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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Mysticism and Moral Reality

Posted on May 1, 2017 by ehurst

It’s one thing for me to teach Biblical Law, offering it as the ideal for human existence. It’s quite a different thing for me to suggest choices we might make in the current context. And it is yet again something different when I offer an analysis of what Americans in general should do. I can hold forth Noah’s Covenant as a standard for all of humanity, but if someone wants my political advice, it assumes my audience won’t give a rat’s ass for holiness.

This what we mean by quantum moral reasoning: It meets your question on multiple levels, and depends entirely on who is asking and why. Don’t throw pearls to pigs. Hogs get slop and jewelers get your pearls.

So, for example I can tell you that the Civil Rights Movement in the US was totally wrong-headed. You cannot legislate racial harmony; it’s a cultural issue. Culture does not respond to legal force; it resists and finds a hundred ways around law. You cannot change culture by changing outcomes. Scolding accomplishes little, and even that little is of no long term value. Racism is rooted in Anglo-Saxon culture. It’s also rooted in most other cultures, but Anglo-Saxons raised it to a high art. And for this discussion, it has nothing to do with “whiteness” because that’s a bogus, meaningless term. Call it what it is. So we have a huge mess of laws that only complicate racial tensions and make them worse.

By the same token, I’m not going to suggest abrogating those laws. The people who stand in support of those laws belong to a different culture and you can’t simply force them to behave, any more than they could force anyone else to behave. The culture behind Civil Rights is just as evil and immoral as the folks who still stand behind Anglo-Saxon racist culture. If you want to wipe out either brand of injustice, you’ll have to slaughter an awfully large number of people. That’s the facts.

Instead, I would suggest the most likely practical solution is geographical separation. You can imagine how that will go over with most Americans. Even those few who support such a thing are clueless about how and why it could work. But the massive chasm between two distinct mainstream cultures is too far to cross; there is no bridge possible. The only way to avoid slaughter is to divide the spoils and recognize that chasm by giving it a physical manifestation. Notice that it doesn’t require racial separation, but cultural separation. Racism — whatever you imagine that to be — will take care of itself later.

Actually there are multiple sub-cultures at play here, but most of them can find a place to live peacefully in one or other other primary division.

At any rate, it won’t happen peacefully. It may happen after some serious bloodshed between the two primary groups; I suspect there will be an eventual split into two or more countries here in America. There is a tremendous inertia at play over where each group will reside and that won’t be settled without serious conflict. Neat geographical borders won’t arise without the forced removal of the folks who can’t stay on the land the other group owns. Still, to you and I as members of Kiln of the Soul, we should expect to witness a civil war of sorts to crystallize this divide. The Civil Rights Movement is just an example of what has driven us apart.

Just as a practical matter, I suspect those who most support the concept of Civil Rights will end up a far smaller minority who get pushed into smaller geographical share. Meanwhile, there will be no clean break, just an exodus with agitators left in the mix on both sides. For now, I rather expect some portion of each coast to become two (or more) smaller countries, with the bulk of what’s left keeping some modified version of the traditional American identity.

There are plenty of things I can support on the grounds that it’s the best you can do with the context. I reject the notion that an ideal situation is possible. God warned us to avoid thinking in those terms. He told is to understand things as best we can with His help and discern your best choices for His glory. Often that would mean physically engaging something you don’t really agree with deep inside, but you know it’s where God wants you despite that.

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It’s Alive

Posted on May 1, 2017 by ehurst

Mysticism is a struggle. We are always trapped in a system that cannot give full expression to what we can discern. Our postmodern Western society is designed to prevent everything that God intended for us. Even those wonderful mercies He offered after the Fall are hidden under vast piles of cultural trash. We wouldn’t even have to call it anything; there would be no need for the distinctions inherent in the term “mysticism” if our entire heritage were not so dead set on denying what is normal and natural for humanity after the Fall.

The whole body of Scripture presumes mysticism. The mindset takes it for granted as the foundation for everything that matters.

Do you understand that God speaks to everyone all the time? He hasn’t been silent for a single moment since the Fall. Every living thing can hear His voice except humans. We have to fight through our fallen nature to restore what is perfectly normal and — well, it’s supposed to be ordinary, but it seems extraordinary because we are born outside of it. Sure, children can do it almost by instinct, but we can’t stay in childhood innocence if we are going to obey the Lord. We have to confront the reality of the Fall. Redemption demands this. There are things we have to do that require engaging human capabilities incompatible with innocence. But we don’t have to lose our mystical capabilities when we surrender our innocence. It’s our culture that demands it; it’s not in the nature of the transition itself.

So it’s not as if we are all natural born prophets, but we can all hear from God and know what He requires from each of us. The mission of the prophet is to pull back from the normal activity of life to some degree and bathe their minds in the bigger picture of revelation. A prophet surrenders some measure of typical daily life in favor of seeing more consistently what other people tend to lose track of in terms of the broader scope of God’s revelation. Prophets forgo the daily commerce of life for this, so we are supposed to support them to make up the difference.

Even more so with priesthood. The idea is to be fully acquainted and focused on the protocols of worship. Priests can scarcely avoid a certain amount of prophetic awareness. They are supposed to be sensitive to the moves of the Spirit of God in worship. What does Our Lord want from us and for us at this moment? What does it take to stand in His glory? You can’t ritualize everything about it; the rituals are not the point. The rituals simply meet the protocols so we don’t forget certain important details. Priests go into a time of worship expecting the Spirit to direct contextual modifications because no two moments of worship are the same. God is a Living Person with all the same whims and moods, but none of our human flaws. Holiness does not mean “stasis.”

The measure of perfection in biblical terms is a mature relationship with a Person. It’s a living give and take. This is the nature of mysticism as an approach to life. We assert to the world around us that we deal with a living God in a living communion. It’s individual and variable; it’s alive and impossible to quantify.

Jesus warned us, as did many prophets before Him, that this is both the norm and wholly atypical. Don’t expect many to turn into this path. There is simply no way to make this a social norm. That is, there is nothing in human capability to turn the whole human race from destruction. Get used to the idea that mysticism will isolate you in many ways. Share what you can when you can, and get excited every time it seems to have an impact. But always remain cynical about even your own persistence.

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The Courier 02

Posted on May 1, 2017 by ehurst

The next morning, he was told to be ready for VIPs.

Barry wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, but he decided to smarten up the courier office a little. One was out with a broken leg, but the other three couriers who were assigned to his office had made themselves scarce. Apparently he was supposed to simply stand by for any sudden errands. There was an airstrip just about a kilometer away across the flat scrubby plain. Whoever it was, they were coming by aircraft, because there was unusual activity around the hangers and the miniature tower staffed by military flight controllers. Barry stood outside with quite a few other staffers. Sure enough, he heard the sound of a turboprop as it circled the airfield once, then went out far over the low hills and turned around to approach and land. It was a private craft, but not one of the corporate planes. Those were all Learjets.

He caught sight of the newest bus on the base rolling toward the plane where it had turned and taxied to a stop. This was about as fancy as it got out here on the edge of the big city where the company and the military shared their theater headquarters. Because this installation as down near the coast, it was often a good bit warmer than most of the pipeline route. Right now the digging was moving across some higher elevations and Barry always had to carry a coat to put on as he left the lowlands.

Eventually he got bored watching the activity on the airfield and went back into the courier’s office. He figured they would take the VIPs to the hotel closer to town and maybe he was needed for some silly fetch-it stuff that was demanded but unanticipated. He was wrong. The sound of the bus outside the building came as a surprise. He went out into the hall and stood peeking through a window between the blinds.

It was quite an entourage. There was a big, handsome older guy in expensive stylish clothes, with two trophy babes, one on either side. There were three older gals wearing smart suits and looking somewhat dignified. Last came some guy who looked a little rumpled and nerdy, slender and just average height. He was carrying a backpack and a briefcase and trying to keep up. Just for fun Barry help up his cell phone and snapped a shot of this group as the boss met them outside the door. They were ushered in with some ceremony as Barry ducked back inside his office.

Reviewing the photo, he guessed that the last guy was someone’s assistant. Snatches of conversation drifted to his ears. It was Mister This and Missus That. It dragged on for awhile, then he heard his boss’s voice approaching his door. “We have a courier on standby to handle that.” Then the door swung open.

Here it comes, Barry thought.

“Barry, we have an urgent dispatch. Our guests would like you to deliver some disks.” He literally pulled Barry to his feet and dragged him out the door. Pointing to the frumpy guy, he told Barry, “This gentleman will give you the details.”

As Barry strode to where the man stood, he didn’t have to feign interest because he was genuinely curious.

The man seemed almost unsure of himself, but fished out of the backpack a bundle of DVDs in paper envelopes. As the boss led the entourage off into the other parts of the building, the fellow spoke with a rather soft and tired voice. “There’s a list on top of bundle with unit names. I was told you already knew where to find them. I’m afraid it will be long day for you, sir. There are eight of them.” He was almost apologetic.

“Oh, no problem, sir. We’re just like any other mail service; nothing can stop us from making that delivery.” He smiled. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“No, I’m sure that’s a tall order already. Thank you so much.”

Barry turned and headed straight out the door. As his eyes perused the list, something in the back of his mind made him shudder. It wasn’t the job that bothered him but the man. There was something really very wrong with that guy. Barry puzzled over it as he strode to the garage, donned his gear and rolled out the bike. So this was the run she was talking about. He was not going to make it back today, so he grabbed his overnight bag. He always kept it packed and ready.

He fired up the bike’s generator and reviewed the list. Double-checking the locations on the GPS display, he laid out a route in his mind. For the most part, they would be delivered in the order as listed. The last one was going to be the hardest to reach, though. It was out in the hills away from any highways, the leading edge of the pipeline construction.

Once he cleared the gate, he wasted no time heading straight out across the open country.

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Not Against Flesh and Blood

Posted on April 30, 2017 by ehurst

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world’s rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12 MKJV)

For us, the whole point is the glory of God. Nothing else we might evoke can do so much for us in return. The glory of Christ is our greatest benefit. This is why we say Biblical Law is its own reward; walking in that divine justice is His glory. We enter into His glory where it stands waiting for us.

The only enemy in this endeavor is yourself. Granted, there are lot of folks with varying agendas and interests who see us as a problem in their pursuits, but they are not our problem in return. It is their influence on our choices that is the problem. We have to shut down their entryways into our lives. And for added emphasis, their interests and agendas are sourced in the Devil, so it really doesn’t matter what they believe they want. The problem for you and I is the influence that pushes us anywhere but divine justice and Christ’s glory.

The system in which we live — culture, custom, society, law and government — favors anything and everything except the glory of Christ. Sometimes it helps us understand when we can see particular trends in the system. If you can form an image of what powers the system, and how it keeps people under control, you can discern how Biblical Law is the escape hatch.

There is no single agenda that controls our world. There are multiple agendas, overlapping, competing, and running in parallel. Here is just one example; it is truth disguised as fiction. It represents the global bankster interests, but there are others working at the same time. Conspiracy theories are partly true, but all of the various agendas together are a distraction. There’s nothing wrong with studying them if it’s part of your calling. What I can tell you is that, as I study each one, the one most effective response is always the same thing: Biblical Law. The best way to stay out from under their controls is doing the one thing that we should most enjoy by moral instinct.

Further, there is a certain holy delight in watching their systems crash in the face of God’s glory. We aren’t interested in causing pain, but we can’t prevent their chosen sorrows as God rips their plans to shreds. Instead, we get to laugh about how their demonic ideas don’t produce all the fine things they thought they wanted. It’s amusing to see arrogance deflated that way. Further, it’s such a joy to know that what we do will outlive every system that arises from sinful human imagination.

It’s not so much that we could bring them down as if we were activists and insurgents. We aren’t fighting them in that sense. By clinging to God’s Word, we more often simply slip through evil hands. Biblical Law frustrates their plans to rule us. Particularly in recent centuries do they fail, where systems of control rest on manipulation and deception, herding us into things that serve their interests. While these recent trends are very efficient in herding the bulk of humanity, a heart-led life of seeking Christ’s glory makes us pull away from their virtual chains.

Best of all, we are the hardest target for direct persecution. Together we are like a mist; no weapon can touch us. The one thing that gives us our shared identity exists independently of any of us. Because it is rooted outside this universe, no two of us here will manifest the same profile. About the only concrete trait we share is our fondness for each other, and that’s based on the divine love of Christ. This thing doesn’t depend on any one of us; there is no key figure in this world to keep it alive. It lives on its own.

God has granted us a unique opportunity in these times to shine for Him. Let’s not waste His precious gift, but work while the sun is shining.

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The Courier 01

Posted on April 30, 2017 by ehurst

(Our story continues; this is part 3…)

Standing atop the ridge, he listened to the wind. The place had called his name even before he rode the bike up the trail. He sat on a small ledge near the windward side, bowed his head and closed his eyes. The song of the wind took him far, far away to another world.

There were a few improved roads out here in the open wilderness, and the average courier took them on a regular basis. Not Barry, AKA “the Bear.” He always sought new routes, parts of the countryside he had never seen before. In his mind was a detailed map of everywhere he’d been. Some of those remote places he want back to again because they spoke to him, calling his name even when he had no scheduled runs.

His official job title was “field courier,” but it could just as easily been “flunky.” Each courier team was ensconced in a small office next to the big cheese of whatever location they were assigned. It didn’t signal their importance, but the convenience they were for the big shots. It included all kinds of things that just had to be done right then and there and didn’t require too much expertise. They only thing they didn’t do was janitorial work; that was always dumped on the local hires.

But because the couriers had to know how to maintain their own machines, most of them were pretty handy with anything mechanical, and sometimes with electronics. Their bikes were hybrids, with big fuel cells pushing a small engine and generator system connected to a rather large and powerful electric motor. But the generator motors could also contribute to the drive at certain points when the rider needed more power and wasn’t worried about the noise. There was an onboard GPS and computer that helped calculate the optimal balance, plus it was aware of tactical requirements for relative silence, at times using the residual charge from the battery power alone.

Despite Barry’s dislike for paved roads, he still managed to get out and back faster than most of the other couriers. He had never quite risen into the ranks of professional motocross riding, in part because of his weight — over a hundred kilos — but also because he really loved the natural terrain and didn’t want to shred everything he saw. He had the instinctive reactions and skill to virtually fly across the deserts on the alternative routes he took, making excellent time on his jaunts. It was enough time advantage that he could stop and commune with the open terrain. For him it was alive and alluring, one of his best friends.

Yet that morning he wasted an hour of company time pulling the shreds of torn paper from a printer because the IT guy was busy. How in God’s name anyone needed paper printouts was beyond him. This organization was littered with electronic devices, where every last contractor had at least a cell phone, and most had tablets and laptops, along with the company issued desktop units for official operations even in the most remote field sites. He had learned to hate paper as the biggest waste of natural resources in the world. He wasn’t a tree-hugger. There was nothing wrong with humans making wise use of natural resources, but there was already too much paper in the world already.

So as he sat atop the windy ridge far from any other human presence, he literally apologized to nature for the waste. There was noting he could do, but he wanted nature to know he cared. He was utterly certain nature knew and forgave him, loving him in return. He wasn’t much on theology and religion, but he was pretty sure he knew something of God because nature kept revealing His personality. Any day without some time alone like this was a day he felt lonely and just a little lost.

He said goodbye and mounted the bike. It always seemed to him that he could feel the terrain ahead of him as he bounced the machine down the rocky surface of the hill without losing control. The other couriers thought he was insane, and some of them were just as serious about motocross. Part of the application process included competition scores and awards from sanctioned meets. Barry didn’t have much of that, but when they were tested on a course, he qualified easily.

Upon returning to base, when he had checked over the bike and stowed it in the garage with the others, he shed the riding gear and stuffed it into his locker in an anteroom off the garage. There were only two women who qualified as couriers, and one of them was sitting on a bench next to the door. While not as bulky as Barry, she was a tad chunky and rather tomboyish. She kept her dark hair cut quite short and usually dressed like one of the guys.

“Bear, I think I broke something,” she said with dejection, without looking up at him.

“Something on your bike?”

“Nah. My leg. I smacked into a rock ledge and it’s been hurting pretty bad. Tried to play it off but it’s swelling and — well, it hurts like never before.” She looked up at him and pulled up her pants leg to expose a pretty serious injury to her left shin. It looked really bad, all swollen and discolored.

“Oh wow! Do you need help getting to the clinic?” He was genuinely concerned, despite finding her pretty annoying most of the time. She had a thing for him, but refused to do anything that might have made herself more endearing. She was rather pushy and demanding, and never missed a chance to crow about matching the other couriers’ manly exploits. Worse, she used the same repulsive “flirting” with other men.

“Yeah.” She waited for him to approach.

He decided she wasn’t just making an excuse to get her hands on him. He sat down next to her injured leg and put her arm over his shoulder, then his arm around her lower back. When she had planted her right foot firmly, he stood them both up. It was clumsy, but he managed to get through the door and across the graveled parking area to the clinic.

“How do you put up with me, Bear?”

“The same as the rest of the human race,” he replied evenly.

They were at the clinic door, which he managed to open with his free hand. He helped her up onto the exam table just inside the door. A medical assistant came around from behind a desk and Barry pointed wordlessly at the woman’s leg, lifting his eyebrows with a wry smile. The tech slid up the pants leg.

“Looks broken. I’ll get the nurse.” The clinic was staffed by a nurse practitioner; a doctor rotated in three days per week and this wasn’t one of those days.

As Barry turned to leave, the gal thanked him and added, “Bet you get my run for tomorrow.”

He shrugged and walked out. He was careful to remain detached and noncommittal with her on every interaction.

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Psalm 129

Posted on April 29, 2017 by ehurst

This is the quintessential song of oppression and persistence. Genuine faith rises to meet every challenge; against such faith persecution starves and withers. Given the context here, it would seem the threat is not some neighboring enemy, but internal enemies.

The first verse is dramatic repetition. Starting with the Exodus, Israel suffered from people seeking personal gain at the cost of the community. Israel has never been without internal opposition to God’s way; and such opposition has never prospered when their victims turn to God. We have the image of plowing with oxen to represent stripes of persecution. It’s the idea of trying to prosper from the suffering of others. Next comes the image of God cutting the reins used to pull the plow. Sooner or later the faithful will see God’s deliverance. The wicked will not harvest much.

Zion here is the symbol of God’s righteous rule and His blessings. There will always be predators seeking their own, but those who seek God will see the traitors thrown back. They’ll tuck their tails and run. These are people who are like the wild grass that infests patches of dirt blown into the corners of your roof. There’s not enough soil there. They sprout, but long before they can bear seed, they dehydrate. Nobody bothers to pick it for animal feed or bundle it into grass mats. You don’t even give them a ritual greeting; they are gone by the time you notice them.

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Anything but the Truth

Posted on April 29, 2017 by ehurst

Just for the record: The most important thing you can do for yourself is discern your own sense of conviction. Religion is a human response to some unseen power moving in the soul. In our Western world, totally lacking in a proper psychology of anything above the intellect, such movements in the soul are spooky and untrustworthy, even when they cannot be ignored.

Because I have learned to be self-conscious about such things, I dismiss the concept of objective reality. I don’t pretend to know what’s true in that sense. All I have is my own story, my own reaction to things. If my reaction sounds familiar to you, maybe we can compare notes in our search for inner peace. Even more often, I’m sure, is that folks will use my story as a negative example, accepting my frame of reference but coming to a different conclusion. It’s all good; this is what God intended, as far as I am concerned.

That said, I wanted to clarify some things because conversations I have indicate some questions.

I’ve written at length about my dissatisfaction with Judaism. Further, I suggest that at least some of my problems with mainstream Christianity arise from the effects of Judaism’s effort to squelch it. In other words, Judaism couldn’t stop Christian religion, so it perverted it to make it subservient. There are plenty of other bad influences that contributed to the wandering of Christian religion from the original track, but Judaism looms large due to its self-conscious effort to destroy the teachings of Christ. Do some research on “Judaizers” and you’ll get the picture. There is sufficient evidence to allege that this broad campaign of subversion has persisted ever since the days of Apostle Paul.

At any rate, I assert that the ideal for human understanding rests in the Ancient Hebrew background, and Jews have abandoned that. Further, they don’t want anyone else to have it. They have been keeping an eye on things to prevent it coming back to life. Then again, it’s not really Judaism per se, but The Cult [PDF]. At this point, I’m forced to admit that standard concepts of evidence don’t help much. This is one of those areas where you can take my word for it; either it strikes you as usefully accurate or you walk away.

But I’m convinced The Cult had something to do with how Islam turned out. What we see today is not how it started. The founder was highly mystical; he didn’t trust human reason very much. He was a genuine Arab intellectual in the sense of the broader Ancient Near Eastern traditions. Of course his background was deeply pagan, and it colored the resulting pronouncements of his contemplations. He also had contact with Jews and Christians. But his grand old Eastern Mysticism produces a grand creativity of thought. In the fading glow of his genius after his passing, the intellectual fervor of his followers produced much to be admired.

What is seldom obvious to people who read about that blossom of early Islamic genius is how it was harshly squelched just a short time later. Not all at once, mind you, but the battle between two branches of the Prophet’s successors signaled a shift away from the fully mystical approach to things. There was a sort of lock-down that descended over the whole thing. The golden age of tolerance and wisdom and great art was already a myth by the time Muslims began to conquer slices of Europe. The alleged glory of Andalusian nirvana in Spain is sheer propaganda; it was brutal and ugly with a nice paint job.

Now we have Islam that is dominated by the form of mysticism with none of the ferment. There are still grand scholars serving in that religion, but your average Muslim is totally lacking in the self-conscious mysticism of ancient times. The rules are taught, but the deeper mystical awareness is quite rare, and even then, it is often somewhat squelched by fearful restrictions.

I’m convinced The Cult was in on that, but evidence is scant. What isn’t so scant is evidence of the aftermath. Today we can trace the worst forms of Islamic terrorism to agents of Zionism, sometimes openly admitted. You can research the Donmeh and the birth of Wahabism and get a partial picture of this. If you understand the way modern espionage — CIA, Mossad, MI6, etc. — is a direct expression of The Cult, then it’s not hard to trace the provocations that created current terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS. They are funded, trained and equipped by the Western spy agencies. Yes, our own CIA is murdering US troops out on the battlefield in the most perverse and sickening deception you can imagine.

At the same time, we have a massive domestic push to favor Islam by select propaganda agencies in the West. This whole thing is a mind-boggling mess of manipulation. One wing forces it down our throats while another wing of the same team is demonizing it. And just to make sure there’s something to offend everyone, we have another wing on that team pumping traditional Western Christianity, another wing pumping secularism, and Zionists grabbing all the money and influence they can — all at once. And they are all serving the singular purpose of making sure no one can tell what the hell is going on.

You shouldn’t imagine that I idolize Islam; it’s loaded with trash. But I do want to point out now and then where it gets some things right. Keep in mind that the greatest lie is the one standing next to the truth.

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The Fixer 11

Posted on April 29, 2017 by ehurst

Some promotion. They were exposed to more rebel activity than ever before.

Franklin was amazed at his new cell phone. He had already worked out in his own mind that what he was getting from it was not fully contained within the device. Granted, Ned had said so before sending it to him, but it just never registered fully until he saw it in action.

It was a standing joke with the crawler team that he referred to Bess as his girlfriend. Nobody imagined that Franklin was wacko enough to actually fall in love with a smart phone, but it put them off asking the wrong questions. They knew it was smart enough to help him coordinate his security work, but they had no idea that it was a virtual terminal on a very powerful AI back home. And Franklin’s military training helped him to keep that internal firewall between too much and just enough information to keep the chief or the techs from prying into his use of it.

Out of mere curiosity one day, Franklin had queried and found he could get all of the tactical analysis for the entire theater of operation. And he was of the opinion that he got a better digest of it than the military commanders or the contract management. Instead of their semi-separate parallel systems, he had it all in one. It was beyond his technical curiosity, but Ned had told him that by having the phone in proximity to satellite equipment, he was linking AI into nearly everything that passed between those satellites and the ground. Only a few hyper-secure channels were hidden so far. But what was visible was already so massive that AI easily extrapolated much of what was encrypted.

And, oh — the gossip he could have shared. All the corporate business was open to him. He knew when some of the field managers and their flunkies were sent home in handcuffs. He knew that one of the replacement managers was pushing a program to improve comfort and welfare for the contractors in the field. Somebody somewhere must have pushed a complaint that management couldn’t ignore. All Franklin knew for sure was that he was grateful for the better food they were getting. It went right along with the far better tactical data Bess was feeding him. Their crawler team was the best in the field.

And that got noticed. They were all given a pay raise and some better trucks, and then tasked with roving to any hotspots along the pipeline where the rebels were causing serious trouble. A new team was moved into their previous slot and Franklin’s team were the highfalutin troubleshooters. Franklin was careful to let the crawlers take the credit, as if the maintenance team was just better at keeping them working. Franklin walked close by each one sometime during the day and let Bess feed the results of a detailed scan back to the management system mounted on their biggest rig. They were always able to stay on top of issues way before they got critical. Nobody suspected; nobody was in a position to question why this team was so much better, but everyone took advantage of it.

Franklin wasn’t too sure about his own situation. On the one hand he had the best intel in the field. On the other hand, he kept having to work at least as hard as before putting that intel to use. At least the company did give him a newer pulse rifle and tactical sensor. Bess was making him a far better sniper and guard than he could have been on his own, but he didn’t let it go to his head. He couldn’t; there was too much work to do.

Meanwhile, Ned was pushing AI to new areas of analysis, rewriting itself repeatedly to handle bigger tasks with better results. If only he could get closer to the contractor’s corporate headquarters. It occurred to him that the problems he and Tim faced weren’t in the company providing the contract services along the pipeline, but something closely connected, and he had no way of finding what that was.

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