Technological Spite

Posted on December 17, 2015 by ehurst

Let me be the first to encourage you to stay away from computers.

I write that in a post on a blog many know to cover a lot of computer technology stuff. It’s not a bad hobby, so long as you don’t take yourself too seriously. As a field of employment, it can really suck. It’s like anything else: If you don’t need it, it’s nothing more than a toy. If you do need it, you’ll probably never know as much about it as you should and could.

We are witnessing a cultural shift, but it’s not here yet. The vast majority of what drives computer technology is still profit. Just because there’s a profit motive doesn’t mean there is no spite involved when it comes to abusing the end user of the product. It takes a certain amount of contempt for humans to adhere to a profit motive in the first place.

Every time I walk through a fresh install or re-install of Windows Vista or later, it’s the same creepy experience with the Borg mentality. You don’t install Windows; you sacrifice your computer on the altar to Big Technology profits. It’s not just Microsoft, but the entire ecosystem that they have created. We talk about how Intel has been so nice to Open Source developers and helping write the code to run all their hardware, but when it comes to Windows, they are just a evil as Microsoft, Google, Apple and everyone else. Have you seen their supposedly generic chipset detection tool, the thing you can install to identify missing drivers in Windows? Once that thing starts running, you lose all control of the process. It’s happened on several machines I’ve tried to fix.

Yes, there is button in the interface that you can click to cancel, but it will ignore you for at least the next 5-10 minutes on most machines. Want to uninstall their nifty little tool? You’ll get your computer back tomorrow. Why? Because they simply must use the latest version of .NET technology for this job, the slowest, fattest toolset ever created for a computer. You can write simple commandline scripts (“batch” files in Windows Land) and get it all done in less than a tenth of the time, and it won’t take nearly as long to download it. And it would make more sense to the user, because that stupid detection tool tends to disappear from the screen while it consumes every shred of computing resource on the machine while offering not a clue as to what the status is. Batch scripts at least tend to say something you might recognize when that CMD window opens.

There are other examples, but this one is the most recent irritations I’ve faced. That, plus the fact that nearly every service call I’ve had in the past year was a matter of a botched update on Windows. As I have previously noted, it was seldom this bad back through Windows XP, but since that time I face constant borking from Microsoft’s ham-fisted attempts to patch something entirely too complicated for anyone’s benefit. Windows Update is so shaky and fragile that you can never guess what’s going to cause it to destroy the system.

And if you try to ask their best technicians, no one has a clue. The error codes don’t mean a damned thing in terms of diagnosing what went wrong.

I’ve also warned that Open Source isn’t any more user-friendly than commercial software development, but it’s seldom that convoluted when it comes to fixing things. Given that the whole point of commercial development is getting you to surrender your privacy to snooping so that marketers can more effectively manipulate you, a significant factor in the process is making it incredibly difficult to understand. Otherwise you’ll turn stuff off that certainly isn’t helping you any. At least with Open Source, the only problem we have is that way too many developers have zero interest in what ordinary people want or need from a computer. But what they produce to please themselves does at least sometimes give us something useful and it’s always possible to adjust how it behaves because they also have no interest in hiding anything.

What infuriates me about all this is not how much of a hassle I face for myself, but that I have great compassion for the lost sheep who are totally helpless when Big Technology treats them with such contempt.

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Cool on the Katy Trail

Posted on December 16, 2015 by ehurst

While the temperatures are still unseasonably warm, heading out in a headwind at 40°F (4C) was a bit frosty. It’s an old Army thing to wear what you’ll wish you had on later when the temperatures peak against your activities. I miscalculated to the warm side, but it was still a bit rough starting off. Today I headed north on Air Depot Boulevard. I didn’t want to face the heavy traffic on NE 23rd, but Air Depot doesn’t go north of that because of Mount Trashmore, so I headed west on NE 10th. That meant dropping down a bit into the river bottom as I approached Sooner Road. Off to my right a train was just starting to move a bit on the track that crosses almost at the intersection, and is notorious for blocking traffic. I got across the tracks with time to spare, but it would catch me later.

So it was still a cool ride northward on Sooner, through the zigzag over the North Canadian River, and up the bank on the far side. The peak of this climb up Sooner Road is just beyond NE 50th. It’s also the point that divides two watersheds: the North Canadian and the Deep Fork. Knowing this helps you orient on what the expect from the terrain. Why do different watersheds have such differences? Because the differences were there first, and that’s what caused the water courses to diverge in the first place. In this case, it meant no more wide flat valleys, but some nice brutal hills. So after the divide was a fast run down into a creek valley and a brutal climb up to NE 63rd.PilgrimBaptCh

Turning left on 63rd took me through more brutal hills. Atop one of them is this aging structure, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. Nice native stonework on the outside, this is actually an expansion on the original little wooden church house that’s been there quite some years.PilgrimPlaque The plaque here on the left tells you some of the history. It also tells you about something many Baptists consider a serious idolatrous compromise. You have to understand Baptist politics and history, but if you don’t grasp that Freemasons are first and foremost about political influence, you really need to pay attention to something besides propaganda. Millennials and those younger will likely not grasp why this is such a big deal, but I’ll tell you a lot of Baptists would see that and turn to leave immediately for fear God would strike them dead — or something like that.

Just a little farther was something less controversial, I hope.3601NE63rdOKC On your right, this was once a really lovely house. Looks like a tree fell on the back half, but I’m pretty sure that was long after it was abandoned. This is on the north side of the street and I am standing on the bank of the Deep Fork itself, a very steep and fast ride downhill. The river is pretty trashed up at this point, as the area has seen human activity from early statehood times. Just over the river is the flagship Braum’s Dairy Store and main offices on the left, and on the right is a large construction firm that obscures the once-famous Expressway Airpark.

Under I-35 and up a hill that has dramatically changed recently — the county plunked a massive hideous “campus” of welfare offices there — I prepared to cut back under the NE Expressway at ML King Boulevard.CowboyHall Yeah, Remington Park off to the left on the other side of the Deep Fork and some other landmarks around this hilly area with lots of bluffs. Drivers were decent with me as I negotiated the multiple turn lanes to get back on NW 63rd. This used to be such a lovely natural area when I was a lot younger. Grand Boulevard was my next goal, which means running down behind the bluff and under NE Expressway again. To emphasize my point about spoiling nature, I stopped on the other side of the highway, climbed up to the guardrail and took this shot of the backside of the Cowboy Hall of Fame. This is the western edge of what becomes a steep bluff, and what you see here is mostly native.

Worse, the Cowboy Hall of Fame is not worth your time. It wasn’t too bad up through the turn of the Millennium, but operational control changed hands and the same corruption that characterizes everything else around here took over. It’s not half so interesting as it was before, yet the entry fee is astronomical. I’m sure every state and state capital has their own special flavor of corruption, but there was a time you could still find some good stuff around the state, even here in OKC. Those days are gone. The political leadership envies the really famous places and locals are the last people considered. Most of the people who live within walking distance of these attractions can’t afford to get in the door.

LakeSpillAnyway, this put me at the head of the Katy Trail, about which I’ve written enough already. However, today I stopped and was able to capture the spillway from the lake that snuggles up against our OKC Zoo and Science Museum (no longer really worth it, either). If you view this odd-shaped spillway straight on, it’s visually disturbing. A couple of previous attempts at photography were just too weird, but this time I believe I got it. That’s zoo stuff in the background.

RRxingNE4thI made a fast ride in the light traffic conditions and cut back east on NE 4th toward home. Remember that train? The cars had been pushed downtrack toward the city past a switch, then pulled back up the other track crossing Sooner Road where the auto dealers’ railhead stands east side in a former hay field. As I whizzed along NE 4th, I just missed passing in front as the engines reversed. The thing was just barely moving in this picture where I turn right to cross the tracks. I was left to watch for some 5-10 minutes right near the future proposed Midwest City rail terminal. It was short ride after that back east on Reno to the apartment.

Yep, I was now wearing just a bit much as the thermometer hovered around 48#176;F (9C).

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Proverbs 23

Posted on December 16, 2015 by ehurst

This chapter continues the theme of the previous, in which an aging ruler seeks to warn his heir from folly. We continue with the longer statements in small paragraphs.

1-3. When you sit down to eat with a ruler, look carefully at what is before you; and put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite. Do not desire his delicacies, for they are deceitful food. Cynicism is not your soul, but your friend. All the more so should you keep cynicism close when in the presence of human authorities. Don’t just swallow whatever they give you; pay close attention and consider everything carefully. With rulers, manipulation is the norm. It’s not the same as calling every ruler evil, but that it is simply a part of their position. Note that if you don’t suck up to them, they are more likely to treat you with respect.

4-5. Do not labor to be rich; cease from your own understanding. Will your eyes fly on it? And it is gone! For surely it makes wings for itself; it flies into the heavens like an eagle. Ancient figures of speech don’t translate easily here. This continues the theme of cynicism by applying it to yourself. Don’t be a sucker to your own apparent success. Always assume you are missing something critical; not in the sense of paranoid obsessions, but you should always seek counsel from those who see things differently. That warm glow of satisfaction can fly away suddenly when your accomplishment turns out to be worthless against the reality of unanticipated difficulties.

6-8. Do not eat the bread of him who has an evil eye, nor desire his dainty foods; for as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. Your bit which you have eaten, you shall vomit up, and spoil your pleasant words. More of the noble cynicism should teach you it’s better to go hungry than accept support from someone who operates from spite. The English confuses things by translating two different words as “heart.” A spiteful man does not think with his heart; the first occurrence of the word is nephesh, more often translated as “soul” and implies a lower level of awareness, of mere intellect and reason. Since such a man ignores the moral understanding of his heart, then surely his heart is not with you. You may well suffer his spite yourself for rejecting his enticements, but it’s better than weakening your position by the taint of his fellowship.

9. Do not speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words. This is a companion to the previous paragraph. The word for “speak” means to explain something. This reflects the broader wisdom of keeping your mouth shut until you have people’s attention. A fool pays attention only to his personal fantasies and is angered when someone deflates them and makes him feel like the fool he is.

10-11. Do not remove the old landmarks, and do not enter into the fields of the fatherless; for their Redeemer is mighty; He shall plead their cause with you. The image of “the fatherless” is the ultimate symbol of those who are the easiest targets for abuse; no one seems to care if they are treated unjustly. Perhaps the best cultural equivalent for this proverb today is shattering the illusion of entitlement. There’s nothing wrong with reassessing traditions if you seek to understand what they protect in moral terms. But too often people are seeking only an excuse to fulfill their own lusts, and such an examination turns into a legalistic exercise in moral perversion. Change archaic customs, but don’t attack the divine moral justice behind them. There is a Creator who stands behind His own moral character woven into Creation.

12. Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to the words of knowledge. This is a customary closing that marks the end of Solomon’s quotation from the Egyptian source. This is the standard recognition that the heart-mind is the proper center of our existence in this fallen realm of existence. When the focus of your awareness is in that higher level of eternal moral convictions, your ears will be attuned to ideas in the mind that support God’s moral character. Solomon continues in the same style, echoing a wider wisdom established well before his time.

13-16. Do not withhold correction from a boy, for if you beat him with the rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell. My son, if your heart is wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my heart shall rejoice when your lips speak right things. This follows directly on the previous admonition. Again, the Ancient Near Eastern concept of human nature is something not necessarily evil as it is fallen and in need of moral boundaries. The term for “rod” is contextually more like a switch. Once a human develops to the point they can grasp the notion of a heart-led existence, they don’t need much correction of that sort, but it takes considerable years of experience to develop that moral wisdom that would make a father rejoice.

17-18. Do not let your heart envy sinners; but be in the fear of the LORD all the day long. For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope shall not be cut off. Continuing along the same line of thought, it’s entirely possible for your heart to take the wrong path, too. While we don’t have any sort of clinical terminology for it, the Hebrews surely understood it, referring to a darkened heart. Thus, the warning here is to avoid such darkness by choosing your models carefully. Be conscious of who your heroes are, in terms of how well they represent the revelation of God. While the Hebrew term translated “hereafter” is ambiguous, only with a Western bias would anyone imagine the Hebrew people didn’t believe in a Spirit Realm wholly separate from this level of existence, a place where your standing with God made all the difference, a difference we tend not to see so clearly here below.

19-28. My son, hear and be wise, and guide your heart in the way. Do not be among those who drink much wine, among gluttons for flesh for themselves, for the drunkard and the glutton lose all, and sleepiness shall clothe a man with rags. Listen to your father who sired you, and do not despise your mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice; and he who fathers a wise child shall have joy from him. Your father and your mother shall be glad, and she who bore you shall rejoice. My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes watch my ways. For a harlot is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lies in wait as for prey, and increases the treacherous among men. Solomon lays it on thick here because the danger is so very great. One of the quickest ways to destroy everything that matters on this earth is through dissipation, and it’s much worse for rulers because they bear the guilt of destroying everyone they rule at the same time. Thus, the appeal here is first personal: “Don’t crap on your mother and I, son.” The two primary concerns are drunkenness and skirt-chasing.

29-35. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has fighting? Who has babbling? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who stay long at the wine, those who go to seek mixed wine. Do not look upon the wine when it is red, when it gives its color in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like an asp and stings like an adder. Your eyes shall look upon strange women and your heart shall speak perverse things. Yes, you shall be as one who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as one who lies upon the top of a mast, saying, “They struck me; I was not sick; they beat me, but I did not know it. When I awaken, I will add more. I will seek it again.” The same warning as the previous paragraph continues under the appeal to self interest. Here Solomon shows how the two greatest threats are intertwined. Drunkenness leads to adultery, and the stress from that can lead to more drunkenness. Nobody in the Old Testament condemned sex or wine in themselves, but like every other good thing from God, it’s too easy to make lesser things your god. Lust can pervert the message you hear from your heart.

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Another Mystery Solved

Posted on December 15, 2015 by ehurst

151214-1I get it now. The workers are attempting to restore the river banks to a previous location. What I couldn’t capture with the camera was what I saw almost behind me from where I took this shot. During the spring flooding the bank was completely eaten away by some 40 feet (12 meters) so that the bridge abutment on the south end was at risk. One more decent flood and the water would probably cut the bank back far enough to wash out behind the abutment and collapse the road. That would be one hellacious bad mess because all the heavy truck traffic would have to go several miles either side to bypass this bridge.

Thus, you can see in this photo how the huge stones are being piled in the flat riverbed. This will be used to create an artificial bank and the space to the left will be filled back in, probably with sand they recover downstream. That wouldn’t be too hard right now with the water level so low.

Of course, that doesn’t explain the work farther to the north where that enigmatic new stone wall runs alongside the road. I suppose we’ll see soon enough because the workmen are digging what appears to be utilities access in the field beyond the row of yellow equipment visible on the far bank.

The only other item of interest from my ride yesterday was this ancient cracker-box house in Spencer.151214-2 At one time there were dozens of these in the little town, but only a few still stand now.

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Proverbs 22 (Part 2)

Posted on December 15, 2015 by ehurst

12. The eyes of the LORD keep knowledge, and He overthrows the words of the transgressor. This is a humorous play on words in that “keep” can imply hiding something or making it mysterious, while “transgressor” arises from the concept of sly or sneaky. The latter is superficial, while the former is far more even than existential. This is highlighted by the contrast between God’s knowledge in the sense of awareness that takes in all Creation versus the intent of the sneak that tends to consume his awareness. You can’t fool God.

13. The lazy one says, “There is a lion outside; I shall be killed in the streets.” This is preposterous for the obvious reason that some people will use any excuse, even making them up if necessary, to avoid something they find unpleasant. “Wait; what was that noise I heard outside?” In this context, it becomes the excuse for avoiding the effort to obey God’s command to invest oneself into truly understanding His Word by doing it.

14. The mouth of strange women is a deep pit; those despised by the LORD shall fall there. This is an obvious reference to adultery. In this context, the emphasis is on distraction from duty. A man’s lusts can wreck his moral priorities and there is no shortage of folks who want something from you. Guard yourself from plunging into God’s disfavor because it’s awfully hard to escape.

15. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. In our natural state we are senseless and destructive. There is a fundamental moral necessity for humans to develop beyond that natural state, to fight against the sickness of the Fall. This is the whole point in revelation. The process cannot be made painless.

16. He who crushes the poor to multiply for himself, and he who gives to the rich, only to come to poverty. This echoes a very ancient fundamental understanding that we mistake for some kind of Robin Hood ethic. In the ancient world, virtually everyone you encountered was some kind of relative. Your neighbors were your kin. There were distinct moral boundaries between how you treated strangers and your own kind. You were decent with strangers until they proved themselves a threat, but it was shocking to oppress your own cousins just because God had granted you some small advantage. Blessings were meant to be shared, not further concentrated into fewer hands in defiance of the conditions laid down by God in His Law. Defiance of Law is defiance against nature itself, and you should expect unpleasant consequences in the long run.

We take a moment here to note that scholars detect starting here and half-way through the next chapter a strong similarity between this and some proverbs recorded in Egyptian wisdom literature (specifically, Instruction of Amenemope). It reads very much like a direct insertion of different material. Solomon hardly hides the extent of his borrowing as a collector of proverbs. The other scholars who divided this work into chapters and verses were keeping an eye on themes, not source material. They seemed unaware that some of the following material should have been kept together in larger chunks, but they still understood the apparent context of how Solomon used it, because the original author wrote for his own heir.

17-21. Bow down your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to My knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you; they shall all be fitted in your lips, so that your trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to you this day, even to you. Have I not written to you excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make you know the sureness of the words of truth; to return the words of truth to those who send to you? This is a formulaic introduction to the section following. However, it is also a general statement about the value of wisdom literature itself. Proverbs were meant to summon up a frame of reference wherein you stop your mind running off without considering what the convictions in your heart have to say. Keep things in a moral perspective.

22-23. Do not rob the poor, because he is poor; nor press down the afflicted in the gate; for the LORD will plead their cause, and strip the soul of those who plunder them. This a play on words because the Hebrew for “strip” includes the idea of plunder. Whether seeking justice or simply as beggars, people hung out in city gates because that’s where they were most likely to be noticed. You may well get away with oppressing such folk in material terms, but you will destroy your soul and make of yourself an empty husk. Those who still operate from the heart will discern you quickly and avoid you.

24-25. Make no friendship with an angry man; and you shall not go up with a man of fury, lest you learn his ways and get a snare to your soul. The translation tends to trivialize the imagery and misses some of the humor. Don’t play fellow shepherd with someone whose only mastery is having a bad attitude; don’t wander with someone led by their appetite for outrage. This is not a good apprenticeship, because it simply leaves your life hanging by a noose.

26-27. Be not one of those who strike hands, of those who are sureties for debts. If you have nothing to pay, why should he take away your bed from under you? The echoes the previous proverb in terms of investment. To “strike hands” is a figure of speech for making deals and binding yourself under contracts of partnership. The context implies that you provide funding for another man’s venture plans. This is more than just a warning about being a sucker, but Westerners cannot comprehend how fundamentally immoral it is. Biblical morality insists that you work your investments with your own hands unless the investment is so trivial you can afford to throw it away — you won’t lose sleep over it. By the same token, an entrepreneur should never make himself beholden to investors who don’t share his sense of divine calling.

28. Do not remove the old landmark which your fathers have set. Ancient folk didn’t carve up the land using mathematical precision; it was too easy to dispute. Rather, they established boundaries based on natural features. When such were lacking, they would bring together the interested parties and ritually establish some symbolic marker. It became a de facto covenant sworn before God, as if He were the enforcing sovereign. You wouldn’t move it without repeating the entire process. Such markers became the symbol of moral boundaries for obvious reasons. Any man can sneak up at night and move the stone, or do so incrementally over a long period, and humans might not notice. God is watching and His moral character does not change with the winds of human attention.

29. Do you see a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before unknown men. Again, the subtlety is lost in cultural translation. The word for “business” arises from the concept of an appointed duty under a higher authority. This is hardly the image of some slavish yes-man, because in Solomon’s world everyone serves some higher feudal authority, almost invariably one of your kin. It was a personal bond, not a mere contract. Somebody has to take responsibility to those above him, so if you take seriously the importance of being one less thing he has to worry about, because you are a living solution instead of a consuming problem, you’ll go far in this world. It’s not a question of actual success, but attitude.

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Proverbs 22 (Part 1)

Posted on December 14, 2015 by ehurst

In his better moments, Solomon was struck by the realization that much of what made life so sweet under his father’s reign was fading away. Some of it was buried under the wash of foreign influences his fame brought to Jerusalem, so he surely realized that his own hands shared in the guilt. Perhaps he saw the sorrows his own heir would cause many, because Rehoboam lacked the depth character that comes from facing life with only your moral sensibilities against very little physical comfort. Thus, the theme of this chapter is guarding the ancient treasures from loss.

1. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches; and loving favor rather than silver or gold. From the depths of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures, it was long regarded as the highest mark of divine favor that one should possess an established unique moral character. Perhaps it is God’s sense of humor that the Hebrew word for that (shem) is pronounced “shame.” It would be easy for someone in Solomon’s court to get lost in the material opulence and forget how it symbolized God’s rich blessings in granting him such a grand moral discernment.

2. The rich and poor meet together; the LORD is the maker of them all. This is connected to the previous verse. Whence the designations of rich and poor? Who decides what qualifies a man for either label? Everyone stands before the Creator as mere creature, so it is His regard that matters.

3. A prudent one foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. Along the same lines as the previous, this is rather equivalent to realizing when to cut your losses based on what really matters. If you can discern the approach of sorrow, don’t waste time arguing with God and trying to negotiate over stuff He can replace, just take the obvious morally appropriate action. A fool by definition blunders through this world paying no attention to moral considerations. Will they recognize God’s wrath for what it is?

4. By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches and honor and life. The first word here — “by” — misses the rich flavor in the original term: the heel of something, the end result. We tend to read this English translation with the wrong cultural baggage holding us back. The last phrase is a figure of speech for shalom — the promised blessings of God’s moral law. They were symbolic; nice to have, but if you don’t seek God’s mercy and favorable regard, they won’t do much for you. The comforts God offers in this life take on the wrong meaning if they don’t arise as the end result of embracing His moral character.

5. Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; he who keeps his soul shall be far from them. We might not call it a pun, but the Hebrew imagery here is humorous, relying heavily on the wide concept of what is natural, what is built into this world by God’s design. In Creation, thorns serve to warn you off. Sin here is pictured as perversity, of twisting what God gave us, pushing against thorns and ripping your life to shreds as they hold you fast. To “keep” one’s soul arises from the Hebrew concept of a thorns as a protective hedge.

6. Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it. As usual, rich imagery here does not translate. Children in Hebrew culture represent raw talent and a wealth of natural urges that can get you into trouble. Beautiful, wild and free, but likely dead soon if you don’t help them discover God’s intentions for all those things. Thus, the Hebrew term for training is narrowing, cutting and pressing extraneous projections that will get caught on natural threats. The path of life requires we manage to fit ourselves through narrow portals with as little struggle as we can manage. Train them well and they won’t struggle, feeling lost at the end of life.

7. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. This is one of those pithy reminders to consider the implications of your choices. Rather than impart some kind of moral condemnation on political power, this proverb simply notes how such power is gained, whether good or ill. In general, rich folks can buy influence. But when you borrow for any reason, you have sold some part of your future to the lender.

8. He who sows iniquity shall reap vanity; and the rod of his anger shall fail. This is a play on words about progeny. You cannot build a blessed future by taking moral shortcuts at the start. Pay your dues early and endure the discomfort and inconvenience of maintaining moral justice with an eye to social stability. Otherwise, you’ll be on the wrong track, and what you leave for your kids to inherit won’t be worth anything. You’ll end up frustrated and morally powerless. The word “rod” means both scepter as a symbol of authority and as a figure of speech for your heirs; it’s a general concept of one’s dominion, legacy and estate.

9. He who has a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he gives of his bread to the poor. Without the cultural context, this can lead to a false morality. In Solomon’s world, the fundamental frame of reference was Ancient Near Eastern feudal structure in human society. The “everyman” figure was someone who was head of his household, never mind how rich or poor his private dominion might be. Additionally, the eye was not just a matter of sight, but of perception. If your perception assumes that God has granted you a rich domain with the feudal expectation that you will use it to bring Him fame and glory, then you will have no trouble generosity and taking proper care of those who are dependent on you (“the poor”). In return, your divine Sheikh will show you great favor. Westerners are clueless about the moral frame of reference in which God decides who is your dependent.

10. Cast out the scorner, and fighting shall go out; yes, quarrels and shame shall cease. This rests on an ancient image of dispossession, rather like Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. The unjust squatter to drive out is someone who stirs up trouble, typically by bullying and mocking, someone who doesn’t understand the proper use of human speech. Thus, when they leave, a huge load of dissension and fighting goes with them. The image of “fighting” is lawsuits, complaints lodged against each other before some authority, along with the resulting shame of someone who cannot rule his own home in peace.

11. He who loves pureness of heart, grace is on his lips; the king shall be his friend. As a general principle of human politics, knowing how to say the right thing at the right time will keep you in favor with those in power. You can fake it, but that’s hard work and too easily fails at the worst moment. Better it is to gain it honestly, and the best way to do that is to genuinely love the moral guidance of a heart that suffers no confusion about who is God.

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If Only I Had the Words

Posted on December 14, 2015 by ehurst

Let me feed your soul.

We don’t have a good word for it, so we stole one from another language and then gave it a new meaning — agape. It’s current meaning as “holy and sacrificial compassion” was actually established by the Septuagint some time before Christ. But it was the birth of Christianity that gave the word wide recognition before it was all frozen by the demise of heart-led living. The word now serves you and I as a parabolic expression of our recovery of that heart-led existence. John saw that coming near the end of his career, and wrote of it in his Apocalypse.

Perhaps you won’t see it as a cheap escape from the work of writing to link a couple of YouTube videos. The first is a duet from with Mylon LeFevre and Carole Ford. She doesn’t get nearly the attention he has gotten, but her voice is so lovely, a grand compliment to his. This was the final cut from his 1987 album Crack the Sky.

Then I would like to jump back to an earlier album of his, More from 1983. Again the final cut, but this song has less of him and more of what made him. That is, Mylon’s conversion came at a concert early in the career of Second Chapter of Acts, in which Matt Ward and his two sisters — Annie Herring and Nelly Greisen — brought high-powered high-brow vocal training and talent to the Contemporary Christian Music scene. You’ll hear the unmistakable soaring tenor of Matt Ward on this one. It’s actually two songs, the first a recitation from John’s Apocalypse, where the Lamb of God is revealed and celebrated. The second part of the song is Mylon’s imagination of what it might sound like. The title of the two is “Praise Hymn” and “The Gift.”

I’ve owned the albums but the physical media has long since been lost in an emergency move to escape Hurricane Rita. These two are among the songs I’ve pulled off YouTube and converted into MP3 files for occasional inspiration.

Prayer request: While the OS is now more tolerant of keyboard errors on this laptop, I’m still having enough trouble with it that I need to replace it. I’m not worried about the task itself, but as keyboards go, it’s not cheap because of the back-lighting — OEM is around $30 and payday is another couple of weeks. I need patience with this thing until the replacement is available. Otherwise, this is a really great machine for the ministry.

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The Wrong Right

Posted on December 13, 2015 by ehurst

The backlash from the Right is upon us.

Keep in mind that I do not support any part of the system, so don’t get any silly ideas that I might actually favor any of the figures involved in the current political scene. I might admire certain traits and their political skills from a distance, but I want no part of their world.

So perhaps you are aware that Donald Trump as presidential candidate is leading in the Republican polls. He is very much the Alpha Male in this race in terms of voter popularity. You may recall I jokingly suggested that he needs to hire some thugs to kill or put the screws to a large number of Republican party apparatchiks. I was only half-joking in the sense that I don’t actually advocate such violence, but I honestly believe he can’t win any other way. Apparently the apparatchiks have begun planning their own game. Were you aware that there was some violence against Ron Paul’s delegates back when he ran for president? And he didn’t have a chance, so there was really no need beyond sheer intimidation. With Trump’s very real lead in the polls, you can be sure the party leadership will use violence against his organization. We might not hear much about it, but I’m willing to bet it happens. The Neocons will never permit the least measure of fairness. Their bitterness is bottomless.

Meanwhile, the one candidate most likely now to actually win this threatened floor fight is Marco Rubio. Take note of the promises he makes, because you can be sure he will honestly try to keep them. The few decent things Obama has done will be rolled back, and all the worst he has done will be pushed to extremes. But I’m willing to bet the Republican Party will nominate Rubio regardless of whom the voters support. Gone are the days of keeping up appearances of democracy; naked power plays are the new normal.

Of course, I’m not ruling out any surprises. Violence against the candidates themselves would not be entirely new. That may return. And there’s always room for some other kinds of big surprises. It’s not just some slender differences in policy outcomes between Trump and Rubio; they aren’t that different. It’s that Trump is his own man, and we haven’t had anything but empty suits for the longest time in the Oval Office. The system will not permit real leadership from the office itself.

And a part of me wonders just how violent things may be. This is the part where I hope I’m mistaken, but the violence has just begun. So far our government has lied about every single episode of senseless brutality that made the news, and routinely lies in court about the stuff that doesn’t make the news. You don’t have to believe it’s all false flags, but all the way back to at least JFK’s assassination, the reflexive deception has been a major factor in every incident beyond routine petty crime. So all the supposed changes meant to protect us are no such thing; they are to protect elite privilege and nothing more.

The boiling cauldron of right-wing violence is about to spill over. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

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Crushed by Glory

Posted on December 13, 2015 by ehurst

Over the years since my formal conscious departure from social convention, I’ve often found myself still dragging the weight of false conditioning. My mental reflexes are still wrong in so many ways. That in itself was a source of great sorrow until I was seized by the realization that holiness is in the sensitivity, not the success. Righteousness is the willingness to learn in the heart and teach the mind. This is part of why I insist that you not take my word on things, because while I’m utterly convinced God will not permit my silence, I’m also quite certain I’ll say some things that you need to ignore.

That is, don’t pay so much attention to the ostensible meaning of what I write here, but see through the exercise of writing and reading to discern the thread of heart-led operation. Some of those heart-led revelations from God can shock my mental reflexes, and create a sense of emergency where there is none. The change in my own realizations filled me with and urgency that was wholly internal. I deeply regret all the times that flaw led me to write things in a tone that implied you folks needed to take some hasty action. Again, please see through my words and follow your own heart, because I’m not sure there is any way I can change the way I express things here.

I’m quite sure I’m not alone. The vast weight of God’s glory and holiness disorients human flesh. We see quite often in Scripture where some messenger of God was so deeply enthralled by the unearthly sensory data that it overwhelmed their heart’s leash on the mind. This is why at the transfiguration of Jesus (Matt. 17, Mark 9 & Luke 9:28ff) that we see the apostle blabbering silly things about shrines. I know exactly how he felt in that moment.

I’ve been blabbering for years about a time of tribulation coming. That part I got right, because it’s here. The impact on my soul at every fresh reminder often led me to jump the gun on what I should do about it, and it showed up in what I wrote at the time. This is where I remind you: Don’t follow me. I’m lost, too. I was often ready to erect a shrine, but that’s because I really hadn’t seen much, only the beginning of things. It was all fresh and new to me, and I hope I never lose that sense of wonder.

This is exactly the opposite of what The Cult is doing to the rest of the world that knows little or nothing of heart-led existence. They keep piling on new shocks, but not of the holy kind. Rather, they are shocks calculated entirely on the basis of human senses and logic. They throw outrages at us, knowing that the majority of humanity will get all riled up until, at some point, the excitement wears off. And then the shocking evil becomes routine. Meanwhile, The Cult has been threading into our cultural expectations a whole new set of false expectations so they can shock us again later on. The Cult could care less about the moral content of all this; the cycle of shock and jading is the whole point. It serves to trivialize the divine revelation of God’s moral character.

Now we come to the point where you have to work out your own implications. There will be tribulation: war, disease, deprivation, and unimaginable bloodshed. In some ways it’s nothing new to human memory, but some of it will be quite new to our senses individually. Even the wisest will be momentarily surprised by what they see, if only because none of us is allowed to keep track of what’s really going on. It’s not that truth can actually be hidden, but that the price of access becomes rather high. Access to the real truth in one particular area of human activity will consume too much of you to enable a wider awareness, so there will always be surprises for each of us.

Oddly enough, this is how God works with us. Since none of us can see what He sees, He parcels His truth out into manageable chunks for each of us. You have your calling and I have mine. To the degree we overlap, we can fellowship with, or at least entertain, each other. Feel free to laugh at me, because I sometimes do that when I look in the mirror, so you would only be laughing with me. Take seriously the business of revealing God in your life.

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Psalm 79

Posted on December 12, 2015 by ehurst

Like Psalm 74, this is a threnody for Israel the Mission. Something brought the wrath of God on His people, His city, and His Temple. Asaph’s cry is not for mere vengeance, but for God’s glory and a restoration of the mission to reflect that glory in His blessings.

It would be a mistake to read back into this passage the racism common in Jesus’ day. Asaph clearly understands that being God’s Chosen is a high privilege, not some divine right. The problem here is that the nations who don’t know God and don’t take His name or reputation seriously have defiled His holy place. Worse, they have ravaged the structures and plundered some of the dedicated articles. If the knew God and were mindful of His holiness, this would be totally different. Still worse, these invaders have defiled the Temple grounds with unjust blood, and treated victim’s bodies with contempt. Finally, all those nearby who long have hated Jehovah and His mission of revelation are now emboldened to blasphemy.

More than merely a common question, it is proper protocol to ask in this fashion, “How long, O Lord?” Hebrew culture viewed time differently, and things of this nature were seldom measured in standard increments. Rather, the question calls for a sign, something to indicate when this thing has ripened and is ready for harvest. The question is a figure of speech aimed more at, “What fruit do You seek? Is this the end for us?” The wrath of God is meant for those who don’t know Him and His ways, and obviously Israel has slipped into that territory. When the Psalmist sees that wrath falling outside of Israel over the defiling His name, he will know that God has heard his cry.

Only a fool denies that Israel has sinned, surely in the past if not in the present. She has never been worthy of divine favor. The issue hangs on God’s mercy, not human worthiness. Thus, rescue is all a matter of His glory, not anything due the people. Has God invested so much of His reputation in Israel to let her die to the sound of blasphemy? At least show Your hand of power on the enemies of Israel, as well, O Lord. And if we can find favor in Your sight, rescue us through their demise.

Rightly has Israel been taken into punitive custody. And rightly does she bemoan her fate. So let the crying touch Your heart, Lord. May the curses heaped on us by our envious neighbors be paid back upon them “in sevens” (a figure of speech for something sacred). The final scenario is that the redeemed will celebrate the greatness of their God.

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