Cycling: North Hills

Posted on January 28, 2016 by ehurst

ArcadiaDamRdS Couldn’t go that way today.

In our area, the South Canadian Valley is broad and flat with several large prairies and not much elevation change on the tributaries. Riding north on Midwest Boulevard brings me across the river and alongside for a few miles. Eventually it curves away to the east and I immediately hit the watershed that separates it from the Deep Fork. That comes around Hefner Road. I’ve been feeling the need for a few brutal hills and I knew I could find them near Lake Arcadia, but I wanted to see the dam side. Obviously that didn’t happen today, as the image on the upper left shows.MemorialRdnTurnerTpk Getting there meant I turned east on Memorial Road and hit the hills right away. The Turner Turnpike angles east and just a bit northward, so it drifts across Memorial at around Douglas Boulevard, as shown in the image to the right.

EntrSweetwaterNPostThe main route continues up the hill to the left, northward a ways, then right again until we get to the intersection of what is then NE 150th and Post Road. Aside from the closed dam road, there were a couple of interesting sights up that way. I thought this water spilling across the sign at the entrance to Sweetwater lakeside development was pretty nifty.NrNE150thonPost Next door to that was this very old stone house. Judging from the design, I’d say it was there long before the road was paved.

Post Road gave me serious hills, a very gratifying workout. This view on the left looks back across the Turner Turnpike whence I had come.PostRdNatTurnerTpk And this being still the Deep Fork watershed, it was like that for a couple more miles. Eventually I came back over the top of the watershed between the Deep Fork and North Canadian valleys. While this little dog barked and chased me, all it took was stopping and he ran to hide under the stile.13000BlkNPostRdJones As I dropped down into the North Canadian Valley, I spotted another ancient farm house (below left). I’d seen it from NE 122nd some months ago, back when I still lived in Choctaw. However, it was cloudy and darkish and a heavy mist in the air made it impossible to shoot with my little pocket camera.12900NPostRd We are looking back north up Post Road alongside that house where I had just left that little yapping dog.

As I hit NE 122nd, I turned back west and noticed that the new supreme landmark for OKC was just barely visible in the hazy distance several miles to the south-southwest.DevonTwrFromNE122nd Sadly, Devon is an energy company invested mostly in petroleum, so that tower will be a little more thinly populated soon as massive layoffs hit from the drop in oil prices.

It was a nice quiet ride down Douglas for awhile until it dead ends at Britton Road. I’ve been through here several times before and it remains a peaceful area for riding. Eventually I got back to Midwest Boulevard. Riding up the south bank above the river where all that reconstruction work is going on, I spotted these two houses. The first is obviously occupied (left).4501NMwBlvd While there is a fence on the south side that divides them, the mapping services give this second, abandoned house the same street address (right).4201NMwBlvd You can probably just make out that an entire window is missing on that left end of the structure. Spooky enough?

My legs were complaining about the hills. As it was a fairly low traffic ride back to the house, I could hear them all the way home.

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Shepherd’s Wrath

Posted on January 28, 2016 by ehurst

What follows is a blatant rejection of social standards.

It’s no secret that I despise Western society. This is not some kind of perverse self-hatred. Were that the case, I would still be acting by Western assumptions about reality as some kind of activist. That’s where you get crazy campaigners and mad bombers. No, this is a long and deeply considered rejection after having studied the whole issue academically for years. The shape of my rejection and the resulting plan of action will be anti-Western in itself.

This is challenging, because I’m still feeling my way along. Aside from bits and pieces of insight, no one else that I know of pursues a comprehensive vision of pulling away from Western Civilization. They don’t look at the underlying sickness; they don’t go back to examine the very foundation on which it stands. It’s one thing when someone disputes the details with me, but I find myself too often confronted with people using a distinctly Western approach to the discussion of how to depart Western mythology. Sometimes their arguments only sharpen my understanding. Too often, I find myself sucked into the vortex.

This is not the City of God; it is not built on the rock of truth. Most of what I’ve seen people doing simply tries to rebuild little portions of this big lie. Renovation won’t help when your city is built on sand, and asserting that sand is stone won’t turn grit into granite. I try to flee, but I’m catching hell every step of the way from people trying to drag me back inside. Sometimes I miscalculate how to escape their grasp. Complicating things is that I still have to do business inside this rotting swamp. I am not Jonah and this is not a penitent Nineveh. Nonetheless, I retain the prophetic mission calling to warn the residents to flee before it collapses.

It gets uncomfortable at times. English doesn’t offer the repertoire of expression for talking about the fallen nature separate from the mortal coil. That’s in part because Western thinking makes no such distinction. It requires a mystical turn of mind and our entire civilization rejects that before the discussion even starts. So I’ll tell you that it can be messy even when I don’t walk away with any sense of guilt from some bad experiences. At the same time, it may take some work to regain my sense of peace because of the jarring discontinuity that grates on my shepherd’s sense of protective justice.

The body is wired for anger; it’s hard to summon all the resources to strike at predators without some sense of wrath. Our society cannot accept the idea of justified anger except under the strictest controls of official sanction from the ruling class. Our culture is schizophrenic about that. We talk bad about the ruling class, but create a new one by vesting people with authority that allows them to deny personal accountability. We permit anger and wrath only when we imagine it is exercised in selfless defense of some bogus ideal of defending our system and our “way of life.” This is a blatant rejection of what God says about such things. Personal anger is not a sin because everything is personal. God holds individuals accountable even when they hide behind some imaginary shield of objectivity. Truth is not objective; truth is the Person of God or it’s a lie. It’s God nature that He deals with us in terms of personal feudal grants of dominion.

Even if you get a little confused about the boundaries of your God-given domain, you should never be ashamed at feeling anger and wrath toward the evil others do. Using harsh words, dramatic demonstrations, yelling and general intimidation — these are socially unacceptable in most cases, yet are very godly nonetheless. Our society instinctively throws all of that into the bucket labeled “childish.” They insist that dramatic displays of dislike are “violence” and inherently evil because it didn’t take place under official cover.

Yet the biblical moral requirement is that we separate that moment of loud objection from any actual physical act of violence. When something in your heart (AKA your convictions) crosses that line from idiocy to real danger, you know instinctively that the anger turns to ice. It’s not a berserker’s rage; it’s purposeful. Western society denies such is even possible. Western mythology insists it is always rage. Take a look at the perverse manipulative psychology behind the so-called “anger management” courses. They deny that there is a God, and deny that He can work through the righteous anger of men and women who defend what He gave them. Those courses assume, and sometimes assert in manipulative language, that you are property of the state. However, the term “society” is often inserted in place of “the state.”

The New Testament says we should not lose sleep over feeling anger (Ephesians 4:26). This presumes you understand that the anger reflex is not a curse of the Fall, but that our fallen nature can lead us into false anger. Passionate displays and so-called “abusive language” are not evil in themselves. There most certainly is a petty and childish kind of anger, and it’s a paradox of Western society that actually cultivates that, but you are supposed to do it with cutting words and lawsuits. You’re supposed to get the state to exercise its wrath for you by proper invocation, and though we make a facade of denying it, you’re supposed to use whatever means of political pressure you can dream up to include bribery. We call it “lobbying.” God calls it “oppression” because everything is personal; that is God’s Law.

There are no easy answers, but if anything keeps you awake at night, it should not be any false sense of shame about being angry and letting people know about it. You might lose sleep because someone manipulated you into assuming dominion over something God didn’t place in your hands, but that’s a separate matter. Turn the disquiet over to your heart for clarification of boundaries and sooner or later you will regain your sense of peace with God.

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Cycling: Checking the River Trails

Posted on January 27, 2016 by ehurst

EagleLakeToday was a bit warmer than we’ve seen in quite some time. I rode out from the apartment west on Reno almost to the Dallas Junction, then turned right down into the Eagle Lake Park. On the left is what you might see turning off Reno northward and down toward the river bed. Eagle Lake is a gussied-up former sand and gravel quarry. There is a Jeep trail that runs off to the left and continues the length of the south shore of the lake. There is joins the Eagle Lake Trail, the pavement starting abruptly at the treeline.BridgeCrookedOakCrk

Here on the right you can see the bridge over Crooked Oak Creek. The trail runs up along the trees, turns left over the creek across the bridge, then does a loop around and under to come up parallel to the North Canadian River. This runs along through an old off-road area and then around and under Eastern Avenue right off the south bank of the river. Where it come out the other side, I typically turn right up onto the landscaped space for the Indian Heritage Center.IndianHeritageCtr To the left you can see it, sitting in all it’s unfinished glory. The rugged dirt road continues along the river bank where the timer towers stand along the rowing competition area.

Crossing under Interstate 35 puts me out on the trail proper. Today was nothing new and I rode all the way across the Metro to the Meridian Avenue bridge. Having come through here the opposite direction some months ago on that 40+ mile ride, it’s still not ready for prime-time.RiverTrailMeridianRd The sign about the sidewalk refers to the part that runs off to the left and is supposed to connect to one that is not yet completed on the bridge. If you look closely, you can see concrete barriers dividing the bridge lengthwise. I turned around and headed back a mile to the Portland Avenue crossing.

ChesapeakeBoatHouseThere I looped around and got onto the trail following the north bank of the river. It ends at Chesapeake Boathouse (image left). I decided not to ride across bridge over the artificial bay pictured here because it still ends in pretty much the same place. It runs along and under Interstate 40. The other side is the passenger dock.

TrailHeadBrickTown During warmer months you can make your way down to this little pool on the southern edge of Bricktown and take a ride up and down the river. On the far side of the image you can see a wide concrete multi-use path running up to the parking lot that connects to a very large parking lot (free most of the time) in front of the monster Outdoor Sports store. From there I followed the driveway out and across Reno. There was some construction just a couple of blocks north, so I worked my way around to go north to NW 4th. From there it was a straight shot back to my side of town.

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Blocking Advertisements

Posted on January 27, 2016 by ehurst

Says your Internet Pastor: God has no problem with blocking Internet advertising.

Yes, it really is a moral question. No, it has nothing to do with free speech.

Internet users are individuals. Each of us will tolerate what we tolerate, and no two of us are exactly alike. We all know what we like when we see it, and what we don’t like. We all have our own peculiar reasons for what we do in response to advertising. For some of us, the game itself of blocking ads is a form of entertainment. For others, the technology is of no interest at all, just the content. If the ads don’t bother you, then the only real consideration is the snooping and tracking that comes with advertising. But for the advertising itself, the issue is our individual tolerance.

If I think your ads suck, I’ll take advantage of the technology to block them. My computer, my display, my eyeballs and my attention — my rules. You can try to force your rules on your website, but if I can circumvent anything, I will. There is not a shred of moral wrong in my doing so. You don’t have some inherent right to profit at my expense; the business of information and entertainment is enticement. Advertising itself is a market. If your ads were entertaining enough, I wouldn’t block them.

However, as an individual with my own peculiar wiring, if anything on the webpage moves, you had better let me decide when it moves or I’ll kill it. That’s my needs. Your content won’t mean shit if I can’t read it without distraction. Other folks are wholly undistracted and you’re just wasting resources. Either way, stop whining advertisers.

Some days are worse than others for me. There are times when text is all I can tolerate and I have browsers to display nothing else. Some sites are just so freaking idiotic in their layout that I use highly limited browsers (like Links2) every time I visit. A significant number of such websites are fully aware that some portion of their audience will never be a source of ad revenue, but they actually intend to deliver the content anyway. Some erect pay-walls (require a subscription and login) and that’s fine. Others pretend to be open but take advantage of the technology for delivering content by choosing technology that hides the content in various other ways until you open yourself up to the advertising displays — unless you know how to use add-ons like NoScript. It’s a pain to train NoScript; you have to experiment with it and see what blocking each source does, but once you get past that initial stage, it’s nice how it restores your choices and control.

And that business of free speech? It’s not blanket immunity for you to do what you please. It means equal access to the soapbox, and that means you cannot force people to come and listen, or to unplug their ears as they pass by. You cannot require them to sit quietly while you yell and scream. They have an equal right to ignore you or shut you out of their attention. You’ll win a much bigger audience if you at least entertain them. Manipulation is just asking for trouble, and only the individual is permitted to define what “manipulation” means to them.

Let the technology race continue.

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Vision for a Virtual Parish

Posted on January 27, 2016 by ehurst

(This post refers to a second blog that no longer exists; all the content from that blog has been imported into this one.)

Some are just passing through.

We aren’t seeking higher numbers of those who hang around just so we can feel big and important. Instead, we want more people to experience this faith so they can take it on to wherever and whatever God calls them. Only a few of you will feel the need to hang around stay connected; that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

I feel like Peleg (Genesis 10:25; 1 Chronicles 1:19) in whose lifetime the earth went through major tectonic shifts. Every step I take puts me in a place I’ve never seen or expected. If I try to step back, what was behind me is already gone. My heart demands I keep moving forward. I know the direction but not the landmarks.

This whole thing started with a conversation about private communication protocols, passed through the idea of getting a home server, and ended up with a wholly different mission path. This is not at all what I expected I’d be doing. This is not at all what I anticipated or what I had dreamed for years, and yet I am hardly disappointed. I’m struggling with the means and methods for an unexpected kind of mission. The one thing I know for sure is that God is preparing this virtual parish for whatever it is He does next in this world. One way or another, I am seeking to answer the missionary call, but it’s for a world not yet fully born.

God is most certainly steering events in the work I’ve done lately. My human inclinations lie shattered on the ground, forgotten as things moved too fast for me to mourn any loss. For example, I know where that business of using CentOS went: That’s the OS running on our webhost service for soulkiln.org (gone as of 2020); it’s what is behind the new blog and the static website I’m still developing.

I’m going back and reformatting some of my books into HTML documents. The ebooks are still at Smashwords where they appeal to that audience, but I want a way to reference that material directly from the new blog running on the same server. Turning them into webpages is a much smaller format so as not to crowd the limited space on our account with the webhost. It’s a bit of work because the only way to do it right is by hand, starting with plain text and adding just enough HTML markup to make it display in a browser. I’m also going to host here at home an electronic library, a larger private collection of files to share with parish members. So far it’s already a very eclectic pile of things I’ve found to have some value to my faith. Hopefully some of you will be able to add to this virtual library and fill the shelves. Meanwhile, I’m keeping most of the technology chatter and hobby stuff on the old blog.

At least, that’s the current plan.

While I can feel the big push driving me forward, my eyes can’t quite make out what’s down the road ahead of me. I knew a long time ago that the old way of “doing church” was not God’s plan for me, neither in teaching nor in physical form and structure. In place of that is only the vaguest idea. It reminds me of all those scenes in places like New York buried under so much snow you aren’t sure what’s under the humps. I’ve never been here before; is that a big bush or a car? It’s still winter and I’m out here enjoying the sparkly newness of it all, feeling my way around. I’m wondering how all these changes are going to make that much difference in helping people find their own faith.

Somehow the demands of life in our changing world will drive a portion of folks out of their comfort zones, and some of them will pass through what we do here. The nature of this virtual parish is that it’s just dandy for you to pop in and then disappear again. Some of you are bound to feel called to hang around for awhile, at least. Take what you need because we have lots more where that came from; it’s falling upon us from Heaven. God provides in abundance and we are struggling to give it away. And it’s for sure that some of you will carry it places no one else can go.

Don’t think I’m not enjoying myself playing with all this technology stuff. Part of it is hard work, and I’m compelled to engage elements of it that never really held my interest in the past. But I know I can’t move forward without it, so I’m still studying all the networking technology so I’ll know what’s there. Who can say when I’ll have to use it later? Still, some of this strikes me as really cool stuff. For a few of you who feel the same way, I’m going to offer ways you can interact with this fancy machine the parish donated to buy. We’ll keep it out of everyone else’s way, but God has plans we can’t guess. He’s going to need some soldiers prepared to fight in a totally different kind of warfare.

How can I help you?

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Internet Infiltration

Posted on January 26, 2016 by ehurst

How we operate on the Internet follows the same fundamental moral reality that we apply to everything else: It’s all a question of boundaries and dominion. As followers of Christ, we regard our entire human existence as property of God, assets for His glory. Your device is His device; your use of it must reflect His divine character.

A fundamental expectation is that we will not permit Darkness to use our lives. That we are fallen creatures in this world where Satan holds some measure of default dominion means that we must continue in resistance in the sure knowledge that there will be some measure of performance failure. We don’t get wrapped up in the actual practical outcomes because Our Father warned that our human existence cannot be perfected in that sense. His favor is not dependent on performance, but desire. Our exercise of dominion in His name is very limited. Rolling back the powers of Darkness is His gift to us.

So the message of Christ is loaded with a sense of continual battle until the ultimate victory of leaving this dimension of existence for some other — one that is beyond our comprehension. While we remain here, our human nature will hardly remain subdued and obedient. Much less so would we expect the fallen nature of the rest of humanity to play along with moral justice. Each of us has to decide what we are called to do and work hardest at that narrow range of holy endeavor. We shine in the things He chooses for us; it’s His mercy that He doesn’t expect us to do everything. We fight the battles for which we are best armed and allow our fellow believers to help us with things they do better.

So I’m called to make much of this virtual world of the Internet, among other things. In some ways I can use my expertise to lighten your personal load of care; in other ways I work at things you don’t even understand because it’s not your calling. I can tell you that, on the one hand, we do have some allies out there in virtual space. On the other hand, there aren’t very many of them. So I do what I can to help you work with our allies insofar as they can bless us. Some of their works can help us maintain our individual moral boundaries against the Darkness on the Net.

Lots of stuff out there is for us a taste of that Darkness. Some of it is a matter of individual calling, but a lot of it is the relentless demand that we submit to someone else’s controls with an aim to defraud us of God’s glory. That’s Satan’s aim; most of his servants have no clue. For the most part, they simply don’t care about the whole question. They want what their lusts demand and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it. Their moral awareness is shaped entirely to fit their desires. Their minds will buy into whatever lies it takes to justify what they do. Thus, they regale us with messages according to their perverted sense of moral value, and they complain loudly when we exercise dominion that denies their control.

It’s possible that we might help this or that individual across the threshold into Light, but on the whole we have no expectation of changing what they do. And we still have to go out on the Net and interact with their crap in order to pursue our divine calling. For the most part, we are infiltrating into their world, and striving to pass through while shielding ourselves from their attempts to control us. Our shield of faithfulness to God’s moral character extinguishes their fiery darts of temptation.

So this is what’s behind all my blather about browser add-ons that block this or that, especially advertising. Or my advice that you use this or that browser or run this or that operating system. I’m not dictating for you what constitutes holiness, just sharing my experiences. That’s my calling. Your calling is to filter out what doesn’t apply to your Kingdom service. Together we infiltrate into the virtual space with our vessels of divine Presence.

God bless you with a sense of heart awareness to what matters for you.

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Photolog: Arcadia Conservation Education Area

Posted on January 26, 2016 by ehurst

(I’m keeping the cycling stuff here because our account on the other server has rather limited storage space.)

NCanProject1Between allergies and rotten weather, it’s been awhile since my last long ride. Yesterday’s journey was a straight out-n-back on Midwest Boulevard. My objective was the Arcadia Conservation Education Area. But first, I wanted to catch up with the construction project on the North Canadian River crossing that had me mystified all last summer. On my last ride past here, I realized they were trying to recover a washout of the bank near the bridge and they’ve made good progress. In the first shot I stepped off the road and down the grassy bank from the south side.NCanProject2 In the second shot, I was up on the apron of the bridge. I still have no idea about that stone wall just a bit farther north, but I’ve seen evidence of preparatory utilities digging in the field beyond the heavy equipment visible in the background there. The enigmatic stone wall fronts that field.

AlanSpencerMemorial A ways north, up past NE 122nd Street is this little memorial to Alan Spencer. He was killed by a hit-n-run driver in broad daylight as he rode along Midwest Boulevard; he would be just a year or two older than me now. God alone is my protection and can call me home at His whim, but I’m going to ride for His glory. It’s not far from the underpass where the road was cut deeply into the rosy sand rock to pass under the Turner Turnpike.PassUnderTurner On the right is a maintenance access stairway because the rock face is so steep.

Beyond that portal is Memorial Road. The section of Midwest Boulevard from here on is a dead end, running past some very expensive real estate on the right, while the nature preserve on the south side of Lake Arcadia dominates the left side of the road.ArcadiaEdEntrance Except for one section where the state maintains a depot of equipment, the signs all along this road say no vehicles, but pedestrian traffic is encouraged in the woods. A few places offer packed gravel paths in areas specially developed for education groups to see this miniature wildlife refuge.ArcadiaLkSouth On the left here is the single shore accommodation where the water often washes up during the wetter season of the year. I’m standing in a heavy collection of flotsam and you can see the red grit of Oklahoma coating everything.

Back behind me a ways is a tiny parking area at the very end of what would be Midwest Boulevard. All other roads are reserved for state equipment, but I rode on them anyway because there was no one else around. Just east of that parking area is a learning center up on top of the highest ridge.ArcadiaConsInfoCtr I saw vehicles like this from time to time but no human occupants anywhere. The road running past this building would be NE 150th, as it trails off to the east and runs into an arm of the lake.ArcadiaConservPond Part of it was gated off, but I managed find this little educational facility in a side pond (image to the left here). You can see how the hiking paths are connected to most of the facilities.

FarmHefnerMwBlvdI ate my lunch at a picnic table near there, took a couple of shots that didn’t work out well and rode off back down Midwest Boulevard. Along the way, I stopped to capture a couple more images that worked out a little better. First up is the farming landscape on the southeast corner of Hefner Road off Midwest Boulevard. I am standing on the slope looking down toward the North Canadian River. Down Midwest Boulevard a little farther south was a large home lot with a couple of houses and a large collection of old military 2.5 ton (Deuce-and-a-half) trucks converted for brush fire suppression.DeuceTankers There were a few more of these scattered around the same acreage, most without any of the tanks and apparently still in use as farm trucks.

It was still just a bit cool, but we are in a warming trend, so I plan to get in a lot more riding this week.

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Prayer Request: Networking Hardware

Posted on January 25, 2016 by ehurst

This is a technology issue. Once again, this is not meant to be a fund-raising appeal, but a genuine request that you pray with me.

I continue studying the mechanics of networking and providing services to my readers and supporters. A recent trend has been the reduced costs and commoditizing of specialized networking hardware. At one time, having a machine that kept track of the various computers and networking links on a LAN was expensive and complicated. As the technology hardware got cheaper and faster, they came up with switches and routers, and then they started making them so small and cheap that they become common home user stuff. Then there was a new trend to give those home Internet routers more and more power and options. My current router can do some interesting stuff, just not a lot of it and certainly requiring some complicated set up.

The other day I saw the first commercial grade router offered at a home-office price range. Someone is putting those devices in the pricing space between cheap home routers and high-end business devices; this one was offered at Sam’s Club for about $200. The thing is a mini-computer in its own right. However, it’s highly specialized to do what routers do, and brings the high-end tasks down to home user price range — almost. That’s still pretty expensive for me. And I don’t need all the features right now. I have read a couple of tech articles about using or building similar specialized devices on the new “system on a chip” computer hardware, like the Raspberry Pi and similar things, but they still cost about that much or more once it was all done right. Meanwhile, all of them were roughly the same size as the cable modem my ISP issued me for access.

Sure, if you feel like buying it for me, it’s the Linksys WRT1900AC. The thing that really caught my eye is that they built it specifically so you can use Open Source software if you are so inclined. I don’t need that kind of wifi power for home use, so I would probably turn that off and just use the other router capabilities. But I’m still studying this stuff and hoping to see more of this kind of device, as it’s the best way to provide the services on our home server while protecting it better.

Pray with me as I learn more about this networking stuff that I am able to see the Lord’s path for bringing Him glory.

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Eyes of the Heart

Posted on January 25, 2016 by ehurst

“You’re just seeing things!”

How often have you heard that? We understand the fundamental question addressed here: Most people react to their perceptions in fairly simplistic ways. If you see an obstacle in your path, you would normally step around it unless it seemed more appropriate to push it out of the way. There is a wide range of moral discussion about whether and when it’s appropriate to avoid or push, and this is a separate question.

Perhaps you can see how this is connected to my fundamental assertion about Western (Aristotelian) epistemology. A Greek philosopher named Aristotle, whose ideas have had a powerful effect on our modern Western society, used that word “epistemology” a great deal in his teaching. Yes, I know that’s one of those hifalutin words, but it’s not pointless. It does apply to normal human life. While it can be abused like any other fancy term, it can also serve to condense the discussion by putting a simple label on a big issue. The academic discussion of epistemology seems focused on the question of, “What is true or truth?” Another formulation is, “What can we claim to know?” However, there is a motive behind that question itself that assumes we are somehow obliged to order our conduct in this world based on what’s real, or at least what’s important. In other words, it’s a question of, “What can we say we know, such that we can act on it?” There is an assumption that we have to justify our choices according to some universal standard. The underlying issue is really quite pragmatic.

And that brings us back to that quoted line up at the top. In our English-speaking society, we can find ourselves irritated by people who react to obstacles that we don’t see. Is it really there? And is it really an obstacle? In similar fashion, we can ask whether something is a threat we should avoid or flee.

But the whole issue rests on yet another fundamental question: What difference does it make to you what I see? That quoted line above assumes a moral accountability. It’s bad enough that our Western society struggles with matters of perception, but we have a serious problem with people poking their nose into the lives of others, as if we are all under some assumed accountability that gives people the authority to intrude. There is a powerful common assumption that some portion of our human existence is common property, that we owe something to the folks around us. And the problem is not whether we do, but what.

Here is the moral question of boundaries and dominion. There are two questions here: (1) Does you choice affect me and (2) should I be allowed to do something about it? We can’t deny that a lot things we do touch the lives of others, but whether they should endure it gracefully is separate matter. For example, we know that a child’s home life can impair their educational progress at school, but does that then hand some moral authority to educators to intrude in the home life of every child they educate? Most Westerners tolerate a very high level of intrusion under a wide range of assumptions about accountability to society at large.

This is the source for the structure and shape of Western government. We assume a certain kind of social accountability that opens the door to this kind of intrusion. The only question we ask is how much intrusion is correct in a given context, instead of addressing the fundamental question itself of whether it’s anyone’s business in the first place. Western social mythology draws the boundaries in the wrong place, and grants dominion to the wrong people. It’s not enough to claim being libertarian, because that still assumes a false morality of how much dominion.

And give this a thin veneer by falsely conflating “caring” with “control.” If you care enough, you will assert measures to force the object of your caring to do it your way? This is part of why most Westerners are so very confused about God and His authority. This is the source of that silly question about, “If God is all powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient) and loving, why does He permit this?” The question assumes a logic that is all wrong in the first place. It’s where we get such petty declarations as, “That’s just mean!”

Don’t read this back into Scripture, or you’ll be the one who is “just seeing things.” The single biggest issue Westerners have with divine moral justice is tied up in understanding the basics of dominion and boundaries.

Biblical logic goes like this: God has created all things. He did so in accordance with His own character as a Person; His moral character is woven into the very structure and nature of reality. It works as He designed it. Justice is a matter of living consistently with that divine moral character. Not merely the performance, but the desire to please Him in feeling our way along from our blind fallen nature is the primary path of redemption. Not just in His written Word, but in Creation itself can we find that path, but it requires first engaging reality through the heart-mind. In living by our hearts, we will discover in any given context what it is that keeps us consistent with His moral character, and that brings Him glory. His glory in us is as much redemption as we can experience in this life.

Stop seeing it with your senses and your logic; that’s “just seeing things.” See it with your heart.

Posted in teaching | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Furnishings

Posted on January 25, 2016 by ehurst

(This post was imported from another blog that no longer exists.)

I wanted to orient my regular readers to this display theme. There aren’t that many free ones offered once you run WordPress on your own service and I felt I could do more with this one. I was able to add the blue color bars on the sides and easily change the photo at the top. I will do that from time to time, taking advantage of the scenery from my long bike rides.

The default font has been changed so that it depends on what you have on your system and what you have selected for your browser. The order of preference is Palatino, Times and then any serif font.

If any of these posts have comments, they’ll be displayed as a little blue “balloon” on the upper right of the post heading. I’m not thrilled with the huge tag markers at at the bottom but it will take awhile for me to figure out how to change that. I’m not that good with PHP and these theme files are broken down into lots of tiny bits.

The private message input form on the lower right has been tested and works well. What happens is that anything you send that way is handled by the email system on the server itself and is dropped into the inbox for my SoulKiln admin address. I’m still working on a general webform for the rest of this website. However, comments work the same as they do for any WordPress site.

You can make suggestions and I’ll see what I can do. This is your new parish facility, so don’t be afraid to speak up.

By the way, I am told the server is physically located in Washington, DC, which is a major Internet hub with lots of fat pipes. We aren’t hiding from anyone so I’m not worried about government snooping.

Posted in meta | Tagged | 3 Comments