Proverbs 12

Posted on May 23, 2015 by ehurst

We start to see a number of proverbs that appear little more than statements of obvious fact. These are most likely figures of speech meant to apply quite broadly as parables of something deeper.

1. Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge; but he who hates correction is like a brute animal. The first form of instruction implies correction, while the second implies something more forceful and severe. An ancient proverb suggests that learning and pain are common companions, so if you make them your ally, you understand how reality works — knowledge here is more like cunning or sharpness. If you act as if such things are your enemy, then you are more like a stupid cow.

2. The good gets grace from the LORD, but He will condemn a man of wicked thoughts. The image is how a sheikh handles his servants. Someone who actually serves the Lord’s interest will be provided with everything he needs for the mission, including the favor of God. This is favor as a badge of ensign that others can see. The servant who is constantly looking for his own advantage is the definition of corrupt, and can expect Jehovah to denounce him, the make an example of him.

3. A man shall not be established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. This repeats the previous proverb in different terms. You can’t become a valued and important member of the divine court if you don’t embrace the divine moral character. However, the one who clings to justice is strongly rooted in reality.

4. A woman of virtue is a crown to her husband, but she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones. Again, carrying forward the same thoughts as the previous two verses, the standard image of a family household is that of the Ancient Near Eastern feudal clan. As a man’s senior manager, his wife is his greatest asset, rather like a ruler’s elite bodyguard troops. There is nothing wrong with a woman who knows where to aim her feisty side, making outsiders hesitant to mess with his property. But a woman who turns her nasty side to her husband, and shames him in social situations, is like cancer that withers away his life.

5. The thoughts of the righteous are right; the counsels of the wicked are deceit. This appears rather obvious in English, but the flavor doesn’t come across well from the Hebrew. The point is that God judges intentions, not so much the ability to act nor the outcomes. That was the reason for the sacrificial system, to demonstrate moral intent, a proper sorrow that things don’t always come out right. The “thoughts” of the righteous indicates more than mere intellectual activity, but a sense of commitment to God’s revelation. The intentions of others are fraudulent by nature.

6. The words of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood; but the mouth of the upright shall deliver them. This presents words and mouth as symbols of what’s in the heart, rather like the phrase, “the Word of the Lord.” It indicates an expressed intent as if one were issuing covenant law to a vassal. The law by which the wicked live is predatory, lurking to harm. The conduct of the righteous, reflecting their decree to themselves, will keep them out of trouble.

7. The wicked are overthrown, and are gone; but the house of the righteous shall stand. This continues the theme of each of us living by our own chosen law in the little kingdoms, the limited dominion granted by God in each of our lives. There is a delicious ambiguity in the word “overthrown,” as it means both perverted and destroyed. But God long remembers the testimony of those whose exercise of dominion served His honor.

8. A man shall be praised according to his wisdom, but he who is of a perverse heart shall be despised. The first line is actually ambiguous, referring to how one’s public honor from God matches the quality of his wisdom. However, there comes a point when it’s not a question of quality but fundamental orientation. Thus, the perverse will curry God’s despite.

9. Better is a despised one, and having a servant, than he honoring himself and lacks bread. This is another figure of speech about how we run our personal domains. If God prospers our actions (wealth enough to own slaves), it won’t matter what other people think of us. But fame means nothing if God beggars your existence.

10. A righteous one understands the soul of his animal; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. There are better translations for this one. God created all things and made us managers. In our fallen state, we exercise that authority quite poorly, but it remains in our hands to some degree (according to the Covenant of Noah). So someone who seeks God’s moral character will acknowledge his domestic animals as creatures from God’s hand and take due care and responsibility for their lives. The contrast found its way into English long ago with the same sarcasm reflected here.

11. He who tills his land shall be satisfied with bread; but he who follows vanities lacks heart. Here we have more of the contrast between good and evil in terms of exercising dominion. This is mostly figure of speech: Stick with what God has called you to do. Whatever the brings you will fill your soul. Stop chasing stuff that appeals to your ego, because it only proves your heart is empty of any meaningful commitment.

12. The wicked desires the net of evils; but the root of the righteous yields fruit. A parallel to the previous proverb, this is related to another ancient proverb that says you don’t go hunting or fishing when it’s time to plant or harvest. The wicked “desire” here is the image of obsession over some ethereal vision of joy, in this case a preference for wasting time with predatory schemes. Stay home and take care of things in their season and you’ll never lack.

13. The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips, but the just shall come out of trouble. Another parallel, this proverb builds on the image of hooking or snaring. It also carries some humor — the phrase “transgression of his lips” could also be read “trespassing boundaries.” Thus, the wicked keep intruding where they’ll be trapped, but the righteous keep escaping the tight spots in life. Not just as an individual, this is the image of someone trying to move their entire household of people, herds and wagons.

14. A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth, and the reward of a man’s hands shall be given to him. This proverb rests on seeing the dramatic imagery. As before, speech is more at expressing one’s personal moral code of law. We see the humor of what comes out of your mouth is the fruit you can eat to your full, and what you give with your hands is the payment returned to your hands. The Lord fills our lives in the same measure as our obedience to Him.

15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, hut he who listens to advice is wise. Here we have contrasted the image of someone who listens only to the demands of their flesh, versus someone who learns from others. The ultimate aim of revelation is to build a cooperative and civilized community, not a bunch of wildly competitive idiots seeking some advantage over others. Israel had encountered several societies that made constant competition a virtue. It’s hard to explain the fundamental difference in the concept of wisdom here with the Ancient Near Eastern concept of virtue and civility against the false assumptions of Western societies.

16. A fool’s vexation is known in a day, but the astute one covers shame. Related to the previous proverb, this one emphasizes the hasty overreaction of fools versus the patient consideration of the wise.

17. He who breathes truth shows forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit. A mark of righteousness is honesty, someone who speaks according to reality. Don’t trust someone who is willing to deceive for any reason.

18. There are those who speak like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise heals. More of the previous verse, the imagery in this one has found its way into English figures of speech. It’s not a question of anyone’s feelings, but of how we respond to the troubles of others and the net result of how we talk.

19. The lips of truth shall be established forever, but only while I wink is a lying tongue. This is far more subtle than is apparent in English. If the edge of your mouth is consistent with reality as God declares it, if your personal law conforms to God’s personal justice, then you have been captured by Eternity. Deception is quite ephemeral, and will be wiped away when God redeems His Creation.

20. Deceit is in the heart of those who imagine evil, but to counselors of peace there is joy. More subtlety, we have a contrast between those who pursue excitement, drama and personal amusement versus those who seek shalom — social stability and the blessings of God’s revelation.

21. No evil shall happen to the just, but the wicked shall be filled with mischief. This paints the picture of someone who seeks wholeheartedly God’s divine justice, such that vanity or loss can’t stand to be around them. Such things keep their distance. By contrast, those who can’t be bothered to worry about justice will not only see calamity approach, but this fool will swallow it all down like a feast.

22. Lying lips are hateful to the LORD, but those who deal truly are His delight. While we have problem understanding the words here, we miss the full impact in our Western culture. Those who trust God have no use for deception even against their own enemies. The miraculous hand of God will not accompany those who use deception for any reason. All the more so is this true within a covenant community.

23. A wise man conceals knowledge, but the heart of fools cries out foolishness. This fills out the picture with the previous verse. Honesty is not a question of blabbering about every thought that crosses your mind. It’s not deception to keep private matters private. We might not see it quite the same terms as the ancient Hebrews, but minding your own business was roughly equivalent to contemplating in prayer instead of acting hastily.

24. The hand of the hard worker shall bear rule, but the lazy shall be under service. The Hebrew translated “hard worker” here carries the image of both diligent and decisive. That is, if you persistent, you’ll eventually know what you are doing. If you can’t be bothered with it, you’ll end up working for someone else just to pay off your debts — it’s the image of tribute owed to one who conquers your domain.

25. Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop, but a good word makes it glad. Most Westerners miss this one. It’s not at all a matter of how someone feels emotionally, but it’s a matter of having a confused or fearful conviction in the heart. Commitment from anxiety is burdensome, but a word of mercy that delivers from such confusion can really set someone free.

26. The righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, but the way of the wicked seduces them. Another case of subtle imagery that is hard to translate, the words here picture the difference in the kind of guidance folks offer. It’s the contrast between exploring and gaining a firm contextual understanding of your local terrain so that you can guide others versus the confused wandering of some fool who keeps trying to cut a new path and forgets to mark it. The latter makes everyone stumble. Which of these will be more helpful to his kin folks?

27. The lazy one does not start after his game, but the wealth of a hard worker is precious. We have no cultural equivalent for the figure of speech here. It’s not really a matter of mere food, but how one handles life in general. It’s the difference between someone who is too lazy to make up his mind what really matters and someone who is determined to find the moral treasures of this life.

28. In the way of righteousness is life, and in that pathway there is no death. This one is actually rather majestic in simplicity. We have two different terms for a well-established route, something that has been in use since before human memory. If you walk in holiness, the divine justice God revealed, then you will experience a vivid life as He intended, sweet and rich. Even if your expiration comes early, you won’t consider it death.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Proverbs 12

Heart: Awake and Clear

Posted on May 22, 2015 by ehurst

We have two concerns when we study how the Hebrew and other ANE cultures took seriously the heart as a superior intelligence.

First, we have a massive barrier in the form of Western Civilization. It’s not enough that the West has denied the existence of the heart as indicated in the Scripture, but the West also substitutes something else entirely in its place. So we have a serious problem with the word “heart” being saddled with a whole lot of bogus baggage. While Westerners might have some sense that the heart is not exactly intellect, they deny that it can be defined in any meaningful way. Instead, it’s just some kind of spooky magic that might turn out well. It’s just enough falsehood and truth mixed together to make the most powerful form of lie.

Second, we then have to struggle to keep the heart clearly committed to the Creator. While there aren’t too many folks in Western history who found, and then wrote about, the leadership of the heart, way too many of those who did were committed to various false understandings of the Creator. You can have a very active heart-led existence, but have a heart committed to a lie. Scripture mentions this problem all the time.

It’s funny how folks miss that Scripture does talk about concrete logic, and does provide examples of how you can speak in concrete terms on things that have no great moral significance. However, the Hebrew language presumes the most important things we can discuss are those that cannot be defined in concrete terms. So we discuss the Spirit Realm in parables and symbols, far too complex to be subject to concrete logic. Hebrew language presumed a different use of language itself. Words seldom mean things; words indicate paths to explore with a moral consciousness.

On this blog, I try to offer an image of life in three layers. The first is the obvious concrete material universe. Western logic (AKA Aristotelian logic) generally applies well on that level. The second is the Spirit Realm, which the West denies exists (because Aristotle denied it). It cannot be understood with the mind, nor even the heart precisely, but with the spirit raised from death by the Spirit of God. The third level is the intersection between the material and the spiritual: the moral realm. This is where the heart operates. If your connection to the Spirit Realm is wrong in any way, your morals will turn out wrong and your heart committed to something false.

Ask questions, because much of this is of necessity parable, not clinical discussion.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Heart: Awake and Clear

Online Privacy Site

Posted on May 21, 2015 by ehurst

Recently stumbled across this very aggressive online user privacy and security site: Better Web Browsing. It’s part of the RiseUp thing rooted in Seattle, generally leftist. While I’ve not done any detailed research on them, I’m sure you can find lots of ugly gossip and rumors about them from their political opponents. My initial assessment is that they are akin to the Occupy folks but better organized. There’s room for libertarians, I’m sure.

The point here is their recommendations for online privacy and security. I see several examples of misguided zeal and radical “scorched earth” policy. I suppose it works well enough for the stuff they do, but if you have a blog on any of the major free providers, you’ll run into trouble. For example, you simply must allow third-party cookies for all of the services I know about. Also, RiseUp still supports use of Tor, but I’ve found that to be a trap and easily compromised.

Still, there is good stuff, too. They warn you about the four most popular browsers. Then they forget to point out there are alternatives. Off the top of my head, there’s Opera (old line and new line, quite different), Pale Moon, Lynx, Links2, SlimJet, and dozens of others still in development, each with their own privacy and security advantages.

I’m especially pleased with the recommendation that you replace the various version of AdBlock and Ghostery with uBlock. Even AdBlock Edge has endorsed uBlock as a better replacement. I wish I had known about that before I released my most recent books on Debian.

At any rate, it’s typical of the half-way savvy new Networked Generation of folks. Very aggressive in certain things, but lacking a full range of experience us older security folks could share with them. There’s a lack of nuance in their work. For example, we agree Flash is bad, but there are Open Source versions in development that might solve some of the problems. Meanwhile, Flash is not fully retired from the scene, so if you don’t install some way of playing Flash, you’ll miss out on some of the stuff offered by those who haven’t seen any reason to change their practices. There’s not really wrong with their recommendations, but it seems they didn’t perform due diligence.

Overall, not too bad. It’s a decent quick reference to make you think about what you might do to improve security online.

Posted in computers | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Online Privacy Site

Proverbs 11 (Part 2)

Posted on May 21, 2015 by ehurst

16. A gracious woman keeps honor, and the strong keep riches. This one is a little ambiguous and often mistranslated. The image is not a contrast between men and women, but a woman who either acts like a lady or tries to compete with men. A woman who lives consistently with God’s revelation about gender roles will “feed what should be fat” — she’ll make life worth living. If she tries to act more like a plundering soldier, she might have money, but who wants to go home to her?

17. The merciful man does good to his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh. This flips the previous proverb over to the man’s role. This builds on the image of conforming to holiness as pulling yourself up into the higher realm of moral consideration, and being able to see what God intended in Creation. Your life is consistent with reality itself in the most subtle ways, as well as the more obvious pieties. Such a man is merciful, mindful of human frailty because he sees his own failures with full clarity. Harsh and demanding men destroy themselves, pushing far away from how reality actually works. It’s a very unhealthy existence.

18. The wicked makes a deceitful wage; but one sowing righteousness has a sure reward. Fundamental to the definition of good morals is living with your heart supervising your mind. The heart in Hebrew culture was the place where God speaks. To live by human talents alone is calling God a liar; it is wickedness defined. God is the ultimate master of wages, and pays according to how your heart belongs to Him.

19. So righteousness tends to life; but one pursuing evil, it is to his own death. English translators often spoil things by adding words they imagine are implied; forget the “tends” here. Good moral character simply lives; it is life defined. There’s nothing to chase after because the truth is right there in front of you. Rest in God and trust Him to show you. If you feel like you have to work all that hard and chase the truth down, you won’t find it. You’ll find death in the broadest meaning.

20. They who are of a perverse heart are hateful to the LORD, but the upright in the way are His delight. To whatever your heart is committed, that will you do. If by your mind you interfere with the proper functioning of the moral intelligence in your heart, you will pervert your commitments. Those who build commitments consistent with God’s revealed purpose will let you stand firmly in His favor.

21. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be innocent; but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered. More subtlety that escapes translation, we see the image of worldly men who ignore revelation joining hands like an army intending to stand against the truth. As with the Tower of Babel, they expect to build their own version of truth by their human abilities. But when the wrath of God comes, their fruit will be picked clean. They’ll have nothing to show for it. For those who embrace revelation, their fruit — as the source of seeds — will be saved in God’s pantry.

22. Like a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who turns aside discretion. Keep in mind that pigs were ritually unclean, detestable animals driven out into the wilderness. They had to hide out along the banks of wet places to survive in Israel. Who can bear the thought if getting close enough to one to fit it with any kind of animal control device, much less one made of gold? This shocking waste is just about what we might think when we encounter a woman who looks ravishing and has no sense of moral beauty to match.

23. The desire of the righteous is only good; the hope of the wicked is wrath. In Hebrew, the words for “desire” and “hope” here are conceptually very close. Both indicate a form of attachment. However, in the odd manner of terse Hebrew, it’s not meant to suggest that wicked people actually hope for wrath, but that the object of their affection guarantees wrath.

24. There is one who scatters and yet increases; but one who withholds just due comes only to poverty. This is a typical paradox. Within a covenant community, those who freely distribute whatever God has given them only make room for Him to give more. There’s nothing wrong with holding back things God says are reserved for some other purpose, but to be a tightwad guarantees God cannot give you more. Mercy and grace are like muscles that grow with use.

25. The soul who gives freely shall be made fat; and he who waters shall also be watered himself. Almost a repetition of the previous verse.

26. He who withholds grain, the people shall curse him; but blessing is on the head of him who sells. This extends the idea in the previous two verses. God gives material wealth so that you can experience the joy of sharing. Again, the context is a covenant community where everyone is family.

27. He who carefully seeks good gets favor; but he who seeks mischief, it shall come to him. The image here is someone who gets up early to pursue what’s just and right in God’s Creation. This is not a contradiction to verse 19 above, but another way of looking at the same thing. If you seriously God’s command to seek social stability (“good”), you should expect favor in general. This is contrasted with someone whose habits lead away from social stability; God will make sure their lives are unstable.

28. He who trusts in his riches shall fall; but the righteous shall blossom like a branch. It’s the contrast between spring and fall seasons. If material wealth is your god, then your life is autumnal in the worst sense of cold and dry, brown and drab. Those who place a high value in diving justice, even at the cost of material wealth, are living in eternal spring, always renewing and rejoicing.

29. He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind; and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart. What will you inherit? This is all about family loyalty, a prime virtue in Scripture. In this case, making trouble means creating a moral disturbance. Wait until you are in charge to demand changes or you won’t have anything to inherit. You’ll end up a poor starving wretch, serving someone who did wait their turn.

30. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he who wins souls is wise. The subtle Hebrew context here has nothing to do with the sales-pitch evangelism of modern Western church growth tactics. That can be faked entirely. The fundamental image here is more the focus of your life as a whole, the sense of what drives you in all things. We are building Life with a capital “L” — seeking to tie our existence here with Eternity. If your ambition is the souls of people, then your harvest is rich, indeed.

31. Behold, the righteous shall be rewarded in the earth; much more the wicked and the sinner. There is a forceful assertion here in the first line. We all know that a proper moral focus is otherworldly, but it is also the most practical approach because it is consistent with how the universe operates. However much good you can have in this life is found on that path. How much more so the bad that comes to the wicked, because whatever they gain in this life is all they have.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Proverbs 11 (Part 2)

Proverbs 11 (Part 1)

Posted on May 20, 2015 by ehurst

(This chapter in Proverbs is a little long with my commentary, so I won’t burden you with more than the first half. We’ll cover the second half later.)

We begin to see a more frequent grouping of proverbs by common themes.

1. False balances are hateful to the LORD; but a just weight is His delight. While the literal meaning is obvious, the symbolic meaning is the same as in the West. Justice itself in the broadest sense is represented as measuring against a consistent standard. People who consistently measure things against the moral character of God will find His favor.

2. Pride comes, then shame comes; but with the lowly is wisdom. This continues the theme of the previous verse. Arrogant presumption is not the same as confidence; it is overconfidence, a lack of proportion. People might not see the difference at first, but the longer term results will show what God favors. Not so much in worldly results, but in how the heart can detect moral confusion by the actions of the arrogant. Those who don’t take themselves so seriously are less likely to lock themselves into an untenable position.

3. The integrity of the upright shall guide them; but the crookedness of traitors shall destroy them. A bit of punning here that doesn’t translate well, this proverb contrasts the image of one who is never bothers to deceive or hide things against that of someone who is always sneaking around and trying to take advantage of others. The central element is trust that arises not from mere simplicity, but of carefully structured behavior that always makes plain what you should expect.

4. Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. The imagery is hard to translate. The image is not wealth itself, but wealth that one did not work hard to attain. Wealth that comes too easily robs one of moral character. It won’t matter what you have when you face God’s wrath, but whether His moral justice owns you.

5. The righteousness of the perfect shall make his way right, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. Life is likened to a journey. The word translated “perfect” indicates “what you ought to be.” A proper moral consciousness and living from the heart will make hazards obvious and easy to avoid. Moral weakness will make you stumble.

6. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but deceivers shall be taken in lust. The primary image is what you allow to control your decisions. What grabs you? Good moral character will snatch you away from harm, but moral confusion will drag you down into harm.

7. When a wicked man dies, his hope shall perish; and the hope of evil ones shall be lost. Death in Hebrew culture was a symbol for anything that threatened or shook your life around; we might say a rough ride. The first word translated “hope” is the image of commitment, something on which one depends, rather like a seatbelt. The second “hope” is the image of what one waits for, a cause for patient endurance. Without moral character, you’ll set your hopes on things that cannot possibly come.

8. The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked comes in his place. This restates the previous verse in different terms. To give the flavor of the Hebrew words, here we see that moral wisdom will pull a man out of a tight spot. Meanwhile, silencing your heart and living by lesser human reasoning will let you inherit his place in that tight spot.

9. A hypocrite corrupts his neighbor with his mouth; but through knowledge the just shall be delivered. The Hebrew here asks us to picture someone who invades your social gatherings without bothering to wash his clothes or even bathe, yet pretends that he fits right in. He’s a windbag with halitosis that could kill an ox. Your only defense is skillfully avoiding this beast.

10. When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; and when the wicked are destroyed, there is singing. On the one hand, we know the Hebrew mythos celebrated the simple life in tents. However, a vivid community life often resulted in building some few permanent structures, and it required serious skill and engineering wisdom to build in that rocky, hilly terrain. Thus, the image of a city is something with justified multi-generation investment for the good of the people. It is this long-term view where one expects to see God bless the righteous and punish the wicked. A city worth living in will tend to celebrate those long-term outcomes.

11. By the blessing of the upright the city is lifted up, but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. This extends the thought in the previous proverb. The blessing of any one morally upright person is a benefit to everyone in the community, but the wretched chatter of a morally filthy windbag will knock things down.

12. One despising his friend lacks heart, but a man of understanding remains silent. This is a forceful assertion that the heart is the seat of moral discernment. If you do not subject your mind to your heart, then you simply are not really alive. A primary symptom of a dead heart is an untamed mouth. An active heart of wisdom tends to make you talk less. This symbolizes the high value of contemplation in Hebrew culture.

13. One going with slander is a revealer of secrets, but the faithful of spirit keeps the matter hidden. We are presented with the image of a gossiper who invests some energy and effort in keeping track of everyone’s private business, not by going to the source, but gathering worthless scraps of false impressions. It constitutes verbal violence, ripping someone else’s clothes off in public for the sake of perverse entertainment. This contrasts with someone who genuinely cares and keeps their mouths shut.

14. Where there is no wisdom, the people fall; but in the multitude of wise men there is safety. Wisdom is depicted as ropes that bind things together tightly. The ideal community is where there are plenty of people who live by their hearts filled with good moral discernment. The implication is that moral education is more precious than just about any other investment you can make for the future of your nation.

15. He who is surety for a stranger shall be ruined; and he who hates suretyship is safe. This is another case of losing much in translation. It’s not considered a loan if you invest in the dreams of family member; it’s an investment of love and trust even if the money is lost. Investing in the business of someone outside your community is worse than gambling. Our Western concepts of contract and investment are torn to shreds here as violating God’s moral law.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Published: More Debian 8 for Beginners

Posted on May 19, 2015 by ehurst

Cover art for More Debian 8 for Beginners

Cover for second Debian book

I used a different computer to work on this one. That was painful. First of all, the process by LibreOffice for opening a Word Doc often corrupts some of the detailed formatting. Be careful if you do that. For my uses, we won’t be doing that again, except to convert the text to the Open Document format and converting to PDF. I ended up having to nuke the formatting for the whole freaking book, and then start over with all the formatting details. Something kept inserting line numbering in the headers and default indents that are simply wrong for Smashwords book formatting.

At any rate, it’s looking nice now in the ebook format so you can get your free copy of More Debian 8 for Beginners here.

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Published: More Debian 8 for Beginners

An Itch in the Moral Consciousness

Posted on May 19, 2015 by ehurst

The Cross was Christ’s greatest victory.

I don’t need to dramatize the human suffering of Our Lord; God save us from people who gild the lily. But I wonder how much it cost Him to show compassion to Pilate? In the midst of dying, He called for the Father to forgive them. But He also said, “Greater works than these shall you do” (John 14:12). Don’t tell me that loving your enemies isn’t one of the greatest miracles of all. That miracle is not outside the boundaries of what He wants for you.

What do you make of the story about the WW2 correspondence from a doctor who helped “liberate” one of the Nazi prison camps? Our culture is crazy in its binary obsession, that things must be either A or not-A. That’s okay if you are playing with rocks, but it won’t work with the human soul. So this man sworn to the Hippocratic Oath relished the torture and plundering of his former enemies. And his life was afterward filled with more contradictions. Whatever else that man was, he was an average Westerner.

But the story is propaganda. On the one hand, the author grudgingly admits that war can make you do crazy things. On the other hand, the doctrinal spite against some long dead enemy must be justified at all costs. “Gotta keep your eye on those Germans.” Our troops were just human, but the other side was demonic and evil. And may the approved deity forbid that anyone should ever question the orthodoxy of the Sacred Holocaust, nor permit anyone else to claim that they faced their own holocaust, lest it somehow diminish the mighty god to which they bow down. That anesthesiologist certainly believed what he was told.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I don’t dispute how awful it was to be Jewish in Nazi Germany. But nobody wants to hear about how awful it was to be German in the Post-WW1 Europe when everyone was trying to exterminate that nation. Even the much-loved Eisenhower was ready to slaughter every German living on the earth with bitter hateful glee. We cannot honor one truth by lying about everything else. The Allies were no more just and compassionate with their enemies than were the Germans to theirs. Maybe less so. I think the Defenders of the Sacred Holocaust are more rabid than Muslims who rise up against an insult on the Prophet.

Context is everything.

During my service as a Military Policeman, it was impossible that we didn’t encounter federal agents chasing some investigation. Those guys are hideously compartmentalized. On the one hand they often exhibited the most perverted sense of humor I’ve ever seen. It was damned nasty at times. On the other hand, they have zero sense of humor about something they encounter on the hunt for evidence. It’s bad enough we deal all day long with people who don’t quite understand the subtleties of sarcasm, but the feds must have taken advanced courses in how to be stupid. Not just hiding their own wit from their conscious minds, but they tend to be egregiously, hatefully stupid. Pull stuff out of context? It’s obligatory for them.

So we have wild accusations that some fellow named Chris Roberts commandeered an airliner and almost caused it to crash. He openly admits he did something like that, but it was in a computer simulation. Roberts is not a mass murderer, nor is he some kind of obsessed hacker willing to slaughter thousands because he can’t think beyond the thrill of cracking into a computer system. No, he spent the last few years warning everyone who was supposed to be responsible for fixing the problem that aircraft were wide open to such hacking. They paid no attention at all. So when he tried to force them to pay attention, they tried to arrest him.

And just who is the real threat to our safety when flying? Just about everyone officially charged with our safety — the aircraft manufacturers, the avionics and software makers, the NTSB and all the other alphabet soups, including the TSA who let him on the airplane. His restraint and care is exemplary. Whatever it was he did to test his claims in a real-world situation was so insignificant that the pilots never noticed.

Unlike Luke Rudkowski and John McAfee, I’m not going to insist you agitate for change or for realistic treatment of Roberts for his efforts to save our lives. What I ask is much simpler, well within your reach. Exercise compassion. It’s like a muscle, but without the inherent limits of flesh. When you use it, you let it use you, and it grows bigger than you. That’s what this business of “love your enemies” is all about. There are plenty of Herods in your life, for whom it’s too late and there’s not much you can do. Let God sort your Herods out, as Christ did while under arrest. Talk compassion to those who can hear it, as He did with Pilate.

Pilate performed his duty, but you can bet he was changed after that. While we would surely rejoice at manifestations of redemption, we aren’t really that concerned with real-world change. Jesus still went to the Cross, in part because it was a political necessity for the folks involved. God uses human politics for divine necessities that the people involved could never comprehend. Most of the world serves God unknowingly and unwillingly.

By contrast, we are unwillingly part of this world, consciously belonging to another realm of existence that humanity cannot know. We have to participate in His redemption willfully. This world will pass away, but His compassion lives eternally. We don’t join political organizations as if it really mattered. We aren’t that kind of change.

Take up your cross.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another Mission, Method and Means Comment

Posted on May 18, 2015 by ehurst

I wrote in my private journal:

There is a big difference between making Open Source your religion, Linux your sect, and the computer your church versus using these things as important tools in your religion. I call my religion “Kiln of the Soul” but it seems my heart demands that Debian specifically, and Linux in general, play a very important part in what I do as the means to opening the door to the gospel.

There was a time when I was trapped in the common mindset of the Linux fanboy. It included a lot of work in FreeBSD, but that was just another flavor as far as I was concerned. At some point I grew sick of the cultic madness and walked away from the whole thing. Once I was free of the weirdness, the Lord called me to bring back the use of Linux as merely the best tool for what lies ahead. I’m not even really sure what it is that lies ahead, but I’m determined to obey.

So you should expect to see more frequent posts about computers for a while because this is the current focus of where the Spirit is working in my life.

Posted in religion | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Another Mission, Method and Means Comment

Excerpt from “More Debian 8 for Beginners”

Posted on May 18, 2015 by ehurst

(This is a draft for one of the chapters.)

Networking with Windows

It’s rather common for computers to share Internet access from within the same living quarters or an office network. If your Debian box is connected to such a network, chances are you share that connection through a machine or device that is, in part at least, what we call a network switch. For example, a typical home router is also a switch, allowing several computers to connect. The computers connected to this switch or router constitute a Local Area Network (LAN). This generally includes any computers connected via wifi to the same switch/router. The point is that you have one device providing all the others with an internal network system, handing out internal IP addresses and so forth.

One of those services typically running on Windows that most people never use and don’t know about is Server Messenger Bus (SMB). Linux knows how to use this protocol, but we call it Samba. In fact, Linux machines can run this service, too, but for now, we’ll focus on using the Samba server already running on Windows machines. That is, you can use your Debian computer to connect to the Windows SMB service with just a little effort, and log into a Windows machine to access the files and maybe even the printer.

This won’t work from Debian by default. We need to add a couple of packages, which will pull in a few dependencies:

gvfs-backends
fusesmb

Once you have this, you can open up Thunar using the “Home” icon on your desktop. If you have the left pane displaying links, you’ll see an icon labeled “Browse Network.” Click on that and after a second or two you should see a list with at least one item: “Windows Network.” However, if Debian can identify any of the systems on that network, it will list them separately. In Linux Land, we refer to that as the “host name;” whatever it was the person installing decided to name their Windows box. If you click on that, you will probably be asked to log in, so you’ll need an account there with a user name and password.

Once you get past that, you’ll be presented with a list of places you are allowed to browse. You can figure it out from there, but files you are likely to want are under the “User” folder, then in either Public or some account folders. Keep poking around to find what you need. You should have permission to copy or move files between the two systems, and delete or edit files right on the Windows “server” itself.

If you intend using any printers connected to the Windows computer, you’ll need to do the research and find out how to configure Windows to assign share names to the printers. Essentially you dig into the printer properties and select to share it, when you’ll be given a chance to assign a share name. Keep it simple but unique to that printer.

Do the research and find out if that printer is supported by the printer system that runs on Debian (CUPS). Debian 8 comes with a fairly recent list already installed (unless you de-selected the print server during installation). The official list for CUPS itself is here. If Debian doesn’t have the particular driver installed, you can download the latest version from the Open Printer website; look for “directly download PPD” from the page that displays when you select a specific printer model. Then, at the point where you select your driver in the printer setup on Debian, simply opt to load the PPD from wherever you downloaded it.

Next, install two more packages in Debian:

smbclient
cifs-utils

These two will bring in a load of dependencies that mostly allow you to synchronize Windows type permissions on your Debian system. Now, in your main menu, go to System > Print Settings. Select to add a printer, where you’ll need to give your root password. This will open a dialog that includes a left pane showing an option for network printing. Click on this to open a list and at the bottom should appear something about Windows and Samba. Click this to open a new configuration window where you need to fill in the host name of the Windows computer and a user account login details. It should detect one or more printers, whatever is configured for sharing. The rest should be pretty obvious, but the tricky part is selecting the proper driver, as previously noted.

If you simply cannot make this work, there’s no shame in copying files for printing to the Windows computer and printing them from there. We’ve already set up file sharing access. Frankly, Windows drivers tend to work better than CUPS drivers do because the manufacturers make their money on the Windows version.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Excerpt from “More Debian 8 for Beginners”

Outline of “More Debian 8”

Posted on May 17, 2015 by ehurst

I’ve gotten this much on the second volume of my Debian 8 book:

1. Firewalling and a few other little extras — ntpdate (Internet clock sync), units (converting measurable units), how to use manual pages (manpages) and PySolFC with other games.

2. WINE — The software package that allows some Windows software to run natively on Linux. It’s different for 32-bit and 64-bit Debian, so I cover the difficulties.

3. VMs — Install and configure the Virtual Box virtual machine, and installing Windows on it. The best of both worlds because you can run all Windows software, not just a select few programs. Meanwhile, you get to keep the security of Linux running on the actual hardware.

4. Samba client — How to network with Windows computers on your LAN, logging into the Winbox because it runs the SMB service. I also cover how to connect to a shared computer on a Winbox.

5. File formats — The basic differences between the various file formats between Windows and Linux, and how to trade between them without difficulty.

6. Lynx — The plain text browser, how to configure and begin using it. In this chapter I also mention how to use the ‘alias’ command because it’s part of configuring Lynx.

Can anybody think of anything else a Debian beginner might need to know?

Posted in meta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Outline of “More Debian 8”