Not an Apocalypse

Posted on August 21, 2016 by ehurst

Those of you who live in or near America, or just enjoy watching what goes on here, should be prepared for something other than an apocalypse. The coming tribulation will most certainly be the end of the US as we know it, but that’s not to say it’s going to be anything like the dystopian nightmare stuff of movies and fiction. Things will be tough for awhile and daily commerce will be disrupted. Set your mind on being adaptable.

People ask me why I’m so quick to change my computer OS. They act like there’s some unspoken expectation of brand loyalty or something silly like that. I switch around in part because it helps keep me sharp on the various tasks, such as assessing which OS works with which hardware. However, the real issue is that I sense a change in the context that signals a different set of needs. None of them are perfect, but they each have unique qualities, and each runs differently on the varied hardware I get to use.

So right now, I’ve had to ditch Win7 on the laptop and Debian seems to work right now. It’s not as if I simply blew off the huge time investment putting Win7 on it; I made a recovery image before switching to Debian. Someone remarked once that I must have a system for keeping track of files and configs. That’s true; I keep backups on several media and I’ve gotten pretty handy at migration.

Crazy or not, this is what I do folks. It’s not a question of being flighty, because I manage to keep track of my stuff and keep writing these blog posts just about every day. In my world, computer OSes are fungible and I consider it a minor task to switch around. This is one of the ways I adapt quickly to the changing context. I’m a technology chameleon; it’s my calling from God.

I’m sure you have your own range of things for which you adapt quickly. By the same token, some changes seem to be more painful. I’m no different on that, but my background is probably quite different from yours, so the mix is my own. We pray that God carries us through the things ahead of us so that we can keep our minds focused on the mission of His glory.

This the vision that drives me: By manifesting a wholly different approach to dealing with life, and showing a harvest of blessings from God, we help to dismantle the lies that hold everyone else in prison. This world sucks, in the sense that “world” means the vast collected human imprint on Creation. And Creation is just begging us to show the world how it really does work.

We are up against a massive global system that denies our truth. Our primary task is to ignore that denial as much as possible. We keep right on doing stuff according to our radically different outlook, never mind what the rest of this world thinks makes more sense. We aren’t trying to make sense; we are trying to reflect God’s glory.

So on the one hand, most of what you do right now is unlikely to change. That is, the circumstances themselves won’t force any changes. Rather, whatever changes we institute will answer to something most people cannot perceive. We already knew that there was a rise of natural disasters coming, so we set our hearts on seeing what God wants to say through those disasters. We knew that social turmoil was coming, and that the Western social fabric was rotten. We knew this would also see political turmoil, because the cumulative sins of Western Civilization can only produce global war.

But it’s not the End of all things. The vision of the Apocalypse was never what most people read into it in the first place. We have to rid ourselves of the Jack T. Chick nightmare scenarios about tribulation (a reference to some popular evangelical cartoon pamphlets). It’s time to go back and reexamine what your mind has been taught to expect and keep your eyes on what God is doing in your personal life. The sense of conviction and calling is the key.

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Psalm 114

Posted on August 20, 2016 by ehurst

This is the second of the “Hallel Psalms” sung before the Passover meal. In Hebrew, this is the lyrical equivalent of a powerful appetizer — it is very small and simple, yet dense in satisfying flavor. These few brief words conjure up a savory memory of really big events.

It’s obvious this is about the Exodus, the founding miracle that defined just who Israel was, but more importantly, who God intended she be. The psalmist draws a strong connection here to explain how it works. Ancient Near Eastern feudalism was not about land, as with Western feudalism, but about the people. A ruler’s domain was his people. During that journey out of Egypt, a wholly alien people, Jehovah is depicted as personally present at the head of the march. He was Lord and Creator of all things, as He has just proved with the plagues that discredited all the claims of the Egyptian pantheon.

One thing Israel did have in common with Egypt was the fundamental assumption that Creation was alive. This is no mere figure of speech that sees the waters as pulling back to make room for the two crossings (Reed Sea and Jordan River). The water knew its Master and cooperated with His purpose.

Indeed, all of Creation wherever they passed was delighted to see the revelation of the Creator in His mighty acts. The mountains pranced like proud rams and playful sheep. Gladly did stone dissolve into water, for nothing was too great to ask in supporting and promoting this essential mission of God. He was raising up a nation to bear His message. Not merely the written record, but the living record of people precious in His sight who would claim the rich heritage of His blessings.

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Storms on the Computer Horizon

Posted on August 20, 2016 by ehurst

Some of you won’t care about this, so you can skip the computer chatter.

Those of us who provide technical support for Windows users have been watching this for a long time. Microsoft steadily seizes more and more control from the user as the price for offering their near-monopoly OS. Among the many really ogreish policies that came out with Win10 was that the vast majority of users have zero control over the update process. It’s totally binary: You either accept the black box or you don’t get any security fixes.

Up to that point, with every version of Windows starting somewhere late in the life of Windows 95, technicians with the know-how would provide an alternate system of guidance of what you should update and what fixes weren’t really useful. Eventually they began playing middle-man for the fixes themselves, providing the recommended updates from their own servers, after pulling them directly from Microsoft. A whole parallel ecosystem developed, with several different projects at one time. But Microsoft nixed that second-hand provision, requiring that all fixes be downloaded directly from them. Recently, it’s down to two projects that matter for much: Autopatcher and Windows Offline Update.

You have to invest time reading their documentation to understand how their different projects work as the price for keeping some measure of control in your hands. But with Win10, that has slipped away completely. These projects simply cannot offer any advantage in terms of control; it’s just a convenient way to pull down the updates on one computer, have them staged on something like a jump drive, and take them to another system with no Internet connection. But the business of guiding you to dropping questionable “fixes” has mostly gone away.

So now comes news that, as of October this year, that same system will be applied backwards to Win7 and Win8. From that time forward, Microsoft will begin offering all updates as a single cumulative black box, including scooping up all the previous updates you might have refused. There will be a decreasing distinction between security updates and just whatever else Microsoft wants you to have.

I’m confident they cannot pull this off without some third party at least trying to peel back the layers of bundling to see if this system can’t be circumvented. There is a growing vested interest in circumvention of these Borg-like efforts to make decisions for us. Granted, I run Win7 on my “newish” laptop right now because it seems Linux developers haven’t quite got the drivers for it. Too many elements of the hardware don’t work with Linux that do work just fine under Windows. Yes, some things are broken under Windows, too, but the trade-off favors Windows right now. I’m not nervous about this change just yet. I’m waiting to see if I care when the time comes.

In two months an awful lot can happen.

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System Destruct

Posted on August 19, 2016 by ehurst

Don’t believe in the system in the first place.

You could follow the advice of some folks and fight within the system. If that’s your calling, armor up and prepare for a fight, because it’s virtually certain one will come soon. Do all you can to develop the attitude of social alphas or sigmas (as the author refers to them) and dominate your domain. Make sure that your presence in the system is critical enough that they have to keep you.

Meanwhile, there is a case to make for avoiding the system in the first place. Not in the sense of complete social isolation, but some of us are called by God to blaze new trails. I find that those who are most active in this virtual parish are more of the independent mindset because that’s what I promote. It’s not the only way to follow God; it’s the emphasis here. I’m seeking to help folks who have already found themselves marginalized because that’s where I was when this blog started.

It took a few years to make the transition. There were several crushing experiences to help me break from the false expectations and rebuild an entire new human psyche, a different model that prospers in social isolation. Nor should you think I’m wallowing in the isolation itself, but embracing it as the entrance to a new world with a wholly different social structure.

Now, there is a lot of good tactical advice in that article, but I don’t buy into the ultimate goal of beating the system. I intend to see the whole damned thing collapse, so the scorched earth tactics he suggests actually don’t go far enough. Further, they aim at personal victory, and that’s too small for us. Like the promise of Our Lord’s Return, everything will burn up with intense heat and a new creation take its place. That’s the proper metaphor for what we seek even before He comes back; it’s the way He works in our individual lives.

There are other proper metaphors, such as seeing flora take over an abandoned structure. We are on the side of Creation itself in what we do here; we already find ourselves driven to break through the cracks by the nature of heart-led living. We do offer social interaction for the few who feel drawn to our ways. But we also have a mission of shining the light of glory on those who aren’t drawn internally, but by mere circumstance and need.

I’m glad to work with anyone who can use what I have. In the process, I seek to know in my heart what the context is and when it changes. It’s not a question of learning tactics and locking in certain reasoned conclusions before any friction starts. It’s not a question of survival and victory in human terms at all, because I’m quite willing to leave this world as soon as God is ready for me to stand in His Presence. It’s a question of His glory and His calling on me while I’m here.

And in pursuit of His glory I’m driven by a vision of destroying the system by any means possible. It’s a vision of extending the power of this truth as far as it will reach, of taking dominion over whatever touches my life. Western Civilization is already crumbling and I’m going to help it fall, mostly by helping people escape from the delusion of thinking they can and should keep it standing. God has clearly condemned it in His revelation, so we are simply trying to help folks see the divine truth.

We are standing in the power of God Almighty when we attack the system, so use His heart-led tactics.

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Misguiding Spirits

Posted on August 18, 2016 by ehurst

What can you do with it?

Keep in mind the fundamentals of moral logic. Stated more expansively, I’m asking that you make that conscious effort to defer to your convictions, written on your heart by the finger of God. Keep in mind that the heart has its own “mind” with a different form of reasoning that rests entirely on moral accountability to the character of God. It’s written into Creation as well as on our hearts.

This has nothing to do with manifesting talents our Western heritage would prefer to ignore, or perhaps consider Satanic simply because it doesn’t fit in with the prevailing orthodoxy. God speaks; none of us fallen humans is authorized to decide for another how He will communicate. However, if your “message from God” conflicts with mine, it’s simply a reason to keep some distance so we don’t get in each other’s way. What we pursue here as a virtual parish would simply not work at all if you can’t humor me and the boundaries I must observe. But the grounds for pushing away from you is not too hard to understand if you have subjected your mind to your heart-mind.

In other words, I don’t care how you get your moral guidance, as long as it is bounced off conviction. I’ll bounce your declarations off my own convictions and decide from there how closely we can work. If it appears your deference to your heart produces comfortable results, we can at least be friends. It’s not a question of orthodoxy because I can’t write it all down in any detailed statement; I have to sense whether your proposal is going to cause trouble to my mission and calling. It’s a living thing, not something carved in stone.

The entire concept of spirit guides is dubious. The record of God’s work in Scripture excludes anything but angels, and we can easily characterize how they operate, because it’s very consistent within the ANE culture. Our culture is so completely alien to theirs that, just as with demons, so I must caution readers that we are ill prepared to deal with the very topic of angels, never mind the actual encounters. The whole thing is so foreign to us that it sounds like mere legend, a kind of mythology that can’t be anchored in our broader sense of what’s real. So when someone tells me they have had some kind of experience with some non-human guiding presence, I have no choice but to ask questions.

For now, there are two primary results that I would expect from any genuine encounter with God or His agents. One is that you will be humble and penitent. Not so much in terms of modeling yourself after any number of cultural models that bear such labeling, but that you will surely set aside arrogance and self-focus. I have no problem with serious self-confidence, by comparison. Two, you would be especially humble and accountable to the Bible. Not slavish bibliolatry, but evincing a sincere desire to avoid conflict with what it teaches. A failure can also manifest in the perverted legalism of proof-texting, too. It’s the message between the lines that is sacred, not the precise wording.

Now it follows naturally that no two of us will get the exact same ideas about how to implement the message of the Bible. If you tell me you reject some portion because you can’t take seriously the presumed author, then I can’t take your claim to faith seriously. That is, I cannot treat you as a brother or sister in the Lord. I can be friends with you, but you’ll be more like a visitor, maybe even an ally, but not a family member.

We have one consistent image of warning from the Bible about guiding spirits — the term in most English translations is “familiar spirit.” It’s a reference to demonic spirit guides, a manifestation of darkness that intends to deceive. It’s primary effect is to guide you in any direction possible except the one God wants you to go.

Go where your conscience directs; that’s the starting point. However, your sincerity of conviction is not binding on me, nor is mind binding on you. I have to obey my own heart.

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Calm

Posted on August 17, 2016 by ehurst

It’s been quiet in my soul all day. Not silent; that’s entirely different — just quiet.

There are things to do. I got the FTP server running but I can’t yet tell if it’s accessible to anyone but me. If there’s a problem, it will be the router. But there are other problems with networking in general. That hasn’t been the right kind of quiet today. It’s more like there’s some kind of danger lurking out there on the Net and it’s trying to hide. Except that isn’t really how it feels; it’s the closest I can come with words. This isn’t your regular network trouble, and I’m not the specific target.

Keep in mind that the globalist elite are in a desperate fight against a sharply rising resistance, and a large element of that resistance is due to the Internet with its open information exchange. If you want to confirm your biases, that’s easy enough. But if you want to research with a genuine question, you’ll find answers. It really depends on your own savvy, but it seems we hit a critical mass of savvy users awhile back.

The neocons have made a deal with the globalists, so you can see them working together now, and openly. Both of them never expected to face so much resistance from the nationalists. Nobody expected the bureaucrats who actually run things to side with the nationalists. It’s not obvious unless you are looking for it; you just about have to be outside the political wrangling to see it.

But the key to winning this political battle is the Internet, and the Net is politically agnostic. The public perception can be manipulated and driven in different ways, but that kind of fine tuning falls apart in the face of cracking and document dumps. The globalists and neocons have more to hide right now, and they simply aren’t that good at it. There are powerful agents not really aligned to any of the three main groups (globalists, necons and nationalists), and the globalist-neocon alliance is a target rich environment. While nationalism is no less corrupt than the other two, it’s agenda is pretty open. Moreover, it comes closer to something deeply burned into our human nature. Globalism is entirely artificial, while the neocons embrace their evil nature — but both of them depend on secrecy and manipulation. They cannot avoid using the Internet, but they don’t take it seriously.

They do seem to be in panic mode about trying to control it. That’s what makes things crazy for someone like me who tries to keep track of the technology. So we can see that Microsoft is globalist, as is Apple and some other system providers, like telecoms. And then we have Oracle, IBM and their ilk who depend on neocons to stay alive. Again, this has more to do with influences than individuals. Everyone one of them is resting on the knife-edge of collapse if the plunder slows down. If enough of the right people see the secrets, the plunder may not stop, but it won’t go where it’s been going up to now.

We do not belong to this world nor it’s political herd instincts. We are aliens — a threat to the various political influences because we are alien. We don’t belong to any part of their matrix of control. I can handle a little networking hassle because I’m still on the mission. Is this some kind of calm before the storm, in a wider sense? Probably, but it won’t matter that much. What I can’t see coming yet means more prayer to be ready when the moment comes to shine His glory.

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Administrivia (Updated)

Posted on August 16, 2016 by ehurst

I’m re-installing CentOS 7 on the parish server today. I’ve decided to take the easy way out and I’ll be using Webmin so I don’t have to pick over all the grisly details to get things running properly. One of the first things I’ll do is set up the FTP server on the box itself and use port forwarding through the router. Later this week I hope to install DD-WRT on the big router and move it back into place.

However, for the FTP thing, all the logins and passwords will change. I’ll create a general account and password for most folks. Those of you who need write access will have your own individual account and password. I realize this is not as convenient as an anonymous login, but this is the best way to protect the machine and my Internet access.

At any rate, we should have everything up and running per the original plan pretty soon, I hope.

Update: Well, that was a boondoggle. Webmin failed to fix SELinux security policies for using the FTP server. Worse, there are no instructions on how to take care of it. If I have to do all that stuff manually, there’s not much point in using something like Webmin. This will take longer than I first anticipated.

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Admin: FTP Server Down

Posted on August 15, 2016 by ehurst

For a few days, at least, the FTP server will be down.

If you want to know the details: I’m having trouble with the fancy router. The factory firmware is crappy and unreliable. I’m waiting for DD-WRT to release a less buggy version of their firmware so I can make it work better. While it wasn’t quite what I planned or when, that doesn’t matter. I still have my previous router and it’s just fine for networking, but offers no FTP server option. That means I’ll have to run the FTP server from our parish server. That means I’ll have to study things for awhile and pray for guidance on several options before I set it up as a server instead of a workstation.

Meanwhile, the “new” laptop is just dandy.

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Reviewing Darkness 04

Posted on August 14, 2016 by ehurst

On the one hand, we recognize that the typical Western Christian image of demons is comical, and tragically misguided. The popular mythology of “spiritual warfare” is a big joke to Satan. It’s another distraction that keeps folks from paying attention to what he’s really up to in our world.

On the other hand, we dare not allow the Western myth of objectivity to drain life from our world. Creation is alive, and most of our environment is full of living beings our society refuses to recognize. It’s more than making friends with trees and birds; there are living influences to deceive the soul. We call those influences “demons.” They are as real as the tangible reality, and far more dangerous, despite having no concrete form.

We must reinforce the message that we cannot trust what we can perceive with mere senses and reason. That’s the substance of our battle. We are not reduced to body and mind, but we can develop a faculty for awareness that is separate from the intellect. When we learn about the heart-mind, we learn to anchor that awareness in a place superior to the intellect. The mind then becomes a servant to this higher awareness.

This is the definition of “mysticism” and it is one thing most troubling for Satan. It’s not the bogus mysticism we see attempting to extend the intellect, so that the net result is chaining the heart to the mind again. The intellect must surrender its primacy. We have to keep telling ourselves that everything that makes sense to our reason is suspect. We have to teach ourselves to “reason” in the heart-mind.

The heart is armed with ultimate truth, the one and only threat to Satan’s dominion in our lives. This is why we study the parables in the Bible, and the symbolism of Hebrew literature. God built that intellectual tradition as the best way to reveal Himself to the world. But the particular human expression of His manifest truth need not form a prison for our souls. It’s the approach, not the specific results. We are called to see through that particular contextual expression and find the ineffable reality of the Spirit Realm. Then we are able to correctly assess in our own context how to give shape and flavor to the same truth.

In our world today, it’s pretty dicey to chatter about demons, because the English translation of the Bible has been hijacked. We have to restate the biblical expressions in a new context so as to redeem Scripture from the darkness. We have to find ways to deconstruct the lies, to dismantle the vast structures of falsehood:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NKJV)

The image here is pulling down enemy forts on the territory of our souls. Paul wrote these words in the context of fighting Talmudic perversions of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Pharisees had hijacked the text and chained it to an entirely false intellectual context (Hellenism). Paul specifically refers to the Judaizers and nascent Gnostics as an influence invading and staking false claims on the gospel.

So quote Scripture when you can, but try to show how it belongs in a different context than might be popular with mainstream Christian religion. This in itself is the very essence of spiritual warfare. We must first turn that Flaming Sword of Revelation on ourselves and begin to claim the divine heritage, manifest it in the richness of His promised blessings. That Sword is not a mere matter of quoting the words of the Bible, but of a radical shift into the moral sphere of existence.

The words mean nothing unless they are first burned into your own soul. There are no magic ritual declarations to make the Devil behave himself; that sort of thinking is another lie from Hell. I’m sure he finds it very amusing when someone tries to wield “words of power” against him. The law in your mouth means nothing unless it proceeds from your heart.

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Tech Trash

Posted on August 13, 2016 by ehurst

It happens just a few of you seem interested in my technology chatter, so I’ll dump out the latest news. While I do try to keep track of computer technology trends, there is just too much going on right now. There are new security flaws found daily, it seems, and it affects every OS. Meanwhile, Microsoft has distinguished itself fixing those flaws, only to have the updates break the whole OS (Win10) for a lot of folks. There’s just too much bad news in the industry.

So I’ll offer a bit of good news: the used laptop I bought cheaply on eBay has arrived. On the one hand, the Vista sticker and with product key is gone (as if I cared). On the other hand it came with Linux Mint installed. It was done wrong, so I had to reinstall, but that’s okay. At least I knew it worked. This is a Dell Precision M4400 on the high end of the options. It’s a mobile workstation.

  • Quad-core 2.53 Ghz (Intel QX9300)
  • 8GB RAM
  • nVidia Quadro FX1700 with 512MB VRAM
  • 320GB hard drive
  • 15.4″ display at 1920×1200 (WUXGA)
  • 9-cell battery
  • backlit keyboard and a good touchpad
  • DVD burner, wifi, bluetooth, built-in mic and camera, lotsa ports

It runs a little hot, as you might expect, but I don’t anticipate that being a major issue. I keep it on a vented lapboard and usually have a fan running across my chair. You see, the only reason I even dared ask God for something like this is because I cannot sit with my feet under a table yet. I still have to keep that right leg up. Most of the time that means sitting in my recliner so I can spend enough time writing and doing all the document conversions.

By the way, I’ve gotten all of the important blog posts by month, starting from last month back to February 2015. I think I’ll stop somewhere around August 2014. Then I’ll get back to the various Bible study books I’ve published and update those. So long as this new toy keeps working, it will be an opulent provision that I hardly deserve. In the near future I’ll convert the server back to an actual server and wait to see what God says it needs to serve.

This path has been nothing but zigzags lately and I’m struggling to keep up. For those of you who donated to my PayPal account, it’s not being wasted.

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