 2, 2017 by ehurst

I do this only once per week, typically on Tuesday. It’s getting warm enough that I have to hit it mid-morning at the latest. The idea is to get a full body workout, with a focus on practical performance activities, and pushing until I’m out of breath. This mix benefits both resistance to arthritis and heart health. Every exercise goes to failure.

First is the Blue Machine at the north end of the park system. On this one I do leg raises first, alternating each week between bent knee and straight leg. Next is assisted pull ups, then back-raises, followed by assisted bar dips. Last is hack squats leaning against that backboard thing. Then I ride around to the little bridge and cross over to the other trail and head to my favorite playground.

At the playground I climb up to the top of the yellow slide and grab the bar across the top, hanging so I face it with my feet on the deck. Then I row myself up and down until I can’t get my chest to touch any more. Next, I come down and around to the front of that slide and position myself to do push-ups at an incline. Finally, I step out of the and pit on one edge and do standing long-jumps back into the sand. Right now, I can do 12 in succession before I’m out of breath. Finally I stand on the lower end platform on the bottom step and do calf-risers. I change the angle of my feet after every six repetitions and just keep doing this until the muscles fail.

Then I ride down either path south and across Reno, and to the pavilion next to the soccer fields. It’s not a huge hill, but I just keep sprinting up and jogging back down repeatedly, starting from between two trees just off-camera to the right. Strict form sprinting up the hill is the point. Today, about one-third into the tenth run I pulled a calf muscle. I’ll move the calf-risers to the last station next week.

From there I ride south to the SE 15th Street entrance where the Green Machine stands. Here I typically use the sit-up board until I can’t do any more, then I do standard push-ups with my hands on the foot rests below that backboard. That’s where I’ll do the calf-risers next week. After that I’m pretty well winded. It’s about two miles back home where I hit the final exercises, stuff that simply isn’t possible at the park.

That’s the stiffest bungee cord I could buy locally. First I slide it under the chair and push my back deep into the seat. Then I pull it up around the bottom of the seat and do overhead presses. Next I stand on the cord with my feet together and do upright rowing, until my thumbs hit the bottom of my pectoral muscles. After that, with my feet in the same place I do curls. Switching to the cord under one foot, I do reverse curls. Finally, I stand on it with my feet about 12 inches (30 cm) apart and do wrist curls in both directions. The whole point of forearm stuff is to stave off arthritis; it hits the hands hard rather early if you don’t fight it.

I’ve pretty much hit a plateau on repetitions of most of these exercises. Nothing is less than 12 reps now, even the hill sprints (barring pulled muscles like today). When I hit 20-24 on anything, I shift the positioning and such to make it a little harder. This complements nicely my high tension workout, which I also do once weekly. Of course, most days I’ll do that high-tension stuff with only 3-4 reps of everything and no rest because it’s a great morning warm-up for the whole body and keeps my metabolism high.

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The Courier 03

Posted on May 2, 2017 by ehurst

AI told Ned he was being followed again.

But this time there was no weapon, and no apparent means to threaten except bare hands. He had just about reached the corner of the block where Tim’s office was when some big guy caught up to him from behind. Ned steeled himself, but the guy spoked from a relatively safe distance and called his name.

Ned stopped and turned, not sure what to expect. The man was carefully avoiding anything that might seem threatening. With a sort of faint smile, the fellow acted quite professionally. “I hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to give you something that you might find useful.” He held out a small memory chip in the palm of his hand. Ned stepped over to take it, still being a little careful.

After handing it over, the man stepped back again. “The senator is deeply grateful for your assistance in that recent matter. She found some interesting data on one of the computers in her home office and felt you would be the best person to give it the attention it deserves. She offers the caution that this isn’t over yet. Have a nice day.”

The man turned and walked away, leaving Ned speechless. He wasn’t worried about any electronic traps. AI could read the binary code through the field sensor, but it was probably the slowest way to do so. Since AI had written all the code on all of his devices, he was pretty sure nothing could infect his systems. He watched the man receding into the distance, then turned and went on to the entrance of the office building.

Once upstairs in the office, he poked the chip into a slot on the side of his desktop computer. In just a few seconds AI reported it clean, the began sucking up the data. Tim came in the door from somewhere else in the building. Before he could say anything, Ned told him, “That senator we saved paid us back.”

Tim came over to see what Ned was doing. “That’s a blessing. Any idea what it is, yet?”

“Looks like a raw dump of someone’s system disk. Lots of useless trash from that Swiss cheese operating system they all use… Whoa. This must have been the fake whistleblower’s system. Most of the files were deleted, but they’re all recoverable.”

Tim turned to his own desk. “Let me know if anything useful comes up.” He started reorganizing the papers and notebooks in front of him.

Ned’s eyes went wide. There was banking data, showing the system user was making money from what was presented as dividend checks from stocks. However, the amounts weren’t consistent with that sort of payout. Furthermore, they came from some kind of brokerage, not from the companies themselves. Not unheard of, but atypical for someone who was a small investor, as the payments suggested. He asked AI to try correlating those amounts with the stock market records. It was more out of personal curiosity, though, and he started looking at other things AI was finding. He wanted to know more about that brokerage.

Another hit: the brokerage was part of the conglomeration he had seen before. The senator had some dealings with it in the past, but at some point cut them off. Here it looked like that conglomerate was paying a spy in the senator’s office not long after breaking with them. So there was an ax to grind. AI suggested that the conglomerate had been making illegal contributions to the senator’s election campaign, and at some point began asking too much in return. It likely had something to do with legislation that protected the contracting corporations from being bought out while they were servicing a military contract. That kind of turnover had happened during the early stages of the pipeline and there was a move to stop the cycle of predatory takeovers. The conglomerate wanted to preserve the option of such takeovers. The senator voted to for the bill to stop it shortly after cutting ties with the conglomerate.

But for now, this speculation was based on probabilities and extrapolation. AI would be unable to lock it down without some kind of inside data from the contracting company itself. It seems the predatory conglomerate was using stock leverage in the contractor to enable a takeover.

“Tim, let’s take a moment to pray for a miracle. We need someone who works close to the Dalmer’s company headquarters where the pipeline is going into the ground. We need to find someone to carry one of our cell phones.” Tim stopped what he was doing and turned around to face Ned. They clutched a single hand with each other and closed their eyes.

Meanwhile, half-way across the planet, Barry had nearly finished a hard day’s ride. This was easily the single longest and most punishing ride he had taken yet since coming onto contract. The sun was setting over the ridgeline as climbed up to a wide shelf above the valley floor. The hottest crawler team in theater was up there under camouflage and only his secure GPS data knew it was there for sure. These guys moved pretty often, so it was just possible what his eyes saw from below were just rocks. Still, there was no better choice and he had felt driven all day. Something about that weird old guy who gave him the disks was still tingling in his soul.

Sure enough he passed a barely visible crawler heading downslope just a few meters away. They made just enough noise that he could hear it above the near silence of his bike. The bike’s computer kept the satellites and drones abreast of his location using a coded beacon with a signature that matched the unified military and contract targeting system. Anything with a weapon was supposed to see him as a non-target. To his eyes, as he came up on one end of the ledge, there was an open layer in the rock, a wide gap that sheltered something vaguely familiar. The camouflage was even better when shadowed by the ridge from the setting sun.

As he rolled to a stop under the outer edge of the covering, he was greeted by someone with a pulse rifle. This had to be the famous sniper. He looked old and pretty ordinary. Barry had never met even a quarter of the people who worked on the contracts, and this strange string of deliveries seemed oddly hit-and-miss to him. He had no idea what it was and knew better than to ask, but this one time the pattern was puzzling. So was seeing someone who seemed rather ordinary to him, but regarded by the company as a hero.

The man walked up and something inside of Barry just knew: This was his brother. Not in the sense of literal sibling, but a part of the Shepherd family. Barry had joined just last year and was still getting used to some parts of it. But he had long been that kind of mystic, having been a friend with nature his whole life. The Shepherd family had been a good fit from day one. This man was one of them.

For his part, Franklin was just meeting another courier. But as soon as he got close, the rider opened the face of his helmet and spoke quietly, “Are you part of the Shepherd’s Household?”

Franklin froze, his eyes wide. “Now that’s one whale of a greeting.” He walked closer and extended a hand and a grin. “Welcome, Brother. I don’t know what to say.”

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