Linked to Eternity

Posted on June 21, 2014 by ehurst

There are no particular facts, but Scripture indicates spiritual awakening is all-or-nothing. Once the Spirit invades your being, all of Eternity comes with Him. The connection is complete. Why it is we cannot then immediately exercise all the gifts of the Spirit is a question with no simple answer. Obviously the hindrance is somewhere below that level for us.

This man was listening to Paul as he was speaking. When Paul stared intently at him and saw he had faith to be healed, he said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” (Acts 14:9-10)

Our Western trained instinct is to ask a thousand questions regarding instrumentality on something like this. There were physical symptoms for his malady. Were there physical symptoms of faith to be healed? In what sense did Paul “see” that man’s faith? Should we expect it’s something we can learn? Could we then unlock whatever potential it was that allowed Paul to perform miracles of healing?

Is there a minimum standard moral and spiritual equipping? What does it take to break through our balky flesh and intellect? Is it some kind of failure that some folks can do this and others cannot? Such questions were central to the horrific trouble Paul had in Corinth with the gifts of the Spirit.

The Corinthian population was hardly a good example of Greek culture and learning. They were about as materialistic and superstitious as the barbarians far to the north in central Europe. That is, what dogged the Corinthians trying to cross over into a spiritual life is similar to what the Anglo-Saxons brought to the question. To the degree both failed, it was the same fundamental failure. What plagues us today in our Post-Enlightenment West (essentially Aristotelian reason tainted with Anglo-Saxon culture) is very much like what kept the Corinthians in turmoil.

Would I have to write as I do if we all possessed a more ANE-oriented intellectual background like the Hebrews? How often I wished that Paul could have written a stronger treatise more directly comparing his two cultural backgrounds! He understood the differences instinctively and clearly had that in mind when he wrote about the troubles of the European churches struggling to accept what was essentially a Hebrew religion. Part of our difficulty today is the common failure to notice how often Paul’s demands reflected the essential Hebrew-ANE approach to morality.

So when Peter saw him [John], he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus replied, “If I want him to live until I come back, what concern is that of yours? You follow me!” (John 21:21-22)

This was calling Peter back to the Hebrew ways of thinking. Everything is personal, a direct link between us and Christ. There are sure to be shared elements, but in the daily life of keeping that link between soul and spirit alive, it remains a question of what God demands of you as a unique individual servant accountable to Him first.

Thus, I keep asserting that a fundamental tenet of Christian Mysticism is: It’s personal. I can offer my personal experience and grieve before you my personal failures, but I cannot decide for you what faith requires. As Jesus told Peter, I can’t nail down on this earth who gets to play line-leader or why. All I can do is decide when something won’t work if you tend to hang around me.

No, I cannot teach you how to perform miracles. I’m still struggling to get myself switched over to a different understanding of reality. And maybe my mission doesn’t require anything like the miracles Paul and his friends performed. It’s not that Heaven has changed, nor has human moral and spiritual needs, but the context has changed an awful lot. We are forced to dig back into that world and rightly divide what belongs to us today.

(And I can never predict where these articles will end up once I start writing them!)

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The Path Home

Posted on June 20, 2014 by ehurst

How’s the tribulation going for you?

I don’t suffer from the common evangelical End Times mythology. This should establish a clear separation between them and me. If you are a glutton for torture, try my analysis of John’s Apocalypse. In particular, I don’t embrace their persecution complex. Tribulation is a fancy word that means difficult times in general for everyone.

Whatever you might imagine America to have been at some time in the past, that’s gone now. It’s not coming back. The whole world is on a path toward increasing chaos, but I am quite certain the lion’s share will manifest here in the US. I became certain of that at least two decades ago. In more recent years, it became a firm prophetic word for me, at least: America is doomed and resisting the police state is generally a sin, because it’s a necessary phase of that destruction.

But that doesn’t do much to explain what we experience here on the ground. I would never have dreamed twenty years ago what I see now with my own eyes. It’s not enough that we have spread chaos and violence around the world, but that we do so with loud pretensions of doing everyone such a great service.

While bombing and stirring up strife in other places, we have an invasion from Central America underway. Those coming are typically from the poorest, most distressed and diseased portion of their populations. Oh, and they bring their gang affiliations with them. And our government is actively paying for this invasion, advertising and provoking those folks to come here. Whole plane-loads of them are distributed around the country. In return, we export the most painfully oppressive laws and restrictions under the guise of “trade freedom.”

I could go on at length, but you get the idea. Our government officials are being used to piss off everyone, here and abroad. We are being set up for some truly incredible false-flag attacks that will make 9/11 pale in comparison. Whoever is behind all this desperately wants to see war break out here in the US, and they are using American political figures to provoke it. Don’t bother naming names, because it won’t change anything.

God will not stop them. Nor will He permit anyone on this earth doing so. This is our just deserts. If you understand anything about biblical morality and the underlying gospel message, you realize that we as the self-proclaimed crowned jewels of Western Civilization are the greatest of sinners for carrying that evil to its logical conclusion. Indeed, if anything, God will add unspeakable natural disasters to make sure we go down.

It’s just getting started. What to do?

Prepare for more suffering. Everyone will suffer, but we have the truth that helps us understand that suffering is the natural human condition. This isn’t direct persecution, just the background noise of times shifting and drifting. Naturally, striving to live by divine justice will mitigate some of this. In general, though, our reason for living is the divine message that suffering is in some sense just an illusion, because this entire realm of existence is illusory. Don’t get lost in the human factors, but use them as a springboard for truth.

The saints of God will tribulate. Even if we are near the End of All Things, our message and mission do not change one whit. Let Him return to find us faithful. Of that day and hour, no man knows, not even the Son. Therefore, stand firm in the spiritual armor that keeps us just before the watching world. Don’t confuse intellectual principles with divine truth; stand your ground morally, not philosophically. Don’t blow up at the incredible folly you will surely see, the vast waste of resources, the unimaginable hatred and violence, etc. Embrace the divine cynicism that expects worse than the mind can imagine.

Prepare to bear the sorrow with grace and look forward to God’s reward of taking us Home.

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Divine Amusement

Posted on June 19, 2014 by ehurst

We are created for God’s amusement.

One of the biggest barriers to human understanding of religion and spirituality is arrogance. As previously noted here, the fundamental element in the Fall was the decision to place reason on the throne as an avatar for the self. Those most loudly and vociferously appealing to reason are also the most arrogant about what they will accept as reasonable.

My memories are as fresh as yesterday, watching the faith of preacher boys destroyed by the rationalist professors at the college I attended. Their faith was destroyed by reason. That is, once they had tasted the powers of logic, they felt the universe was under their control. While few would have said it in those words, it was painfully obvious how empowering it was against their own faith. Thus, they forced their beliefs to bow the knee to their reason.

They then adopted the same arrogance as the professors who taught them. It came in all flavors, but the unmistakable common thread was the sense of power and privilege over those poor benighted souls who simply could not so readily rise to rationality. That is, they perceived folks as struggling to rise to their level of rationality. Because it was so easy for them to embrace, and so obviously the truth of things, anyone who didn’t tumble down that hill so quickly as they were somehow less able, less intelligent.

An attack on organized religion itself, and the vilification of the associated schlock merchandising of religious stuff, is fine with me. I do that. But attacking faith itself is another matter. Those who insist on a debate over faith are typically engaging in some form of penis-waving. It’s the same vulgar bullshit you expect from any other exhibitionist. “I just know you want to see this because I’m soooooo awesome!” Of course, they project that back on you if you reject their demands; you are somehow arrogant if you don’t admire their greatness.

This is precisely why God slammed Nebuchadnezzar to the ground in Daniel’s prophecy. It wasn’t because Nebs was pagan or committing atrocities in war, but because he was arrogant, and it was totally wrong in that culture. It just so happens it was wrong in that culture because it has always been morally wrong, and that culture was still rather close to God’s revelation. The Lord saw in Nebs something worthy of redemption, so he gave the man a chance to learn. Not to force him to become a Jew, but God taught him something about arrogance. God still had use for him at that point. Had Nebuchadnezzar merely gloried in his own place on his own throne, it would not have to come to that. He was claiming some part of God’s throne, and that’s how Lucifer got into trouble.

It’s pretty hard to teach that lesson these days. Nebs knew better; our entire modern world can’t imagine knowing better. In our world today, there is no better than to walk in the arrogance of human reason.

When it no longer amuses Him, God unmakes things.

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More Debian XFCE Stuff: PIM

Posted on June 18, 2014 by ehurst

If you use my Debian book (mirrored in plain HTML here), you’ll know it’s just an introduction, not a full user guide. There are too many options with something as big as Debian’s collection of software. Most newbies have no idea what to look for if they decide to turn this into a regular desktop system.

One of the things missing from the XFCE desktop is an integrated PIM. It does include at least a calendar with reminders you can configure. It’s under the Office section of the main menu and is called “Orage Calendar.” Once you activate this, it runs in the notification area with a barely-readable calendar icon. Anytime you click that icon, it pops open a small calendar window. From the menu of this you can poke around and find ways to program an event and reminder by clicking File > New. You might not guess that without being told what the “New” is for. So long as you don’t log out, the underlying reminder service keeps running, taking very little power. But this doesn’t integrate with much of anything else.

There are a handful of preferred apps for the XFCE desktop, but in terms of PIM, nothing all that useful just yet. So I recommend you use Thunderbird email with the Lightening extension. This gives you access to a fully integrated PIM that isn’t hard to migrate when Debian upgrades (typically every two or three years). Instead of installing from the Debian repository, I recommend you download the current generic Linux build. It runs perfectly well on Debian and you can install it in your HOME folder where the Mozilla upgrade process runs without needing a root password.

It’s pretty much the same procedure I used to describe installing Seamonkey in chapter 8 of my book. Check your Download folder and use bunzip2 along with the tar command. Once extracted, simply move the “thunderbird” folder over into your HOME folder instead of /usr/local/ (no root credentials needed). From there, you can create a new launcher either on the desktop or on either panel. When you use the dialog to start searching for the link and icons, it’s all inside the “thunderbird” folder with the same layout as for Seamonkey and Firefox.

Once you launch Thunderbird, you might need to be aware that setting up your account(s) will be bit of a fight to prevent it grabbing your details and setting up the IMAP protocol if you would prefer POP to download your email directly. Also, you can’t put your passwords in until you actually try to connect to your server, so be ready to do that and decide if you want the check the box to have Thunderbird save the passwords. I won’t detail the whole process here because, if you aren’t that savvy, then Debian isn’t for you. The point is that, once it’s set up, use the menu system and look up the add-ons and extensions available. One of them is Lightening, a calendar plugin. This thing does install in Seamonkey, but you can never get it to display in the interface. The integration isn’t consistent from one version of Seamonkey to the next, so you’ll need to use Thunderbird.

Once Thunderbird is restarted, you’ll find a new set of menu entries to configure and use the calendar. You would do well to check all the options in Thunderbird, as the defaults aren’t always sane. If you need to mirror things on another Linux box (say, a Debian laptop), look in your HOME folder for a “thunderbird” directory with a dot in front of it: .thunderbird. That’s where all your settings and mail are saved. Simply copy the whole thing over to your other Linux machine and drop it into the HOME folder there. Once you have Thunderbird installed there, it should open with all the exact same stuff as on your Debian box.

The notifications in Thunderbird only work when Thunderbird is running. If you make it a habit to check your email first thing, you’ll get the day’s reminders from the Lightening extension. If you think you need a more automated reminder, use Orage in parallel with Lightening.

What else do you need? Ask.

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Meta-religion

Posted on June 17, 2014 by ehurst

In English, “meta” anything is an effort to understand the thought and process of the thing itself. If I use the term “meta-blogging,” you would recognize that as a reference to blogging about blogging itself.

So obviously meta-religion is religious discourse about religion. More specifically, it’s about the formation of religion as a human response. Regular readers probably recognize how I’ve split my religion writing here between my personal faith and my thoughts about religion itself. That’s the business of recognizing mysticism as an approach to religion, not a religion itself. It touches on the use of the term “quantum” because that term introduces the effort to reduce things to their essence.

Having a place to stand where you can reason about such things is not native to Western Civilization. It’s not entirely foreign, but if you step outside Western thought, you recognize how confining it can be. Westerners almost have to compartmentalize to do it because Western thought fundamentally rejects the notion that there is more than one realm of existence. Aristotle had no trouble with multiple levels within one realm, but the fundamental assumption is a unitary reality and that reality itself was within reach of the human mind. Most other civilizations have been quite ready to entertain multiple realities and things far outside human awareness, so a familiarity with these other approaches makes it much easier.

The other limiting factor of Western thought is the arrogant assumption that it is the default standard for all humanity in all times and places. This is unique to the West, as every other civilization has made room for contextual exigencies. In other words, the West is the only civilization that takes itself so seriously, and Americans in particular have absorbed this.

In my embrace of the Hebrew approach as part of the Ancient Near East broadly, it’s much easier to discuss religion with the attitude of serving the customer. The person serving is admittedly constrained by very real limitations, but willing to show anyone other options that might exist. So on the one hand I do promote my own religion, but at the same time, I make room for all sorts of other religions. In particular, I try to offer a saner approach to shaping your own religion by helping you think about the process.

This business of serving the customer is fundamental. It’s the foundation for organization itself. When I write about the ANE feudal family structure, it includes a powerful element of openness for the participant. People talk about the restrictions of the Mosaic Decalogue and forget how very wide open it was to application. Yet, it left an awful lot of wiggle room because it wasn’t about rules but commitment. This is what happens when you deny the existence of objectivity; no lock-in is possible as an external control. It’s personal or it simply doesn’t exist.

Thus, I endeavor to treat all my readers and everyone I encounter on that open basis. I’m not looking for violations of artificial boundaries. It’s not a question of what’s right and wrong universally, but what I can tolerate with my own limitations. I recognize all boundaries as personal. I can infer something about God’s boundaries through revelation, but I can’t possibly presume they match mine. I’m striving to match His with the sure knowledge I must fail.

This is why I don’t debate. I reject the notion that there is any objective truth against which we compare notes. All I can do is tell you what I’ve experienced in my encounter with God. I’m glad to explain it as best I can for you, but by no means would I seek to vanquish your differing thoughts, because I can’t presume to play God for you. Obviously, at some point our differences make it impossible to confer together, but short of that, I’ll entertain your differing notions in pursuit of your affection.

It’s not a need for affirmation and acceptance; I don’t need that kind of support. God takes care of that for both of us. What we need is faithfulness to Him in sharing whatever we can. I assume you are family until you make it obviously not so. I don’t value results but the connection between us.

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Another Day in Paradise

Posted on June 16, 2014 by ehurst

First, you need to understand I’m not all upset. I’m a tad disappointed, but it’s part of the background noise of life in this Fallen Realm.

Sometime Friday while on my great adventure cycling to the County Courthouse, I must have dropped my cellphone. It disappeared and was clearly not working wherever it was. So we called in for the warranty replacement and the deductible was just barely what we could afford. Got the phone today via FedEx — with no battery. Chased all over town and still didn’t get one. At this point, we are right here near the end of our contract and it’s no surprise to me Sprint is having financial problems, because this is just a sample of their shoddy service. So if I can’t get another provider after this, I’ll do without.

There are other challenges at the same time, but again, it’s just the same old crap. And I’m still here and still pleased as punch to serve the Lord by serving you, dear readers.

BTW, I’ll be performing a grand wedding ceremony at the end of August. The bride and groom have opted to do it all in costume. She will wear an elaborate Renaissance dirndl, and he will be dressed as a petty king of the same period. I’ll be all done up like a bishop in white, mitre and all. This will be so much fun!

So you see? It’s not all dreary and nasty.

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Psalm 2

Posted on June 14, 2014 by ehurst

This psalm is not as provincial as it might seem on the surface. If I’m serving God and you are serving God, it’s possible we’ll still be knocking up against each other, but highly unlikely. God chose King David of Israel to rule the nation He chose as His earthly means to revelation. This psalm assumes that David and Israel are engaged in that mission faithfully. It doesn’t assume they never sin, but it also doesn’t chase the rabbit of when and where David as king or Israel as a whole sinned against God.

When David and Israel were faithful, no nation was permitted to stand in their way. So far as we can determine, this is historically accurate. David didn’t fail in war against external enemies. It’s not as if no one sought terms of peace with him. It wasn’t hard at all. The nations weren’t required to join the Covenant of Moses, but could not oppose it. David made peace with plenty of pagan rulers whose religions were of no concern to him. His were not wars of religious conquest, but a matter of securing the opportunity for Israel to proceed with their religion and the mission that came with it. That mission was to demonstrate the truth so that those whom God called would be drawn to to Him.

The parabolic implications are obvious. David was a type for Jesus. Those who faithfully serve Jesus have nothing to fear from this world. Whatever authority secular powers exercise cannot hinder the gospel message for long. When our mission reflects the genuine calling of gospel, the Lord opens doors to the message and protects the mission. Obviously, our measure for faithfulness is far more subtle than merely observing Moses. Jesus made much greater demands than Moses, not so much in terms of performance, but in terms of personal commitment. Christ is our King with none of David’s weaknesses. Whatever problems we face are not from sin in our King, but either our own sin or something we may never understand. More importantly, whatever problems we face are our Lord’s problems; our mission is to remain faithful. The possibility of moral failure is a dark and threatening cloud on the horizon, just a reminder.

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Religion and Rules

Posted on June 14, 2014 by ehurst

Again: Religion is your human response to a divine touch. Religion is the human side of the equation, an effort to bring to life whatever spiritual stuff has been written on your soul. If you make it all up from your own intellect and reasoning, then it’s just a philosophy, but you can call it a religion if you like.

Fundamental rule of my religion: It’s voluntary. There is no one going to enforce any kind of orthodoxy. If you find something that meets your needs and helps you find peace with God, go for the gusto. My approval is not required for me to appreciate God working in your life. It should be obvious your religion does not require my approval to function. The basic question here is my participation. If you expect me to participate, check with my personal boundaries.

Don’t expect me to actively support something that won’t work for me. I’ll nod and smile and let you run off down any path that calls your name. Your religion is yours; mine is mine. To the degree our religions overlap, I’ll interact with you meaningfully. Where they don’t overlap I’ll mind my own business. I will assume you can figure out how to do the same thing.

For me, the ultimate failure of religion is mandatory participation. It’s the single biggest indicator of religion being more like a cult. We can organize and call it a church and make it a regular association, but you aren’t committing to me and my organization. You are supposed to be committed to God, and no one can claim exclusive agency for God. Should there be anything in this world that might incite me to violence, it would be resisting someone else trying to cram their religion down my throat. (Edit: We’re talking meat-space harassment here.) By the same token, you don’t have to put up with mine any more than suits your needs.

Sure, there are places you can go where I’ll simply have to disassociate from you. That’s just the way it is. That’s a part of keeping my own sanity. I don’t have to agree that your religion is valid according to mine, but that works both ways. There are degrees of disassociation, too. The worst thing you could do is become so dependent on associating with me that you find it painful to follow your own conscience. That’s failure of religion, in my eyes.

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Ministry News for Mid-June 2014

Posted on June 13, 2014 by ehurst

I’ve been asked to prep for a wedding in September. I decided this was a good time to check on all the legalities for this state and county. It was a real adventure riding my bike into Downtown Oklahoma City where the County Courthouse stands (roughly 16 miles/26 km). Hey, bicycle parking is free; motor vehicles are $5 and up.

I had already been properly credentialed years ago. In 1983 some Southern Baptist church ordained me and I took that to the county offices where I lived back then. In Oklahoma, one registration in any county is good for life in the whole state. Change your affiliations, etc., but you don’t have to come back and do it again unless you change your name or something like that. However, it was hardly a wasted trip because the laws have changed a good bit over the years. The registrar gave me a really nice briefing and some documents to help me keep track of things.

Pray with me, dear readers. In the coming months, I sense there will be a need for a genuine hands-on, meat-space version of my ministry here on this blog. Granted, I fancy myself an elder and not a pastor in meat space, but I also recognize the fundamental nature of my calling is somewhat apostolic in the sense of building a whole new kind of work from scratch. So while I will always emphasizes the eldership work, my calling requires that I be ready to play the pastoral role, too. For Christ’s sake, do not take this as some announcement that I intend to use the title of “apostle.” If you need to use some honorific, let’s stick with “Brother Ed”. If your only contact with me is through this blog, then you can call me “pastor.”

Nothing else has changed and what I’ve posted in the various tabs arrayed across the top of this blog are still in force. I remain firmly unaffiliated in large part because no existing church or religious organization can put up with my teachings. I would love to have sponsorship and something more concrete, but that hasn’t happened yet. Aside from the occasional wedding and funeral, my primary ministry work has been in the computer tech support ministry, along with the writing and book publishing. I believe things will change, but I have no idea what the expect, so I’m simply staying open to the possibilities.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Edit: I suppose I should hasten to add that nothing about this prevents me from traveling to some other place to help get something going there, or even the consider staying for a while.

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Defining Truth

Posted on June 13, 2014 by ehurst

Truth is a moral abstract, not an attribute of information.

“Truth” is a word used in all sorts of ways, typically when asserting something entirely too easily proven false. Our main problem is how the world is handled conceptually. In the West, it is honored as somehow compelling, an attribute that forces another person to accept it as unquestionable.

In the Christian Mystic worldview, truth is not an attribute of information, data or any form of human thought. If the mind can handle it, it can’t be truth. A person can be true or false, but nothing objective can be true. Any statement or idea can be factual and accurate, but it can never rise to level of truth. Truth is an attribute only of people and moral commitments. Any other use of the word is parabolic.

We live in world of deception. This plane of existence is inherently deceptive. Only by common assent do we all pretend this world is reality. It’s a functional agreement, but fundamentally false. This reality is fungible, and God can remake reality on the fly. We call it miracles when He permits us to notice something has changed. Most Westerners believe a miracle is merely some phenomena not yet understood. Given time and sufficient means, all things will yield to human probing — so men believe.

But then, time will come to an end and so will this world. So stick with what does not depend on this plane of existence.

Our faith and commitment to our God will outlive this reality.

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